大象传媒

Please, please, please get a band - then you can top my top tens of ten years! As much as I might be putting this acoustic track at #1, I'm really not a great fan of acoustic music.
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When I listen to dance music, for example, I know they've spent hours finding the right kick drum sounds, the perfect hi-hats, the deepest of bass lines and the phattest of synths. They've then spent weeks layering and structuring the song. To quote Tom Robinson: "You can't hum a production". Bands are in the same bracket - practise, practise, practise.
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When I hear an acoustic guitar, sometimes I feel like it's the tool you use to write the track, but not the tool you use to perform the track. Just like vocalists write songs by singing them into their phones, or Elgar wrote songs by writing scores. But what you want to hear is the final product. There's a real danger the end-listener feels like it's something you wrote on your way to the gig and are performing for the very first time and that no effort has been made compared to produced tracks.
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Luckily, however, the recorded tracks by Sasha McVeigh have been made with some of the finest people in the music industry. People who've played for/with Dolly Parton and every other country music you've never heard of! Here in Hereford, her mum has sold practically everything to be able to fund her daughter's career - yet the only success she's had over here is playing our stage at LakeFest, the Wychwood Music Festival and topping the Mark Forrest Evening Show best songs in Britain list - which seems like a pretty decent achievement. But this girl is the real deal.
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She's going to be massive in America. Yes, I could make a joke about the size of the food portions there - but that's nothing compared to the appetite they have for country music. And a cute country musician with a British accent? She'll be eaten alive...

A controversial choice this one; Mike Davis, our session snapper and Andy O'Hare firmly believe Don't Go Dancing (On A Saturday Night) is The Stiff Joints' greatest-ever single. But music is subjective, and I personally love the circus feel of, errr, Circus On Repeat.
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Their music video fits beautifully to the song as well and will leave you feeling like you've popped your brain into the tumble dryer for 2 minutes and 26 seconds.听They're also loved by the entire Worcester Music Festival committee - so who am I to take them on?
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Don't Go Dancing has a few swearwords in it, which instantly alienates those with a nervous disposition - and probably sends out the wrong message to anybody who wants to get on in the music industry. Swearing in songs is a sure-fire way of NOT getting played - only the big artists can get away with blanking it because they're already super-star celebrities.
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But in terms of live - you just have to see them! They closed off the 大象传媒 Hereford & Worcester stage at the Wychwood Festival and whoever was headlining the main stage at the time might as well have packed away their drums, collected their cash and gone home as all of the audience were piled into our tent. It's a good job the Prestbury Hills aren't volcanic, because with that many people jumping up and down on the Eurasian tectonic plate, we could have had another Pompeii on our hands.

From this point on, any of these tracks could be number ones - it just depends what music genre you're in to. Byron Hare, in Danni Hunt's opinion - should be number one. I 99% agree.
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The band are certainly the greatest thing to come out of Redditch in the decade I've been presenting this radio show. Possibly the greatest act to come out of North Worcestershire in that time, too.
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In some songs, they produce wonderful indie/electronica. Others resemble the music of 1964.
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During the interview with them on last week's show (yes, there was a reason why I saved the best for last) I said their tracks would be perfect on vinyl - as it's the sort of music you want to be able to touch and hold, yet enjoy in all of it's high fidelity nuances. I can't reach for a greater compliment than that.
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They played for us on stage at LakeFest and have been 大象传媒 Hereford & Worcester's Track Of The Week, but they're so new - I just feel like we're seconds away from hearing that killer track.听So do I go with Baby Don't Cry or Metaphorical Political? You see my conundrum. That choice should be so obvious to me - every named artist you've ever heard of - you'd be able to name their biggest hit. And that's where the 1% pulls them down to my #3 position.

If there was one act to steal the show at this year's Nozstock Festival, it was this duo!
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Matt Envy is a club DJ & producer based in Hereford who started making music, in his bedroom, at the age of 17 and began DJing in 2005 as a route to getting his tracks heard in clubs.
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If I didn't have a radio show that covered every genre known to mankind, this would certainly come top of my MP3 collection. Next time you hear somebody driving through town with their windows wound down and this track pumping from the subwoofers - throw him a CD. Because that person is probably me...

Steve Attridge & The Sleeping Giants is a songwriting project with a 'supergroup' of unsigned musicians from Evesham!
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They're yet to record an album - but have been producing tracks over at Rhythm Studio in Bidford. They are songs that Steve has stockpiled during the last two years and he recruited the best musicians he can find to sing and deliver them!
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It's widely believed, in the office, that this is the finest 大象传媒 Introducing discovery I have ever made. All I know is that after their performance on the 大象传媒 Hereford & Worcester stage takeover at the Wychwood Festival on the Friday, you might as well have gone home - because nothing was going to beat their incredible set.

Again, this is another one of those tracks that had me reaching for Shazam to prove it wasn't already a hit - and somebody thought they'd have a laugh by sending me something that had been successful - say - in America, fobbing it off as their own. Quite the opposite.
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Richard Farmer is a 23-year-old singer/songwriter who owns his own barber shop in Droitwich.听He's been writing music since he was 14-years-old after releasing his debut EP, I made sure it was added to the main daytime playlist here on 大象传媒 Hereford & Worcester and booked to play at the town's annual music festival.

The silky smooth vocals of Tina V combined with the almighty production talents of Dr Dave Draper.
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I call him a doctor because he makes everything better. Take a bad song, he'll make it good. Take a good song, he'll make it so that it will never get on your nerves on it will last a lifetime.
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Then what can I say about Tina V? The hardest working musician anywhere in Herefordshire & Worcestershire. If you don't know who she is, it's obvious you've not left your house in a very long time. This is taken from her band's biography two years ago: "We record 2 or 3 times a year, generally looking to do 3 or 4 songs. Last year, we recorded 10 tracks, gigged about 70 times, practiced 150 times and probably you can throw in another 20 solo gigs and maybe 40 open mics where most of us turn up. We make our own t-shirts, refine our own bio-diesel for our bus and make our own videos."
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Not so much a star-in-the-making - she's already a star. She just needs a record company now to take her on.

This group are on fire right now!听It seems ever since Redditch was named the least musical town in the whole of Britain, it's done nothing but good for the town.
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The problem being - most of the musicians who are from here claim to be from Birmingham, leaving a giant black hole in this part of north Worcestershire. But what the survey did was shine a giant spotlight on Redditch and the music we've discovered has been awe-inspiring. The only thing lacking is places to play, but that appears to be changing.
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LOSTatHOME are a 4-piece pop/rock band influenced by John Mayer, Ed Sheeran and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Since forming in July 2013, they've already been track of the week on 大象传媒 Hereford & Worcester, had national airplay on the Best Of 大象传媒 Introducing with Mark Forrest and played on the 大象传媒 stage at LakeFest for Danni Hunt. I first witnessed them play live at SnodFest, near Pershore, and boy - they didn't disappoint!

Now, as well as unearthing the best unsigned, undiscovered and under-the-radar music from across our region, we're extremely proud of our success stories too.
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This year, you won't find any One Direction, Ellie Goulding, Cher Lloyd or even man-of-the-moment Robert Plant tracks in our Hot For 2015 countdown simply because we don't think any of their singles have been strong enough in the last 12 months when held up against the rest of our region's offerings.
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However, when 17-year-old Becky Hill first sent her music into us with her band Shaking Trees, we instantly fell in love with her lush vocal delivery. The Bewdley girl made it through to 大象传媒 1's The Voice and Tom Jones told her to rest her voice otherwise she'd suffer lasting damage. That she did - only to return two years later smashing out singles with Rudimental, Wilkinson and dance newcomer Oliver Heldens. And that single was the first UK #1 to come from the TV show, but it wasn't THIS programme's first number one discovery (and we certainly hope it won't be our last!).

I had a lovely tweet the other day from the Evesham/Pershore group Tokyo Marching Band that reads: "Doing a live session was definitely the highlight #BestMemoriesOf2014".
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Well, that's because they absolutely rocked the joint at Hereford's KJM Studios, where we had them in for a live session fresh off the back of the festival season. My only regret is not hearing them sooner - but having said that - they weren't together earlier in the year, they're that new!
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Often you hear a track and you're convinced it must have been a hit and you haven't heard it for ages. Not only did I experience that with this band, but so did Mark Forrest who loved them so much, he played them on all 40 大象传媒 Local Radio stations right the way across the country!

• Aaron Yorke (Mark Forrest national local radio support)
• Abby Inez (Mark Forrest national local radio support)
• Appleby Kinsey (Mark Forrest national local radio support)
• Ben Green (Mark Forrest national local radio support)
• Bren Haze (Mark Forrest national local radio support)
• Dan Almond (Mark Forrest national local radio support)
• Franklin (Mark Forrest national local radio support)
• Grimaldi Band, The (Mark Forrest national local radio support)
• Inverted Echo (Mark Forrest national local radio support)
• Matt Woosey (Mark Forrest national local radio support)
• Molly Ann Ganderton (Mark Forrest national local radio support)
• Raye (Huw Stephens 大象传媒 Radio 1 support)
• Sam Holmes (Mark Forrest national local radio support)
• Alex Valentine - Fireman
• Bo Rumba - Bruce Willis
• Ellen Louise - Silver Linings
• Plymouth Brethren - Glue
• SemTex - Crystal Blue
• Clyde Jefferson - Girl
• Sublixx - Neon Bounce
• Lucy May Walker - You're Not Mine
• The Indigo Kings - Jump Jive Daddy
• iLLusion - Take A Break/Falling For You
• Lauren Wright - Sneaking Out At Midnight
• The Undercover Hippy - Gambia
• Alex Valentine - Sunshine
• Melissa Le Rue - Unite
• Peter & The Harmonics - Miss You
• Bo Walton - Gonna Make Love
• Skewwhiff - I Swear

I'm regular gig reviewer Andy O'Hare and I was tipped off about the show by my brother shortly after it started in 2005.听So I听gave it a listen and liked what I was hearing!
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When Andrew and Dan Johnson played a song that听I fancied I took to texting in with messages like 'that was great!' or 'that was also great - I saw that band last week and they were brilliant!'
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After a few weeks of this happening they got in touch with me saying that as I seemed to go to a lot of local gigs in both Herefordshire and Worcestershire would I be interested in being the show's regular reviewer? About 0.4 seconds later I agreed and since then I guess I've reported back on about 1500 gigs - that's about 3-4000 acts - and hope that I've been fair and impartial to every single one!
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But tonight that's going out of the window as this is my pick of the best songs from听the choicest acts I've seen in 2014 - but please remember that my preference is for live gigs - so it's all bands or acts who I've personally seen and/or met during the year.

Strangely, I don't think I've ever had an instrumental number in any of my Top Tens - let alone a solo one!
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I first came across this guy while walking back to Bromsgrove bus station after an earlier somewhat average gig. I heard these amazing guitar sounds coming from this pub - so I popped in to have more of a listen and was instantly gobsmacked!
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Like the Allstars Dub Band who also sessioned for us at Tower Studios in December 2013, this was just too late for inclusion in last year's hits.
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He played a stunning set for us at Wychwood, hosts a fortnightly open mic at the Cock & Magpie in Bewdley and his musicianship and tuning has to be seen and heard to be believed!

This Hereford lass played a cracking set for us at听Nozstock, but to my eternal shame I didn't pick up on her until she shone in one of the first Hereford Live events at the Jailhouse earlier in the year.
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She also took part in the new promotion at the Victory (one of many we hope!).
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For me, this isn't just one of the great songs I've heard in the last 12 months, it's one of the best in the last 10 years!

They've had a great year to remember - playing a fantastic set for us at Ledbury's Market Theatre, appearances at Bromyard Folk, Worcester and many other other festivals.
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They also hosted a wonderful gig at their old school where they originally听met听(Bishop Perowne in Worcester) and reached the final of the 大象传媒 Radio 2 Young Folk Musicians of the Year Awards at the Royal Albert Hall.
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They're three stunning young musicians who've just started out on what'll be an amazing musical adventure.

Another band that've had a mini-rebirth this year, with the addition of the mighty beats of Ben Pemberton on drums and the thundering riffs of James Willis on bass supporting the thrashing guitars and very shouty vocals of frontman Chris Wemyss.
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They were selected by Ant and Nikki of the Worcester Music Festival when Andrew听invited them to听appear on the Huw Stephens show on Radio 1 a month or so ago. So we'll let Huw introduce them on tonight's countdown!

My #5 act have had a bit of a renaissance this year and played a great set at my own promotion at Worcester Music Festival.
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Yeah, they're a tad political in their song themes but their originality and great stage presence has landed them support to acts like The Levellers all across the UK, Europe and America.
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They even brought their German fan club over for the weekend when I saw them a few weeks ago at the Boar's Head Kidderminster!

He's a big fixture on the Worcester open mic circuit - getting up to rap and improvise with just about any form of music or musicians.
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This could be the year for the big man because as we speak he's currently recording an album in New York where he's attracting a fair bit of interest.

They're a very different sound to just about any other act in our region.
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Essentially it's a very heavy ska sound and included in their sparkling set of crowdpleasers are thunderous reggae-ish takes on classics like White Heat White Light and Children Of The Revolution which have to be heard to be believed!
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Sadly their established sax player Mr Aytch announced his retirement and played his last gig with them just before Christmas.

They're a four-piece band with members who've played in outfits like Will Dance For Chocolate and Black Cat Bone.
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With the bubbly duo of Emma and Rose upfront听and offbeat numbers like Harry Hill and I Fell In Love With A Tightrope Walker - they've become a byword for a gig of total frolicsome fun as they showed with their uplifting set for us at Nozstock.

It's been a bit of a setback for the Hereford music scene with the loss of the Jailhouse, but good to see that youngsters like Hannah Davis and this chap are starting up new events like the breezy evening I caught at the Victory in Hereford a couple of months ago.
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He played a cracking set for us at Snodfest with his band, but at the moment is concentrating on his solo set as Jake Gamble.

I first caught this countrysome fourpiece featuring the belting vocals of Hannah Dallas and Sarah Warren at the open mic night which has been going for the last 12 months at the Oddfellows Arms in Astwood Bank.
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This event is听hosted once a month by Adam and Dan of Merrymouth - the Ocean Colour Scene spin-off.
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If you're into your country music, I听think you might just like this!

• Gwyn Ashton (amazing touring schedule!)
• Abby Inez (marvellous year ahead we're sure)
• Stiff Joints (a pick of both of us)
• Vault of Eagles (played a headline gig at Kidderminster Town Hall under the approving watch of Mr Robert Plant himself)
• Delray Rockets (who were joined on stage by Robert Plant)
• Roving Crows (who were the inspiration behind the Lakefest)
• Ronin (toured Europe with Magnum)
• BabaJack (another local act who made in to the Royal Albert Hall this year)
• Virgil & Accelerators (creating mighty waves of interest) plus many many others!