Student Guild Elections 2010

Currently listening to: Laura Marling-Devil's Spoke

Right, as promised a blog about the Sabbatical elections happening in the near future!

If you're in any way confused about what the elections actually are, or what the voting system is etc., I'd advise that you check out the XpressionFM podcast section, as there is a ten minute detailed explanation that attempts to clarify it all for you. The link is below, check it out.

http://xmedia.ex.ac.uk/radio/podcast#podcast-184

So the elections are looming, nominations have closed, and soon the general student body shall know who is standing for the positions. (Just to make it clear, I also have no idea either!!! I'm not going to pretend like I've got some sort of higher clearance code than you do!!)

Voting opens at 10am on Friday 19th February, and closes a week later on the 26th February at 4pm. On the same day, the results will be announced from the Lemon Grove from 8pm.

XpressionFM will be providing detailed coverage of these elections, including interviews with all the candidates, so make sure to check out the website in the coming weeks. As well as this we shall be broadcasting the elections live as they happen, so to keep up to date, keep listening to XpressionFM.

Don't forget, it's your choice, for your guild, on your campus station.

I'll leave you to attempt to work out what the relationship between Lego and the Guild Elections are. If you do solve this riddle, please let me know, as I continue to be confuddled by it!!

1400 Show With Josh and David

Currently Listening to: Jonny Flynn-The Box

This new blog post relates to a feature entitled "Surrogacy" on the Josh and David 1400 show on XpressionFM.

The concept is that each week a different female is interviewed as a potential candidate to be the surrogate mother for David's child. Each week the interviewee is set a different challenge, and then are scored out of 10 for their efforts. For a period of a week, interviewee Becca Attfield, was given a bag of flour to look after, as if it was her child. She was told to keep the flour baby near to her at all times, to show what kind of a mother she was, and so that her caring instincts could be judged. Below are the results of her week with a bag of flour.

And here are a number of pictures of Becca Attfield herself being irresponsibly drunk.

Let us know how you think Becca performed as the mother to a bag of flour by commenting below. Additionally, check out the podcast of the 1400 show with Josh and David at www.xpressionfm.com/podcasts

Coming up in the next blog: Information about XpressionFM's coverage of the Guild Elections

Xpression Pantomime 2010!!!

Following the excitement and fun of the Student Radio awards, XpressionFM has not simply been standing still. No Sir, not on your Nelly! Having written a (65 page!!!) pantomime, we have now begun to, and indeed have almost completed recording all of the different sections.

This is the brief of the story and it gives a pretty clear indication about what it is all about.

The plot centres around many well known Exeter locations, both on campus and around the city. Our Hero, Calvin Williams, undertakes an adventure attempting to rescue the Sabbatical Officers from the Neighbourhood watch. They have been taken hostage due to the rowdy behaviour of the students. Can he save the University, and rescue his lost love Cinderella? Listen and find out.

So, yeah, lots of different sub-plots thoughtout the pantomime, based around well known characters and storylines that have been jazzed up for your enjoyment. For example, our take on the story of the three little pigs involves three fat freshers running away from the Big Bad Unite Wolf, who is trying to blow down their accommodation and replace them with overpriced townhouses.

Basically, if you love Exeter, enjoy all the in-jokes, the fact that Arena's music choice is so dreadful, the clear class divide in the university etc., then you will love this pantomime. Alternatively, if you hate all these things, still listen in anyway, maybe it'll change your overly negative outlook on life!

Throughout most of the recordings that have taken place, XpressionFM's very own blog photographer Becca has compiled lots of photos of the long hours that we have spent in the studio. Below are some of the photos of recordings. Click on the Flickr link on the right hand side of the page to see who they are and which parts they're playing.

We spent last night recording something rather special for the end of the pantomime. I mean I wouldn't want to give it away and ruin the excitement for you when you inevitably listen, but let's just say that we should all just BAND together, and realise that at some point in life, everybody needs AID, especially when you're TWENTY!!!

So the finished product will be released on Wednesday 9th December (to celebrate the fact that it is my birthday in 10 months), at 5pm (ish). Keep an eye on the Blog, or listen to XpressionFM at all times to find out more. Recording of the sabbatical officers should be happening tomorrow, if any photos are taken of this, I'll bung them up on here at some point.

In a bizzle,
-x-

Student Radio Awards

So, you've probably been wondering just what the heck XpressionFM has been doing for the last few weeks. Bloomin' heck there's been a lot going on. This has sadly made me almost too busy to write a blog about it all, but I've managed to scrape a little bit of time together for you, the humble listener/reader, beacuse I, Love, You. Now, that that is all cleared up, ON WITH THE UPDATE!

Student Radio Awards

The Student radio awards are an annual event that are sponsored by the almighty radio god that is Radio 1 (along with other radio stations that are significantly less impressive). Winners of these awards include Greg James (who is now on radio 1, weekdays in the middle of the day), and other people including Mark Crossby. Obviously quite a big deal then yes?

We were nominated for three whole awards, a radio play called the Garden in the best scripted category, The Stephen and David Sunday Lunchtime Show in the Best entertainment category, and Best Branding for the station.

So on Tuesday 24th November we at Xpression boarded a train headed for London (after more than a little bit of a kerfuffle with the tickets).
You'll notice that sat opposite to current station manager Harad Smith (WOMAN IN THE BLUE!!!), is Tom Kirk (IN THE BLACK WITH ELBOWS ON THE TABLE) who was Programmes controller from last year. WOW, a celebrity spot. Anyway, after travelling to Paddington on one of those trains that takes literally forever, and stops at all those places that you didn't even know existed, we all went off to our respective friend's houses that had kindly agreed to put us up for the night.


The event was held in the Indig02, which is basically a smaller hall in the 02 arena, still pretty fancy though yes?!? Well we thought so. So after a three course meal that consisted of a main meal of "Chicken Two ways", which turned out to be chicken with stuffing, and then chicken in a pie, and a debate about which way was best for the chicken, the awards ceremony began. This was hosted by some radio 1 mega stars, Scott Mills, and to a lesser extent Greg James, and to an even lesser extent Fearne Cotton.


Sadly, neither the Garden, nor the Best branding entry came placed in the top 3 *cough*FIX*cough* (but still top 6 is still a fantastic achievement!). The Sunday Lunchtime show did somehow manage to get a silver placed award for it's entry for the Best Entertainment category, beaten by Warwick Universities "The Big Chewsie". I've honestly no idea who they are, but they did win another award as well, so they must have been good!

After the awards it was time for the "Soundclash", which involved people like Westwood, Greg James, Scott Mills, Hew Stephens, and other comercial radio people that I couldn't care less about! Despite the lack of gold trophies, we still had a great night, as one would hope is evident from some of the pictures below:



The next day, after a refreshing weatherspoons breakfast, and a rush for the train for others, we headed back to the place where we belong, humble old Exeter. A great night, and it was fantastic to see all of the old Xpression members that had left last year. And obviously next year we shall win every category! I'll leave you to enjoy the picture below; for some reason there was some play dough on the tables, goodness knows why. Anyway, here is what some of the more creative members came up with. (A possibility for a new logo perhaps?)

Frank Turner (Interview and Gig)

Currently Listening to: Frank Turner (The Road)

So using the power that is prescribed to us as members of XpressionFM we managed to garner an interview with Frank Turner on the day of his Exeter Gig in the Lemon Grove (25th October). For those philistines who aren't aware of who Frank Turner is, he's a Folk Punk artist, who's recently released his third album 'Poetry for the Deed'. This has received much critical acclaim, with NME rating it 8/10, and Zane Lowe playing a couple of live tracks on his show. Below is a few of the questions that we put to him.

"How do you feel being in a band like Million Dead (Punk Rock Band) has influenced your musical direction?"

"I was very angry and depressed about my old band breaking up, and I just didn't want to be in a band anymore, but I wanted to keep touring, so I kept just playing shows on my own. One of the interesting things was that, particularly the first album that I did I was in such pains to not sound like Million Dead, I musically held back more than I should have done. In fact it sounds a little restrained to my ears now. Enough time has now passed that I've put that whole thing to bed now, so I'm fine to have more heavier songs on a record without worrying about it."

"You've stayed with your label Xtra Mile recordings, despite an opportunity to change, do you think that this gives you the scope to create the music you want, without worrying about the commercial aspects of the music industry?"

"Yeah I guess, it's one of the great things I have about the job I have and the position I'm in. It wasn't my sole motivation for not changing labels, it was also because I believe in loyalty as a value! I turned down furiously huge amounts of money. There was actually one label, who, after I hung up the phone having turned down a deal, and I thought "This could be the moment I spend the rest of my life regretting!" But, I'm really happy with my label setup right now."

"Even before this tour has finished you are already have another, much bigger tour, in the pipeline for March, playing really big venues, such as the 02 academies around the country. Is this something that you've really strived towards?"

"I'm quite intimidated by it in a way! Even this tour is out of my comfort zone (In a wonderful way!), but I'm not really used to touring at this level. It's great though, I mean obviously quite daunting looking at some of the capacities, but we've sold quite a lot of tickets for it already, which blows my mind! I'm looking forward to it, but it's a challenge to make sure that you put on a good show, and try to connect with an audience and engage with them all at the same time. We'll see whether I can pull it off or not!"

The Full Interview will be online on www.xpressionfm.com/podcasts in the near future, so be sure to check it out if you want to find out gems, such as Frank Turner's favourite newspaper!


The Gig

So to a sell out crowd (700) on the evening of 25th October, Frank Turner and company performed to an excited room. Following two support acts, firstly 'Beans on Toast', who seemed slightly obsessed with drug addiction and Tescos, and a fantastic American Band called 'Fake Problems', Frank came on with his band to an amazing reception. And my, did the hits flow, the lyrics to "The Road" and "Long Live the Queen", were echoed back at Frank by an upbeat crowd.

The lesser known songs tunes of the new album got a healthy reception too, especially "Try this at home", where he declared that "There's no such thing as rock stars, there's just people who play music, and some of them are just like us and some of them are dicks." Check out the podcast page, to find out more about the inspiration to that lyric). It was great to hear tracks of his two ep's as well, especially 'Nashville Tennesse' off of Campfire Punkrock.

Incidentally, never go to a Frank Turner gig hoping to hear "Thatcher f***ed the Kids", as he doesn't play it anymore, as he doesn't agree with many of the lyrics in it. So a word of advice, don't be that dick who keeps shouting out "Thatcher, Thatcher!!", because it'll just piss Frank off! One down point on the evening was his new track "Sons of Liberty", which proclaims the need for the government to leave everyone alone. It split the room somewhat between those who felt like smashing the system, and those slightly less bothered about the whole thing.

After the customary fake ending, Frank ended with "Reasons not to be an idiot", and "Photosynthesis", with the latter seeing all of the members of both supports coming on stage and playing with him. It was a great end to a fantastic performance, heightened by how genuinely grateful Frank Turner was to all the people who had turned up to see him play live.

As previously mentioned, he is doing a tour in March, so if you're near any of those dates, be sure to check it out on his website. And a final plug, check out the full interview on our website.

Adios, and Long live the Queen.