Have a listen to the song in the first of the two videos. With its references to Benny Hill, The Kinks and Mark E Smith it’s as English as a Buckingham Palace garden party or drinking seven pints of lager and singing the Dam busters’ theme on hearing a German accent before throwing up in a newsagent’s doorway. If the BBC’s mission does not involve making sure that bands like the Hornblower Brothers can get some airplay based on the quality of their music rather than their record company’s budget then it has lost something.
Every day it produces vast quantities of aural Horlicks – try listening to the afternoon play or Moneybox. It’s only right that a national broadcaster should offer something for money grubbing Daily Mail readers and the wittering middle classes. It should offer a bit more than that and glitzy family entertainment.
Even Mark Thompson, a man fast replacing Bono as a number one hate figure on this, site appears to agree.
“The BBC has one mission: to inform, educate and entertain audiences with programmes and services of high quality, originality and value. It strives to fulfil this mission not to further any political or commercial interest, but because the British public believe that universal access to ideas and cultural experiences of merit and ambition is a good in itself.”
He’s got a funny way of sticking to the mission. I’m not qualified if comment on the Asian Network but what’s absolutely certain is that the proposed decision to shut down 6 Music is a premeditated act of cultural vandalism. If your musical preferences are slightly outside the mainstream it’s about the only option. Its nearest commercial rival, the pitiful XFM, has a definition of “alternative” that stretches from the Kings of Leon to U2 with the remaining 50% of its airtime devoted to football themed ads for car insurance. How’s that for the soundtrack to your day?
A ray of sunshine is the strength and passion of the response to the planned closure of one of the BBC’s jewels. Faceboook groups are sprouting up and Twitter is ablaze. We may just see popular pressure force the bean counters to back down.
As a bookend to the Hornblower Brothers ask yourself what other station plays seminal German band Neu!? Their albums may only have sold a few hundred when first issued outside Germany but now their influence is everywhere. That’s the sort of thing you want the BBC to provide alongside Casualty and Strictly Come Sell Some Junk You Found In The Attic.
Liam redux 
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