Bob Fischer is an award-winning radio presenter and journalist based in Teesside, England. Bob
currently presents the Saturday night new music slot on BBC Tees and can be
heard on weekday afternoons for the forseeable future. A lifelong sci-fi, music
and football fan, Bob recently chatted with me for an in-depth look at his
career. Why not stick the kettle on and take a look at my Bob Fischer interview right now?
So, how did you find yourself on the BBC Tees airwaves?
I used to run a record shop in Yarm High Street, which I took over
pretty much as soon as I left university in 1994. It was good fun – I never had
any real intentions of being on the radio, in fact it never really crossed my
mind, I was just tootling about in my shop being slightly grumpy to people
looking for strange music. I was good friends with now-5 Live features reporter
and Football Focus man Mark
Clemmitt and sat next to him at Middlesbrough matches.
Unlike me, Clem is incredibly driven and ambitious – he decided around that
stage that he fancied a media career and tirelessly pursued it.
Clem seemed to be under the impression that I was quite funny, so asked
me to be involved in a demo for a potential radio programme. It ended up being
called ‘Red Balls on Fire’, and I came in as a comedy sidekick, like Lard to
his Mark. We recorded the demo in Clem’s front room in 1998 during the World
Cup and sent it into what was then called BBC Radio Cleveland and, to my
amazement, they replied, told us they really liked it and asked us to produce a
pilot for a potential series. They initially wanted us for five weeks, but the
show ended up lasting for three years.
‘Red Balls on Fire’ was essentially me and Clem in the studio with
various people from the world of football. Our guests included Keith O’Neill,
Robbie Mustoe, Curtis Fleming, Dean Gordon and Andy Townsend, and we had
sketches inspired by people like Kenny Everett, who’d always interspersed his
shows with surreal skits packed with sound effects like explosions etc. My job
became to write sketches, spoof news reports and work with off-the-wall
characters, all with a tangible Boro feel – it was a great vehicle for me to
make comedy for the radio as I’d been writing for Boro fanzine ‘Fly Me to the
Moon’ for quite a while, so it was largely an extension of that.
Somewhere along the line, the show metamorphosed into a sort of
‘606’-esque footie phone-in called ‘Talking Balls’. ‘Red Balls on Fire’ was a
pre-recorded programme that went out on a Friday night and was repeated on a
Saturday before the match, but we usually did ‘Talking Balls’ live from various
grounds across the country after the final whistle. Not sure if we made to your
hometown Huddersfield though as we were in different divisions at the time!
In around 2001, Clem got his gig as a reporter at 5 Live. We’d
done a couple of programmes for 5 Live as ‘The Football World of Clem and
Fischer’ around 1999-2000. We’d started a Saturday lunchtime programme called
‘Gobstopper’ just before Clem went to 5 Live, which wasn’t just about football
but music and a lot of other stuff too, so when he went I inherited that and
brought my ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ colleague, now-BBC Tees soccer commentator Mark
Drury, in to work with me.
‘Gobstopper’ ran for about five years before the then-boss
suggested it could work better as an evening show. We initially started on a
once-a-week basis before Mark
Drury
left and Shack (also from Fly Me to the Moon) came in (other Fly
Me to the Moon Fischer contributors included editor Robert Nichols and Uncle
Harry, a regular on my show). We then went five-nights-a-week between 2008 and
2012, offering a strange mish-mash of new music (especially local music),
surreal ramblings and lots of non-musical guests, too. We'd find our childhood
heroes, people like Vicki Michelle, John Craven and Wilf Lunn, and invite them
to be guests. I’m now on between 8-10pm on Saturdays and weekday afternoons for the next few months at least.
How would you describe your broadcasting style? Can you tell us
about other unforgettable interviewees?
There’s kind of two sides to my broadcasting. Firstly, there’s the
often-esoteric new music side, but then there’s also my glitzy, camp love of
showbiz. My more recent radio years have definitely showcased a strong balance
of the two. Dudley Sutton was a fantastic recent interviewee – most people will
know him as Tinker from Lovejoy. He’s had an extraordinary career. In the
sixties, he was in anti-capital punishment film The Boys and he played a gay
biker in The Leather Boys. He was a firebrand of an actor and took these parts
as they chimed with his political opinions at the time, hoping to play a part
in social change. He was also a notorious hellraiser during this era and has
been extremely open about all of this. He featured in Ken Russell’s notorious
The Devils, which was famously cited as blasphemous, later saying he hugely
admired Russell because he wasn’t scared of anyone at all.
'The Leather Boys' trailer, 1964
One of my most unforgettable experiences was when we headed to
Jack Charlton’s house during the old football shows. Clem certainly had no fear
when it came to approaching potential interviewees. To our amazement, he
agreed, though I did spill a cup of tea all over his fireplace. His memorabilia
was scattered haphazardly everywhere. He was truly inspirational, as was Bruce
Rioch – another childhood icon. We’ve also inevitably had tonnes of people from
Doctor Who and even Graham Coxon. We met him in Gateshead and found him in his
dressing room. He was shy but fantastic – at the end of it, I asked for a
picture and he then suggested we turn it into a face-pulling competition. After
I thanked him, he turned round and said (adopts Southern accent), “You’re a Scorpio,
aren’t you? I always get on with Scorpios”. And I am!
How do the interviews come about?
Sometimes we approach them, sometimes they approach us. I’m very
pro-active at seeking them out. I keep a close watch on local listings but
we’re also on the mailing lists of various PR, management and press
people.
Imagine how high-profile you could go if you went national?
Well, I’ve never…do you know, if someone came knocking from a
national radio station, you know, undoubtedly I would, but I’ve never actively
pursued it because I’m famously not particularly driven or ambitious! There’s
never been a career plan – I always say I’ll be living in a log cabin in the
woods somewhere in five years’ time. I’ve never approached national radio
stations – I have done 5 Live shows with Clem and a science-fiction night for Radio
4 Extra a couple of years ago, after they asked me.
I genuinely love local radio – I’ve never really lived away from
Teesside aside from Lancaster Uni. I was actually homesick at Uni but now I
love Lancaster and visit regularly.
Sitting in on After Midnight on Radio 2 sounds like the ideal slot
for a cult broadcaster?
I’ve been described as worse!
There’ve been many public service broadcasting cuts recently – how
would you defend BBC local radio and what purpose do you think it serves in
2016? Can you tell us about the role BBC Introducing plays too?
I think local radio is hugely important. Of course, there’s two
things I do for BBC Tees currently – the Saturday night BBC Introducing new
music show and sitting in on weekday afternoons. For those
that don’t know, BBC
Introducing is a scheme where acts can upload their music
with the hope of it being broadcast by their local station, and the cream of
the crop are broadcast nationally.
I’ve been doing Friday afternoons on BBC Tees recently and have
sat in for John
Foster a lot. Both of my shows are firmly entrenched in the
local community for different reasons. The local music is a big part of what
gives any area its identity – you can often see the flavour and culture of an
area by the music coming out of it. BBC Introducing is a valuable structured
scheme designed to give local artists the chance of being heard nationally and
hugely important to the local community.
Ten Foot Tom and the Leprosy Crooks in the studio, Feb 2016
The afternoon show is rooted in a very different part of the local
community – I often speak to the callers myself off-air, and we have built up a
number of long-lasting relationships with local listeners. Local radio stations
are a big part of peoples’ lives – I’m sure there are various people listening
to BBC Tees for most of the day – most content is rooted in the local area.
I’ve covered a lot of strange topics recently, including things like odd animal
habits and a host of other off-the-wall topics but with a local flavour.
I think the fact that I’m from and have always lived in Teesside
gives me a valuable connection to the listeners – if they reference a local
place like Acklam Hall, I’m obviously going to know where it is. I think you
need to have a rapport with your listeners – I love (if I can stop being
self-effacing for a second here) the fact that I can build up a dialogue with
listeners, even without features and “content”. You start off with a talking
point and it flows from there.
How does social media contribute to the show?
It has more of an influence on the BBC Introducing show, as you’re
working with musicians who will have a social
media presence anyway. It’s not as prominent on the
afternoon show as it’s more based around texts and phone calls with perhaps an
older, less social media-heavy audience. I absolutely adore working with both
audiences, and there is certainly a bit of a crossover.
Have you had to adapt your approach for the daytime show?
I don’t think I’ve really needed to – though there’s definitely
something in Sara Cox’s quote about being on Radio 2 during her final Radio 1
days (“it’s being yourself but with the in-laws listening in”). I don’t think
any afternoon listener would think I sound like a totally different presenter
on the Saturday show and vice versa. It’s still a fortysomething man chuntering
on about the odd things that cross his mind. I don’t think there’s anything to
tone down really!
There’s a little bit of irrelevant cheek in both shows, but
nothing too explosive. I’ve never really approached either show differently to
the other. I think if I tried something like (one of my favourite radio acts of
all-time) Mark and Lard’s Fat Harry White on BBC Tees someone might hammer the
door down quite quickly. I’m not quite sure how they got away with that – at
any time of day, on any station!
How do you come up with features and topics, particularly when
you’re called in at short notice?
The topics are largely just things that enter my head. It’s not
really a question of “how do I think of them?”, it’s more a case of “how do I
stop thinking of them?”. When you’ve been doing this for so long you get into a
mindset of almost effortlessly identifying great topics whether you’re online,
out and about, daydreaming or reading the paper. My phone is just full of
drafts of radio topics. Listeners and my own stream-of-consciousness help me
drive the topics and allow them to drift organically from there.
You once said the music that comes out when you’re around 11 years
old helps to form your tastes for the rest of your life, would you stick
with that? What was around when you were that age?
I do think there’s a peak era that forges your tastes around the
ages of 8-13. I think it’s the same with most cultural forms, including books,
TV, films and music – this is the stuff that builds your tastes for the rest of
your life. With music, Frankie Goes to Hollywood were an obvious milestone.
Even around 11, I knew they had statements to make, were a bold band and the
music was fabulous. Beyond that, I started to look beyond the mainstream at
around 12-13. It’s important to remember that it was hard to find alternative
music around then, though I did listen to John Peel later. I also discovered
country music, notably people like Johnny Cash and Lyle Lovett, as I got
something different from it, and I wanted to be different from my peers. I
loved the lyrics and authenticity.
Johnny Cash, 'I Walk the Line'
I discovered The Beatles Sgt Pepper album around the age of
fourteen, around the time of its 20th anniversary. It was a revelation – I’d
only really heard the really famous songs before and was taken aback by songs
like A Day in the Life. Its big discordant, orchestral climax was possibly one
of my first exposures to genuinely experimental music with an avant-garde feel.
The Beatles were an all-consuming passion and a great band to use as a starting
point. They led me onto Arthur Alexander, Elvis Costello, Brian Eno, The Velvet
Underground and various others – I loved the way your favourite bands send you
onto what then became other favourite bands because of who they’d worked with,
cited as influences and influenced themselves. By the late eighties, I was
listening to tonnes of esoteric archive stuff, never thinking about what was cool
and what wasn’t.
The Beatles, 'A Day in the Life'
By around 1990, I’d discovered the local music scene, going to
various gigs at venues in Stockton and Middlesbrough with sixth-form friends –
this was when I first met Robert Nichols. The first band I ever saw live was
Hartlepool’s Candy Ranch, then I also saw acts like Hope Springs Eternal, who’d
take us to places like York and London, with us running the door, taking
fifty-pence pieces in margarine tubs.
Tell us about your new side-career as a gig promoter.
I’ve been putting on gigs at Eaglescliffe’s The
Waiting Room – a restaurant with an excellent backroom. I’d
been going to see bands there for years but took the gigs over from Luke, the
owner, after he went to university. This started at the end of 2014. It’s been
a steep learning curve, especially as I’d never really put gigs on before -
though I had worked for Teesside gig promoters Ten Feet Tall doing press and
publicity. My money is on the line, and I have to guarantee the artist their
payment whatever happens, but it has been amazing fun. I’ve tried to put on as
much unique stuff as possible – including Saturday morning kids’ TV comedy
geniuses Trevor and Simon, who I’ve built up a fantastic relationship with over
the last few years. They were brilliant – I’ve never seen so much sentimental
love for two people in a room.
Trevor and Simon with Kylie Minogue on Going Live!, 1988
I really miss adult-friendly kids’ TV.
Me too! My main formative memories include watching things like
Swap Shop in my grandma’s front room. The whole family would join me – I don’t
think you really get that kind of thing anymore. Swap Shop, Tiswas, Going Live
– there was stuff in there for everybody, really. Everything’s far more
compartmentalised now. I’m not sure if there’s the budget anymore for that kind
of thing, sadly.
How’s the Last of the Summer Wine binge?
Great! For those that don’t know this strange story, for the last
few years, me and a friend of mine, Andrew T. Smith, have been watching Last of
the Summer Wine from the start in chronological order and blogging
it as we go. We’d both grown up with the programme. We’re
different ages, so we started watching in different eras. When the final
episode was broadcast, we watched it together and stuck the first episode on
immediately before it coalesced into the blog. We started about five years ago,
so we’re going at roughly twice the speed of the series. We jot down thoughts
as we go about the episodes and the wider social context.
Because it ran for so long, it was a mainstay throughout British
social history, and I think this is reflected in the programme. When you watch
the first episodes, they are surprisingly bleak. It’s like Ken Loach’s vision
of Yorkshire – it’s essentially about three slightly-disaffected, rather bored
men whose lives are effectively over. They’re old single men, with their
working days behind them, reliving their childhood years in a landscape that
has changed completely from their childhood years. The countryside is desolate,
full of once-thriving abandoned factories, with buildings covered in soot. We’re
looking at a post-industrial era, with social changes becoming visible as the
series progresses. Brian Wilde is a consummate comedy actor, as are the rest of
the cast – Kathy Staff, Bill Owen, Jane Freeman and Kathy Staff. Joe Gladwin
who played Nora Batty’s husband is an extraordinary comedy actor – he came out
of music hall and it was fantastic to see him using the tricks he’d learned in
that era in the 1980s.
Last of the Summer Wine, Series 5 Episode 1, 'Full Steam Behind',
1979
We went to the café itself in Holmfirth to make a film – it’s now
a working café and looks exactly as it did in the series. Laura Booth, the
owner, was brilliant and more than happy to co-operate. We approached Jonathan
Linsley who played Crusher in the eighties for an interview. He’s now been in
things like Pirates of the Caribbean and agreed, to our delight, to come to
Holmfirth to do ‘An Evening With…’-type event as an excellent culmination of
all of our work.
Are you still performing music yourself?
Yes – as part of Old
Muggins, Teesside’s premier light entertainment synth-pop
rockabilly trio. No other light entertainment synth-pop rockabilly trio can
touch us on Teesside! It’s just a fun thing to do, really.
Weren’t you on a top ten single once?
Was I? Oh yes! John Otway’s Bunsen Burner in 2002. John Otway is
one of the music world’s great entertainers. He reached the chart in 1977 with
his long-term collaborator Wild Willy Barrett, Really Free, and fourteen years
ago, for his fiftieth birthday, he and his fanbase decided it was time for
another hit. He wanted a choir of his fans on it and is famous for his
performances of House of the Rising Sun, which feature excellent audience
participation. We all went to Abbey Road to record a new version of
Rising Sun for the b-side, with hundreds of us chanting as we would at his
gigs. We all got a credit on the sleeve – in tiny writing! All of us later
rushed out to buy several copies. He’s an underrated genius – I’ve had him on
the radio and he’s an utter gentleman, an excellent singer-songwriter and one
of the most self-deprecating people I’ve ever met.
John Otway, 'Bunsen Burner', Top of the Pops, 2002
Can you tell us more about your book, Wiffle Lever to Full:
Daleks, Death Stars and Dreamy-Eyed Nostalgia?
That came out of my love for science-fiction as well as the TV I
grew up with, especially Blake’s 7, Star Wars and Doctor Who. I went to a
Doctor Who convention in Stockton, which was the most surreal weekend, and
included a Cyberman and a Time Lord casually reading the Evening Gazette
sitting either side of me as I looked down on the High Street. As a result, I
decided I needed to attend further conventions and realised there could be a
book in it. I spent the next year going to scores of conventions and events
around the UK, wrote a few chapters and sent them off to a few literary agents
before it was picked up by Hodder and Stoughton. I think it’s been turned into
an e-book – though I’m a proper book man myself, I spend far too much time
staring at screens as it is.
Third Doctor regenerates, John Pertwee to Tom Baker, 1974
I’ve also written a novel recently, which is completely
differently to Wiffle
Lever to Full – although this hasn’t been published as yet.
It was inspired by the likes of Alan Garner, who wrote books like The Owl
Service. He combines the real world with the fantastical, setting his books
around Cheshire and blending folk myth and fantasy with the local landscape,
and I wanted to write something that took a bit of that spirit. I’ve even
written 10,000 words of another one!
I heard you were a fan of long-distance walking – you’re in a
great part of the world for that. Are there any particular routes you like to
take?
I feel really in touch with the landscape around me. I’m utterly
at home with the North Yorkshire Moors – if I need to leave the world behind me
and be completely at peace I take the dog up with me to the moors. The stretch
of coastline from Saltburn through Whitby through to Scarborough is absolutely
magical. In around 2010, I decided to do something really ambitious and walked
the Cleveland Way with my friend and star of Wiffle Lever to Full, Wez. That
expands for around 100 miles in a kind of horseshoe shape – starting at
Helmsley and winding around the inland region and coastline before finishing at
Filey Brigg. That took around five days and I made a radio programme out of it.
We did the Teesdale Way around a year after that. As Wes sagely pointed out,
the great thing about following the course of a river from source to shore is
that it’s all downhill!
What are your favourite TV shows of all time?
Doctor Who is a major part of my life. I love the fact that each
generation has a different Doctor – for me growing up, it was Tom Baker and
Peter Davison, the first one I got to follow throughout their tenure. Star Wars
was a huge influence on me and my generation, then further on I loved Robin of
Sherwood – which incorporated folk myth and elements of the magical into the
Robin Hood story. I have a massive interest in British sitcoms and recently
enjoyed Flowers with Olivia Coleman and Julian Barratt, which I thought was
wonderfully distinctive and odd.
Flowers trailer, Channel 4, 2016
You can catch Bob on BBC Tees on 12pm-4pm Monday to Friday and
Saturday nights at 8-10pm. Listen again on iPlayer here.
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