Andrew Marston

Andrew Marston
Background information
Born	(1981-10-24) 24 October 1981[1] Hereford, England
Genres	New music, Electronic dance music, Progressive house
Occupation(s)	Club DJ, VJing, Radio Production & Presentation
Instruments	Synthesiser, Piano
Years active	1996–present
Labels	BBC Introducing
Website	DJAndrewMarston.com

Andrew Marston (born 24 October 1981) is a British-based radio presenter, music producer and club DJ, known for his extensive work with musicians under the BBC Introducing scheme.^[2] He was the first person to give airtime to artists such as Ellie Goulding, Becky Hill and Peace.

Early career

Andrew regularly represented his school as a musician playing keyboards in various bands and with their orchestra. It was through a couple of gigs he did for the church and the city's MP where he was offered his first paid job playing the church organ at St Barnabas and at All Saints in Hereford. This he did for two years while regularly touring the country in a covers band.^[3]

Hospital Radio

At the age of 14, Andrew become a volunteer with Hereford Hospital Radio, providing PA services at local events and presenting a magazine show called "MusiChat". He later became the station's vice-chairman and publicity manager.

By 1999, he'd already become a keen supporter of new music and put together HHR Live '99, where all of the city's main bands performed on stage in Hereford's High Town, in front of thousands of people, attracting front-page coverage from the local press. In 2000, he won a bronze award for BT Non-Music Programme of the Year for his local news show.^[3]

DJing

Andrew Marston at Naughty But Nice in Hereford

At the age of 14, Andrew became the resident DJs at the Jailhouse Nightclub in Hereford during their weekly kids' nights and soon after started providing mobile discos.^[3]

Over the next few years he went on to hold down a number of long-term residencies at no fewer than ten venues, while continuing to guest at clubs across the region. Some of his corporate clients have included high-end repeat bookings for West Mercia Police, Worcester Warriors, Worcestershire County Cricket Club, British Telecom, Staffordshire University, The 100-mile raft race, Tesco, New Look, TK Maxx, Bulmers, Argos and Cargill.

The BBC

Andrew began working for BBC Hereford & Worcester in 1999, following a work experience placement. Initially his job was putting guests on-air, whether this would be for his home station or for the likes of BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 5 Live, Newsbeat and the BBC World Service.^[3] During a visit to the Worcester studios, Andrew was asked if he'd like to be trained as a broadcast assistant – and three weeks later, without the training, Andrew was looking after the general day-to-day running of the Hereford office.

Later work included live and pre-recorded interviews, the reading of market reports, the writing of bulletin pieces and ultimately two years as the main Hereford radiocar reporter at breakfast. It was during this time Andrew had the opportunity to cover major fires, floods^[4] and later the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Andrew also reported on the Queen's visit to Royal Worcester and would, every year, present live from the Remembrance Service.^[5]

Andrew Marston with Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant

In 2001, Andrew started working at BBC Radio Gloucestershire on the Vernon Harwood breakfast show. He went on to re-record the entire station's jingle package and become an active reporter, as well as presenting travel news in the evenings.^[6] His reporting work included live coverage of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall's opening of the Magg's Day Centre in Cheltenham.^[7]

New Music

In 2003, Andrew began working as a promoter and started a weekly band night in Hereford. For more than two years, Andrew hosted one of the busiest events in the city, giving a paid opportunity to many local bands including Brandon Steep (who went on to become one of the last bands played by John Peel)^[8] and The Myth (who were finalists in the BBC Midlands Today School of Rock competition).^[9]

In June 2005, Andrew was approached by BBC Online's Dan Johnson about helping out on a new music programme for BBC Hereford & Worcester. The BBC had been publishing album reviews online, but Dan had said to bosses "why don't we stop talking about music – and actually play it?". A week before transmission, management got nervous and requested a demo was made – and Andrew took the role of representing Herefordshire – a move that came as a surprise. It was initially thought that the programme would run for just a few weeks and maybe become bi-weekly due to the "lack of music around".^[10]

Within weeks, senior management within radio began to question whether this was the right move for local audiences and a task force was employed to review the programme. More than 20 bands were invited to the Hylton Road studios by BBC representatives to stage a round-table debate. It was during this meeting a number of disgruntled bands expressed their anger at the perceived "Iron Fortress" at BBC Radio 1 and the BBC Introducing scheme was born, enabling local stations to "vet" local tracks and submit them to the national station.

Andrew Marston interviews The Proclaimers at the Big Chill

In 2007, Dan Johnson left the then-called Friday Session to pursue a career as the Head of Sport Online, leaving Andrew in charge.^[11]

Radio Programmes

By this point, Andrew was also presenting six days a week – including cover shifts on the afternoon show, weekday evenings, The Friday Session, Saturday afternoons, and throughout the bank holiday schedules. On 14 July 2005, Andrew received a call to say he was needed on-air as The Mailbox was being evacuated because of a bomb scare.^[12] Andrew found himself broadcasting late into the night on BBC WM with the then-editor Keith Beech arriving an hour later to co-present. It later transcribed that BBC Radio 5 Live had crossed to WM for rolling coverage.

Andrew was also on-air during the 2007 summer floods and found himself presenting a news programme from 7pm until midnight instead of his new music programme,^[13] receiving top praise from Mark Thompson, director-general of the BBC at the time, who said: “The feedback you’ve received from your audience has offered ample testimony of just how essential that service has been to so many people’s lives. We could never hope to keep them informed and connected were it not for the kind of efforts you've made, and the professionalism and creativity that you've demonstrated”. This resulted in the station receiving gold in the Sony Radio Academy Awards.

During his time at the BBC, Andrew has also appeared several times as a guest speaker at Worcester College of Technology.

Website production

In 2006, Andrew began working for BBC Online, producing news articles, image galleries and local features. He helped reshape the systems that enabled local teams to publish photo galleries and his photos of The Big Chill (music festival)^[14] and the Worcester Warriors would regularly attract more than 15,000 unique users per day – but his biggest achievements were during the 2007 summer floods where many of his images attracted a record audience of 6 million hits in a week.^[15] The snowfall pictures would attract similar figures in subsequent years.

Andrew chairing a BBC Introducing Musicians' Masterclass. Panellists included The Pretenders, Dodgy and Mott The Hoople.

Andrew was also commissioned to create the "Music Map" feature for BBC Online as well as "The People's History Of Pop".^[16] Throughout these projects, he got to meet bands like Mott the Hoople,^[17] The Pretenders^[18] and Dodgy^[19] – unearthing many of the demo tapes that got them signed,^[20] while producing previously unwritten articles on The Beatles, Queen, Aerosmith, The Who, Pink Floyd, U2, The Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, Tom Jones, T. Rex, Jimi Hendrix, Clifford T. Ward, David Bowie, Black Sabbath, Roy Orbison, Captain Beefheart, Rick Wakeman, The Eagles, The Spencer Davis Group (featuring Steve Winwood), Manfred Mann, Small Faces, The Yardbirds, Donovan, The Merseybeats, The Moody Blues, The Searchers, Engelbert Humperdinck, UB40, Roy Harper, Underworld, Toyah Willcox, John Peel, Jimmy Cliff, Herman's Hermits, The Animals, Cilla Black, Freddie and the Dreamers, The Tremeloes, The Troggs and Jethro Tull.

Awards

Having secured early awards with hospital radio for Non-Music Programme of the Year, Andrew landed a role at the BBC which would lead him to redesign all of the trails for the station, remake the entire jingle package and cut a number of prize-winning entries, including BBC Hereford & Worcester's Station of the Year 2010 at the Sony Radio Academy Awards^[21] and various prizes in the Frank Gillard Awards (including diversity, made up of segments from his own show).^[3] It was some of his contributions from the Wychwood Festival that went into the submission that won BBC Introducing their gold at the Sony Radio Academy Awards in 2011.

BBC Introducing

Andrew was responsible for taking Sam Isaac to Glastonbury Festival and the BBC Electric Proms,^[22] Pencil Toes,^[23] The Anomalies^[24] and Pegasus Bridge^[25] to BBC Maida Vale Studios, while securing the brother/sister duo Muchuu a support slot with Florence & The Machine and The Temper Trap alongside a spot on the BBC Radio 1 playlist.^[26] He also landed The Roving Crows a place on tour with Jamie Cullum, George Barnett,^[27] two spots on the BBC Radio 1 playlist, as well as a place on stage at the Wychwood Festival and BBC Radio 2’s Live In Hyde Park: Festival In A Day.

Mixing bands in a recording studio, October 2014

After conducting all of the artist interviews at Bestival for BBC Radio 1, Andrew began hosting his own stages at local festivals – enabling bands to play live on-air in front of thousands at events including The Big Chill (music festival),^[28] Wyeside,^[29] Nozstock: The Hidden Valley,^[30] The Worcester Music Festival,^[31] SnodFest in Upton Snodsbury,^[32] and taking over stage curation duties from BBC 6 Music's Tom Robinson at the Wychwood Festival.^[33] He also selects acts for Glastonbury Festival, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Radio 1's Big Weekend and T in the Park.

He was the first person to give airtime to artists such as Ellie Goulding,^[34] Becky Hill,^[35] Peace (band),^[36] Andy Robinson (musician),^[37] Lauren Wright,^[38] Naked Remedy,^[39] AurA,^[40] This Wicked Tongue,^[41] Dissident Prophet and The Cohen Brothers,^[42] securing many of those artists a slot on the BBC Radio 1 playlist.

Present Day

Andrew regularly tech ops programmes for BBC Hereford & Worcester, has worked on every programme in the schedule and has mixed outside broadcasts from all over the world. He looks after the Introducing pages on the BBC Hereford & Worcester website,^[2] including the uploading of gig guides, reviews, live sessions, interviews and festival previews. He presents his new music show every Saturday night from 8pm and listens to in excess of 400 tracks a week submitted from his local area. His extensive work with festivals – both locally and regionally – continues, and he's also performing as a DJ at a number of the events he curates.^[2]

His club nights continue at Scala (club) in London, Proud in Hereford and Naughty But Nice, as well as regular work for the Worcester Warriors and at Worcestershire County Cricket Club. He's also performed in front of thousands at a variety of festivals, including the opening slot at Nozstock: The Hidden Valley, Lakefest, Upton Sunshine Festival, The Big Chill (music festival) and closing off the Wychwood Festival on Cheltenham Racecourse.^[43]

Andrew Marston DJing

During his time at the BBC, Andrew was had the privilege to work with or interview Dave Pearce (DJ),^[44] Pam Ayres (Poet), Kate Adie (Journalist), Sonique (Musician),^[45] Jo Whiley (Presenter),^[46] David Dimbleby (Television Presenter), Leo Baxendale (Creator of The Beano), Basement Jaxx (Producers),^[47] John OO Fleming (DJ),^[48] Craig Charles (Actor/DJ), Steve Hackett (Genesis band),^[49] Kutski (DJ),^[50] Lisa Lashes (DJ),^[51] Anne Savage (DJ), H "Two" O (Producers), White Lies (band),^[52] Seb Fontaine (DJ),^[53] Tall Paul (DJ),^[54] DJ Fresh,^[55] Sy (DJ), Graham Turner of Flip & Fill, Bus Stop (band), Eyeopener and A&R at All Around the World Productions,^[56] The Utah Saints (Producers)],^[57] Tim Wheeler of Ash (band),^[58] Professor Green (Rapper),^[59] Iglu & Hartly (Band), Gilles Peterson (Presenter), Zane Lowe (Presenter), Martin Chambers (Musician), Verden Allen (Musician), José González (Musician), Don Letts (Film Producer),^[60] Fyfe Dangerfield of The Guillemots (Band),^[61] The Blockheads (Band),^[62] The Proclaimers (Band),^[63] Norman Jay MBE (DJ),^[64] Huw Stephens (Presenter), Kissy Sell Out (DJ), William Hague (MP), Patrick Stewart (Actor) and Eve Myles (Torchwood Actress), to name but a few.

In 2012, Andrew took up VJing and started providing live visuals and video to the tracks he performs.^[65] As an active musician, he regularly tours with a rapper and percussionist, while playing live keys to create new interesting mashups of well-known songs.

He's also commercially released a number of dance tracks with well-known musicians he has met during his career, including Nigel Clark of Dodgy^[19] – many of which he plays out live.

References