It’s been another hectic week in the Folk Roots kitchen!

This week I set my culinary fingers to crafting listener Ade’s fabulous fish pie recipe. I usually avoid cooking with fish as, despite being a pescatarian since the age of eight, I’ve not had too much experience of cooking with the ingredient. However, a challenge is a challenge and I was raring to give my first listener recipe a whirl!

Getting started on the fish pie

I made a few minor changes to Ade’s recipe, including swapping the potato mash topping for a lighter sweet potato version. One of the reasons for this is the tendency for the latter to require less butter and milk for mashing – it’s a much easier task! It also looks wonderfully colourful on top of the cheesy milk-and-fish mix. I also always use a sweet potato mash topping when I make green lentil shepherd’s pie too.

The fish pie fresh from the oven

If you’d like to check out a photographic step-by-step walk through of my ‘Folk Roots fish pie’ take a look at my personal blog here. Don’t forget to send me your recipes for testing in my Folk Roots kitchen by emailing them to frankie@amazingradio.co.uk.

On the show tonight I’ll be celebrating three of the acts on the short list of Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent competition. These are acts that we’ve been supporting on Amazing Radio for a while now, and I honestly couldn’t be prouder that they’ve made the final cut. For these acts, making the short list means that even if they don’t take the main prize of a Pyramid Stage slot, they’ll have a fantastic chance of playing elsewhere at the main event this forthcoming June. The three acts that made the coveted list are; Multi-instrumentalist Alex Wells’ project Twin Brother, Emily Wood and her band, Emily and the Woods, and the critically-acclaimed Northampton four-piece My First Tooth.

Hear tracks from the short listed acts on the Amazing Folk Roots Show, tonight from 7pm, on Amazing Radio. If you can’t make a date with the show tonight, catch it at the same time on Wednesday.

Every week Amazing Afternoons with Kyle Wilkinson highlights one of the many fantastic tracks over at amazingtunes.com that you can download for free.

This week the team are bringing you the track Demain by Found My Niche, an artist otherwise known as West Midlands resident Dominique James.

The track itself has been described by James as “a mash up of electronic and acoustic sounds influenced by many styles including, Drum & Bass, Latin, Jazz, and Pop”. We think it’s an eclectic sounding melting pop of ideas that brings something truly new to the musical table.

You can find, listen to and download Demain for free by clicking this link. You’ll need to be logged into your amazingtunes.com profile to do this, but don’t worry if you haven’t got an account yet, as signing up takes mere minutes and is completely free!

Catch Found My Niche and his Free Download of the Week on Amazing Afternoons with Kyle Wilkinson, today from 3pm, on Amazing Radio.

Every Monday The Afternoon Show chooses to celebrate a wonderful website by honoring it with the accolade, Website of the Week. This week’s winner is the Scottish based Glasgow Podcart.

Halina Rafai, one of Glasgow Podcart‘s founders, tells us more.

Glasgow Podcart is a Scottish based music/arts website. We produce weekly podcasts showcasing the best in grass roots and unsigned artists not only from Scotland, but around the world. The main idea behind the podcast being that we don’t want to create some pretentious ‘indie’ site and would rather expose as much new talent as possible. No matter what style, what size or how  established, we believe everyone deserves a platform to showcase their work.

We also put on selected live events and exhibitions! We are not professionals and we are not doing this to gain some kind of status as individuals. It is a team project and we hope it reflects our passion for the current grass roots art scene.  We believe we can help illuminate the incredible talent our country and others has to offer and also provide a useful tool that will allow cross pollination of ideas and art across a wide spectrum of styles and genres.

You can find us at www.glasgowpodcart.com

Hear presenter Kyle Wilkinson get the lowdown on Glasgow Podcart on The Afternoon Show from 3pm today.

As this summer’s festival season moves into full swing amazingtunes found itself in amongst the sun-kissed masses last weekend, donning the shades and dancing it up at the Rockness festival following Spokes as they looked to impress the reveling crowds.

As part of our Sound08 competition held in March of this year we gave one lucky act the chance to get played on XFM and perform live at the Rockness Festival. The eventual winners Spokes last weekend took to the stage in Dores, on the shores of Loch Ness, with a point to prove. The heavily dance orientated line-up at this years event was a motion away from the more subtle and emotional guitar driven melodies of Spokes, however their departure from the intensities of the surrounding stages made them, for me, something of a stand out act.

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Opening with the instrumental track ‘We Like to Dance and Steal Things’ the band built a strong foundation from which to develop, moving into tracks like ‘Sleep it off’ and ‘Young People! All Together’ with a great enthusiasm. While the quieter moments were unfortunately often offset by the traveling bass from the other stages, Spokes’ ability to command a wall of sound made the large majority of the performance a powerful experience, with strong progressions and well weighted climaxes keeping the audience enthused throughout.

While having to compete against a line-up clash that saw the band scheduled to play at the same time as DJ Yoda and the Editors, the lads and lady from Manchester held their audience with great confidence and it certainly left myself with a smile on my face. Speaking with Matthew Baty, the drummer of Spokes, after the performance he said “It was a superb experience. Playing at the same event as so many great acts was a bit of a surreal experience, but really enjoyable. After it was over we decided to make sure that next year we’ll do what it takes to be playing at plenty more festivals.” And with lots of smiles after their performance from both on and off the stage I’m sure they won’t be disappointed.

The festival itself was a great show set in some of the most idyllic scenery north of the border, and with such great weather there was always going to be enjoyment to be had. Fatboy Slim called in the Saturday night, entertaining a massive crowd in front of the main-stage with a brilliantly thought-out set after Soulwax had stunned their patient fans with a live show in the Soulwax Arena, a show that was packed full of energy – and nothing short of amazing. Mylo, donning a vintage Scotland shirt, fed the crowd with healthy doses of bass and the Mystery Jets went down with great aplomb, their single ‘Two Doors Down’ getting an excited response. Underworld reminded us of why they were so successful all those years back, whipping the audience up into a frenzy with an extended version of Born Slippy, and then, of course, there was Spokes. While obviously not commanding quite the same level of interest as Johnny Burrell et al, this relatively new act, here to prove a point and reach new ears, stood tall and left their audience with something a little different to take home with them.

…amazingtunes

For those of you that may be unaware, amazingtunes.com recently decided to bite a very large, music shaped bullet and launch a national radio station. While I can’t tell you how a bullet can be shaped like music, I can enlighten you a little further on the ins and outs of what we’ve called Amazing Radio.

Broadcasting throughout Britain on DAB digital radio (and online) we’re now providing the world’s first, and only, dedicated unsigned radio station. All content that reaches the airwaves is uploaded to amazingtunes.com by you folk at home – not a label in sight – with the artist still keeping 70% of the revenue.

We’ve well and truly wandered off the beaten track here and to a larger extent we’ve a relatively unknowing view of where the station will be a year or so from now. There’s a good reason for this though; it is our aim to place the power back in the hands of the people that actually listen, to heed suggestions of the fans and artists and provide the listener with a democratic service that evolves with the wants of those that tune in. How refreshing…

The music industry is by and large a closed shop, far too incestuous to be fair and far too quick to dismiss anything brave enough to buck the trend. It’s fair to say that we’re not really the most compassionate of people here at amazingtunes.com when it comes to our view of the current industry – an antiquated machine, rusted up cogs that churn to the same sounds, insistent on ignoring the digital era and patronising the awakened listener with their rotisserie-like flavour of the week. Even those organisations supposedly representing the artists – such as the PRS – somehow manage to tread on the toes of the listeners.

To this ends we’ve tailored Amazing Radio to provide something a little more real – to offer something that will strike a chord with genuine music fans and first time listeners alike. You may not be aware for example, but Amazing Radio stands outside the cumbersome grip of the PRS. Listening to Amazing Radio at work, or in the shops, doesn’t require a PRS license. This is certainly radio for the people by the people with no hurdles, no advertising, and most importantly, a constant flow of great new music.

Having just taken off air the last of the test transmissions we’re now airing the first scheduled shows. Have a listen and see what you think. Then tell us. What do you want to hear? Let us know what you like and even more importantly, what you don’t like and let’s ensure that as we move forwards we’re all singing from the same, innovative and ethical hymn sheet.

amazingtunes.com

You can follow the Amazing Radio blog here. Keep up to date on our progression behind the scenes and let us know what you think. Your feedback to date has been brilliant. Both inspiring and informative, so please keep it coming.