maltpress

One of the first things I did when I started up was buy a DAB digital radio. I love my DAB. I’d like another one, for my room, so I can listen when I wake up or when I read. Why a DAB? Because of the extra stations. One extra station, in fact - 6Music. I used to listen online when I got the chance at my old job, and the mix of music I recognised from my youth, exciting new artists of a similar vein, and DJs with a real passion for the music (and the people who listen to it) was brilliant.

Was brilliant. All that changed when the excellent, affable, knowledgeable Gideon Coe got moved to the graveyard shift to make way for George Lamb. When it happened, I emailed Coe to tell him how sad I was, but I did hope that Lamb would be a good replacement. Oh dear god was I wrong.

Lamb knows little about music - at least, about the music on the playlist and within the remit of 6Music. His banter is inane, his ineptitude painful, his blatant disregard for the artists he plays mind-numbingly apparent with every sound effect he plasters over the songs I want to hear… his idiocy really is beyond belief. He embodies the kind of lazy, arrogant “personality” DJ who stopped me listening to Radio 1 years ago. He is dumbed-down, lad-culture, work-shy dross, surrounded by a baying pack of sycophants who - it has to be said - would be far, far better off without him.

He is, as far as I can seem, analogous to the worst kind of stand-ups I used to see - those who wouldn’t write their own material but would tell “pub jokes” and Peter Kay routines and would become aggressive and bemoan the intelligence of their (obviously intellectually superior) audiences when things got rough. It’s as if a friend who wanted to make Lamb feel better said “why not try DJing” and he did, pulling strings left right and centre to ruin my mornings, even though he has no discernable talent whatsoever. His jokes are recycled, aimless, unfunny. His passive-aggressive stance towards his listeners is excruciating. He does no research, he is unimpeded by little things like fact, sensitivity and pathos.

He has a place. That place is either on the surface of the sun or Sunday morning idiot-box TV, both of which are places I never wish to visit.

Please, if you read this, try listening to his show on the BBC’s iPlayer or live. See how much you can get through. Then listen to Gideon Coe, Steve Lamacq, Guy Garvey, Nemone, anyone else on 6Music - and sign the Get Lamb Out petition.