SEAN HOCKING’S BOTTOM OF THE POPS

Sean Hocking, the impresario behind Metal Postcard Records, veteran of Dandelion Radio, lover of the DIY ethic, and supporter of musical underdogs everywhere plays a weekly blend that will challenge your preconceived notions of the known known, the known unknown, and the unknown unknown.

What is this witchcraft you speak of?

Sean grew up as a nipper in the British Virgin Islands in the late 1960s and reckons his first memory of music is of steel drums being constructed, tuned and then played at local carnivals, thus leading to a lifetime love of beautifully dissonant music.

On moving to the UK in the early 1970s, it was Roxy Music performing “Virginia Plain” on TOTP that got Sean hooked on glam, rock’n’roll, rockabilly, punk and the legendary John Peel. Since then it’s been all about discovering unknown music.

Favourite gigs include Black Flag in 1980, The Cambodian Space Project in Phnom Penh a decade or so ago, The Morning After Girls at Sydney’s Hopetoun with three other people there, and any Triffids gig ever attended.

And where did Bottom of the Pops come from? Sean says it lodged itself in his mind whilst sitting in the waiting lounge at Frankfurt Airport a few years ago, where for some unknown reason Donald Rumsfeld’s classic Iraq War quote came into his mind like a flash from another universe.

Hence Bottom of the Pops was born, originally a weekly news alert featuring YouTube music videos with a 1000 plays or less, and evolving to highlight ignored music, turning it into a crusade for life.

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