Hiya,

Once again, it's been in interesting few weeks for me.

As I said last time, I was playing a set at the Heavy Soul Night at the Granta Bar. Wow! what a crowd! As an introduction to the Cambridge Soul Crowd it couldn't have been better. A whole load of nice people at the event all looking to have a good time. I have to thank Shaun Owen, Paul Bennett & Nik Buttress for inviting me to play. It was good to meet Phil Driver the owner of 'Soul Unsigned' who also DJed at the event. It was a very enjoyable night and I loved it.

I did my first Solar Radio show last Saturday, 2am-4am. It felt like the middle of the night.......it was, but what a blast! I had 23 chat boxes open in facebook and couldn't keep up with everyone talking to me. The support I received was tremendous and I hope listeners who had never heard me before enjoyed the show. You can hear the show by clicking the link - http://jamesmurphy.podOmatic.com/entry/2010-05-03T04_24_52-07_00

if you have sky+ and don't want to wake up, you can always record the show.
If you want a request on the Pure Grooves show, email me at jamesmurphy@solarradio.com
If you want a request on the Sunday Shake Up show, email me at james@ontheradio.info

One thing came out of it. I decided to add a chatroom to my web site, so that it is easier to talk to listeners during the show. Outside show time, it's there for like minded people to chat about the music we all love. You'll find it by going to my web site www.ontheradio.info and clicking on the chatroom link towards the top of the page.

Two other stations have started taking the 'Pure Grooves' and Sunday Shake Up' shows. West Mids Radio www.westmidsradio.info and Ace FM in Spain www.acefm.info have taken the shows, which just widens the net of people listening to the shows. I hope their listeners enjoy the shows

So what's next on the horizon? Well this Friday I am hosting a Motown Night at the Master Mariner at Perne Road, Cambridge. Starting at 7.30pm,  I'm going to be playing, not only the classics, but some of those lesser played tunes that should get you up dancing. There's Free entry to the night, so why not come along and check it out if you're in the area.

In fact, why not give me some requests so that I can play what YOU want to hear? I'd love to hear from you. You can leave them here, in the guestbook, my facebook page or email me at james@ontheradio.info

That's about it for now.

Till next time...........

As usual, it's taken me a while to keep you in the picture as to what's been going on, and all I can say is there's been a lot!

So let's start from where we left off.........

Pure Grooves took to the road in March at the Host Bar in Bishop's Stortford, and although it wasn't packed to the rafters, those that attended had a grerat time and I received some nice comments from people that attended. I shall be looking to re-book the Host Bar for another Pure Grooves soon.

Today I looked at a venue in Cambridge for another event and should know next week whether this is going to be the next venue.

I have landed a residency at the Hidden Rooms in Cambridge on a Friday night and have done 2 up to now.

Disco-wise, it's been pretty slow as I've recently moved to Cambridge and am having to rebuild my business in a new area where I'm unknown. I have, however had some work back in Dorset although it's not easy to do 200 miles to do discos.

The radio shows have been carrying on at RFTK & DMR Radio Stations and recently WestMidsRadio have taken them as well.

But the biggest news is that I have joined Solar Radio. In my opinion it's the top soul station in the UK and as well as being available on the net, it's also on SKY channel 0129. Therefore it will be easier for people to hear my shows than ever. Pure Grooves goes out at 2am on Saturdays starting May 1st. So if you're a nightbird like me, you can hear the show then, or I've been told if you have SKY+ you can record it to listen to at a time that's convenient for you. The shows will still be on the listen again site so don't worry!

Also I've produced some more special shows for the Jazzfunk Appreciation Society, and they are available via the listen again site at the moment.

Finally, I have been invited to do a set at the Heavy Soul night at the Granta Bar at Cambridge on Saturday evening (24th). I'm looking forward to that.

And that brings us up to date!

Till next time............

Well first of all it’s pretty apparent that it’s been a while since I last put anything in the journal so I’d better bring you up to date on the situation at the moment.

Let’s start off with the facebook groups. In November, when I last made an entry, I had 1000 facebook friends. As I’m writing this, I have 3333 friends. The ‘On The Radio’ group stood at 600 members, now there are 1169 members, and the ‘Pure Grooves’ group had 500 members. This now stands at 1179. So as you can see, there has been great growth.

In November, I was looking into Kent as the area we would start the ‘Pure Grooves’ nights. However for one reason or another, that hasn’t materialised. Debz was looking at Cambridge as another venue. This also hasn’t happened. On of the problems we’ve found is that the type of venues we are looking for are generally booked on the nights we require them. However, we have been fortunate to secure our first venue. And very smart it is to. The Host Bar is situated at 4, Corn Exchange, Market Square, Bishop’s Stortford, Herts.

I have to say we couldn’t have found a better venue for our first event. It’s very smart and fits the criteria we want, namely its smart, has plenty of comfortable seating for those that don’t want to dance, and offers a private entrance which means we can control who comes into the venue. This is important, as we only want people over 30 that are out for a good social night out.

The date of the night is Thursday 11^th March from 8pm – 2am. Tickets are already on sale from http://www.wegottickets.com/event/70060  Tickets are priced at £6 each when pre-booked. They will be available on the night at £8. Early booking is advised, as once the capacity is filled, no one else will it’be allowed in.

I no longer do radio shows on Morpher Radio. I had been finding it increasingly difficult to develop Pure Grooves whilst being tied to shows at specific times, and was fidning myself constrained by this so I felt the only thing to do was to resign. This does not mean the end of my radio shows however. I have gone back to recording shows for the moment, so I can record them as it suits me and they are played at the schedule times. I am missing the live shows, but need’s must and for the moment this suits my purposes. The shows are going out on 2 stations – DMR Radio and RFTK Radio.

This hasn’t changed anything, as I am still uploading each show to Podomatic site so that listeners can listen again from there.

I also have produced 3 radio shows for the Jazz Funk Appreciation Society on facebook. The members voted for their favoutite songs and I compiled their Top 50 spread over two shows. There were so many good songs voted for, that I was able to produce a ‘Best Of The Rest’ show. These are also on the Listen Again Site. If you need to know the address, it’s  http://www.jamesmurphy.podomatic.com please feel free to go and have a listen.

Well, it's been a couple of weeks and I'm pleased to say that aftera  bit of Networking around Facebook, the 'Pure Grooves Events' facebook group got its 500th member last night - awesome in just 3 weeks. So it's looking quite good at the moment.

In a couple of week's I'll be heading back to Kent for the second round of venue searching, and hopefully we'll have something a bit more concrete in place by then.

I've changed the web site a little bit to give a more refined outlook to what we're aiming to do.

Debz Green has started the search for a Cambridge venue, so hopefully that may bare fruit soon.

The networking has helped on all fronts in the past 3 days - I reached my 1000th Facebook Friend and the 'On The Radio' Facebook group stands at over 600 members as well.

A lot of emphasis has been put on Facebook at the moment and this should start to build awareness of what we're doing.

I've got a Lion's Club Charter night to do this weekend over at Christchurch and a few things in the pipeline as  well  - so once again - it's busy, busy, busy!

So, I've had the idea, I've built the web site and started a Facebook Group. What next?

Well, the venue search is now on. I know the type of venue I'm looking for, and I know the areas I'm targetting for the first of the 'Pure Grooves' events.

I spent a couple of days in Kent this week looking for venues, and although nothing concrete is in place, I have a good idea of the area I'm looking for.

Essex & Cambridgeshire are also counties I shall be targeting for the first of the events, and one particular venue looks very promising.

I've been thinking long and hard about the feel of the events and I'm starting to plan that too.

I'm realising that putting on an event involves a lot of planning and preparation, and that's where it stands at the moment.

Over the next few months, it will all come together, and I hope to be putting on a first class event that all will enjoy.

Why not check out the web site - http://www.puregrooves.info and find out more! Also, while you're on the web site, email myself or Debz and get yourself on the mailing list, and at the same time, join the Facebook group - The link is on the web site.!

I know, I know - it's been ages since I've posted a new entry, but it has been very hectic!

So where do I stand right now? Well, I've had this idea.

'Pure Grooves' has been quite successful, and is attracting a lot of listeners, so I've decided I'd like to try my hand at putting on a Jazz Funk & Soul night, or rather a series of nights, based around the format of the radio show.

So to that end, Pure Grooves nights are going to start in 2010. I have started a new facebook group and made a website to provide information and to get input. They've been online a day or so and the facebook group already has 100 members.

You can check out the new website at www.puregrooves.info

I am still doing shows on a couple of stations but have dropped some purely because of the lack of time.

I am now only doing two shows - 'Pure Grooves' & 'The Sunday Shake Up' but they both appear to be well received by listeners.

That's all for now, I'll try to get back to regular updates!

Cya

Well guys, it's been a while and I have to say once again, that life is just getting more surreal.

Since I last spoke the live shows have become a main part of my week. I really enjoy doing them. The listeners' interaction makes it a pleasure to do and I look forward to doing them each week.

However, I have had to knock a few of the shows on the head, because I have so much work on at the moment, I don't have time to do it all.

So what's new? Well, I am now DJing three nights a week in Spearmint Rhino at Heathrow. For those of you that don't know what Spearmint Rhino is, it's the number one Gentleman's Club in the world. They have various clubs around the world - 8 in the UK.

Anyway they offered me work and so now I'm in London 3 days a week. So what with that and my general party work at the weekends as well as the travelling back and forth from London to Dorset, I'm pretty busy at the moment.

The only radio shows I am doing at the moment are my 'Pure Grooves' show on a Saturday at 6pm UK time and my 'Sunday Shake Up' show on Sundays 11am - 2pm both on Morpher Radio. Also Caifox Radio take the 'Pure Grooves' show and play it as part of their line up too.

But I have to say the radio shows play a massive part of my life and are still the most enjoyable part.

I am hoping that at a future time I can start to reintroduce the other shows as I get more settled work wise.

OK here's my take on this news for what it's worth -

It's sad that Michael Jackson as died - for his parent's, family and friends - he left us with a legacy of great music - but:

My Mum was dying of cancer when Princess Di died - the world was in hysteria and I couldn't have cared less. My mum died the morning of Princess Di's funeral and so I had other priorities and Princess Di's funeral was never of importance to me. Sad, but true, no more, no less.

Since then, celebrity death has not been as relevant to me as perhaps it may once have been.

I have no issues with people who are feeling this loss, but I just don’t happen to take the same view – to do so would make me feel hypocritical.

So I shall be respectful of those who have their own feelings, as long as they can understand why I have mine.

R.I.P. Michael Jackson

And it just gets crazier and crazier. The last fortnight has once again amazed me in relation to what's been going on.

In the last fortnight, I have now co-hosted a Canadian Radio Show regarding the 'British Music Invasion' of the USA & Canada, which was fun to do. I've also gone 'live' with the radio shows, although it wasn't intentional that I was going to do that. Let me explain.

One afternoon, I thought I'd just check in the chatroom of Vinyl Morpher Radio and by chance the owner, Dave Marley was there. In the past we'd talked about me going live, but I knew my stream isn't very good, but I'd said I wouldn't mind if we could do it.

Anyway Dave says to me why not put some broadcasting software on the computer to try it out. I couldn't see a problem with that so I said yes. Anyway I install the software, enter the relevant settings and get the programme working.

Dave then says about cutting into the live stream for a couple of minutes to see if it works. I agree, so Dave says put some music on, and talk as though I'm doing a show and we'll see if it holds up. So I do this, and then Dave says I need to perhaps do 30 mins to get the volume settings right. Now I wasn't prepared for this, but with my heart beating overtime, I agreed! Nearly 30 mins in, Dave announces that he's forgotten to go to the Bank and needs to get there before it shuts and could I keep going until he gets back. Reluctantly, I agree and he's gone for about another 40 minutes.

When he gets back, he then says he has an urgent phone call he needs to take and could I hang on a bit. Can you see a pattern here? Anyway I end up doing a 2 hour live show with no preparation! I've got to admit, in an eerily scary way it was fun. So I'd done my first 2 hour show, but wasn't happy using the set up as it stood.

Then on Tuesday this week, I set up my disco computer into the system and thought that would work better. So I got hold of Dave and asked if I could cut into the stream to try it out. He agreed, and I went on air and because it was vastly easier, and more enjoyable, I ended up doing a 4 hour stint, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Afterwards, Dave asked me if I would give up my Monday night 10-12 slot and go to Sunday mornings 11-2 doing a Live show, and so tomorrow I start my first regular Live show! All in a 10 day period!

On the disco front, it's now coming the busy part of the year with the 'wedding season' now here.

I've been quite busy with the disco in the last few weeks and this will continue throughout July, August & Septemeber.

So that's about it for the minute, I update you when I get chance!

Well it's been a while since I last updated, and it seems that I've just been so busy. Lots of shows have been out since the Brill Building show, and the most pleasing thing is that I've just had to upgrade my Podomatic acount because I'm getting so many downloads, I passed my limit!

This happened a couple of days ago, and I can't believe I ever reached the limit. I never for one minute thought I'd ever reach that total. So now it's upgraded and I can add more shows to the site.

I had an email from a station in Tennessee yesterday, and they're interested in taking 2 of my shows. So that should be good.

I've been receiving a few more emails that make me humble. I still can't believe that people love what I'm doing.

Here's an example of part of some emails I received yesterday.
'Thanks for all the great music... am listening to smooth & chilled right now and loving it!!! ' - Shawn
'Listening to your Smooth & Chilled show right now. I'm diggin it - perfect tempo for work!' - Nadi

It makes what I'm doing so gratifying. It's also helping me do better discos I think. I was working in the club last night and awoman came up to me who was at a Wedding I did last Saturday, and she was very complimentary about the way I got the party going, and the funniest thing last night, was that a guy came up to me and said 'I'm straight, I'm married and I love you!' he then proceeded to tell me he loved what I was playing.

I'm still waiting to come to Earth with a bump!

The next few weeks are quite busy with both discos and shows, so I'll update when I can!

Here's what I'm listening to as I type!