Bar the odd bruised ego or musical difference, the slow march towards releasing Big Bertha Records' first single has been quite smooth. I've been lucky to find Pete Molinari, a charming, talented and, most importantly, poverty-stricken young blues-tinged troubadour from the wilds of Chatham, Kent. I've also been lucky to strike a deal with Liam Watson, owner and producer of Toe-Rag Studios in London, and Ian Ballard of the independent label Damaged Goods in order to make the cost of recording Pete affordable. But now, due to a common and not particularly shocking four-letter word, my problems have really started.
Hoping to get radio play for Pete's double-A-side single A Virtual Landslide/There She Still Remains, I've contacted Ewan Hall of Peer Music, who performs the all-important task of somehow convincing radio DJs to spin the discs of his clients. He thinks A Virtual Landslide, which has the folk-tinged swagger of Bob Dylan's mid-60s rock'n'roll songs, is good for radio - except for one thing.
"The second line is 'so deep in shit you're sinking'," recites Hall. "That's a big problem."
It hadn't even occured to me that "shit", referring as it does to a universal if regrettable product of the human body, would raise an eyelid. "But it's not that rude," I say to Hall. "It's acceptable these days, isn't it?"
"Not on radio."
Television and radio still occupy a post-war era moral bubble when it comes to language. In 2005, the arts radio station Resonance FM was in fear of losing its license after a guest presenter let slip the same word. Shit, it appears, is not something to take lightly.
"Can't we pretend he's singing 'ship'?" I suggest. "'So deep your ship is sinking'? It even makes sense."
"It'll never wash."
Could a potential radio smash really be curtailed by one mention of such a small word? Hard to believe as it may be, this appears to be the case. We'll just have to hope the Nashville-country soul of There She Still Remains - a beautiful song, entirely free of shit - is just what radio DJs are looking for right now.
Read Will Hodgkinson's previous Big Bertha briefing.
