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Loleatta Holloway

I won Twelve Inches of 12s

4^th August 2006

It’s not often I get to listen live to Annie Mac’s show - as with most of BBC Radio 1’s specialist music shows, I’m listening again at work through my left ear and hopefully making sense of what my colleagues are babbling about in my right - such is my social life! :P So it came as a pleasant surprise to both Annie and me when I got through on the phone lines to play Twelve Inches of 12s live on air on a rare occasion that I’m stuck at home.

For those of you not familiar with the feature - and I’m starting to sound like a radio presenter now - it’s where Annie plays a record on a turntable at the wrong speed; the pitch-shifter is some way plus or minus the zero point (the correct speed of the record). You have up to three guesses - telling Annie to move the pitch shifter up or down - to hit the zero point. Obviously you’re able to listen to the record while this is going on so you have some clue as to how fast or slow it’s playing.

So, I got on the phone as soon as it was announced they were taking calls; lines were busy, naturally. I redialled and redialled etc.; the next record came on and I thought, ‘bah, there’s no chance I’m getting on now.’ I was almost ready to hang up when a lovely voice answered (producer Rachel) and started asking me a few questions; presumably to vet me so I wasn’t some nutter. Then they call you back and you start to listen to the show through the phone until you’re brought on air, which is a bit weird because at first I thought Annie was already talking to me! And I always thought I’d be able to listen to the radio at the same time, but the radio itself was quite delayed, that and I was listening through Freeview.

Now, I rarely guess correctly, despite being a Can’t Stopper (and if you didn’t know the above, you’re probably a Cherry Popper!), but after Annie calmed my nerves a bit with the usual banter and I was ready to go! The tune that came on was one of my favourites at the moment, David Guetta vs. The Egg’s ‘Love Don’t Let Me Go (Walking Away)’ so I felt I was off to a good start. Everyone says it though, and it is true, it’s very difficult to play this competition on the phone but for me I guess it worked out the other way around given that I rarely get it right listening in hi-fi. As Annie put it, “You’ve only bloody woooon!” So there you have it, and if you want to hear how I got on I ripped a sneaky snippet from the Listen Again player (copyright BBC, ahem).

DJ ’blog

I won Twelve Inches of 12s

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