After a stint at Manchester's Piccadilly Radio in the late 70's Mark Radcliffe moved to Radio 1 where he produced the sessions for the John Peel Show. As legend tells it, it was at one of these sessions that Mark Radcliffe and Marc Riley (aka Lard) first met. As producer of these sessions Mark had to listen to many hopeless bands that only John Peel seemed to like. On 26th June 1984 a band came in that was so crap that Mark's immediate reaction was "What a load of old tossers." But this was no ordinary band, this was "Marc Riley with the Creepers," headed obviously by Levenshulme's one and only wonder child Marc Riley, better known as Lard.
Mark Radcliffe did not take much notice of The Creepers, dismissing them as crap, until in 1990 he went on to present Radio 5’s youth programme “Hit The Northâ€. Lard had now become a record plugger for bands such as The Pixies, and the Cocteau Twins and spent many hours trying to get Radcliffe to play crap records.
Radcliffe eventually took him on as his sidekick in the show and so the most important partnership since John Lennon and Paul McCartney was formed. (Although it’s been said that some people may disagree.)
"Hit The North" was fairly similar to the show that we all know and love. It was only on once a week but Radcliffe`s unique blend of great music, humour, quality items and of course Lard, that quickly built up a cult following. Four of the sessions from "Hit the North" were released on the "Seconds Out" Compilation.
Radcliffe started on Radio 1 with the weekly show "Out On Blue Six" which mixed psychedelic sounds with punk for which he won a Silver Sony award for "Radio Broadcaster Of The Year".
When Nicky Cambell vacated the 10-12pm slot on Radio 1, Mark & Lard jumped into it, and from 28th October 1993 Radio 1 had a show which played great records, made people laugh and kept us informed about the latest goings on in the worlds of Art, Films & Music. This was "The Graveyard Shift".
Although Chris Evans is known to some as the Man who saved Radio 1, he certainly owes a lot to Radcliffe. In the late 70`s when Radcliffe worked for Manchester’s Piccadilly Radio, Chris was also working there as a junior. Despite being very enthusiastic the Ginger one managed to delete the tape containing an exclusive interview with Bob Geldof and he would have been sacked if Radcliffe hadn’t persuaded his boss to give Chris another chance.
The pair’s success on the late shift of Radio 1 soon had Mark and Lard propelled to the 2-4pm early afternoon time slot where the pair became an instant hit with their target audience.
Mark and Lard's Afternoon Show again proved a massive success, winning it's second Gold Sony award for Best Daytime Radio Show in 1999.
The Afternoon show continued to 2004 when Mark and Lard left Radio 1 to continue on separate paths. Mark moved to Radio 2 and Lard moved to digital radio. They are still good friends and we wish them all the best.
