BBC Asian Network Announces Summe Of Asian Music

[Tony]

BBC Asian Network Announces Biggest and Best Summer of British-Asian Music

After the news that BBC Asian Network won its first Sony Gold award for it’s flag ship music show, ‘Friction’ with Bobby Friction, we’re proud to announce our biggest and best summer schedule of Live Music Events 2007.

The summer promises some very special highlights, including Asian Network taking over the Roots Stage Friday night at Glastonbury with Asian Dub Foundation headlining, playing live and loud from London Mela and building on last year’s strong offering at Womad.

We are taking Asian Network Music to more platforms and more stages in 2007 than ever before, building on our renewed focus on new British Asian music and will be at some of the biggest music festivals of the year, as well as supporting up and coming artists throughout the year.


The warm up to the summer begins bank holiday weekend 26/27th May at Paradise Gardens, in Victoria Park, London. Here the BBC Asian Network Big Top presents live performances from some of the biggest and freshest Desi – music talent in the UK:



Full line up includes:



Riz MC
Paris Amore
Sona Family
Nasha Collective
Sunit & Raxstar
Sukh Knight
DJ Vix
East London based - Shiva Sound System Live Set
Nathan Flutebox Lee
and Asian Network/ Radio 1 DJ Bobby Friction.


Paradise Gardens at Victoria Park also boasts open street theatre, the best in urban dance performance, circus performances, specialist food from around the world, craft markets and spectacular fireworks. You can see the full, 2 day line up and as well the full summer schedule of where Asian Network will be out and about by logging on to bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork/events



Mark Strippel, Head of Music said: "Asian Network is really reaching out to lovers of the best in Brit – Asian music this year like never before. We’re making this our biggest summer of events because listeners look to us to bring them the freshest talent around, and this year we are pleased to be adding Glastonbury, Wychwood, Regent Street Festival, Paradise Gardens and Bestival to our summer events.”



Also this week Radio 1 Executive Producer Rhys Hughes joined BBC Asian Network on a six month attachment. Hughes, who will be responsible for the new afternoon music strand amongst other projects has a brief to exploit content on new media platforms and brings a big background of success from 12 years at Radio 1 and specialist music genres. He recruited Bobby Friction and Nihal to Radio 1 - prompting huge exposure to new Asian Music and Desi beats and also exec produced the Evening Session, Lamacq Live, Westwood, and latterly Chris Moyles and Scott Mills.



Asian Network and Five Live Controller Bob Shennan said of the appointment “Rhys’s role shows how seriously we take getting our product onto New platforms and finding innovative ways of engaging audiences where we know they are listening to our content. It’s especially true of a youth brand on a digital station like Asian Network where listeners are used to listening on new platforms. Rhys's musical experience will be invaluable".





Editors Notes:



Asian Network Broadcast Schedule from Paradise Gardens Festival:



Bank Holiday Monday Special 28th May 22.00am - 01.00am



Exclusive recordings from Riz MC, Sunit & Raxstar and Sukh Knight to be played on ‘Friction’



Saturday 2nd June 00.00am - 02.00am

Exclusive recordings from Nasha Collective, Shiva Sound System to be played on ‘Electro East’



Sunday 3rd June 02.00am - 05.00am



Exclusive recordings from Nathan Flutebox Lee to be played on ‘Pathaan's Musical Rickshaw’





Full Summer Schedule of Live Events 2007:



Paradise Gardens - East London

May 26/27

paradisegardens.org.uk



City Showcase - London

June 6

barflyclub.com/theflylondon/whatson/listings/full.aspx



Wychwood Festival - Cheltenham

June 1-3

wychwoodfestival.com



Glastonbury - Shepton Mallet

June - 22 -24

bbc.co.uk/Glastonbury



Womad - Wiltshire

July - 27-29

womad.org



London Mela - West London

August 12



Newham Under the Stars - East London

September 1



Bestival - Isle of Wight

September 7-9

bestival.net

[Tony]

[56]

well by the looks of it all my friends will be coming as well as my white friends, thanks for the info tony

[Tony]

Asian network's summer of live and loud music:


This year we'll be everywhere from Glastonbury to Bestival and London Mela and the great thing about the line up for Asian Network this summer is that we're going to be at the more established festivals as well as ones that are a real surprise.

At the likes of Glastonbury and Bestival you know what kind of stuff to expect - but with the newer festivals like Paradise garden's where I played last weekend you don't quite know what to expect.

At Paradise Gardens in the East of London we got a real cross section: the trendies, with their finger on the pulse, who came to our tent for the latest breaking British Asian music, the crusties who came because it was free and the families because that's their local park.

It was a challenge trying to appeal to them all but if you go onto the Asian Network website and look at our gallery you can see all of these dis - connected groups having a fantastic time together -it really was something special.

Written by Nerm (BBC Asian Network)