Alan Raw: A Man of Many Talents (3/4) By Michelle Dee

(1/4), (2/4), (3/4), (4/4)

Ironically Jim Coulston, on a Sunday night has been playing local bands for sometime now. When I asked Alan to comment on this he said he was pleased that a budgeted radio station such as Viking fm is willing to take a few risks and he hopes they continue to do so.

I also asked Alan, rather naively, who he would like to see make an impact in 2005. He explained his reluctance to answer was because of the way he is perceived by others. He has a radio show, he helps bands, and he then gets accused of favouring certain bands over others. He is actually in a rather difficult position and realises whatever he says could be interpreted negatively by some.

Never a man to shirk the difficult question, he finally said, that he would love to see Miss. Machete and tonight's session band Stoney Lacuna receive some well earned accolades. I heard Stoney, and I'd give them a record deal...if I had a record company and perhaps money to splash out on a private tour jet, maybe a holiday island?

Alan has trained in many different areas including counselling and clearly wants to go on learning and building up his skill base; he feels it keeps him alert and open to new ideas. Through Tall Orders he can help make other peoples' talents available to all and artists can offer their particular skills to teach. If they are unable to teach Alan can act as a go between for them, and the people who want the skills and use his facilitation techniques to make this transference of knowledge a reality.

These skills are very particular to him and in attempting to overcome some of the spatial awareness problems due to his dyslexia he is using a new school of thought called N.L.P. (Neuro-linguistic-programming). He is currently working with an occupational psychologist and on a course to improve his teaching skills by highlighting his own strengths and weaknesses.

By looking to his own resources he finds things in himself that outweigh the problems that Dyslexia will certainly present. With this new insight he hopes to be able to do his own job even better and develop his role of facilitator further. Everyone is a network tool as someone once said to me there is only one letter difference between networking and not working. Think about that one for a while I did and it is absolutely true on many levels.

With all these projects on the go I began to wonder whether Alan has any time to relax? Surprisingly he does - when he is not spending time listening to shed loads of demos from bands which he really enjoys doing; You can't get more relaxing than that, listening to loads of music, Alan enjoys spending time with his wife Sara and their six month old boy Sonny Raw. So named from one of the first records Alan bought by Stevie Wonder. Any time spent with him is just wonderful. Sara, Alan's wife, through great understanding and I am sure, a lot of patience, ensures that the world of media and the equally demanding world of family-life can thrive peaceably beside each other.

She stopped listening to his radio show because she would worry for him when things weren't going well. And now with the new arrival the last thing she wants to hear is Release the bats, a lively number, when she's trying to put him to bed.

It was an obvious question but I asked Alan whether Dad would be passing his drumsticks on to Sonny. He replied beaming that he was already showing an interest in the drums, with Sonny holding on to his thumbs, and tapping out a para-diddle or two. He tells me now and again they get some neat syncopation thing going on. As all good parents should, Alan insured me that Sonny didn't have to follow a musical path when he grew up and would be free to make his own choices.

When Alan was young he used to get all the records from old jukeboxes also broadcasters at radio stations would give him tunes that were no longer played. He was using his charming way with people and industry contacts even at that young age to acquire music. Alan's brother would often sell records to his younger sibling and Alan recalls getting The Rezillos in this way and getting another by The Young Marble Giants from some boy at school who thought they weren't any good, Alan thought otherwise and he still has it in his vast and varied collection.

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