Last Wednesday, our Minds fan and local radio legend, Ronnie McGhie, had non other than Billy Sloan on his show for Pulse 98.4. It was two hours of pure live music-loving blethering as only two chatty Glaswegian men could. I dare say both men are “professional gasbags”. Lol. What was so evident is how much esteem both men hold each other in and their absolute love for what they do with both of them so in love with music and radio presenting and being (in the old vernacular) DJs.
Of course, Billy has also been a music journalist through his career, starting out as the mysterious Disco Kid in the late 1970s.
You can hear the whole interview at the end of this post – but in the meantime I’d like to share this little snippet from the show (below). A preamble to it: A few hours before the show, Ronnie messaged me and asked me if I would like to ask Billy a question that he’d hope to get the opportunity to pose to him during the show. I asked for a few minutes to think about it and then got back to Ronnie with a few options. The first of which was the one he asked Billy. The others he decided not to go with, thankfully, as I started to be a little bit of an idiot towards the end. Lol. After having written the first question, I continued with: “Failing that…His favourite Simple Minds gig he’s ever gone to. Lol. Alternatively, can he give me Jim’s phone number? :))”
Needless to say, I doonae have any phone number. Damn! Lol
I really do hope you give the whole show a listen. It was so great and it made me nostalgic for my own wee appearance on Ronnie’s program back in September of 2021 when Ronnie invited me on to wax lyrical about Sons And Fascination/Sister Feelings Call for their 40th Anniversaries (you can find a link for that in my tab at the top of the site for the Sons/Sister celebration). We had obviously planned to do the very same thing for the 40th of New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) but a personal issue for Ronnie around the time of when we planned to do the show meant it was initially delayed and then sidelined.
But…there are future anniversaries and well…I’d love to do it again. We’ll see.
In the meantime, copies of Billy’s book, ‘One Love, One Life’ are available now through all good book sellers.
The whole show below: Apologies for the editing out of the music played during the show but I am just being mindful of any copyright infringement. I hope this does not detract from the enjoyment of the show.
