About

DaveJamesOnAir

Since 2012 I´ve been living on the Costa Del Sol, Spain, where I manage a radio station and DJ in various local bars and clubs.  You can hear me weekday afternoons on 93.6FM, the station also streams online here.  I also run an events company, providing sound, light, and entertainment for weddings and parties.

I now live close to El Coto on the edge of Fuengirola with my two cats and a crazy dog.

I grew up in Sheffield in the 1980s, attended schools in Ripon and Worksop, and university in Birmingham.

Radio

I got my first taste for radio at school, when I volunteered at a hospital radio station in Sheffield and then in Worksop.  After a few months at university in Birmingham, I decided to volunteer at a hospital station there.

Through a bizarre chain of events, lucky co-incidences, and meeting some lovely helpful people I found myself at a “proper” radio station.  Choice 102.2.  Here I pressed some buttons for an hour in the afternoon and was generally in awe of all the people who were actual real life radio stars.  Then my phone rang, it was the boss, someone was off sick and I was being thrown onto an overnight show.

I will never forget my first show on an FM station.  It was the middle of the night in Birmingham, traffic was still zipping up and down Broad street, people were pouring out of the city centre bars and clubs, and I was ready to take over the world.  It was the best show ever.  No one had or ever would do a show that good.  The sound of my own voice coming back at me through the headphones after being processed by the power of an Optimod was like nothing I´d heard before.  Yes, I´d arrived, I was already a broadcasting god.

Until the next day.  The boss called me into his office, told me I was rubbish.  Really rubbish.  But, if I was prepared to work at it, he would help me to be less rubbish. The guy who was off sick wasn´t coming back, and I was cheap.  This is where my 20 year journey to be less rubbish began.    That´s the thing with radio.  You´re never “there”.  Because there will always be something else to learn, always someone else who can teach you something, always somebody doing something new that you can draw inspiration from.  This is why it is the most demanding and rewarding job I could have dreamed of.

The Stations

I´ve been fortunate enough to have a steady stream of work in radio throughout my adult life.  During my career, I´ve worked with some incredible broadcasters and hosted shows on all sorts of different stations.  These include:

• Atlantic 252 –  a former long wave hit music station covering the UK and Ireland
• Galaxy 102.2 – Birmingham dance & RnB station
• 96.3 Radio Aire – Leeds
• Town 102 – local radio in Ipswich

Production

The bits between the songs, I love making those.  I made my first “sweeper” in Birmingham at Choice using 3 cart players, 2 mini disc recorders, a DAT with a voice over on it, and some sound effects CDs.

Since then I´ve always been doing production around my on air work.  For several years I was the “Group Head Of Imaging” for the CN Group (this is a very grand way of saying chief jingle maker).  My work shaped the sounds of stations like Citybeat in Belfast, Kix in Coventry, and the Touch stations in the midlands.

I still enjoy producing now when I have the time.  Playing with new processing and software, fiddling with new toys to make things sound better.  It´s geeky, but I don´t wear an anorak whilst I´m doing it.  Probably because it´s too hot in Spain.

Station Manager

What an opportunity!  I was asked to manage 93.6 Global Radio in Spain and relaunch the station with an AC format.  That was a few years ago.  Since then, I´m proud of the sound of our station.  I have a fabulous team of presenters working with me, a great team of sales people, and bosses who let me get on with it and trust me not to devalue their investment!  The station now has the best audience figures in it´s long history, and is the number one rated English speaking station on the Costa Del Sol.