MUSIC | FIRST PERSON

Oasis, Blur, Nirvana and me: Steve Lamacq’s rock ’n’ roll diaries

As he steps back from his weekday BBC Radio 6 Music show, the DJ replays four decades of Transit vans, loud guitars and run-ins with music’s wildest stars

In the BBC Radio 1 studio in London with his Evening Session co-host, Jo Whiley, in 1994
In the BBC Radio 1 studio in London with his Evening Session co-host, Jo Whiley, in 1994
GETTY IMAGES
As told to
Danny Scott
The Sunday Times

It was 1987 and my third day working for the New Musical Express, a dream job. I was 22. I went into the office toilets and noticed Mark E Smith, lead singer of the Fall, one of my favourite bands, doing his business three urinals away. There I was, this kid from the sticks who just last week had been covering Sawbridgeworth Town’s home game for the Harlow Gazette, standing next to the man responsible for some of the UK’s most inventive and challenging music. I was having a piss with Mark E Smith!

It was the start of a journey that led me to thousands of gigs and interviews, meetings with some of my musical heroes, to pirate radio and then to BBC Radio.