BBC Introducing was founded in 2007 as a way for new, independent & grassroots artists to bypass the record industry and get their music heard by BBC producers and DJs – without having to spend a fortune on pluggers, publicists or other intermediaries.

Many hundreds of tunes a month get uploaded to Fresh On The Net and the BBC Introducing website and, whenever I hear something I particularly like, this is the show I play it on: our weekly mixtape featuring 60 minutes of the finest music you’ve never heard of: broadcast on BBC Radio 6 Music from 2-3am every Sunday night/Monday morning.

Each programme is also downloadable in podcast form at the BBC 6 Music downloads page for the following 30 days. All tracks are sourced from the BBC Introducing Uploader – some recommended to me by BBC colleagues while the rest are chosen from submissions to our Fresh On The Net inbox. Click here for more info.

These are the listings for the episode broadcast in the small hours of Monday 09 Jan at 2.00am. From Monday 16 January 2017 – a week later than originally planned – our tracklists and timing for the Introducing Mixtape will be migrating to bbc.co.uk/blogs/introducing.

K.O.G & THE ZONGO BRIGADE – Rain [starts 00:17]
https://www.facebook.com/zongobrigade

JAMES EDGE AND THE MINDSTEP – Widdershins [starts 05:50]
http://www.jamesedgeandthemindstep.com

ECKOES – Blue Deep [starts 08:34]
http://www.facebook.com/iameckoes

GRAHAM GRAHAM BECK – Action Man With A Giraffe’s Head [starts 12:41]
http://www.graham-graham-beck.co.uk

THE BIRDMAN RALLIES – A Hammer For Your Fist [starts 16:47]
http://www.thebirdmanrallies.com/home

TYNESIDE RAIN – The Mark Of Cain [starts 20:30]
https://www.facebook.com/TynesideRain

BRASS BULL – Massive Aggressive [starts 23:38]
http://www.brassbull.co.uk

ALLMEADOW – Walk in the Park [starts 26:52]
http://allmeadow.com

INVADERBAND – Not Alan Rickman [starts 31:00]
http://invaderband.com

GIZMO VARILLAS – Shadows Of The Dark [starts 32:43]
http://www.gizmovarillas.com

HEZEN – Oil Fire [starts 36:22]
https://www.facebook.com/sarahezen

WREKIT88 – Yamato Superstar [starts 40:00]
https://soundcloud.com/wrekit88

VIXANS – I Don’t Care [starts 46:18]
https://www.facebook.com/Vixanstheband

JIMBODENI – Shine A Light [starts 49:41]
https://www.facebook.com/Jimbodeni

GLEN BODEN – Surviving [starts 54:02]
http://www.facebook.com/GlenBoden

ARTISTS…
After being featured by BBC Introudcing or Fresh On The Net you may receive an email out of the blue from a PR company with a hugely impressive client list saying how much they like your music. Please be aware that this does not make you unique or special: many of your fellow artists will receive a similar email that week, and that the companies in question are simply trying to sell you their paid services.

However spending hundreds of pounds on engaging a professional radio promotion team is probably not be the best use of your money at this point. There are hundreds of PR companies in the UK, nearly all of them have impressive client lists, and the most successful ones are very expensive indeed: you get what you pay for.

In our experience emerging artists who do their own promotion often achieve the same results as a plugger – or indeed better – at a fraction of the cost. For advice on how to do this see our free resources on Sending CDs to Radio and How To Promote Your Music.

If you do decide to pay many hundreds of pounds to a PR company to try and get your music played elsewhere on national radio, don’t take their own word for how good they are. We strongly recommend getting an independent recommendation from the management or record company of at least one artist on their client list.

You can usually find contact details via Google. Alternatively check out which indie labels are regularly getting their artists onto national radio – and phone them to ask which PR company they would recommend.

Tom Robinson