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Yorkshire Evening Post |
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After the music is over and the technicians are clearing away, the Baron is still standing on stage, signing autographs for clamouring girls. The Baron is a pop star, but he doesn’t sing or play anything - except records. For the young man with the piled thatch of black hair and the waisted leather jacket is a BBC disc jockey. Dodgy. He was appearing at a midday Radio One Club session in Leeds at the Locarno Ballroom in the Merrion Centre along with Emperor Roscoe, a fellow DJ, a Manchester pop group called Grisby Dyke; John and Ann Ryder; Angel Pavement from York, and Leed’s own Jan Dukes de Grey. Admission was free and the place was packed. Behind the pop moustache, The Baron’s round dark eyes dart nervously about. He giggles anxiously as he signs commemorative cardboard discs for the kids. When I ask him how old he is he says it’s a dodgy question. “I’ve been in the game since I was 16,” he says. “I used to be on Radio Luxembourg. Yes. I was in the Grand Duchy for about nine months. I hated that. I did 18 programmes a week, on the air every night.” But The Baron is still busy. His base is Manchester, “but I make my living through appearing all over the place. I’m never asleep before four in the morning.” He has his own outfit at home in his Manchester flat - tape recorders and other equipment - to use for “jingles.” Programmes like disc jockey Kenny Everett’s he describes as “highly technical.” He thinks today’s radio DJ’s are held in the reverence they are because of the growing popularity of ballroom and discotheque disc jockeys who emphasise the difference. “When a radio DJ comes along, there is a terrific contrast. To the kids we are from a completely different world. People like John Peel say DJ’s are unimportant. Well if they say it enough people might start believing it. But there are some very good DJ’s on Radio at the moment.” The Baron admits his world is an insecure one. “You must always remember that what you have got at the time can slip away from you just like that. The kids who want autographs are only important for the moment. You must get things in proportion. But I don’t worry about the future. If I did I wouldn’t be in the business. it’s up and down. But it’s great fun.” Crowd. As we go outside to get some more pictures The Baron is surrounded by a crowd of girls. After another round of autographs he has to kiss them all before they will go away. His girlfriend stands and waits. And as they follow The Baron through the Merrion Centre one girl says to her friend: “Eeeee! If my mum were in town and saw me now . . .” |