BBC, Music & Photography

Former Journalist, DJ, Radio & TV Presenter, Producer, Engineer & Stage Photographer for 21 years, Whilst performing Musically.

BBC Presenter Alan Raw and the Introducing Team at Leeds Fest, taken by Ruth Lodge

I helped a lot of artists through my work at the BBC hosting over 2000 live sessions. I started the unsigned music stage at Leeds Festival and presented it for 17 years, which evolved into the BBC Raw Talent Stage, and then the BBC Introducing Stage at Leeds and Reading. I was lucky enough to get several awards, and co-founded BBC Introducing and BBC Eco-Time. I also presented for BBC Children In Need, Radio 1’s Big Weekend and many festival stages. Plus some TV production hosting, and location management with BBC2, MTV and more.

Alan Raw Interviewed at Reading & Leeds Festival 2012

As a BBC Music DJ, on the radio 2 nights a week, I played new unsigned under-the-radar music. Giving first plays and engineering early sessions for Yungblud, Pulled Apart By Horses, Elbow and many more. I did my BBC work along side my day job as CEO of the Creative & Cultural Organisation, which I had founded as a youth & community worker in 1993. Turning disused shops into upcycled studios, community festival stages, galleries, and rehearsal spaces.

I had already had a successful music career. So I started the show from that network. I was still, playing tours, doing equipment shoots for magazines as a sponsored drummer, and giging at major festivals like Glastonbury at the time. I was founder and Chair of the World Drumming Network, but also an electronic sound artist, session musician, multi-instrumentalist, promoter, and DJ, playing Rock, Indie, Electronica, and World Dance Music. I had a weekly Lounge residency at the historic Welly Club, playing anything new that I wanted to champion. So finding new music for the shows was easy.

I was booking other DJ’s for festivals, and worked with Sash, Slipmat, DJ Dakeyne and many others. So when the BBC approached me, I soon adapted to DJing on the Radio, with my BBC Raw Talent shows in 2002 which became the BBC Introducing shows, in Humberside, Leeds, Sheffield & York and eventually all over the UK. I continued DJing at events like Leeds Festival and at new music clubs like The 360 Club Leeds, where I co-promoted a night called 360RAW with the legend that is Richard Watson and occasionally my old friend Tom Robinson from BBC 6 Music. On 25th July 2018, I was the first DJ to ever play the 3000 capacity Bonus Arena (now the Connexin Live Arena), thanks again to BBC Introducing for that.

I had photography and film making skills from my arts work that transferred well to the stage, and I started shooting music videos, and on stage photos with bands for Lomography. My festival directing and photography combined, and it wasn’t long before I was shooting the main stages at major festivals and was an official photographer for the BBC. Teaching the skills of still and moving image work for BBC Learn Xpress.

I continued as a festival director while on the radio, and trained the Green Team for Beverley Folk Festival, with support from ASP the Association of Sustainability Practitioners. It went so well that the Arts Council funded other festival organisers to come to the festival to learn sustainability in my workshops. 14 years later I am now a director of ASP.

In early 2022 I started BBC ECO-TIME to highlight all of the amazingly positive things that people were doing to turn their climate anxiety into action, with community gardens, forest schools, repair cafes, tree planting and more. I funded, researched, produced and presented the show as a solo project, that led me to some incredible people, places and projects.

This show evolved into Humber Eco Fest and Conference, which I ran and personally funded, with 60,000 people reached. There was 116 sustainability events including several online events hosted by ASP. It all took place around the Humber in three local authorities, as a celebration of community engagement and up-skilling opportunities for everyone involved. It was staffed by my volunteer team at Creative & Cultural Organisation and HIP Gallery, with volunteers from Hull and East Riding Friends of the Earth.

In November 2023 I took a break from gigging of all types to focus on my permaculture work. I then retired from the BBC to focus on this part of my life. I also co-founded a space sector sustainability company and focused more time on my writing.