BBC DJ Tom Ravenscroft is currently presenting ‘On Track with Seat’ on London TV, which invites bands such as the Manic Street Preachers and the Duke Spirit to cut a live session directly to the up-and-coming ‘vinyl record’ format.
He had fiery baptism into live music.
One of the earliest concerts I can remember was one of the first ever Nirvana gigs in London, the famous one at the 100 Club. I was very, very young indeed. I must have been a little kid –I spent the whole evening on my dad’s shoulders. It wasn’t that busy, but I remember loads of guys, and no one had tops on. And it was very noisy. I can remember it being kind of quite violent, and coming back home and thinking: ‘What the heck was that?’
He has an old-school boudoir.
‘Hilariously, a friend of mine came into my room at my mum’s house the other day and was like “Wow, your room is still like a child’s room.” I still have Fall posters up. I used to buy, posters from this American website when I was a teenager. They had these Curve posters that were billboard-size, and I had two; they’d cover the whole wall of you bedroom. So I had two walls in my bedroom that were just Curve posters.’
He was a school dinner lady.
‘I was a dinner lady for about four years. It was a very humbling experience. I used to go to the slightly crappy, slightly frightening state school in the local town, and then when it finished at 3.30pm I would cycle to the local private school to serve them dinner. I think their food was shittier, mainly because I was making it. I did that for years; it was a humbling/ humiliating experience, serving food to kids your age and slightly younger. But I managed to buy a motorbike out of it.’
He’s a public service information film waiting to happen.
‘I recently decided it would be a good idea to chuck an empty crate of fireworks on to a bonfire that was surrounded by children, not realising that there were clearly loads that hadn’t gone off. Lots of my friends who’ve got babies weren’t that impressed. There was a moment where there were adults diving military-style and pinning kids to the ground, thinking: I’ll sacrifice my own eyes.’
He hates Jack Russells.
‘I got attacked by a pack of Jack Russells once –I think they only come in packs. It was at the private school up the road. I snuck into their adventure playground, which, bizarrely, seemed to be patrolled by a pack of Jack Russells, and one of them found me. I’ve hated them ever since. If you’re gonna buy a dog, don’t buy a dog the size of a cat.’
He has a spooky psychic sister.
‘Whenever my sister dreams that somebody’s going to die, they do, which is quite troubling for her. So I’m quite glad I don’t. I rarely see anything coming, quite frankly.’
He has a great deal of difficulty getting home.
‘Me and my friend got a cab from Newington Green to Belsize Park; we fell asleep and ended up at Stansted. We found out afterwards that the guy driving us had been consuming a lot of salvia whilst he was driving and was out of his mind. He was singing a lot. He then pulled over a police car to ask for directions. We were in the car for four hours for a 15-minute journey. . Most of the taxis that I get from the BBC on a Friday night are often quite similar to that. I had an absolute lunatic last week, in fact –the guy had no idea of where he was going, so they sent out a taxi to pick me up from my taxi.’
