DJ Shaun Keaveny lines up a new career after BBC 6Music

Shaun KeavenyShaun Keaveny
Shaun Keaveny

In analogue times, leaving a prime time radio slot might have seen a DJ move from, say, Fab FM, to the graveyard shift on Radio Quiet.

For Shaun Keaveny, however, departing BBC 6Music’s afternoon show opened up other possibilities, with the presenter moving into a brave new online world after 20 years in conventional broadcasting.

In fact, the presenter can already be heard on two podcasts with a third in the offing. He is, modestly, “merely the narrator” for Absolute Radio’s ‘Rockanory’, a comedy series imagining bizarre and presumably fictional scenarios from the music world.

However, rather more Keaveny’s baby is ‘The Lineup’, where famous names pick five acts, living or dead, to perform at their fantasy festival.

“But that’s the jump-off point,” he explains, “everything else that comes from that is what’s interesting – the crew, where in the world, what it’d be called, but also we dig quite deep for the things you love for musical reasons... so there’s a tiny bit of therapy involved as well.”

Following initial shows with US popsters Imagine Dragons and singer Joy Crookes, the most recent episode with departing Dr Who Jodie Whittaker (right) goes well beyond mere musical chat. “Jodie would be the first to say she was monologuing at me – I didn’t want to stop her, she’s great – I loved being an audience really.”

And in Keaveny’s own (presumably) mud-free fantasy field? “That’s hard” he ponders, before settling on “Jimi Hendrix, (US soul/funk act) Tower of Power, Radiohead, Aretha Franklin – I’d love to see her live – and someone more modern and preferably alive… probably my own terrible band Mosque, a deeply influential post-punk band of the late 80s – a bit like the Velvet Underground, everyone says they were at the first few gigs.”

Less tongue-in-cheek, the Manic Street Preachers and Paul Weller are also on the wish list, but less musically-oriented names are being lined up foranother new podcast later this year – ‘Shaun Keaveny’s Creative Cul-de-Sac’.

“Basically it’s me going through old notebooks and sh*t ideas and then doing the same with the guest, and then a bit of a listener slot where they send in their failed or realised ideas as well.”

“It’s a nice thing to do,” he adds, “because at the moment I’m starved of places my ridiculous ideas can go. If I’ve not got a daily radio show, I can’t spew it all on the kids and my wife so it’s a good vent for my weirder ideas.”

And among those who have already entered Keavney’s dead-end and recorded their parts are Vic Reeves, John Lloyd and Samira Ahmed.

One notable feature on Keaveny’s 6Music shows was the annual ‘Two Brians’ special, so are Messrs Eno and Cox likely to open their notebooks?

“Yes, I’m hoping to corral them into both doing a bit of a Cul- de-Sac special. I probably should mention it to them...”

Listen to The Line Up at thelineup.lnk.to/ShaunKeaveny.

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