Spike Hammond

Spike is Spike. He’s a legend and probably one of the funniest presenters we had on the one.

Spike has an amazingly deep, resonant voice and has a great side hustle in voice overs. He’s a talented sound editor and producer too and made some brilliant jingles and pre-recorded inserts for his show and for sharing in the Jingle Exchange.

I think the late Bill Mitchell was Spike's audio hero. Spike's jingles would often feature clips of the legendary voiceover. I've never worked out how he sourced jingles that even included his own name.

Spike was the master of the webcam and probably one of the first presenters who regularly did their show in full gaze of listeners. He used a bunch of software to stream his show live on various video platforms, switching between various cameras and screens with the sound coming via 1Radio. It was his novel use of the webcam that inspired me to make it a feature of the shoutbox. But no one used the webcam quite like Spike.

Spike was funny, witty and unpredictable. Some said he was at his entertaining best when he was pissed. He’d sometimes forget to open the mic, not notice his music player had gotten into a loop or fail to realise that he was gradually slipping into a drunken stupor. But never let it be said that Spike wasn’t resourceful, taking the trouble to set up a cracking playlist that continued knocking out great tunes long after he had fallen asleep on the space bar.

His studio was something to behold. Monitors, neon lights and cameras. High security. Lazers. Glitter balls. Handcuffs. Socks. 6 inch concrete walls and sonically sterile. It was like a Panic Room for DJs.

Here are a few samples of Spike's production prowess.

boogie
halloween
summer 2010
rip the knob off
rough and tough
sunday spike
sunday sessions tease
kenny everett promo
xrated
bank holiday
spike award speech and comedy clip

And lastly, enjoy this show from Spike and Rhodders from the last week of 1Radio. 


Posted by Tim on Mon 21 Nov at 20:25 and viewed 2,729 times.

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