Mark Radcliffe & Lard Chronology

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29th June 1958 Mark Radcliffe Born in Bolton
10th July 1961 Marc Riley Born in Manchester
1978 Lard leaves St. Gregory`s Grammar School and joins The Fall.
1978 Lard plays his first John Peel session as the bassist in The Fall
1979 Mark Joins Manchester`s Piccadilly Radio as an assistant producer.
December 1982 Lard quits The Fall after a fight on a disco dance floor in Australia.
1983 Mark joins Radio 1 as a producer for Saturday Live and John Peel.
1983 Lard sets up In-Tape records signing acts such as The Janitors and Frank Sidebottom.
July 1983 The Rock 'n' Roll sensation Marc Riley with the Creepers are formed. They get ready to take the world by storm.
26th June 1984 Mark and Lard meet for the first time. Lard is recording a Creepers session for John Peel and Mark is Producing it.
1985 Mark becomes Head of music at Manchester`s Piccadilly Radio.
1986 Lard joined Oink! comic drawing cartoons such as Harry The Head and When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth.
1987 Mark leaves his job at Piccadilly Radio and joins BBC Manchester as a Producer for the Manchester region.
13th March 1988 Mark's daughter Holly Radcliffe is born.
November 1988 Oink! is scrapped. It was fairly successful but the sales figures were fluctuating too much. Sometimes it was in the adult comic section with comics such as Viz and at other times it was placed with the Beano and The Dandy causing the figures to vary too much.
1989 The Creepers split and Lard becomes a PR man for 4AD and Factory Records plugging bands such as The Happy Mondays and The Cocteau Twins.
28th August 1990 Mark Joined Radio 5 and started his weekly show 'Hit The North'.
April 1991 Out On Blue Six starts on Radio 1
1991 Lard joins Mark as his sidekick on Hit The North
March - April 1992 The Hit The North Album 'Seconds Out' is released.
April 1992 Out On Blue Six wins a Sony Award for Best Specialist Music Programme.
July 1992 Oasis play their first ever live session on Hit The North
December 1992 Lard's daughter Katie is born.
29th December 1992 Cult Radio begins on Radio 5 with Lard presenting and Mark being the sidekick.
25th October 1993 Mark and Lard start the Graveyard Shift on Radio 1
July 1996 While Chris Evans takes a holiday Mark and Lard fill in for him and get a mixed response.
17th November 1996 Lard presents a one hour documentary on punk
26th January 1997 Lard presents a one hour documentary on Kula Shaker
28th January 1997 Mark and Lard present the NME`s Brat Awards.
6th February 1997 Mark and Lard present their very last graveyard shift show.
13th February 1997 The very last Graveyard Shift Slot Programme finishes. Stuart Maconie has been doing the show for the last week.
17th February 1997 Mark and Lard begin on Radio 1`s Breakfast show
18th March 1997 Lard pushes back the boundaries of daytime radio when during the hand over to Simon Mayo he accidentally said "My C***" live on air.
4th April 1997 Mark and Lard present Top Of The Pops.
19th April 1997 Mark marries his girlfriend Bella Sharpe who is a Granada TV assistant at St Mary & All Saints Church in their home village of Great Budworth in Cheshire.
23rd May 1997 Mark & Lard present Top Of The Pops again.
26th May 1997 They present BBC2's Music Live 97 programme. Lard takes the piss out of all the bands and Mark pretends to get mad at him. Top stuff.
27th June 1997 The Shirehorses play Glastonbury. Lard was singing and playing lead guitar, Mark was on the drums, Rhys the producer did bass and Patrick was there to.
8th August 1997 Patrick left the show to go and work on a ship in a move that surprised many people.
22nd September 1997 The Shirehorses "We Came, We Saw, We Cantered" tour starts in Newcastle.
10th October 1997 The Last Mark & Lard Breakfast Show.
13th October 1997 Mark & Lard start on the Early Afternoon 2-4pm slot.
Ist November 1997 The Shirehorses appeared on Live & Kicking.
3rd November 1997 The The Shirehorses album "The Worst Album In the World Ever" came out and reached number 22 in the Album Chart.
4th December 1997 The Shirehorses play at the Mancheste Nynex Arena supporting Blur.
6th December 1997 The Shirehorses play at the Birmingham NEC supporting Blur.
7th December 1997 The Shirehorses play at the Sheffield Arena supporting Blur.
25th December 1997 Mary Anne Hobbs interviewed the duo, about their musical career. This involved Marc and Mark slagging off other bands who had 'stolen' their songs before they were performed, or, in some cases, written.
20th January 1998 Mark makes a guest appearance on the Childrens ITV hospital drama 'The Ward' as himself.
27th January 1998 Mark and Lard win the Brat Award for the 'Best Radio Show' as voted for by readers of the NME. To save them from battering each other to see who could keep the award they were given one each.
6th April 1998 Lard had to do the show by himself because Radcliffe got stuck in India and was unable to get back to the studio in time. Despite sounding a little nervous Lard managed to get through the show alright.
16th April 1998 The show was broadcast from the Birmingham NEC where a Match Of The Day event was going on. Jason Makateer came in to take penalties against Lard. Jason could only score three out of five; Lard saved one and Jason hit another into the audience where it hit someone.
7th May 1998 Mark & Lard win the Gold Sony Award for the Best Daytime Radio Show
26th May 1998 Mark and Lard appear on the ITV programme "The Truth About Footballers".
10th June 1998 Mark and Lard broardcast their show from Saint-Denis in France as a warm up to the Scotland vs Brazil World Cup Match.
August 1998 The quarterly RAJAR survey shows that Mark and Lard's audience has gone up 190,000 which is very good news for them as overall the amount of radio that people listen to is going down.
13th September 1998 The Shirehorses play their last ever gig at Coopers Field in Cardiff.
18th September 1998 Mark and Lard start their Freshers Week tour of many Universities. Acts include The Indecipherable Boys and The Mighty Horse.
15th October 1998 Mark's book "Showbusiness - The Diary of a Rock 'n' Roll Nobody" came out. It is about Mark's life in his many bands. It will be published by Sceptre and costs £10.
22nd October 1998 The latest radio listening figures reveal that Mark & Lard now have an extra 200,000 listeners.
25th October 1998 Mark will be the host at Radio 1's REM concert live from the Radio Theatre on 25th October. Mark will also be interviewing the band.
2nd November 1998 Mark & Lard do a book signing at Oxford Road London.
16th November 1998 Fat Harry White's album "Mmmm Baby - (The Seduction Selection)" is released and gets to number 83 in the charts.
11th December 1998 Mark appears on the Radio 3 show "Music Machine, In conversation With..." talking about David Bowie. What is special about this is that he has now appeared on all of the BBC national radio stations from Radio 1 to Radio 5.
12th, 14th & 15th December The Mighty Horse perform their last ever three gigs splitting up on each night. They play at The Manchester Accademy, Sheffield & Liverpool.
24th December 1998 On Christmas Eve there was a Best Of Mark & Lard show from 2-4pm.
25th December 1998 At 7:30pm Fat Harry White hosted his own show called "Fat Harry White's Night Of 100 Stars". Unfortunately none of his guests turned up. It did however include answer phone messages from, Shaznay from All Saints, Hinda Hicks & R Kelly. It was part of Chris Moyle's show from 6-11pm.
January 1999 The latest figures show that Mark & Lard have 3.5 million listeners. They also have been voted the number 1 radio show for the second year running in the Melody Makers music poll.
7th January 1999 At 1:30am this morning Mark's wife Bella had a 9 pound 8 ounce baby girl called Mia Radcliffe.
January - February 1999 They win the Brat award for best daytime radio show again.
4th February New listener figures show that the show gained another half a million listeners last year.
28th April 1999 Mark and Lard have won the Sony Award for best day time radio show for the second year in a row. The award was presented to them by Brian Ferry.
Tuesday 18th May Mark & Lard began hosting a University Challenge style pop quiz called "Mark & Lard Pop Upstairs Downstairs". It started on 6:30pm, on Digital channel, UK Play. Their other program on UK Play (Mark and Lard's Tenuous links where they play music videos and test your musical knowledge) is on at various times throughout the week.
28th May 1999 The Mahones new album, "Songs From The Back Bar" is released.
21st June 1999 The Summer froggin season better known as The Anus-Ol begins.
23rd June 1999 Blur played on the show.
23rd July 1999 Griff from The Super Fury Animals came in to play.
30th July 1999 Mark & Lard's new TV show "Match Of The Nineties" starts tonight on BBC1 at 11:40. Perhaps unsurprisingly this program looks at football in the 90's.
6th August 1999 Travis played at Mark & Lard's mystery roadshow event. The show also included their famous Bit & Piece quiz.
12th September 1999 The Shirehorses played at Manchester's Heaton Park concert. Mel C, James and Supergrass "supported" them.
27th October 1999 David Bowie came onto the show to do a live session
24th December 1999 Mark and Lard's last show of the 20th century.
February 2000 Mark and Lard come second in the NME Brat award for best radio show.
3rd September 2000 The pair host Radio 1's Robbie Williams concert.
22nd September-October 2000 The Shirehorses play a series of Freshers week concerts at venues around the country.
19th February 2001 Mark and Lard's early afternoon show moves to the 1-3pm timeslot.

If you know of any important dates that I have missed out of you have spotted any mistakes then please email me.


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