Alan Bangs

From 4 April 2010 Alan Bangs presented on internet and digital radio (DVB-S and DAB) radio programme DRadio Wissen the programme Nightflight at Sundays at 23 clock. In June 2013, DRadio Wissen announced that it would discontinue the programme in order to develop its music programme "in a different direction". In the corresponding commentary blog of DRadio Wissen this decision was repeatedly criticized by many listeners, but without avail. The last Nightflight show of this series was broadcast on 15 December 2013.

Among other things, this was followed by engagements with the broadcasters NDR, Sat.1, VH-1 Deutschland and in particular with live concerts "Ohne Filter" at ARD. Since 2000 he presented on each month with a fifth Friday (four times in 2012) the two-hour show "Nachtsession" on Bayern 2. In June 2003 he presented Rockpalast live from Rock am Ring.

In April 1995, WDR 1 was reformed to become the "youth wave" 1Live. This was met with vehement criticism. The former daily musical theme programmes broadcast between 22 and 24 o'clock were discontinued without replacement, only Alan Bangs Connection "survived" on a new slot at Sundays from 23 to 1 o'clock under the new title "Nachtflug" in 1995. However, Bangs idea of themed music radio was not compatible with the environment of the new channel: 1Live was a "formatted" channel with a focus on a young target group, but Bangs did not want to exclude any particular musical style from broadcasting. In the 17/18 September 1995 show, he played "Voir un ami pleurer" by Jacques Brel, followed by a short piece of Frédéric Chopin which led to a song by Einstürzende Neubauten. This caused WDR to release him at short notice and almost without comment from all his duties. Alan Bangs no longer won any presentation contracts from WDR afterwards.

From the end of 1985, he provided WDR's contribution to the joint ARD night programme ARD-Rocknacht. However, due to its musical content this programme was not taken over by Bayerischer Rundfunk, which met with much criticism. At the end of 1989, when Nachtrock programme for the ARD-Popnacht [de] was being reformed, Bangs did not agree with the new guidelines of this programme; he got out of the ARD night programme and since 1990 returned under the broadcast name Alan Bangs Connection back into the programme of WDR 1.

In 1984 and 1985, on Mondays he presented the programme Musik Convoy [de] on WDR regional television. He was also active on WDR radio, first on WDR 2, and then on WDR 1 in 1986. There, Bangs presented numerous new records - especially from the independent sector and from the emerging alternative-country genre (like Green on Red, Gun Club, Cowboy Junkies, Lucinda Williams), which was rarely found elsewhere in the radio broadcasting landscape. If he liked a record very much, he was not shy to play up to six pieces from the record in a two-hour programme. From the 1980s on in WDR radio, Bangs moderated his Alan Bangs Connection originally on Saturdays, later on Tuesdays.

Since 1977 he reached greater notoriety as a presenter of the television programme Rockpalast in WDR and the Rockpalast Nacht in the ARD.

His career began at BFBS Germany, where he presented from 1975 to 1989, first on Sundays, and from about 1981 at Saturday nights in the music programme Night Flight, which didn't fit into any standard drawers. Appropriate to the late broadcasting hours, the show typically included rather quiet pieces by John Fahey or Ry Cooder, but also Kevin Coyne or Neil Young. In the late 1970s, he was one of the first to include interpreters such as Television or Patti Smith. For a short term he hosted a second BFBS programme The Modern Dance (named after Pere Ubu's first LP), in which this new kind of music was given a forum.

Alan John Bangs (born 10 June 1951 in London) is a British music journalist, disc jockey and presenter on radio and television. He has lived and worked in Germany since the 1970s.