The Judge is budged: Judge Jules' final BBC Radio 1 show

Earlier today I stumbled onto sad news: tonight would be Judge Jules’ final show on BBC Radio 1.

Making his first marks on the station, Radio 1’s new controller announced in December that a number of new DJs would be taking over the decks in April. Cut loose to make room are the likes of Fabio & Grooverider (two dudes into drum and bass), Kissy Sell Out, and Jules, a longtime anchor of the Radio 1 Dance crew alongside Pete Tong.

The Radio 1 line-up is in constant flux and there seems to be a revolving door of electronic DJs (Seb Fontaine and Fergie are past favorites of mine), but I always thought I could count on Jules being there on Friday night. Alas, it is not to be: the Judge’s 15-year Radio 1 career ends tonight. He is being replaced by dubstep producers Skream & Benga. (Also, Kutski seems to have gotten the boot, too. Benji B is sticking around, though.)

Times change and life moves on, but Jules’ BBC departure ends an era for me. For the most part, Jules’ show introduced me to electronic music. I can remember listening to his Friday show for the first time: I was in the Newslab editing The Update, City High’s weekly publication, after school. Working at the sports island, I had someone’s headphones plugged into the computer and Radio 1 streaming on RealPlayer. I listened in awe at the beats Jules was spinning. I had never heard anything like it before and was hooked. From then on I tried staying after school every Friday to listen (via the school’s super fast Internet connection). I wrote many articles and designed many pages while listening to him. His Friday show aired at 9 pm in the UK, which was 3 pm in Iowa City. At the time he also had a Saturday show starting at 11 am in IC and I always listened at home (though the quality was awful over dial-up).

Though my tastes in electronic music have evolved I have continued to listen to him, usually via the “on demand” recording available on the Radio 1 website in recent years. Tonight, however, I am listening to his show live as I write this. It is kind of corny but I thought I would do it one last time. Ironically, it sounds like it was recorded in advance. The Radio 1 studio webcams have been turned off, probably because the only person there is an engineer. However, Jules is announcing his famous “shout outs” sent by listeners as if it were live, so I am unsure.

(Speaking of his “shout outs,” I thought I would note the way they have advanced with popular technology since I started listening. Back in the late-nineties they were sent by phone and played over the air: “Hey, Jules! I just wanted to give a shout out to my friends in Croydon who are getting riotous. Cheers!” He also received them via email and read them himself. A few years down the road he began accepting them via text and now receives them over Facebook and Twitter. A progressive chap, no?)

Jules will obviously keep DJing — he is world renown and is constantly playing clubs and festivals — but I will miss his presence on Radio 1.