BBC Introducing in Hereford & Worcester

Andrew Marston is actively involved in music and is also a pub & club DJ.

Throughout his childhood, Andrew regularly represented his school playing keyboards in various bands. It was through a couple of gigs he did for the church, in front of the city's MP, where he was offered his first paid job playing the church organ at St Barnabas in Hereford. This he did for two years, eventually finishing school with an A in music while regularly touring the country in a covers band.

At the age of 14, Andrew become a volunteer with Hereford Hospital Radio, providing PA services at local events and presenting a magazine show called "MusiChat". After four years there as a volunteer, Andrew was elected to the position of vice-chairman and regularly appeared in the local press as publicity manager.

By 1999, he'd already become a keen supporter of new music and put together HHR Live '99, which saw the station do its first ever live broadcast from Hereford's High Town. In 2000, he won a BT Non-Music Programme Of The Year bronze award.

During this time, a friend of his started taking a home-made sound system along to family parties, providing background music. Andrew soon found himself helping out and within weeks, the 14-year-old pair were advertising in the local press and were gigging regularly on Saturday nights.

Andrew eventually built his own music system and landed various residencies, including The Kerry, The Whitehouse and TGS events. This led to him doing a variety of nights at Tramps, Play and The Jailhouse, while securing new residencies at The Foxhunter, Saxty's, The Lock Up, Scream, Bar Spirit, JDs, Monty's, The King Charles and The Imperial. He also played a variety of nights at the Litten Tree, The Ice Bar, O'Neill's, Staffordshire University and Yates's - becoming the "DJ's DJ" with the city's favourites always asking him to cover their nights.

Some of his corporate gigs has included work for West Mercia Police, Worcester Warriors, Worcestershire County Cricket Club, British Telecom, The 100-mile raft race, Tesco, New Look, TK Max, Bulmers, Argos, Carghill and the SAS.

Andrew began working for the BBC in 1999, following a work experience placement. Initially his job was putting guests on-air out-of-hours for a variety of BBC stations. Within a matter of weeks, Andrew was looking after the general day-to-day running of the Hereford office.

Later work included live and pre-recorded interviews, the reading of market reports, the writing of bulletin pieces and ultimately two years as the breakfast radiocar reporter.

He started working for the BBC in Worcester in 2000, initially clipping news interviews on reel-to-reel and cart, but went on to become the first person there to use a digital editing system. He has also helped redevelop the station's What's On Guide, before covering a number of roles including the production of religious content, creating highlights for sport and ensuring commentaries went out on various frequencies. Andrew still often selects the station's music and ensures royalty payments go through to the artists.

In 2001, Andrew started working at BBC Radio Gloucestershire, where he was responsible for lining up the guests, taking calls and compiling bulletin pieces. He went on to re-record the entire station's jingle package and become an active reporter, as well as presenting travel news.

In 2003, after watching a band at a gig where he was DJing, Andrew was inspired to start his own band nights and began promoting his own weekly event. For two years, he turned one of the quietest nights around, offering a paid opportunity to bands.

It was in June 2005 that Andrew was approached about the possibility of helping out on a new music programme on BBC Hereford & Worcester.

At that time, Andrew was also presenting six days a week - including weekday afternoons and evenings, Saturday afternoons, various emergency programmes, plus throughout the bank holidays.

In 2006, Andrew also began working for BBC Online, producing news articles, image galleries and What's On features.

Two years later, he went on to design all of the trails for the station, remake the entire jingle package and cut a number of awards, including BBC Hereford & Worcester's Sony Station Of The Year 2010.

In recent years, Andrew returned to BBC Gloucestershire as a mid-morning reporter and writing for BBC Sport online. Andrew still regularly "tech ops" programmes for BBC Hereford & Worcester - mixing any outside broadcasts you hear on-air.

Every week he listens to in excess of 400 tracks submitted from the local area.

He's recently taken up VJing - and nowadays provides live visuals and video to the tracks he performs. His extensive work with festivals continues and he is also producing a number of dance tracks with well known musicians he's met during his career.

So if you want to hear a programme that is at the cutting edge of new music, BBC Introducing is the place to be!