MEET THE TEAM

With a career spanning two decades, Ann Marie started out in the Irish music industry in her mid-teens when she initially decided to be a sound engineer.  She applied to the local radio station for work experience and started on Radio Kilkenny answering phones and making coffee before moving behind the mic.  Over a decade there she won awards for her presentation skills and particularly her support of fledgling Irish artists.  Her show was later syndicated in France and on Anna Livia FM in Dublin. She is an alumnus of the Rock School in Ballyfermot Senior College in Dublin where she studied music management and then music performance as a singer.  While in college she worked on RTÉ 2FM and on Cork Rock.

Ann Marie joined 8Radio.com when it began broadcasting and presents several programmes a week - curating a select mix of emerging and interesting talent from all countries and genres – from alt roots to electro, indie and beyond, alongside music, gig news and live sessions. Ann Marie also DJ’s at the Silent Disco at Dublin music venue - Whelans. Additionally, Ann Marie has been involved in many other areas of the music industry over 20 years, including music and arts PR under her company - Novatone Music Media, booking/production/stage & venue management of a wide range of cultural events. She is one of the team behind Christmas FM, The Sound of Ireland and the podcast 'Exploring Ireland'.   Ann Marie is also a musician and is the singer and co songwriter in the band Novatone.

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Beamy is a musician, songwriter, producer and DJ from Birmingham. Growing up surrounded by music and a family of musicians from a young age, he has written and recorded many genres of music under many different aliases, collaborating and as a solo artist. However, his passion is chillout music and his DJ sets are exclusively downtempo.

Beamy was one of the selected DJs for our Summer Sounds Exclusive for Club Aeterna during 2023, and he now joins our 'Friends Of Skylab' team as a guest DJ who will be providing occasional mixes for the same programme from January 2024.

Katy started making 'cassette player radio' as a hobby aged 8; then aged 14 progressed to weekly mixtapes for classmates called 'Blended To Perfection' - speech and poetry snippets combined with radio music from all over the world, spliced in between newly purchased music.

2024 saw Katy celebrate 25 years in radio broadcasting - having presented and produced programmes for various Midlands-based community on AM & FM radio stations, recorded voicework for BBC Local and devised content for online music magazine podcasts and videocasts. Through this broad industry experience she has honed her talent for unearthing unusual and under-the-radar musical treasures, standing them shoulder to shoulder with large label releases in unique tracklists. She is highly respected by many international artists and labels, with a reputation for articulating an exceptional musical journey through intricate and intuitive playlisting and presentation.

Katy presents 'Mixed Feelings' - two hours of chilled music, carefully curated from the heart, blended in a mixtape style.

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Neal's interest in radio goes back to when he was 10 years old when he quickly realised that he too wanted to have his own show. He started out at Worcester Hospital Radio collecting ward requests and helping out with occasional slots until he was given his own show.  

He started his professional radio career working behind the scenes at BBC Hereford and Worcester before working for Sunshine 855 in Ludlow, Shropshire. Since then he has gone on to work and manage a number of stations not only in the UK, but around the world including, Dubai, Thailand and Oman.

Chicane is often seen as one of, if not the seminal Trance originator. With the track "Offshore" he refined cool in the dance genre, the name Chicane became synonymous with Ibiza and sunsets, and quality music, an aural security blanket. "Saltwater" followed on and became a UK top five hit. Worldwide success was sealed with a collaboration between Chicane and Bryan Adams, "Don’t Give Up" from the hit album "Behind the Sun". The track has reached the number one spot on the UK Singles Chart. Now recognised as a dancefloor classic, it was one of the first dance collaboration tracks to reach such heights. In addition to his work as Chicane the artist, he has worked with and produced music with Cher, Sir Tom Jones, William Orbit, Natasha Beddingfield and composed for TV and film.

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Chicane presents 'Sun:Sets', a weekly series of tracks that lead straight from the beach to the dancefloor. Soulful, chilled, ecstatic, Balearic, euphoric, from epic film scores to the latest progressive house and trance.

Paul is the Founder/Station Director of Skylab Radio, who also produces some of the programming and makes the tea. Paul initially established Skylab Radio as an online test stream in 2009, however he launched the station in its own right in 2011. Paul has since guided Skylab Radio to its present status as an Ofcom-licensed Digital Radio Station.

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Paul has been interested in radio since he was 11 years old. He joined Worcester Hospital Radio, aged 13 and gained his first role in commercial radio in 1994; working as a Technical Operator at Sunshine 855 in Ludlow, Shropshire. Since then; Paul has presented on numerous commercial radio stations in the UK, including The Revolution, Radio Wave, Wirral's Buzz, Classic Gold, Wyvern FM, The Wolf and The Bear, as well as community station - Tameside Radio and returning to Sunshine 855. He also owned and operated several restricted radio licences, known as 'Stourbridge FM', which helped lay the foundation to the present community radio service.

Ralph was a natural choice to present with us at Skylab. He is extremely passionate about radio, growing up in 70s & 80s Dublin on a musical diet of Art of Noise, Kraftwerk, Orbital and Tangerine Dream, whilst also enjoying a meander into Ambient through Brian Eno and Harold Budd while others had their head in an Acid House bass bin. 

He is a fellow chill aficionado.

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Ralph has always been about "doing what others aren't" where radio is concerned; this inspiring his first chilled radio programme 'Ultrasouth', bringing the likes of Black Dog, Aphex Twin and Transglobal Underground to Irish airwaves devoid of this sound at the time. As an instrumental part of iconic early 90s 'officially unofficial' FM radio station history, one of his many firsts was being the first chilled radio show to be broadcast across a network of stations.

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Across his industry career to date, he has also helped secure countless broadcast licences, encouraged steering the direction of Freedom FM from a small dance station to the well-loved 90s & 00s pop station it is today – they created a niche market stronghold amongst their peers by doing what others weren’t. He also supports the annual application for and launch of the 30-day RSL for Freedom FM, where it continues to blast the best of 90s & 00s across eight transmitters from September to October every year. He continues to present a weekly Sunday morning chillout programme with a 90s flavour, now called 'Drift' - sharing the best of eclectic chill, downtempo ambient, trance and electronica.

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Rob became interested in radio at a young age, where he signed up to the local hospital radio station. After leaving school, Rob joined the team at The Old Smithy Recording Studios, near Worcester (run by the legendary Muff Murfin, who produced countless radio jingles and television themes) and gone onto to do some work at his radio stations - Buzz FM in Birmingham and also Coventry's KiX 96. Rob was also heard on numerous trial (or restricted) radio stations in the West Midlands.

In 2003; Rob commenced working on the English-speaking radio station 'Nile FM' in Cairo, and presented on the station for a while before heading back to England. Rob also produced countless radio advertisements for clients in the UK and the Middle East.

Since the early 90s, Steve Miller, AKA Afterlife, has been crafting seriously good electronic music.

Steve has many tracks on the seminal Cafe Del Mar compilations created by Jose Padilla.  The collaboration with James Bright known as Lux, grew from those formative days crafting his unique sound. Lux is best known for the two classics Northern Lights and 100 Billion Stars. Today Steve continues to push the boundaries of the Downtempo and Electronica scene. No wonder some of the biggest names in the DJ world choose to have Afterlife music in their personal collections. Many have commissioned Steve’s trademark sound for the perfect remix.  

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Steve has worked with K–Klass, Jose Padilla, Chris Coco, Roger Sanchez and many more. He comes from a jazz/reggae background. Steve’s engineering and production techniques were honed with the legendary Karl Pitterson. (Producer of Handsworth Revolution by Steel Pulse and engineer on the Exodus album for Bob Marley). Remix duties include two of the biggest summer chill tracks; Lana del Rey’s “National Anthem ” and Milk n Sugar’s “Via Con Me ” the latter of which stayed at number 1 in the Beatport Chill chart for over 2 months. Then there is Jakatta’s classic “American Dream” and Roger Sanchez’s “Another Chance” where Afterlife’s chillout mix joined the original on the official single release, which went to number 1 in the UK charts.

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Victoria’s first taste of radio came from a weeks work placement at Beacon Radio, in Wolverhampton. However, after graduating with a Media degree, she decided on a career in TV production and worked for Mentorn Barraclough Carey and Planet 24 before finally settling for a BBC production staff job. Working as a Production Secretary and PC on anything and everything – from The Queen Mum’s 100th from St. Pauls to Notting Hill Carnival (and literally everything in between!) she left the BBC in 2005 to have children and decided to become a professional voice over artist. Since then, she’s voiced hundreds and hundreds of commercials for radio and was delighted to become the station voice for Skylab Radio in 2013.