Ray Cokes
Ray Cokes , full name Raymond Christopher Cokes , (born February 24, 1958 on the Isle of Wight ) is a British radio and television presenter.
Life
Ray Cokes made his first steps in Belgium as a presenter on small radio stations and as a disc jockey in a Brussels disco. After a short stop at the nationwide pirate broadcaster Radio Cité , he got the Rox Box program on the French-speaking television broadcaster RTBF , which was also taken over by the pan-European satellite broadcaster Music Box .
In 1987 Cokes moved to the newly founded broadcaster MTV Europe in London, where his first tasks included interviews and short external reports. His big MTV career began with the show Ray's Request , in which he should only have announced the music videos that viewers wanted. Over time, however, Cokes deviated more and more from the preparation and moderated off the cuff. The lack of concept became a trademark, Ray Cokes practically brought reality into the ideal, pre-produced and made-to-measure television world. Breakdowns and unplanned remarks were just as much a part of it as occasional conversations with the team behind the camera (namely Robert Mansfield or Rob Eeeevening the Cameraman , Andy Andycam and Alain the Dictator) and reading out loud and answering his fan mail on the show.
The success of Ray's Request led MTV Europe to develop a show that focused solely on Ray Cokes. MTV's Most Wanted premiered on April 14, 1992 and, in its four years, developed into one of the most successful television programs in Europe with at times 60 million viewers in 38 countries. In addition to the music requests of the broadcast, which was broadcast live Tuesday to Friday, there were prominent guests and various, more or less meaningful games such as the Bingo Wall of Death and Underwear Everywhere or deposits such as Cleanse Our Souls , where sent in memorabilia of failed relationships were destroyed in imaginative ways. Unplanned events were also part of it: When Take That visited , Robbie Williams drew the question "Would you pose naked for money" at the Bingo Wall of Death and then showed his bare bum as proof for £ 10.
“I think that you can explain the success of Most Wanted very easily. The program is a relief between all those other pre-recorded shows. It introduces viewers to the reality: Most Wanted has some kind of 'Hey! Everyone makes mistakes. MTV VJ's aren't as special as you might think. Look I'm losing my hair and I tell bad jokes! ' We show that MTV isn't a smooth running machine, but a channel that makes many mistakes. I find that human aspect very important. "
“I think the success of Most Wanted is very easy to explain. The program is an exemption from all other pre-recorded shows. It introduces reality to viewers: Most Wanted has a sort of, "Hey! Everyone makes mistakes. MTV VJs aren't as special as you might think. Look, I'm losing my hair and I'm telling bad jokes!" show that MTV is not a smoothly running machine, but a channel that makes many mistakes. I think the human aspect is very important. "
On March 21, 1996, three months after the last Most Wanted issue, Cokes presented X-Ray Vision . The show was essentially a larger version of Most Wanted - possibly too big, as it turned out later. Ray got Naughty Nympho Nina and Pathetic Pat as assistants, both of whom had previously worked behind the camera on Ray's previous shows. As a further innovation, two bands had live performances in the program that was broadcast on Thursdays.
On May 9, 1996, the program was to be broadcast - as usual live - directly from the Hamburger Spielbudenplatz . The MTV management gave Cokes only a very short preparation time, which led to the unmistakable announcement of a performance by the band Die Toten Hosen - the live audience on Spielbudenplatz was kept there until the end and then only on a video wall of a concert was switched on. The approximately 2,000 spectators were dissatisfied, which Ray Cokes, who was used to success, did not know how to handle. TV viewers across Europe then witnessed Ray Cokes being booed and cans and bottles hailing onto the stage. The transmission had to be canceled three quarters of an hour before the planned end.
There was only one more issue of X-Ray Vision , then Ray Cokes left MTV. The reasons given by Ray Cokes are that on the one hand there was a lack of funding and that he lost confidence in the station after the catastrophe in Hamburg. MTV denied any connection with Hamburg.
At the end of 1996, Ray Cokes presented the program Voll auf Cokes on the Berlin radio station KISS FM for a few weeks on Fridays and Saturdays , although he had no experience with his own radio show and did not know whether his style would also work on the radio.
In the summer of 1997, Ray Cokes hosted the game show C4 Wanted for the British broadcaster Channel 4 .
In early 1998, Ray Cokes put The Ray Cokes Show on Virgin Radio , and later took over London Calling . In July of that year, however, he left the station in a dispute with his colleagues there.
In June 2001, MTV ran its own Ray Cokes weekend, Still Wanted? On its VH1 channel . .
After a stopover at the Franco-German TV channel ARTE ( Music Planet 2Nite ), Ray Cokes has been working for the French channel France 5 on the program CULT since 2005
In addition, Ray Cokes made a guest appearance as a dying messenger in the 1994 Poul Anderson- based comedy High Crusade - Fricassee in Space .
Also musically, Ray Cokes broke new ground and in 2007 released his song Sleepwalking on the Viennese electronics label Fabrique Records in cooperation with the turntable artists Waxolutionists .
Since 2009 he has presented several editions of his show "Ray's Reeperbahn Revue" at the Hamburg Reeperbahn Festival every year with interviews and performances by bands from the festival (from 2009 to 2012) from the Hamburg Schmidt Theater on Spielbudenplatz.
In 2013, he and Nick de la Forge moderated the video diary of Volkswagen - Rally The World .
In October 2014 his autobiography My Most Wanted Life - In front of the camera, behind the camera and generally in English and German, ISBN 978-3862653324 was published .
Web links
- Ray Cokes in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Ray Cokes at myspace
swell
- ↑ Robbie Williams shows his bum on MTV's Most Wanted
- ↑ Ray Cokes on Most Wanted
- ↑ The spectacle turned into a disaster, the Hamburger Abendblatt of May 11, 1996
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cokes, Ray |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Cokes, Raymond Christopher |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British radio and television presenter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 24, 1958 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Isle of Wight |