MUSIC was the first love and it could well be the last for self-confessed record obsessive Graham Duff.

The comedy writer and performer from Great Harwood may not yet be a household name, but he will soon have his own series of six programmes on Radio 4.

This follows a successful show at the Edinburgh Festival, as well as contributions to numerous radio programmes like Loose Ends and The Afternoon Shift.

His debut solo series, called 'Stereonation,' is due to go on air in the summer and is based on his acclaimed Edinburgh show, 'Vinyl Anorak.'

As the name implies, it is about people who are, in one way or another, stark-raving bonkers about music. For instance, one of his characters is Keith Tunstall, a tribute band musician and decorator from Oswaldtwistle.

Keith started out in the Flock of Seagulls tribute band 'Pigeon Pack.' "It was at a time when the boundary between rock music and hairdressing was very blurred," recalls Keith. But, sadly, Pigeon Pack soon spread their wings and Keith moved on to other tribute bands such as The Barnoldswick Genesis, The Kirby Lonsdale Doors, the Essex Pistols and, more recently, Ocean Colour Scene imitators Canal-Shaped Doodle.

Some of Graham's other characters include Moz Side, a raver from Manchester who refuses to stay in on any night of the week and Greg, a hopelessly self-deluding Kate Bush fan who includes a stamped, addressed envelope with every letter he sends her. So far she has not written back.

Then there's Danny Jones, an indie guitarist from Monmouth whose band's attempts to become the next Manic Street Preachers fall on deaf ears. "Come to your senses boy," his dad tells him. "The job's still open on the cheese counter at Priceslashers."

Mix in evil dance club promoter Glossy Flyer and second-hand record dealer Vinyl Jeffries - complete with daughter Santana - and you get a glimpse of the characters who inhabit Graham's fertile comic imagination.

That said, his characters are not a million miles from the reality of Graham's own life. "I've been obsessed by music since I was 11 or 12 when I spent every penny on gigs, clubs and buying records," he says. "I'm the same now. I've never grown up."

Graham's parents, Christine and Derrick, live in Park Lane, Great Harwood, and he attended Norden High School, Rishton, where Stephen Pinder (Brookside's Max Farnham) was a few years above him.

He now lives in Brighton with girlfriend, Sarah and eight-year-old son Misha. Comedy was something he fell into after an initial career with Factory Records in Manchester, helping to produce videos for the label's bands alongside Blackburn College lecturer Brian Nicholson.

"I moved to Brighton thinking I was going to be a video director and did a course for three years," he says. "Then I bummed around for a while and got interested in writing and performing comedy."

As for his own and many other people's obsession with pop stars and trivia generally, he admits: "I do think it is a bit sad, you do miss out on so much of the real world. When I think of the holidays or relationships I could have had as a teenager, instead of spending all my money on The Clash or some new boxed set of albums!"

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