IF you were looking for a person to a highlight grassroots music, you couldn't pick a better person than BBC Six Music DJ Steve Lamacq.

After all, that's how Steve started out in the music business, doing reviews of gigs for the local newspaper.

And his very first review just happened to be in the Gazette's sister paper, the Essex County Standard.

"It was 200 words on New Model Army," he tells me, "at Woods Leisure Centre and at the time I was pretty chuffed to bits with it."

As well as writing reviews for the paper, Steve also delivered them.

“It was holiday cover for a mate,” Steve explains. “It was for Wakes Colne, which meant a two to three-mile cycle ride from my house in Colne Engaine.

“It’s a bit of a cliche, but when I eventually took it over full-time I was warned of various houses to watch out for – like number 24 that had a particularly vicious dog.”

Steve was 14 at the time, but it was only a short-lived career because, as he says, he needed more money to buy records.

He adds: “Everything back then was about making more money to buy records.”

Born in Basingstoke in 1965, Steve, a huge Colchester United fan, grew up in Colne Engaine, where his parents still live today.

After going to Harlow College, Steve got his first job working for the West Essex Gazette, where he stayed for a number of years 'doing pretty much everything a reporter gets sent to do when they first start out.'

He left to start work on the prestigious music weekly, NME, and it was while there he began DJing for then pirate radio station XFM.

In 1993 he got his big break working on Radio 1’s Evening Session with Jo Wiley, a role he kept until 2002, and now he is quite rightly regarded as one of the most influential music DJs in the country working for BBC Six Music.

Next week Steve is going back to his musical roots, well at least one of them anyway, when he and his Six Music team shines the spotlight on some more small Indie music venues across the UK.

Taking in Leeds, Oxford, Birmingham and Brighton, finding out what makes some of the smallest music venues in the country the most important, he is particularly looking forward to one place that has a very soft spot in his heart, The Square in Harlow.

"I was desperate to go to Essex," Steve says, "to try and gather a groundswell of support, especially for the Square, which sadly closes a few days after we're there.

"I went to Harlow College because I knew there was a direct train line to London where I could do and see gigs but some friends of mine told me about The Square. An awful lot of great bands began gigging there and that's where I signed my first band. I had set up Deceptive Records and I remember being downstairs at the venue when I signed Collapsed Lung, who were from Harlow. They were most famous for the song 'Eat My Goal'."

As well as The Square, Steve and his team will be visiting the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds, most famous for hosting secret gigs for bands like Franz Ferdinand and the Kaiser Chiefs; the Jericho Tavern in Oxford famed for hosting Radiohead’s first proper gig, as well as Sticky Mikes in Brighton and The Sunflower Lounge in Birmingham.

Steve says: “Now, more than ever, it’s important to support small, grassroots venues around the country, because, while a lot of them continue to thrive, we’ve seen many of them shut down and many still under threat.

“We wanted to shine a light on these great little places, which nurture new talent and act as a meeting place for music fans.

“I’ve had some of the best moments of musical life in these little venues, watching all kinds of bands, including several who’ve gone on to huge success. But there’s nothing like seeing a group at its most raw and engaging when they’re first starting out, even if they’re only playing to 100 people.”

This is the second year BBC Six Music have done a mini tour in support of Independent Venue Week, which runs from Monday, January 23, to Sunday, January 29.

"We did it last year for the first time," he adds, "and looking at the places we went starting off in Glasgow and ending up in Cardiff, you now know why I would have made a terrible tour manager.

"We start off in Leeds, which had a huge grassroots music scene before it got re-developed and the costs of running a venue went up, then Birmingham, where I've never a done a show before.

"Oxford's always a great place to go and with Radiohead's Colin Greenwood a patron of the Independent Venue Week that fits in quite nicely and then we end up in Brighton, which is almost the place we're inspiring to create as it's still doing very well for live music venues."

Along the way he's expecting another influx of music demos.

He says: "Last year we had one of the bosses of Six Music come down and he went back after the first hour with 50 demos in a bag. I'm sure there will be a similar amount this year but none of these bands can survive without a lively local music scene around them, and that's where so many places are missing out."

As long as there are people like Steve around, bands and live music venues still have a champion to fight their cause.

Steve’s broadcast will be on his usual 6 Music week day show from 4pm to 7pm. Listen live or catch up via www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0072lb2