(in reference to the required method of getting to his 'DJ page' on the Radio 1 website) "To visit my DJ page on the Radio 1 website, just click on my face. *pauses* Click. All. Overmaface. (said to a rythm)
(after playing an old Carcass session track) "They don't write them like that anymore!"
― Matthew Baxter, Friday, 29 October 2004 10:28 (nineteen years ago) link
― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Friday, 29 October 2004 10:55 (nineteen years ago) link
So being a smart-arse, I sent him a letter saying just that. A few weeks later, a letter with a Radio 1 postmark landed on my mat. Sure enough, it was a signed photo sent by Peelie. But it was a signed photo of Kid Jensen, with a post-it note attached to it, saying, "Is this the sort of thing you want?"
Priceless. I'll miss him.
― Sacha Ward, Friday, 29 October 2004 16:08 (nineteen years ago) link
― You've Got to Pick Up Every Stitch (tracerhand), Friday, 29 October 2004 16:53 (nineteen years ago) link
he played a record on his show called 'Vana White' and pondered aloud who she was. someone phoned in with the details - she was the dolly girl who turned the letters around on Wheel Of Fortune. peel makes some disparaging remark about the quality of daytime quiz shows. someone else phones up and points out that the british version of WOF was presented by Nicky Campbell who also had the radio show immediately after his. oops.
― koogs (koogs), Friday, 29 October 2004 18:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― everything, Friday, 29 October 2004 18:43 (nineteen years ago) link
― bob summers, Friday, 29 October 2004 21:46 (nineteen years ago) link
OK, not a Peel quote as such, but I do remember the opening of one particular show where - god help us - the first record up was Kylie's 'I Should Be So Lucky'. It played for a while and then gradually - very very gradually - it was crossfaded into some gutwrenching hideous noise by Extreme Noise Terror or some such bunch. Wonderful.
― Vaughan, Friday, 29 October 2004 22:54 (nineteen years ago) link
"That was Big Country there, the band that put the 'Tree' in CUNTry!"
― ade ransome, Saturday, 30 October 2004 06:45 (nineteen years ago) link
Back in 2001 Peelie was doing the rounds of cities around the country visiting various bands and promoting local events. This time he was here in Birmingham to compere at the Radio 1 live in Birmingham for bands Broadcast, Plone and Magnetophone live at the Irish Centre in Digbeth. Earlier on that day myself and a few others had had the good fortune to enjoy a curry with John and everything had been going fine until I put my foot in it later when we returned to the Irish Centre. Plone had just played their set and I was 'woo-hooing' with excitement- (just as they do in the great plains of Texas). Suddenly loud and clear over the Tannoy, was the almighty voice of John Peel. His exact (well as far as I can remember) words were "Right. Whoever is woo-hoo'ing, kindly stop that right now. I do not tolarate this kind of behaviour. If you do not stop it I will make a bee-line to you and bop you on the nose. You'd be amazed how fast a man of 62 years of age can move!!!!!!". I had never been so embarassed (and frightened) in all my life!
Fantastic stuff :-) A year later Peelie asked me back to play at another Radio 1 gig in Birmingham where he was in the audience. (Ironically it was supposed to be a Radio 1 showcase for Brum- dispite that the BBC hadn't actually got anyone- apart from boring bands like Ocean Colour Scene (yawn)- in from Birmingham). Both of us chatted afterwards for ages. Me and everyone else here from brum, are gonna miss him dearly :(((
Incidently I haven't woo-hoo'ed since.
― tele:funken, Sunday, 31 October 2004 12:25 (nineteen years ago) link
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1339898,00.html
― Wooden (Wooden), Sunday, 31 October 2004 15:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― herbalizer12 (herbalizer12), Sunday, 31 October 2004 17:08 (nineteen years ago) link
― cºzen (Cozen), Sunday, 31 October 2004 17:11 (nineteen years ago) link
― Bumfluff, Sunday, 31 October 2004 17:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― Bimble (bimble), Monday, 1 November 2004 09:13 (nineteen years ago) link
― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Monday, 1 November 2004 11:36 (nineteen years ago) link
― retort pouch (retort pouch), Monday, 1 November 2004 15:39 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ian Clark, Monday, 1 November 2004 15:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― John Bailey, Monday, 1 November 2004 21:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― stevie (stevie), Tuesday, 2 November 2004 10:34 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 2 November 2004 11:11 (nineteen years ago) link
JP: Ah well, Hello, are you in a band?CG: YesJP: How Lovely...
― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 2 November 2004 11:13 (nineteen years ago) link
".. and here comes the good bit..."
― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 2 November 2004 12:17 (nineteen years ago) link
"You would meet people who you would assume were complete knobheads who actually turned out to be quite nice. Sometimes it worked the other way as well!"
― slim_cop, Tuesday, 2 November 2004 12:18 (nineteen years ago) link
"And now for something by the appallingly titled Tasty Bush"
― Roddy, Tuesday, 2 November 2004 12:45 (nineteen years ago) link
Like Dan Hartman: "We had an extremely pleasant conversation about toll-roads in New England."
― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Tuesday, 2 November 2004 12:55 (nineteen years ago) link
"Straight in at the all-important No.39 spot..."
"At 27 it's Meatloaf - Hear him and weep" (instead of 'Read Em and Weep')
"At 26 it's the Sisters of Mercy with Thompson Twins" (instead of the Thompson Twins with Sister of Mercy)
(after playing the Smiths' Stretch Out and Wait for the first time, with it's lyric 'And is there any point ever having children?')
"I wondered about that long and hard, but in the end I decided there's always a chance that they'll be the ones that make the world a better place"
― David Jennings, Tuesday, 2 November 2004 17:58 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 08:21 (nineteen years ago) link
"coming up after this are the highlights of the Pearl Jam concert at [wherever].....which should last about 5 minutes I reckon"
― hmmm (hmmm), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 09:16 (nineteen years ago) link
― Martyn Kember-Smith, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 11:22 (nineteen years ago) link
― n munro, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 13:17 (nineteen years ago) link
'they love their mummies..... with a white wine sauce'
that sort of humour you couldnt script.
RIP John and thanks for the memories.
― Derek Franklin, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 13:56 (nineteen years ago) link
I`ve been digging out the old tapes and will put a few up soon.these are some of the best tributes I`ve come across.Keep it up.
― Paul Kavanagh, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 13:57 (nineteen years ago) link
"If you're so clever, why are you on your own tonight. How many times have I said that to you....?"
― Richard Weir, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 16:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 16:27 (nineteen years ago) link
RIP and thanks John
― Nicola Bettridge, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 19:11 (nineteen years ago) link
Peel said "Why do ppl assume that if you don't love something then you must hate it? Why don't they realise that there are stages in between, like....indifference?"
― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 20:12 (nineteen years ago) link
"The best thing i like about your band, is i can't tell who you've been listening to..."
What a quote from the man who listens to everything!
― Jay Stansfield, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 22:15 (nineteen years ago) link
― everything, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 22:40 (nineteen years ago) link
“It’s quite humbling at Festive 50 time to know you’re broadcasting to the entire nation. I don’t know why Radios 2,3,4 & 5 even bother putting out programmes at this time.”
“I was just thinking that there’s probably no-one – apart from The Pig – who’s given me more pleasure than Mark E. Smith”
More than anything though was his ability in common with the great broadcasters that you were in the presence of a friend. I have loads of his remarks saved to tape. I’ll try and dig some out. One classic is football related and I don’t want to quote it incorrectly but it’s a peach.
Also he always seemed genuinely surprised when it all started going wrong, wrong track, wrong speed, not starting. I loved it when he would make the producer come in to confirm that he was pressing the right button or that his equipment ws wilfully showing the wrong track or information. We’ll all miss him.
― Adam Roberts, Thursday, 4 November 2004 14:05 (nineteen years ago) link
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/s.bending/
― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 4 November 2004 14:25 (nineteen years ago) link
1 (After a couple of seconds silence following an extremely long-winded end to a Sisters of Mercy track ('Emma' for the nerds) "....one of the longest fade-outs in the history of recorded music". Actually. I think he introduced it with "this is the first time a Hot Chocolate track has made it into the festive fifty..."
2 After fearsomely anti-war 'The Green Fields of France' by the Men they couldn't Hang. "I think it's the barely suppressed emotion that makes it such a good song"
― Michael Cooke, Thursday, 4 November 2004 20:50 (nineteen years ago) link
Am I the only one who loved him more for who he was than for his musical taste?
I listened to Peelie a lot in the 80s and then stopped but he always had a special place in my heart as the anti-DJ DJ. I thought he played an enormous amount of rubbish but I knew he cared. He was the only one who even tried to break the rules and open things up.
Andrew
― Andrew Downie, Thursday, 4 November 2004 21:35 (nineteen years ago) link
― DM, Thursday, 4 November 2004 22:14 (nineteen years ago) link
It's been wonderful reading it, and recalling hearing some of these quotes live on Peel's show more than a decade ago, and even more wonderful that people are quoting them exactly word-for-word! (I think the one about "raining kisses on their eager upturned faces" was about Bolt-thrower, incidentally. And the full retort to Janice Long admitting to having David Cassidy on her wall was, "That would seem to indicate a degree of dexterity i never thought you were capable of Janice, I must say" - which rendered his TOTP co-presenter incapacitated for the chart rundown that followed!)
I remember from the 80s him playing 'I Was A Teenage Armchair Honved Fan' from one of his greatest gifts to us all, Half Man Half Biscuit, and he confessed, "We all were in our house!" And then more recently about the same band: "In our house our bosoms swell with love for them".
Does anyone else remember his brief flirtation with old yodelling records in the late 80s? They were fantastically entertaining, and after one such gem he murmured, "Not a dry eye in the house I'll warrant".
Living now in Rotterdam I used to listen to, and of course tape, his twice-weekly half-hour World Service shows, from which...
"That's Laura Cantrell, and I listen to her records so much I feel like a sort of stalker in a way..."
On 'Lottery Winners on Acid' by the Crimea: "That could go on for another three-quarters of an hour, as far as I'm concerned..."
Don't let this stop. Someone somewhere must be working on tribute compilation CDs with his intros included, surely?
― Graham Dietz, Saturday, 6 November 2004 08:45 (nineteen years ago) link
― neil tacus (tacit), Sunday, 7 November 2004 00:31 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Sunday, 7 November 2004 00:33 (nineteen years ago) link
― neil tacus (tacit), Sunday, 7 November 2004 02:02 (nineteen years ago) link
― neil tacus (tacit), Sunday, 7 November 2004 02:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― Bimble (bimble), Sunday, 7 November 2004 09:16 (nineteen years ago) link