John Peel RIP

"This is dedicated to our best friend. John Peel"

And so they played "Carry on screaming". Tear to the eye. Carry on indeed, John.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio3_aod.shtml?andykershaw

Ha ha! OTM OTM! I've considered myself an anglophile since I was a teenager and have followed UK music religiously and yet I've never felt so envious of the Brits until I realized I actually knew very little about Peel, the man. I listened to his show a lot in the early 90's but wow I wish I'd been able to as a teenager. I remember considering getting a shortwave radio, even wrote down the correct frequency to use but I just don't think I had enough money then.

I'll check out the Kershaw show - I have been tuning in to the Rob Da Bank shows in the original Peel timeslot featuring music Peel picked and prerecorded Peel sessions that hadn't been broadcast yet. Also there is Peel doing a half hour show on the BBC World Service site that he recorded in advance - with two more of these shows on the way. (I say this for anyone outside the U.K. who might be looking for a way to hear the man himself in action)

I've recently been looking up the Festive 50 lists and trying to get ahold of any stray songs that I don't already know of yet. I have recently discovered I am head over heels for mid-80's band the Very Things - they were like Bauhaus crossed with The Fall crossed with Half Man Half Biscuit or some such wonderful thing - pop and goth at the same time. Incredible.

I'm gonna see if that Kershaw show is still up.

Some good stuff there, bookended with spot-on choices. Neil Young's 'Country Home' is great: its the opener of 'Ragged Glory' & when I first got a copy I listened to that track about 20 times on repeat before I wanted to hear the rest of the album!

Peel Sessions bands index 1992-2002
http://www.vheissu.freeserve.co.uk/bands.html

The Orb : who can forget that 20 minutes plus opus.. A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld (Loving You)
Appliance
Nought
Aereogramme
Global Communications
The Boredoms
Circle
Godspeed You Black Emperor!
and Stereolab stole some music ideas from Hatfield and the North and National Health

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40519000/jpg/_40519207_sheila300.jpg

Isn't this exactly what all of us mean when we say that music changed our lives? The difference with Peel was that it happened to him numerous times throughout his life in his thirties, forties, fifties - not just, unlike most people, just the once during adolescence.

From what I understand, that song featured the voice of the only person Peel would have wanted to be instead of himself.

OK, nobody took my meager bait up there. I was refering to comic genius Vivian Stanshall, a great mate of Peel's apparently. The other day I can across a copy of the brilliant "Sir Henry at Rawlinson's End," Viv's contribution P.G Wodehouse Upstairs/Downstairs comedy, and of course it eventually turned it out that Peel played a part in the making of it. Man, the guy really had a hand in everything. John Hammond couldn't shine his shoes.

He had this theory that if you wanted to insult someone you should get their name slightly wrong

I remember him playing a Bowie track in about 1978 and saying 'If he'd been called Neil Bowie instead of David, do you think people would still revere him?'

This may be worth a new thread, but a whole lot of people completely renounced prog around '77, and I think Peel wasn't the cause of this, just the most prominent example. When something new comes along it does cause a reevaluation of what's there, and punk, to a lot of us, felt like a very clear statement of what had been unsatisfactory in what had been on offer for the last few years in rock (this was obviously part of its explicit intent, even manifesto). I suspect it is hard to grasp the force of this impact if you are much younger than me, and I am struggling to think of something that has worked the same way more recently.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/prius/partthree/story/0,14196,1322037,00.html

Rethink

John Peel wants radio playlists scrapped and more stations taking risks with the music they play

Interview by Chris Borg

.........

These are words of wisdom from John Peel that everyone at Radio 1 and 6 Music should be made to read.

Keep It Peel
John Peel Night on Radio 1

BBC Radio 1 will pay tribute to the late John Peel through a night of live music to be broadcast on Thursday 16th December from 7pm.

The night will be hosted by Steve Lamacq and come from the world famous BBC Maida Vale studios, the scene of many a Peel Session.

Throughout the evening every studioat Maida Vale will be taken over as a whole host of bands perform and talk about John and the music he loved.

The schedule for the night will run as follows:

7pm - 8pm
Teenage Dreams So Hard To Beat
Kicking off Peel night, Radio 1 takes a look back at the career of the great man with a one hour documentary celebrating his extraordinary life. The show will feature tributes from The Undertones, Orbital, the Cure, New Order, Supergrass, Robert Plant, Underworld, Siouxsie Sioux and the Buzzcocks.

8pm - 11:30pm
Live music from bands that John championed including the Wedding Present, Nina Nastasia, Hefner, Trencher, Melys, Steveless, Stuart Murdoch (Belle & Sebastian), Special guests tbc. Steve Lamacq will be introducing the bands and linking it all together.

11:30pm - 1am
The DJs take over with sets from Underworld, Hixxy, Coldcut, Shitmat, Grooverider plus Dynamite MC on mic duties.

Teenage Dreams So Hard To Beat

Aldo, did you actually do this? I've just been asked to play a six-hour Festive 50 set in Hamburg next week, to commemorate the first anniversary of the lovely chap's untimely demise, and I could really do with, ummm, lots of songs.

Of course, if anyone has the whole blimmin' lot on CD and is prepared to lend them to/born them for me, for a small fee, I would be VERY interested INDEED!