songs/bands that john peel did not turn you on to

any more?

Didn't play Blur, Belle & Sebastian or the Manic St Preachers until late into their careers.

Often brought up his 'not getting' Bruce Springsteen too, usually in connection with Andy Kershaw (a big fan).

I could guess whether he would like something or not if you played it to me, no matter what the genre. It's odd. I was too influenced by him for many years, I think. Or maybe I just meshed with him in some way.

It's only in recent years that I've started to properly love all the genres of music he *didn't* play, without distinguishing them in my mind from the things he did. Chart pop, disco, soul-jazz, modern R&B...

But then he never played anything by Tory Busted either.

Simple Minds
The Sisters Of Mercy
The Cure

"Well, it's tempting to say that there go The Clash, turning rebellion into money..."

Don't think he ever got back into them after that.

he did 'go-go' i seem to remember. i only know his shows from the early nineties onwards but occasionally he played one some go-go track from the 80ies.

But at the same time, he had a bet with Steve Wright that he'd only play the Pet Shop Boys if Wright played Extreme Noise Terror. Wright called his bluff, and Peel somewhat cheatingly chose to play Electronic's 'Getting Away With It' in return.

i just wondered about the anomalies within the broadly indie stuff he was always going to play: throwing muses, spacemen 3. It's weird he didn't like them.

it was interesting that peel would sound off about bands he didn't like so much. i remember a bizarre radio 1 thing he narrated around 1993 offering a chance to win tickets to a U2 concert. it was played all day on other people's shows and started 'never liked them much myself, but u2 are playing tonight..." etc and ended with "and now your friendly radio one DJ will play something by the fall.... one day!" i remember steve wright switching the end bit off in disgust!

-- Freelance Hiveminder (stevem7...), October 27th, 2004.

Seems a reasonable enough summary. Also, of course modern R&B and Kylie could/can be heard in abundance elsewhere on R1 so he wouldn't have felt any need to duplicate that. He liked the music that he cared for, so good luck to him and also to us as listeners, as his frames of reference, by contemporary radio standards, were so wide.

I don't think this the time or place to start criticising Peel posthumously for not liking the same music that you like.

I seem to recall, in 1985's Festive Fifty Peel said before the first Sisters Of Mercy track ('Some Kind Of Stranger' at #43) that it was a record he hadn't played before (I think for the first time). He then said before #36 "Keen listeners may recall I said earlier that there were two records in this year's Festive Fifty that I hadn't played before. The first was the Sisters Of Mercy at #43 with 'Some Kind Of Stranger'. The second, oddly enough, is this..." < 'Marian' plays > "Rum tum tum. Sisters Of Mercy there. Marian."

So the change of heart over the Sisters must have been between October 84 (the release of 'Walk Away', #8 in the 1984 Festive Fifty) and March 85 (the release of 'First And Last And Always').

I'm restraining myself from making some really inappropriate, Burchill-esque comment here.

I think he though it was his job to at least try to give everything which wasn't getting played anywhere else at least a chance of getting played.

Unless he didn't like it.

Well, given how predictable and pedestrian the music played by most of his colleagues and competitors was / is, the amount of stuff that left for him to play was collossally huge that he had to have some sort of system for deciding what did get played and what didn't - and what better system than whether he liked it or not?

Or as Robbie Vincent once put it: "Sitting in a glorified cubicle playing records you hate. What's the worst job you've ever had?"

He certainly did play Belle & Sebastion reasonably early on - the first time I heard them was when he played "The Stars Of Track & Field" on its release.

I don't think Peel really got into Blur until they stopped being Johnny Vaughan and started being Pavement.

Again, I find it baffling that Peel seems to be getting criticised on this thread for not playing music that other DJs were playing.

I just would have thought Peel would've championed NERD first as they sound very much of the stuff he might have found something in? :-)

My Bobby 'O' question, anyone?

NERD probably a bit too smooth for Peel's tastes, I would have thought (bear in mind he played things like Alec Empire and I-Sound, so "smooth" is an extremely relative term here).

xpost

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/04/entertainment_john_peel/html/5.stm

and see my question on the RIP thread about Wham!

OK, a specific, illustrative question: who, if anyone, was playing Bobby Orlando records on R1 in the 80s?

They were, however, played quite extensively on Radio Clyde and Radio Forth in the early-mid '80s. The Fire Island club in Tollcross and all that.

Even more curiously, the R1 DJ who was the first to play both Kid Creole and Was (Not Was) was - DLT.

Really? I'm almost inclined to send my Showaddywaddy picture disc signed by DLT back in disgust.

He used to play a lot of Parliament/Funkadelic, as well as Johnny "Guitar" Watson; then there was Stanley Winston's "No Ghettos In America" of course.

-- Marcello Carlin (marcellocarli...) (webmail), October 27th, 2004 2:41 PM.

He was certainly a champion of old school funk (Kool & the Gang etc) and would playe more left field dance/disco stuff in the early 80's (Konk, Peech Boys etc) but modern r &b, acid jazz etc he left to Blackburn, Dreem Teem and Giles Peterson. He was also massively into go-go, indeed playing some of the newer stuff a couple of years ago.

massive xpost

He said much the same about Oasis and the Manics and expressed bafflement that people must assume that if he didn't play them he must dislike them.

"I get the sense that for Peel, pop music pretty much stopped in the 60s, and soul in the early 70s, though"

Well, he certainly did know his stuff.

many people hate Kylie and all she stands for.

He never "got" the Cardiacs, though.

The show (from what I remember) was eclectic and then after a while you got used to it so it became predictable - a bit of thrash metal, jangly indie pop, dance-based stuff, electronica and looking back I think the reason it became predictable is that I didn't believe he liked everything he played - I read/heard about that and wondered whether that was true or not bcz it was odd.

This is pretty much the reason why I spent at most a few months with it and then never heard it again, and don't regret for having stopped listening to it.

The one thing he introduced me to was Beefheart - and it wasn't by playing it on the radio - only recall hearing him play it once, actually - but with his TV doc on him, which I watched again today. Once I got to that I had to go and find where it came from and found all these other things to like that he never played.

Not just played, but Kelis, in November 2000, recorded a Peel session. Between Ten Benson and Dick Dale.

By Adam Sherwin, Media Reporter

THE BBC has rejected claims from one of its DJs that John Peel was “worn out” and felt marginalised by the corporation before his death from a heart attack.

Andy Kershaw, a close friend of Peel who presents a world music show on Radio 3, said that changes to Peel’s schedule at Radio 1 had affected his health. “The last time I saw him he looked absolutely worn out,” Kershaw said. “We went to a café near Radio 1 and I said, ‘John, you look terrible.’

“He said: ‘They’ve moved me to 11pm to one at night and the combination of that and Home Truths (his Radio 4 show) is killing me.’ He felt he had been marginalised.”

Peel, acclaimed for discovering fresh musical talent over four decades, died aged 65 on Monday after suffering a heart attack during a working holiday in Peru.

Peel broadcast on Radio 1 three times a week in the 10pm-midnight slot until July, when he was moved to the 11pm-1am slot.

The change was made to give a wider audience to new specialist music shows. Critics suggested that Peel’s more “awkward” music was being shunted to the early hours in a push to secure younger listeners. However Peel had agreed to the changes after a meeting with Andy Parfitt, the controller of Radio 1.

The Times understands that Mr Parfitt was so concerned at the allegations made by Kershaw that Peel’s studio producers were asked yesterday if he had made any complaints to them. They said that he had not. BBC executives were furious with Kershaw, a former Radio 1 DJ who considered Peel his mentor. One said: “It is extremely distressing that Andy should say this. John was fully supportive of the changes — he even said that the late finish meant clearer roads when he drove back to East Anglia.”

Peel rejected the option to pre-record his Radio 1 shows, broadcasting two programmes a week live from London and the Thursday programme from a studio at his home.

Radio 1 limited its official response to a statement that read: “Everyone at the BBC is shocked and upset by John’s sudden death. At a time when his family are still in deep mourning — out of respect for them — this is not the time to make remarks or to comment.”

But Radio 1 could not guarantee that the eclectic Peel musical mix, which ranged from African pop to drum and bass, would survive. Presenters Steve Lamacq and Mary Anne Hobbs will fill in until a decision is taken on replacement.

A Radio 1 spokesman said: “John is irreplaceable. Radio 1’s commitment to new music will be reflected in late-night programmes which are a fitting tribute to him.”

Thousands of listeners have left tributes on the website, and the BBC will consult on plans for a memorial with his family.

The Glastonbury Festival, Britain’s biggest open-air music event, will honour Peel by naming its new bands’ tent after him.

Peel’s widow, Sheila, will be consulted over publication of an unfinished autobiography which Transworld Books had paid £1.2 million to acquire.

Throbbing Gristle

The same thing applied when he played several tracks in a row from the Rolling Stones Love You Live, directly segued into Slaughter & The Dog's "You're A Bore", followed by an almost-but-not-quite apology for the "cheap link".

He did play them initially at least, my first exposure the band was hearing the 12" (rockier) version of 'Walking with Jesus' on his show. One of countless reasons I have to be very grateful to the man.

"Well, it's tempting to say that there go The Clash, turning rebellion into money..."

*dies laughing*

-- debden (debdenherringbon...), October 27th, 2004.

Good on him!

As for me, I guess the answer to the thread is "none of them". Never heard a Peel session in my life.

All that actually means is that he never turned you onto anything directly.

at times there were way too many of those '1 live in {somewhere}' type shows full of bands that were better suited to lamacq but which happened during peel's timeslot so he was pretty much unable to avoid participating, and which i, personally, hated. would much rather have listened to him play records. more recently there were a lot of other djs doing hour long guest slots, people from 1xtra etc.

the one thing that made me angry over the last couple of days was tony fucking blair sticking his oar in.

oh, and he had Kelis in session sometime in the last few years so he's not completely anti that stuff.

As far as I recall, he never played anything on the el label at all, although to the extent that Vic Godard and ex-members of the Monochrome Set were on el, he played it. But certainly no sessions for the likes of King of Luxembourg, Always, Anthony Adverse, Gol Gappas, Hunky Dory, Louis Philippe, Marden Hill, Momus... A decision was made, and the label was, in some way, stillborn in the UK, just hanging there suspended, like a foetus in a jar. Not that my move to Creation (partly the result of this suspension) changed matters much.