― Alan Treacy, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 04:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― Richard Thompson, Thursday, 3 November 2005 15:07 (eighteen years ago) link
anyway, sheila must have read this thread as my 'fades in gently' quote gets a mention, as does my nom de plume - stirmonster. how queer!
btw, ilm is referred to as a dimly lit corner of the internet. ha!
― stirmonster (stirmonster), Sunday, 6 November 2005 20:04 (eighteen years ago) link
Opening gambit circa 1987: "Sit back and unravel your jumpers to the limpid beauty of A Witness".
We need an archive of the shows, people.
― Jeff Jepson, Monday, 7 November 2005 17:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― jellybean (jellybean), Monday, 7 November 2005 19:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― Daanko, Wednesday, 9 November 2005 12:03 (eighteen years ago) link
'This one's dedicated to anyone doing their O levels at the moment. Ah, don't worry about it. I only got 4 O levels and I did OK. If I got a few less I could have got a daytime radio job...'
― rob clarke, Saturday, 12 November 2005 10:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― frenchbloke (frenchbloke), Saturday, 12 November 2005 10:36 (eighteen years ago) link
JP... "Oh. Well, er, I've got a Scratch Pervert here. Is it broken? Oh. OK. Er, hang on. You mess about with that and I'll see if I can find something to... er... play. Right. OK, here's something to listen to and we'll see if we can get this fixed. I've no idea what this is, by the way. Are you OK?".
He was just brilliant.
― Dan K, Friday, 18 November 2005 10:04 (eighteen years ago) link
'i cant believe we ve been on air for 12 minutes and i ve not yet played anything by the white stripes'
― TedMaul, Tuesday, 22 November 2005 03:43 (eighteen years ago) link
song ends... "And that's Any Trouble and it's called Yesterday's Love. Was is Coventry you said, was it, Ian? The other day apparently they were playing one of these tapes in Coventry and people were just standing there listening to them and not buying any records. And, of course, the message in any shop -- and in the Virgin stores no less than in any other -- the message is CONSUME! CONSUME! Buy! Buy! ...and then fuck off out of the shop."
― mcnichol, Wednesday, 23 November 2005 17:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― MitchellStirling (MitchellStirling), Wednesday, 23 November 2005 23:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sasha (sgh), Thursday, 24 November 2005 02:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Friday, 25 November 2005 09:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 25 November 2005 09:18 (eighteen years ago) link
"i do think this is the best radio program in the world, i mean i know that sounds a bit big headed. but its nothing to do with me, really. does it sound big headed to you? I think it really is, i dont think there is a better radio program in the world."
― adam neil, Tuesday, 13 December 2005 10:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― TRG (TRG), Tuesday, 13 December 2005 14:13 (eighteen years ago) link
Haven't got any Whitney tonight, Janice, but here's Bolt Thrower"
― carl lyons, Thursday, 15 December 2005 22:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― JDW, Tuesday, 27 December 2005 03:51 (eighteen years ago) link
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d148/jonwilliamspwn/JonWilliams.jpg
Sometimes I think I'll go mad with the wonder of it all
― reckoning (reckoning), Tuesday, 27 December 2005 18:48 (eighteen years ago) link
"Somebody brought me a little white label of a record, unmarked, and I haven't had a chance to listen to it except during that long Dylan record a moment or so ago. And it turns out to be the debut single by Generation X. And that, I feel, is something I should share with you."
Also in 1977 he contrived another listening break for himself:
"At the beginning of the programme I mentioned that we were going to play you three versions of Hey Jude, and indeed we are. The first and the third of them are by Godfrey Daniels and they are excellent - almost as good as the one in the middle in fact."
We were then treated to a glorious doo-wop rendition and soulful ballad with towering Phil Spector-style 'wall of sound' production, separated by The Beatles' definitive version. Thirteen minutes later...
"Three versions of Hey Jude. And are you still with me!"
Wonder what he was listening to on this occasion? Answers on a postcard...
― David Healey, Wednesday, 28 December 2005 11:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jimmy Pinch, Thursday, 5 January 2006 11:49 (eighteen years ago) link
John Peel played a gig at Wolverhampton Poly in 1978 and this represented the only time I met the great man. And I say met in a very loose manner. I didn’t really have a conversation as such but communications were made via pieces of paper being handed backwards and forwards.
First up was an autograph request on the only scrap of paper I had to hand. It came back duly signed with the legend “John Peel is fab”. However the “b” was not well formed and, since then, people who have seen the treasured autograph have repeatedly asked why he signed “John Peel is fat”! I’m sure he would have been highly amused!
Later I decided that I’d try a request. However, I was hardly going to sacrifice the signature, so what else could I scavenge? Then I recalled the Beecham’s Powder sachet I had in my pocket (I had an awful cold at the time!). So I downed the powder without the aid of any water – quite a feat without choking as anyone familiar with the medication will be aware. A hurried request was scrawled on the back of the packet and it was again passed up onto the stage registering a few funny looks from the people with John! “It’ll go straight into the bin,” I was convinced. No-one in their right mind is going to take any notice of some idiot with white powder all over his face handing him a empty aspirin packet! Oh well.
For the next week or so I listened in to his show and there were plenty of mentions of Wolverhampton:
“Well all of this week’s programmes are dedicated with a gratitude bordering on reverence to Wolverhampton Wanderers, Ipswich Town and Leeds United who did us a lot of favours on Saturday. Very grateful for that…”
Wolverhampton Wanderers doing Liverpool favours. How times change!
“I had a magnificent weekend and a I earnestly hope you do too (sic). I mean that most sincerely. On the Saturday I went to Derby to see Liverpool win with two of the most handsome goals I can remember seeing in a very, very long time. But the night before that I’d been in Nottingham to see Essential Logic, who were very good – you may remember their session on Wednesday which a lot of people asked me about then, and were impressed with - and also Robert Rental and The Normal who I thought were very good also. But the stars of the show were Stiff Little Fingers, the first time I’ve ever seen them live, and they really were devastating. And I came away from Nottingham, and from my subsequent gig in Wolverhampton, with the usual pocketful of bits of paper and dedications and, for the second week in a row, I’ve left these at home so I shall have to read them out on tomorrow night’s, and Wednesday night’s, and Thursday night’s programmes. My apologies for that.”
Ah, a pocketful of pieces of paper – promising!
“At me gig at Wolverhampton the other day, someone said to me how come you’ve stopped playing records by Souixsie and the Banshees and I thought to myself why have we stopped playing records by Souixsie and the Banshees?”
And later in the week…
“And what else is there? Oh yes, I got a bunch of requests that I came away with at the weekend which I didn’t read out because I’d left ‘em at home and I’ve got some of them now but not all of them. Gaffa for Carl of Nottingham, Kevin Coyne for Sarah, Stu, Bob and Drum, Ultravox for Nick and Val and something for Dan, David, Howie and Deborah. And of all of these something is what’s gonna get played. In fact it’s the Neon Hearts because quite a few people at the gig in Wolverhampton asked for something by the Neon Hearts and I didn’t have it with me. This is their Popular Music.”
So was that my request? I’d made it for my then girlfriend and her cat! There was a David and a Deborah (separated by Howie!) and Deborah rather than Debs (as requested) but I suppose beggars can’t be choosers! Still not totally convincing, though.
“The Only Ones. Three tracks coming up from the LP Even Serpents Shine. And at some stage of the weekend’s festivities somebody called Dave came up and said would I play something by The Only Ones for Debs and Katch. So they got a bonus. Three tracks, as I say. The first of them’s called Inbetweens.”
Ah heaven!
“Well, we continue to tiptoe elegantly through The Only Ones’ album Even Serpent’s Shine. More on tomorrow night’s programme I shouldn’t wonder. The tracks there are called Inbetweens, Out There In The Night, and then the first track on side two which is Curtains For You.”
A small claim to fame but, at the time, it was most appreciated. Debs and Katch got away ultimately but I still have a cassette tape of highlights from the week’s programmes with John’s autograph fashioned into a makeshift sleeve.
Thanks John for the soundtrack to a mis-spent youth.
― David Healey (Dave H), Thursday, 5 January 2006 15:58 (eighteen years ago) link
First up was an autograph request on the only scrap of paper I had to hand. It came back duly signed with the legend “John Peel is fab”. However the “b” was not well formed and since then people who have seen the treasured autograph have repeatedly asked why he signed “John Peel is fat”! I’m sure he would have been highly amused!
Later I decided that I’d try a request. However I was hardly going to sacrifice the signature so what else could I scavenge? Then I recalled the Beecham’s Powder sachet I had in my pocket (I had an awful cold at the time!). So I downed the powder without the aid of any water – quite a feat without choking as anyone familiar with the medication will be aware. A hurried request was scrawled on the back of the packet and it was again passed up onto the stage registering a few funny looks from the people with John! “It’ll go straight into the bin,” I was convinced. No-one in their right mind is going to take any notice of some idiot with white powder all over his face handing him a empty aspirin packet! Oh well.
So for the next week or so I listened in and there were plenty of mentions of Wolverhampton:
So was that my request? I’d made it for my then girlfriend and her cat. There was a David and a Deborah (separated by Howie!) and Deborah rather than Debs (as requested) but I suppose beggars can’t be choosers! Still not totally convincing, though.
― David Healey (Dave H), Thursday, 5 January 2006 16:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 5 January 2006 16:10 (eighteen years ago) link
John was famous for playing records at the wrong speed and supplying numerous ad-libs to cover his embarrassment. I seem to remember that when he played a track from XTC’s dub experiments album Go Plus at the wrong speed he kind of liked it and decided that it was in keeping with the spirit of the concept and therefore OK to continue playing the track at the slowed down speed! CDs had a lot to answer for and reduced our listening pleasure! However, he could also manage his party trick with session tapes!
“The first from Ivor Cutler - without his accordian and without his band - is The Obliging Fairy (giggles).”
The tape runs at an alarmingly slow speed.
“It’s not like that either! That doesn’t sound entirely happy. I tell you what I’ll do, while we’re sorting that out – is that a technical problem? That’s what we call a technical problem…”
Great fun! On the same evening he played a session version of the fondly remembered Egg Meat.
“This is another from Ivor Cutler, An oldie actually. I mean an old tune, an old piece, it’s called Egg Meat.”
Ivor announces the title Egg Meat
“Told you!” inserts John before Ivor recounts the weird and wonderful story of a young lad helping his mother to feed meat to the eggs!
“Well, I’m as mystified as you,” he stated at the conclusion, “ but no doubt William, [aged] 3, could understand it entirely!”
― David Healey (Dave H), Thursday, 5 January 2006 16:16 (eighteen years ago) link
Hope the Ivor Cutler quote will make up for it!
― David Healey (Dave H), Thursday, 5 January 2006 16:20 (eighteen years ago) link
"Why does the iron monger sell egg meat?"
― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 5 January 2006 16:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― David Healey (Dave H), Thursday, 5 January 2006 17:27 (eighteen years ago) link
I found out on TV Cream that God (aka Mr Peel), Kid Jensen and Paul Burnett formed a somewhat unlikely fighting party to pound the daylights out of Simon Bates after an especially torturous Radio One Christmas Party, but Simes had buggered off before they could lay hold of him.Who's up for a John Peel Memorial Lynching of that irritating little twerp? Let's do Chris Moyles and his band of tosers while we're about it.
― James, Monday, 9 January 2006 22:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 16:16 (eighteen years ago) link
The day after it happened, someone had emailed/texted into the breakfast show along the lines of "Enough about john Peel" to which Chris Moyles basically was "Sod off you, We've just lost a mate, alright!"
So, he's ok by me.
― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 16:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― James, Tuesday, 10 January 2006 19:37 (eighteen years ago) link
.. the other DJ at Radio One for whom Peel had difficulty disguising his contempt was Andy Peebles. I have several hilarious put-downs on tape. For example:
1) introducing Glasgow girl-group Strawberry Switchblade with... "Andy Peebles would doubtless describe them as 'Those Bonnie Wee Lassies from North of the Border' "!
2) and saying in another link the phrase "if I may say so." He continued.. "You probably wonder why I say "if I may say so". One of my colleagues at Radio One says it all the time in a context I can't fully understand. I find myself screaming at the radio "why SHOULDN'T you say so!!".
and best of all...
3) introducing a session track entitled 'He's An Angry Bastard But I Like Him' by Norwich band Serious Drinking, circa '84. Peel preceeded it with an inane Radio One jingle featuring the voice of Peebles. As it ended he enthused, in his most mischievous voice, "That's Andy Peebles. He's an angry BASTARD but I like him!!"
― pete rap, Thursday, 12 January 2006 13:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― julian morgan, Saturday, 14 January 2006 01:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― john public, Sunday, 15 January 2006 13:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― James, Sunday, 15 January 2006 19:59 (eighteen years ago) link
I stumbled upon this message-board just recently. Brilliant! So many reminders of quotes I heard at the time and also lots that I missed. I have approx 120 C-90 tapes of Peel from (mainly) '78-93, with the bits I didn't want edited out and replaced with 'fillers' of classical music or film soundtracks I'd borrowed from the record library (Ennio Morricone is excellent for creating a grandiose intro before a Fall, Cocteau Twins or Smiths session track!). Many years were spent with stopwatch at the ready and finger on the pause button...
Anyway, before I reminisce further and start coming over all dewy-eyed, I have a special REQUEST. Does anyone have a taped record of the special Saturday afternoon series of six shows Peelie recorded in (I think) 1981, when he sat in for John Walters, on holiday from his regular 'Walters Weekly' spot?? These were one hour compendium programmes including some of Peelie's all-time favourite records along with fantastic old sessions from the 60s (Sun Ra, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, Fairport Convention, Ann Peebles etc) and many curiosities and audio-articles from the BBC archives which were nothing to do with music but very funny. Some fascinating stuff - plus of course liberal lashings of the Great One's sardonic wit. Looking back now, I suppose the programme was a kind of precursor to 'Home Truths'.
I got in touch with Peely a couple of months before he died to ask if he knew whether R1 had any tapes of the series. Louise in his office replied saying that they didn't - and apparently John could hardly even remember recording the programmes! But, believe me he did - and they were superb.
If anybody has some or all of the 'Peel's Pleasures' series on tape and would be prepared to either make a copy or else lend them to me to copy, please could they contact me at on p3t3r_r4p4p0rt@h0tmai1.com.
Many thanks.
― Pete Rap, Monday, 16 January 2006 15:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 16 January 2006 15:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Pete Rap, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 07:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― kit brash (kit brash), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 07:49 (eighteen years ago) link
Just after playing Bricks and Mortar by The Jam in 1977 John detailed the following story about his father:
"My father always used to maintain that back in the 1930s, in the cocktail era, when he was a dashing young chap, he once went to the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool - he went there fairly frequently, I believe - but on one particular occasion, after a meal and after the events of the evening, he called the waiter over and said 'Waiter, clear this table, I wish to dance upon it,' which I thought was rather splendid. And in the same spirit..."
What he went on to play is not recorded but the story is a typical gem and the sort of aside for which he is so fondly remembered. I'm sure if all of his shows had been recorded, many of the anecdotes he never got the chance to record for posterity in the second half of his autobiography would have been available to us.
― David Healey (Dave H), Saturday, 21 January 2006 19:59 (eighteen years ago) link
he played the 'new' single "hello, goodbye" - which he clearly loved because his immediate remark was
"that's enough to make all the other groups go and live up the lesser tributaries of the amazon"
my other favourite was from only a few years ago he read out some very strange request he had received, played something i've completely forgotten, and then said
"for all i know i may have just read out the code for the invasion of belgium"
though nothing compares to him calling his brief run of programmes on radio luxembourg as the cowdenbeath2 stenhousemuir2 show
pure genius!
and what does radio1 trumpet now? Moyles boasting about the fun of calling someone a slag!
― mike cassidy, Friday, 3 February 2006 15:12 (eighteen years ago) link
It's often said in NeasdenThat Glibs's Glabs is bestThey'll keep you warm if up to formAnd fit inside your vest
Of course, they're made of pig ironAnd woven through with gritAnd have the best facilitiesFor synthesizing shit
So off you go and get oneThey're only one and twoFrom Harrod's or the Co-opOr free with Uhu Glue
― win hunter, Saturday, 11 February 2006 03:49 (eighteen years ago) link
Peel as a poet I'm less enthusiastic about, but it's better than I could have done...
― James, Monday, 13 February 2006 21:48 (eighteen years ago) link
1) Reading out a letter along the lines of: "Dear John, why doyou always play such rubbish on your shows. I think you could beplaying more bands like Nitzer Ebb and Stylecouncil". John: "Well, you may like this then: this is Napalm Death".
2) After playing Salma & Sabina, who covered Abba songs in Hindi.Peel: "Wasn´t it the poet Keats who once said "A thing of beauty isa joy forever?" I think he may have had Salma & Sabina in mind".
― Aditya Sharma, Friday, 24 February 2006 13:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― patita (patita), Friday, 24 February 2006 16:47 (eighteen years ago) link
Another of the many football-intro gems...
...list of artists ....'but we're going to start with a record which sums up pretty neatly our attitude to the European Cup.... straight into the (spoken) first words of a great old record by Bobby Lee Trammill.... "If you ever get it once - you're gonna want it again"! ...
If Peelie had been rattled by criticism from - or the puerile behaviour of - a R1 colleague, he could never resist a dig in return:
- ...'always a delight to hear the voice of Muriel Gray on Radio One, even if she is outstandingly rude. In tonight's programme.....'
...or just a plain old piss-take....
- 'Applause is due tonight to Simon Bates, the Beast of Radio One, for making the Colemanballs column of Private Eye with the following: "We've got 10 prizes to give away in today's competition, so if you're one of the 15,000 who have entered you've got a one-in-a-million chance of winning". (pause).... Yeah, I see what you mean. In tonight's programme...'
Other intros:
- following a list of particularly obscure and bizarre-sounding bands ... 'I know that what you really want to hear are the records you bought a couple of years ago played over and over again, but there's not a lot of point doing that, I think'...
- 'Tonight we reach the moment we've all been waiting for in one way or another - the end of the Festive Fifty..!' (this was during the period when Peel began to get disillusioned with the F50, 'cos people kept voting for the same records, year after year).
Anyone got any more??
― pete rap, Thursday, 9 March 2006 15:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― Paul Bendoris, Thursday, 16 March 2006 04:12 (eighteen years ago) link
(He did play the record at 33 a few days later without comment, I'm sure it was the wrong...)
― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 16 March 2006 14:12 (eighteen years ago) link