A 46-minute segment of the pre-Christmas show. I'm extremely pleased about this one as it features the epic song 'Flesh' which I myself played in one of my podcasts. At the time I was in the 'difficult' second year of university, you know the one where they kick you out of halls and you have to live in a house much worse than your parents'. Thanks to alanforduk for this gem:
New Bad Things - Like
Henry & Louis - Instilled Dub
The Fall - The Chiselers
Gagarin Kongress - Astralleib
Polvo - Bombs That Fall From Your Eyes
The Geckoes - The Old John Peel
Ken Nordine - Flesh
New Decade - Broken Keys
Girl Of The Year - Halo
Jackie And The Cedrics - Banzai Diamond Head
Prince Far I & Creation Rebel - No More War
Loren MazzaCane Connors - Stilled Wind
The Fall - This City Never Sleeps At Night
This is what TV adverts looked like in 1995. Glad to see that someone was still using Quo to sell car parts, while it's amazing to see what Bruce Forsyth would do if, er, the price was right. Did the internet really look like that back then?
One of the advantages of working in a university is that you get a sizeable summer holiday. A small drawback of this is that you - meaning I in this instance - go away for weeks on end to places without internet connections and miss loads of goodies from the Peel Newsgroup, including this belter from 1993.
Right now I have a can of Efes Extra (Turkey's finest beer offering) in one hand, the keyboard in the other, a pot of steaming hot chilli on the stove and a Fall compilation on the CD player, hopefully filtering through to my Turkish neighbours who can't fail but be impressed by the likes of 'Yeah, yeah, industrial estate'. I did a workshop for other teachers recently and was genuinely pleased when the Fall CD I was using for incidental background music was nicked - another one converted. Anyhows, back to business.
This show comes courtesy of dontsleepinthesubwaydarlin on the newsgroup, who has the following to say:
Session guests include Oil Seed Rape (1st session) and PJ Harvey (3rd session), John also premiers the new Fall single "Why Are people Grudgeful?" and generally appears to be having a grand old time. It's thanks to this recording I discovered The Nectarine No 9 LP "A Sea With Three Stars", which is one of my favorite discoveries. Hope you enjoy this recording as much as I do.
I'm sure we will. Here are details for your full downloading pleasure:
Being a Peel head means that I’ve developed something of a taste for fine lyrics over the years, as well as compiling a personal collection of the more dubious examples from the annals of modern popular music. Among my favourites in the latter category are the, ahem, Avril Lavigne lyrics to her unforgettable and innovatively titled ‘sk8er boi’. Let’s examine in detail, shall we:
He's was a boy,
She's was a girl,
Cannot make it any more obvious,
He was a punk,
She did ballet,
What more can I say.
Not a lot, it would seem. But seriously, one site that really helps me unearth gems such as this is Flametune, officially describing itself as the ‘tabs and lyrics community’ which it certainly is. Most of you who come here often enough will know of my musical, er, prowess from my remixes and other electronic efforts that I foist upon you from time to time. I do, however, appreciate the years of hard work and dedication of all you real musicians out there, which is why I like Flametune’s other facilities such as, dare I mention her name again, Avril Lavigne guitar tabs and, lest we neglect the true heroes of any band other than The Doors, Avril Lavigne bass tabs.
While I’m coming across as something of a Lavigne basher, I heavily recommend checking out the other artists on the site, Jeff Buckley being an example of another, proper favourite of mine and among the hundreds of guitar and bass tabs added constantly.
This Peel show is an absolute gem for many obvious reasons (look at the songs he plays), but for those of us obsessed with the annual festive fifty lists, it provides some invaluable new info regarding the mythical 1977 list. The fabulous Rocklist website (www.rocklist.net), along with John Horne’s page, was instrumental in getting me started on the road to my JP music quest, and was infamously the source of about half of Mick Wall’s banal, insipid Peel biography which, given that it was released in time for Christmas 2004, Wall must have started cobbling together within minutes of JP’s death, the bastard.
Anyway, back to the ’77 festive chart. Very little was known about this chart, apart from rumours that one existed. Peel first did a 50 in 1976, which followed the format that later charts would use, listeners writing in with their favourite tracks, which JP would compile into a chart. Rocklist has full charts for every year bar 1977, for which it currently lists only a top 13. Well, the end-of-year show you’re about to be dazzled by confirms categorically that Peel did indeed broadcast a full festive chart at the end of 1977, although from what he says in this show, he seems merely to have chosen his favourite sixty tracks for that year.
This show isn’t Peel’s festive 60 for the year; it is the show broadcast the night after he’d completed the list. It is, however, an absolute belter, as Peel showcases his favourite session tracks of the year. This was quite an eye-opener: despite Peel’s later admission that he had tended to let punk dominate his shows during this period, there are many other genres represented, although I can’t imagine why that would surprise me to much.
Part One
The Motors – Dancing the night away
JP confirms the existence of a festive chart, a festive 60 which he appears to have chosen himself, and that this track was his number one.
Frankie Miller – Be good to yourself (yes, for the second time in the space of 15 minutes)
My eternal thanks to Chris Bussicott for providing this show, and for putting me in my place over the course of our email correspondence, when I suggested that getting to hear this show was right up there alongside the birth of my second son among the very good things to happen this year. Thanks for the reality check, and, admittedly less important in the greater scheme of things, for the chance to use the phrase ‘gloriously washy medium wave’ for the first time in ages.
I’d appreciate anyone downloading this show leaving a comment below to thank Chris for making this available to all of us; he went to some effort to get it onto CD and then mp3ify. Cheers fella, it’s people like you who will help us keep Peel’s legacy alive.
While we’re at it, get yourself over to so it goes site and start reading up on the history of the festive 50. Sorry I’ve not been over for a while, the day job has been inconveniently getting in the way.
Part one:
Part two:
As ever, comments attempting to correct my glaring errors are welcomed.
A special shout out to John Peel Everyday, glad to have you back in action!
I've kept you waiting for quite a while for a new Peel show download, and here it is. Peel is in good form in this show having returned from a stint in Holland, where his gig was met with blatant indifference, so he claims. This show was to be followed by another which would form an A to Z of independent music at the time. I only hope it exists in a shoe box at the back of someone's wardrobe waiting to be rediscovered, because a lot of these songs are absolute belters, no doubt most otherwise lost forever.
Track Listing
Athletico Spit 80 – No Room (rough trade)
The Bongos – Telephoto Lens (fetish records)
Classic example of Peel being caught by surprise by end of record
Charge – You get what you deserve (ycafo records)
Classic example of next track starting early
Cheeky – Don’t mess around (woodbine street records)
Crash course in science – kitchen motors (gogo records)
The craw daddies - lolette (voxx records)
The cult figures - I remember (rava records)
The Ds - My toy (optimistic records)
The dambusters - Production line love (deep water records)
The deadbeats - Choose you (red rhino records)
Peel monologue on the importance of independent labels
The decorators - Twilight view (new horizons records)
The denizens - Frontier (citizen records)
Mild rant about hippies
The details - Keep on running (energy records)
Digital dance - I sleep on the waves (digital records)
Discharge - After the gig (clay records)
Despite the fact that you've undoubtedly never heard any of these tracks (the cramps being a possible exception) I highly recommend this show. I actually thought that I'd cracked some Peel masterplan when I was making the track listing for this one, until Peel admitted that it was a purposeful A to Z list, not that A to Zing the songs you play would be much of a masterplan. Any luck with the jelly bellies yet?
While we're at it, although where the direct connection is I'm not sure, here's Mrs. Ravenscroft accepting JP's lifetime achievement award in May:
It took me a while to get round to it but finally I'm letting you know about the latest Yank Sizzler broadcast and, as ever, it's a belter:
-Diana Dors - So Little Time [1964]
-Gogol Bordello - Not A Crime [2005]
-Basement 5 - Heavy Traffic [1980]
-Katja Khudolej - Katja [2002]
-Grinderman - Love Bomb [2007]
-Alhaji K. Frimpong - Kyenkyen Bi Adi Mawu! [199?]
-The Shackeltons - Your Movement [2007]
-Meanwhile, Back In Communist Russia - Blind Spot/Invisible Bend
-Blood on the Wall - I Feel Better Now [2004]
-The Krunchies - Lost Confused [2006]
-Cat-Iron - O, The Blood Done Signed My Name [1958]
-Suzanne Vega - Stay Awake [1988]
I had the chance to literally watch Gogol Bordello from the window of my office a few weeks ago when they did an open air gig at my university but missed them due to the birth of my second son. Pretty good excuse I guess.
Here's the promo ad that appeared on MTV Turkey:
Maybe next time. Anyhows, I'm on my summer vacation throughout the month of July, so can't promise there'll be too many posts over the course of the next month. I'll try my best though, so keep coming back for more goodies.
– Then I kissed her
– Less than zero
– Bad man
– Mary of the fourth form (Bob Gelding?)
– Be good to yourself (yes, for the second time in the space of 15 minutes)
