So it was John Peel’s anniversary of death last week. As I recalled the manner in which I found out he had died (via text message, signing on in Partick job centre) and how utterly gutting it was, and how massively he is still missed by everyone with half a clue about music, I thought a wee tribute compilation was in order. I decided to make a compilation made up purely of tracks from Peel sessions, which quickly got out of hand as I realised just how many Peel sessions I actually had. So I’ve ended up splitting it over two volumes. It’s pretty mental that all of these recordings were fundamentally part of the same radio show, split up as they are over four decades with basically every genre of modern music represented. The guy brought us Captain Beefheart and also Bong-Ra. Led Zeppelin and Lightning Bolt. Pink Floyd and Polysics. There will never be another John Peel.
I remember well both occasions on which I met the great man, how I felt instantly comfortable walking up and talking to him, I felt like I’d known him for years. Was particularly impressed that when I met him the second time he not only remembered meeting me years previously but remembered the names of the bands that were playing in the Youth Centre at the time, which is actually more than I can (one of the bands was yours if I remember correctly, Thee Midnighter). He just started rambling on about the records he had just bought, showing them to me and remarking that the Venezuelan drum and bass that we were watching was in fact the only music he had ever heard from Venezuela and was really quite good. He used to play Tubejerk back to back with Carcass. He talked about Anal Cunt on Room 101 with Paul Merton. He was the man.
I have the full sessions from all of these tracks, if anyone wants me to post something in particular, I’ll be more than happy to.
Puremadtunes John Peel Tribute Volume 1
Tracklist
01 Pulp - Theme from Peter Gunn
02 Man . . .Or Astroman - The Miracle of Genuine Pyrex
03 Stereolab - Ticker Tapes Of The Unconscious
04 Can - Geheim (half past one)
05 Broadcast – Pendulem
06 Polysics - Peel banter
07 Polysics - My Sharona
08 New Order - Dreams Never End
09 Pavement – Here
10 Ivor Cutler - Ok, I'll count to eight
11 The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Feel So Good
12 Butthole Surfers - Nee Nee
13 Jack Rose - St. Louis
14 Led Zeppelin - Travelling Riverside Blues
15 Dirtbombs - Motor City
16 The Walking Seeds - Blathering Out
17 Joy Division - Exercise One
18 Autechre – Gelk
19 Boards of Canada
20 The Pogues - Sally MacLennane
21 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Miles Away
22 Sonic Youth - Victoria (The Fall cover)
23 The Stranglers - I Feel Like A Wog
24 The Fall - Lie dream of a casino soul
25 Fire Engines - young tongues need taste
26 Ultravox - Young Savage
27 The Birthday Party - Release the Bats
28 Pil – Chant
29 The Melvins – Leech
30 Mogwai - Hunted By A Freak
31 Pink Floyd - careful with that axe eugene
32 The Black Keys – Thickfreakness
33 Dexy's Midnight Runners – Geno
34 Captain Beefheart Interview
35 Captain Beefheart –Electricity
36 The Ruts - Babylon
37 Crass – Bomb
38 Napalm Death - The Kill
39 Lightning Bolt - 2 Morro Morro Land
Puremadtunes John Peel Tribute Volume 2
Tracklist
01 Add n to (x) - i wanna be your dog
02 Wire - Culture Vultures
03 Loop – Pulse
04 Black Sabbath - Evil Woman
05 Shellac - Dog and Pony Show
06 Gary
07 The Damned - New Rose
08 Mudhoney - You Make Me Die
09 The Mummies - High heel sneakers
10 Guana Batz - Jungle Rumble
11 The Meteors - Deep Dark Jungle
12 The Lurkers - Freak Show
13 The Fuzztones - Bad News Travels Fast
14 Buzzcocks - Fast cars
15 The Jam - Art School
16 A Certain Ratio – Choir
17 The Jesus and Mary Chain - In A Hole
18 The Pixies - Levitate Me
19 T Rex - The Wizard
20 Happy Mondays - Do It Better
21 Magazine - Look what fear's done to my body
22 Thin Lizzy – Emerald
23 Mugstar - Man with Super Sight
24 Gong - Crystal Machine
24 No Means No - Body Bag
25 The Locust - The Half-Eaten Sausage Would Like To See You In His Office
26 Cabaret Voltaire - Walls of Jericho
27 Peter Hammill – Auto
28 Madness - Stepping Into lIne
29 The Cramps - Give Me a Woman
30 Human League - Blind Youth
31 Extreme Noise Terror - Bullshit Propaganda
32 Sigur Ross – Bureaucratic
33 Orbital – Attached
34 Bong Ra - Rocket Punch Generation
35 Anaal Nathrakh - Pandemonic Hyperblast
36 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Put a Spell on You
37 The Fall - Hip Priest
Ok so volume two has two number 24s. Deal with it.
ReplyDeletethis looks amazin, on the dl the noo.
ReplyDeletecool. glad you have dreams never end on there . . . believe it was the first thing they recorded upon the ashes of joy division.
ReplyDeletead
Brilliant, cheers very for this.
ReplyDeleteI was in the band too. It was utterly amazing and one of my favourite memories. Such an amazingly nice guy and to a tee fantastic. Around fifty youths shouting "theres only one john peel" - you couldn't write something like that.
ReplyDeleteWhats so sad is how the entirety of radio 1 (maybe our collective musical heritage?) collapsed with his death. His institutional knowledge and political nous kept the whole station, and hence the country, grounded in quality. Why does everything have to be a race to the lowest common denominator, particularly something thats publicly funded.
Maybe 6music was an attempt at giving his ethos an entire station but that collapsed due to relentless plugging of shite indie. I guess thats how peel avoided that by playing EVERYTHING. Jarvis cockers show is actually quite good, but lacks that exciting freshness that peels shows had.
Now Im sick of Infinite access to mp3s and am happy to let somebody else choose for me when i can, but its still fragmented to a point where something like peel is long gone.
One idea i had was cutting up peels vocals and making a new show somehow. One day.
Aye so you were Dave, how brilliant was The Key by the way, kids today will never know a place like that. They let us smoke and everything.
ReplyDeleteYeah it's impossible to replace Peel, his very authority made you listen to the music on his show slightly differently to the way you would listen to music on any other, if John Peel said he really liked something you'd give it far more of a chance than you ever would for Jarvis Cocker. Also, by fragmenting his ethos into many different shows on 6music,it contradicts the central glory of Peel, in that it was all on the one show. It was the way in which you'd come across some good music (of any genre) and then it would magically be on the Peel show. Remember when he had Richie Hawtin on? He said he'd took his boy to see Richie Hawtin in Newcastle and it had brought them closer than anything had before. Boggles the mind.
He also wasn't afraid to play stuff that people just wouldn't have had the balls to play - I'm sure there was never 17 minute ambient tracks on the radio until The Orb Peel session. He was the first and probably only radio DJ to play Lou Reed's 'metal machine music' on the radio, and more recently he had Sunn O))) on for a session, wonder how many people thought their radios were broken when radio one was broadcasting undulating distorted feedback for a solid 20 minutes. Not to mention grindcore, which might not even exist as a commercially viable genre if Peel hadn't started playing it on the radio.
I think people making podcasts in their bedrooms is far closer to the spirit of John Peel - although without the audience, the respect and the authority of Peel or the artists cuing up to do sessions, it can only be a pale shadow of what the great man achieved.