Peelie!

[Fridgemagnet]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3955289.stm

I am bereft.

[kelvyn]

I grew up on the peel show during the 80's, at that time the only good tunes in a very barren landscape

Sad loss

RIP

[Steve]

Very sad news. John Peel seemed such a genuinely warm soul with a true passion for music and an honest respect for those who create it. What he has done for the UK (and in turn) the international music scene is immeasurable.

Without ever having known or met John, I will miss him.

I had sometimes thought It would be great if one day there would be a Carina Round Peel session.

[jce]

Sad news indeed - a great loss not only to his family but the entire nation. I "discovered" Peel in the mid 80's when messing about tuning the radio in my bedroom. Just amazed me the type and range of stuff he played. Cant say that all of it was to my taste! Still listened to his show, even the Radio 4 one he did.

He helped me expand my musical knowledge beyond that i'd got from my parents ;D Introduced me to so much new stuff. I loved his openness to play anything and everything - so refreshing. His seemed to be running his own pirate radio station in the heart of the BBC - a rebel that never compromised. More recently his was the first show that i heard the White Stripes on! Long before their arena gigs

They'll never be another to take his place and that can only be a bad thing

I remember the first Pink Floyd live bootleg i heard - it was in about 1985 that i heard it - a BBC session they did in 1971 and there introducing each track was John Peel - and i thought he was a new DJ on Radio 1. When i asked around i discovered he'd been there since the beginning and that one of the bands he "discovered" and championed was Pink Floyd - for that alone he should be remembered forever.

The Times did a list today of the bands he discovered;

60's - Jefferson Airplane, Captain Beefheart, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd
70's - Bowie, Bolan, The Faces, Bob Marley, The Ramones, The Undertones, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Cure, The Fall, Joy Division/New Order
80's - Grandmaster Flash, The Smiths, Billy Bragg, The Pogues, Jesus and Mary Chain, Public Enemy, The Wedding Present, The Bhundu Boys, Pixies, Nirvana, Happy Mondays
90's - PJ Harvey, Orbital, Pulp, Blur, Elastica, Belle and Sebastian
2000's - The Strokes, The White Stripes, Interpol

What a legacy! And for me most of those stand out as big favourites of mine

[Fridgemagnet]

I've been in denial. I was shocked and saddened by John Peel's death, but it didn't hit me until Saturday night, watching a succession of talking heads on the BBC's Peel tribute programme. I was doing well until Phil Jupitus said that it'd probably take about a year to assess the full extent of the loss to music. And I just wept and wept, and carried on blubbing for the rest of the weekend. It's too much of a loss to deal with in one go, so I'll just have to do it bit by bit.

Here's some random Peel memories of mine; let's hear yours too:

1) Me first encountering Peel as a 13-year-old, listening to the insane noises he was playing as I stitched up my road-racing bicycle tyres. I had no idea what to make of the music (a bit advanced for me then), but I felt the lure of a dangerous tune or two. Back then, I only got to listen in when I had a puncture.
2) Peel playing a Leonard Nimoy re-release. "Give it to someone you feel ambivalent about."
3) Peel occasionally laying bare his soul in the interests of the programme. One time, as the introduction to a particular record, he told a story from his days as a DJ in Dallas. He was going out with a woman who he doted on, and every weekend he would drive her for about 6 hours so she could spend the weekend with her other man. Peel would drive the 6 hours back home, weeping all the way. During the course of their relationship she would be showered with gifts from him, but the only gift she ever gave him was just before she ditched him. It was a record, and the sentiment of the lyric went something like "well, it's been sort of nice, but bye then, I'm off now." And then he played the very record on his show. Chap!
4) People would often find old Peel tapes from years ago, and send them to him, thinking he'd be well pleased. Invariably he found old clips and tapes of himself acutely embarrassing, and would rather they remained buried.
5) A girl writes into the show to say how much she enjoyed the recent Glastonbury festival, except for the bit where someone stole her boots one night. Peel felt that any festival boot-thief caught in the act could justifiably be on the wrong end of a proper kicking.

As much as I loved most of the music he played, I would quite happily tune in just for the Peel interludes between the records.

I have no reason to listen to BBC Radio 1 any more. The days of having your musical tastes broadened on a regular basis by a radio show are now gone.

Let's hear your favourite Peel moments:

[kelvyn]

Picked up Bowie at the Beeb CD before I went out to work today without thinking who introduces the tracks, you've guessed it JP!!!

After the initial shock (and the avoidance of oncoming traffic), I listened intently and realised he will live on, unlike most of us..

[Fridgemagnet]

Remembered another great Peel moment last night. In the early days of BBC Radio 1, the music and DJs were even worse than today (Peel excepted), and in particular there was a genial, hairy, medallion-chested DJ called Dave Lee Travis (or DLT for short). Nice enough chap, household name, but pure evil.

Being a daytime Radio 1 DJ meant that he had a massive ego, to the extent that he drove around in a white sports car with number (licence) plates that read "DLT 1". He was particularly proud of this, but found out he couldn't park it anywhere as people kept letting the air out of his tyres. He complained about this to Peel, who responded by saying that if he'd have known, he'd have had a pop at DLT's tyres himself.

As a youngster I once saw DLT's car parked up in the town where I was born, but I thought the number plate was just one of those coincidences. What an opportunity missed!

...Although Peel did say that the very pinnacle of his career was at a 1970's Radio 1 roadshow in a London park, with the Bay City Rollers playing on a small island in the middle of a lake, with Dave Lee Travis going round and round this lake in a speedboat being driven by a Womble. A moment to savour, I'm sure.

[jce]

I read somewhere that Peel's favourite gig ever was the Hyde Park free concert in 1968 or 67 by Pink Floyd.

He said that he lay in the bottom of a boat drifting around in the lake listening with pure pleasure to the Floyd whilst watching the clouds.

So you should all go and listen to some early Floyd in memorium - A Saucerful Of Secrets would be about the best one ;D

[Fridgemagnet]

Kelvyn and jce have fine points. John Peel's legacy has been to change the face of popular music for the better.

I was a massive Pink Floyd fan in my teens/early 20s, and the majority of my early Floyd bootlegs are introduced by him. I think they played at least a couple of free concerts in Hyde Park. On one occasion they were headlining an all-nighter, and played just as the sun was coming up at dawn. There was a giant inflatable octopus that rose from the lake to great effect. And they killed loads of fish! Probably with the noise, rather than octopus fright.

He would often do so much more than just play and promote bands he believed in - some he helped out with studio costs, sometimes he would transport bands to their gigs (notably T-Rex and Captain Beefheart). Who does that anymore?

Boats in parks feature heavily here. JP only ever took LSD the one time, but it was in the middle of a boating lake, with Marc Bolan. I think he felt it was pretty hard to top that.

[Fridgemagnet]

Just remembered another Peel moment while in Wicker Man mode. He once played a track by the band Hard To Swallow from their album Protected By The Ejaculation Of Serpents (from the inscription on a gravestone in The Wicker Man film: "Here lieth Beech Buchanan, protected by the ejaculation of serpents". Peel wondered "Shouldn't it be Protected By The Ejaculate Of Serpents?", but after some pondering decided that either way, he'd prefer to remain unprotected.

[kelvyn]

Just heard that the new tent glastonbury will be renamed

'the john peel tent'

Nice one ;D