HW: Its A Laugh (becoming more sombre )postscript

[Doug Pearson]

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 10:58:17 +0100, Carl Edlund Anderson <cea at CARLAZ.COM>
wrote:
>On 27/10/2004 10:48, CWarburton at OAG.COM wrote:
>> R.I.P. John Peel (né Ravenscroft)
>> I shed some tears.  Peel's been part of my soundscape for about
>> 35 years, it's hard to believe that if I hear his voice again it
>> will only be a "ghost in the machine".

Last night's playlist:
- "Children of the Sun" by the Misunderstood (not a Peel session, but
he "discovered" them when he lived in Riverside, CA circa 1966, and they
moved to England on his advice, even staying with his mum for a week!)
- Stiff Little Fingers (3 78/79 sessions)
- Pink Fairies (70 session)
- The Damned (2 77 sessions)
- Mudhoney (89 session plus "Urban Guerilla" from 2002 session)
- Joy Division (79 session)
- Wire (that 79 session with one 15-minute song)
- Can (73 session)
- Hawkwind (side 1 of 'Text of Festival' with 70/71 sessions)
- Kevin Ayers & This Whole World (70 session)
- Soft Machine (the classic 1969 "Moon In June" session)

And yes, I was bawling like a baby when Robert Wyatt sang, "Tell me how
would you feel / In the place of John Peel? / You just can't please all the
musicians all the time ...".

>> Except when on holiday I
>> haven't heard his Radio 1 show too much in recent years, but it
>> was always a refuge, it was great to know that it was there.
>
>That's because in recent years his Radio 1 show (at least the late night
>one I sometimes heard -- maybe there were others!?) seemed dedicated to
>an experiement along the lines of "How much hideous noise can I possibly
>play without getting kicked off the air?" ;)

... nor, apparently, all the listeners. ;^)

Not that I liked all of his recent choices, but I'm not sure how one could
consider (say) the Strokes to be "hideous noise".  "Way-too-blatantly-
derivative-guitar-rock", sure, but ...

And I always appreciated the fact that even obscure bands from Oakland (or
wherever) that friends of mine were in could get played on his show because
they *made good music* (again, including incredibly poppy stuff as far
removed from "hideous noise" as one can imagine).  Not because they were
cute, trendy, MOJO- (or NME-) favorites, or had big publicity budgets.
It's sad that he was such an exception in that he actually *listened* to
the music he received, and made the decision to play it based on his own
opinions instead of selecting tunes from the computer-generated playlist
like every other major radio DJ in the world is forced to do.

>But then, I suppose that was always part of his job :)

That was the common reaction in 1977, when he decided he wasn't going to
spend his whole life playing the same-old-same-old!

>> Rock on, John!
>
>Amen!

Amen, indeed.  The greatest radio DJ ever, no question.

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com