This piece won’t pretend to give you much biographical detail on John Peel’s life and times – there are plenty of websites which will give that information. Instead I hope I can convey how he touched the lives of my life and that of my friends, and how he was a great influence on our formative years musically speaking.
This piece won’t pretend to give you much biographical detail on John Peel’s life and times – there are plenty of websites which will give that information. Instead I hope I can convey how he touched the lives of my life and that of my friends, and how he was a great influence on our formative years musically speaking.
John Peel 1939 -2004
This letter from London was going to give some thoughts on the forthcoming Oasis album, but when I heard the sad news about legendary DJ John Peel’s tragic death there was only one thing to write about. Noel and company will just have to wait until next time.
I was genuinely shocked by John’s premature passing from a heart attack aged just 65. I guess I should start by saying that I never met him or had any formal contact with him at all. The nearest I ever got into his orbit was being friends with his niece, who was a colleague’s girlfriend (I remember feeling envious when she told me she had been to all of his famous Peel Acres summer garden parties – just imagine the guest list for those!)
This piece won’t pretend to give you much biographical detail on John Peel’s life and times – there are plenty of websites which will give that information. Instead I hope I can convey how he touched the lives of my life and that of my friends, and how he was a great influence on our formative years musically speaking.
To fill you in on a more complete picture, I must take you back to some darker days in the late 1980s. Independent music was marginal – bands could build up a big following amongst a selected audience without the prospect of a chart hit or filling even medium sized venues.
Radio 1 was crap back then (it still is now but for different reasons). For all I know Radio 1 has always been rubbish but at this particular time, the DJs were self serving and seemed to have little interest in music, especially new music, beyond being obliged to play some between talking about themselves or creaking along with formulaic shows.
Unthinkable with the youth-obsessed station as it is now, but the daytime DJ roster included such luminaries as Simon Bates, Gary Davies, Bruno Brookes, Mike Read, Dave Lee Travis and Simon Mayo (actually in hindsight he wasn’t too bad – at least he was a Clash fan). Anyone who knows these names and has any interest in music whatsoever will be shuddering right now. Features such as "Our Tune" and darts on the radio were amongst the spectres at this feast of mediocrity.
However, in the late evenings it was all different. As teenagers, we would religiously tune in for Janice Long, whilst waiting anxiously for John Peel to take to the airwaves at 10pm. I don’t remember how I first got turned onto him – news of his show spread by word of mouth, like a shadowy secret traded between like-minded kids in the playground.
During these difficult times he did two things for me musically on both a micro and a macro level. First of all he fuelled teenage obsessions with any number of bands from the sublime (Jesus and Mary Chain, The Cure, The Smiths) to the ridiculous (Half Man Half Biscuit spring to mind).
But looking back at the bigger picture now, it is clear that listening to Peel inspired a sense of being musically experimental, of constantly wanting to hear and experience new bands and artists regardless of genre. This is something I am still reaping the rewards of now. Of course as a teenager living in a small town, this did present problems in a pre-internet era – many of the records he played were next to impossible to find, even if you wanted to hear them again.
Discussing John Peel with friends, there seems to be a consensus that he opened our ears and minds beyond listening to one or two narrow genre types. Assume that he did this for many more people than my narrow circle of contacts, and Peel’s musical legacy is immeasurable.
Every time I listened to his show, back then and more recently, a love of music of all forms shone through. He would play anything and everything – play lists and charts went right out of the window. In fact, I can recall him saying in a recent interview that the only thing he couldn’t play or understand was Merzbow. Even this was told in an anecdotal and humorous way – he recalled considering (but finally deciding against) going to the Colchester Arts Centre where a fan was spending a whole day playing Merzbow’s back catalogue in chronological order.
Sometimes it could be too much, there were records which frankly even an enthusiast would be praying for the end of, but his willingness to unearth new talent speaks for itself. Just look at the BBC website for the list of Peel sessions in the past few years, let alone since the late 1960s.
All this from the most unlikely looking figure – John was avuncular in both tone and appearance. Even in photos from the sixties he has a beard, is slightly overweight and balding, albeit with longer hair at the sides. Since moving to Radio 1 in 1967 he had been at the forefront of promoting psychedelia and what is now termed prog rock. Into the 1970s he championed artists such as Roxy Music, David Bowie, Marc Bolan (who was a close friend) and Syd Barrett, who recorded some now legendary sessions.
By the time punk broke, he was approaching 40. Even so he welcomed the ethos of punk with open arms – I can vividly remember him recalling his excitement at the fact that teenagers could rob a telephone box and use the proceeds to record a single. Apparently by this time he would rarely go to gigs as he would be assailed by spotty youngsters in zips and chains wielding demo tapes and pictures of their bands posing moodily on fire escapes. I once read that someone gave Peel a tape whilst he was getting into his car – he simply opened the boot and put it with the others – needless to say it was overflowing with vinyl and cassettes.
John Peel would play entire records not talking over beginning and endings or playing inane jingles. His style and delivery was unique – he was like an amiable uncle or man you had met in a pub who couldn’t wait to tell you in a self-depreciating but excited manner about the latest techno records he had bought in a back street in Bucharest or Helsinki over the summer.
Just to give you an insight into how fascinating a man he was, I’m going to recount just some of the stories I’ve read and heard about Peel since his death. A colleague, who is not really interested in music, related how the only thing she really know about him was that he attended the press conference in Texas to announce the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Another friend remembers being backstage at Glastonbury surrounded by any number of famous musicians but being genuinely star-struck when John Peel stood nearby. I met a New Zealander a few days ago with a fantastic appreciation of music – he put this fairly and squarely down to being able to hear John Peel’s shows on the other side of the world on NZ’s Radio 4 and over the World Service.
However, I’m going to sum up with my abiding memory of John Peel. Years ago I saw some documentary footage of Peel and his producer John Walters (another fantastically entertaining broadcaster who is sadly no longer with us.) They were sitting in their office surrounded by papers and boxes full of records and tapes. Peel had his head in his hands looking totally anxious and stressed. He raised his voice at the people filming in total frustration, explaining that he needed to listen to everything he received, which was obviously a Sisyphusian task, just in case he missed something.
How many other DJs can you list with this drive, passion and desire to bring new music to their listeners…John Peel you will be sorely missed.
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Apparently an US-based radio company has bid "over £1 million" for John Peel’s record collection, which features tens of thousands of records. The British Library is also interested according to quotes attributed to Peel’s manager.
A UK media report also reports that the records have got his annotations on them – three asterisks meant the record must be played. The Peel family had to extend their house in rural Suffolk to hold them all. I also know that he employed at least one archivist to keep them all in manageable order.
Surely a collection as rich as this, shouldn’t be allowed to cross the Atlantic? Imagine this aural treasure available to the nation in a library or public collection, with all or selected records available to listen to – it would be like the alternative music equivalent of the library of Alexandria.
Incendiary did receive a response to the last Letter from London (honestly!) letting us know that it seemed a little bit of a diatribe against the current crop of alternative bands. It wasn’t intended as such – just a warning that in our experience all that glitters is not necessarily gold. The media will get carried away with certain bands (remember they get records and gig tickets for free) and not all of them will be worth your undying affection. But in the interests of putting the record straight – a selection of new (or newish) bands I’m currently excited about, in no particular order: TV on the Radio, Pink Grease, Futureheads, Bloc Party, The Dears, British Sea Power and Neil’s Children. I know that some of the co-workers at Incendiary Towers are also raving about amongst others, the Duke Spirit, the Rakes and Lansing-Dreiden.
Words : John Cottrill