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John Peel Dead
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keith a
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Re: John Peel Dead
Oct 27, 2004, 01:19
I can think of loads of memories - listening to his show the day Bolan died (probably the first time I heard his show in it's entirity), hearing The Seeds for the first time, The Only Ones first session, the first 3 tracks of Chairs Missing straight after each other, hearing the Teardrops the 1st time (Camera Camera), his 40th birthday show in 1979 and thinking it was cool that someone THAT OLD could like such mad music (and also being pleasantly surprised that he played Band of Gold!), the first Cope session with the drum machine version of Head Hang Low, him playing How Soon Is Now and not mentioning who it was by and thinking it sounds like Moz but it doesn't sound like The Smiths, reading a letter I wrote about how good a Loop
session was, those thrash tracks that lasted less time than it took him to announce the title, hearing lots of great one-off 45's like Road Pizza - Spit (which I never managed to buy), My Pal - God and Heavy Black Noise by Sacred Miracle Cave, all the way through to that last Wire session a couple of years back. And so on...

I listened to Radio 1 as I was driving to Chester this evening, and they were talking about him and playing lots of records he supposedly liked. OK
singles like Teenage Kicks and Ever Fallen In Love sort of sum him up (the latter track was on my very first Peel tape so it made perfect sense to me),
but as much as I like things like Song 2 or Smells Like Teen Spirit, they don't really seem Peel records to me.

I know this was pretty spontaneous, just a few hours after his death was announced, but I just wish that - TK and Ever Fallen apart - it had been
less safe. I wanted them to give him a real tribute - some Beefheart, The Fall, some less obvious hits like Public Image or Rock Lobster, a spot of dub and lots of obscure bands that would never normally be heard at that time of day like that Monkey Power Trio he was raving about last year. And that Temple City Orchestra version of Staying Alive he used to play circa '78/79 that used to crease me up every time I heard it. But then again, he's gonna mean something different to us all.

Keith
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John Peel Dead (anthonyqkiernan)
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