The Real Peel

I suppose I should be out at some gig somewhere or other celebrating the life of John Peel as part of Radio 1's self-promoting 'Peel Day'. But something about the whole thing hasn't sat very comfortably with me. If a lot of people go out & see some live music today, that'll be great. But I get the feeling that Peel himself wouldn't be a bit bemused by his ongoing canonisation. He would probably be the first to say that it's all a big fuss over someone who just played a few records on the radio.

I agree with many of the sentiments of this article in The Times. If Radio 1 wanted to celebrate Peel properly, they should do so by throwing some excellent unsigned bands in amongst their playlist... not just repeating his name endlessly and playing 'Teenage Kicks' once an hour in the hope that some of his cool will rub off on them.

I had the misfortune to listen to radio 1 a fair bit today. The songs I heard played in his 'honour' were:

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
Underworld - Born Slippy
New Order - Blue Monday
Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
The Undertones - Teenage Kicks (of course)

Don't get me wrong, I don't object to hearing any of those on the radio, but that's hardly representative of what you'd hear on an average Peel show, and certainly not what he'd choose to play given free reign of radio 1. Why is everything they play when mentioning him done by white guys with guitars? Where's the Malinese Reggae? or the Happy Hardcore? Or more importantly, where's the Napalm Death?

I can live with all that though.. what really made me reject this whole thing completely was seeing this story about a tribute single. Recorded by Robert Plant!? Roger Daltry!!?? Dave Gilmour!!!??? and ELTON FUCKIN' JOHN!!!!!!!!!????????

So I will attempt to put things right by posting something noisy, something nice, and something by The Fall.

Enjoy....

APHASIC - THE JACKAL
'Did I ever tell you about that man.. .who changed my life' Awesome breakcore on the Rephlex-affiliated Ambush Records. Now THOSE are drums.

RELOAD - THE BIOSPHERE (GLOBAL COMMUNICATION MIX)
Timeless and achingly beautiful. An ambient techno masterpiece. I'm thinking of having a week dedicated to Tom Middleton & Mark Pritchard soon....

THE FALL - MR PHARMACIST
The Fall track Peel chose to include on his Fabric mix CD. One of their best.


Sorry for being a miserable bastard. Feel free to comment if you think i'm being too cynical. Or just feel free to comment anyway. I won't bite.



In the course of my 'research' I came across Jamie's Runout Groove - an excellent British MP3 blog that had somehow escaped my notice. Check it out.