Peel was still receiving correspondence about his week covering for Jakki Brambles and on this show he read a letter from Barry Warren congratulating him on his stint.* Warren said that he had last written to Peel back in the days of The Perfumed Garden to request a play of Get Me to the World on Time by The Electric Prunes. Peel hadn’t played it for Warren in 1967, and he wasn’t holding his breath in 1993, to which Peel could only reply, Better late than never, Barry….
The Smell of the Greasepaint and the Sound of John Peel
Sunday, 17 August 2025
Guys and Dolls: The Electric Prunes - Get Me to the World on Time (16 April 1993)
Wednesday, 13 August 2025
Guys and Dolls: Arcwelder - And Then Again (16 April 1993)
Thursday, 7 August 2025
Guys and Dolls: The Fall - Service/I’m Going to Spain (16 April 1993)
As was previously mentioned, Peel had received a copy of the latest album by The Fall. In this case, his first listen to The Infotainment Scan came via its cassette version. This was useful as he had had recently had a new car radio fitted, which had included a cassette player. He was pleased about this as it meant that he could listen to demo tapes while out driving again. Peel continued his campaign against the onslaught of developing technology by taking the time to find a radio which could be tuned by turning a dial rather than by pressing buttons.
So, the essential website, The Annotated Fall appears to be no longer operational. This is dreadful news for Peel show bloggers because it means we now need to stick our necks out and try and interpret for ourselves what Mark E.Smith meant in his lyrics. I guess it’s the image of the old bastard, sitting up in a pub on a cloud somewhere, pissing himself laughing and saying to himself, “He’s a genius this bloke, isn’t he? He really should be teaching musicology somewhere. I could learn from him.” that has us so wary of interpreting his material. However, in the case of Service, I have a theory which I think fits well enough. So using the Who-What-Why-When-Where-How theory and mixing it with the kind of mental deductions required for the latter rounds of 3-2-1, my take on Service is that it is a poignant song about ghosts and mental illness.
Monday, 4 August 2025
Guys and Dolls: Guided by Voices - Exit Flagger (16 April 1993)
It’s exactly 1 year since Guided by Voices first appeared on this blog, a year which covers 3 weeks in terms of Peel shows. My God, how does anything get accomplished here? It’s a good thing he wasn’t doing daytime stand-ins on a regular basis or we’d get nowhere.
Saturday, 2 August 2025
Guys and Dolls: Hole - Olympia/Pee Girl/The Void [Peel Session]/ The Raincoats - The Void (16 April 1993)
Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Guys and Dolls: Metamorphism - Mecano (16 April 1993)
Tony Clements, the man behind Metamorphism, would, over the next couple of years, go on to become something of a fixture on Peel show playlists as part of Distorted Waves of Ohm.
Thursday, 24 July 2025
Guys and Dolls: The Wedding Present - Rotterdam (16 April 1993)
Placing at Number 22 on The Phantom Fifty and completely unconnected to The Beautiful South’s hit single of the same name, this is something of a damp squib for its first two minutes. That’s not because of the content, despite the fact that it breaks no new ground. It’s a Wedding Present song, so obviously David Gedge is lamenting the latest piece of miscommunication which has left him grovelling apologetically to a woman. She feels sad, and he feels bad for making her that way. I wanted you but not the way you think. We’ve heard it all before and perhaps because of this, the producer of the track, Steve Albini has decided that we don’t need to clearly hear what Gedge is singing. It isn’t quite John Lennon yelling the final chorus of Yer Blues into a dead microphone, but you have to strain to hear what Gedge is singing and it doesn’t help the song given that Gedge’s singing voice has always walked the line between distinctive and unprepossessing. My notes from this show had a question mark next to Rotterdam, and when I listened to it again for the first time in a year, last week, I was all ready to keep it off the metaphorical mix tape, based on those first two minutes.
And then, at precisely 2:00, the reason for sticking with Rotterdam makes its entrance. Peter Solowka’s multi-note guitar riff encapsulates a choked sob of such distress that it can’t fail to move the listener. Over the last minute, the whole band move in on this as the riffs and drum fills get more urgent, taking the sound from sobs and tears to the metaphorical smashing up of the room. It could be Gedge taking out his regret on anything that isn’t nailed down, or his friend breaking everything in sight while he sits cowering in the corner. Either way, it’s the closest thing to violence that I’ve ever heard on a Wedding Present song and pulls the dollars out of the fire in fine style.
Rotterdam was recorded for The Wedding Present’s 1991 album, Seamonsters, which marked Solowka’s last work with the band, before he devoted himself full time to The Ukrainians.
John Lennon demonstrates how dead mic singing should be done from 3:17.