There was a sense that, over the period 22-23 May 1992, John Peel was going through a phase of melancholic isolation. The night before, he had lamented the regularity with which planned meetings in London with friends and acquaintances tended to fall through. Tonight’s complaint was that none of the bands which he had in to do sessions for him ever invited him to their parties. Interesting behaviour given that in the same year, he wrote two letters to his literary agent, Cat Ledger, outlining the proposed structure for an autobiography. One extract saw him write, “Important realisation that retention of sanity depends on avoiding showbiz - [...] triggered by appearance with Clive James and Andre Previn on awful TV programme, thought that if I really hustled I could spend most of time with glamorous folk such as these followed by thought that would rather have painful and humiliating rectal surgery...” Given that his wife, Sheila described him as someone who, at other people’s parties, tended to busy himself in kitchens rather than mix with the throngs, I suspect that had Peel received these invitations at the time, he would have quickly looked to make his excuses and leave. In 1992 though, he was seen as an important but peripheral figure. By the end of the decade, bands were much more eager to pay court to him, while live sessions held at Peel Acres allowed him to host bands through the night. As Sheila said in Margrave of the Marshes, “I think he was generally happier playing home games rather than away ones.” (Page 222)
That’s not to say Peel was a complete social pariah in 1992. Earlier this week, I found myself fruitlessly waiting for a work contact at Stevenage Library. I had a leaf through Michael Palin’s third volume of diaries, Travelling to Work: Diaries 1988-1998 and on 16 March 1992, he recorded details of a lunch with Peel and former Radio 1 producer, Teddy Warwick who was working for a new radio station called Melody Radio. Palin had approached the lunch with a slight sense of foreboding. Although he and Peel were both former pupils at Shrewsbury School, albeit Peel was a few years older than Palin, much of their subsequent contact had been through Christmas cards.. However, according to Palin, “By the end of the afternoon, it’s as though we’ve been meeting for lunch every week for the last 10 years.” There was a shared appreciation between the two old Salopians for the work of The Four Brothers.
One of the bands who, it appears, were not inviting Peel to their parties were Levellers 5. Their second session for Peel was broadcast on this show. This was to be one of their last performances under this name because, according to Peel, they were going to change their name to “..either Doves or The Doves.” In the event they renamed themselves Calvin Party, though whether they threw a party for this, I don’t know.
One record on Peel’s playlist for this programme was In the Meantime by Helmet. He picked up the single from one of the Rough Trade shops and was asked to pass on a message to his audience that their mailing list had been lost due to a computer glitch. “I don’t want to enhance my reputation as a Luddite and say I told you so, but I told you so. I don’t trust the things at all!”
Kicking off a brief feature over some of Peel’s May/June ‘92 shows which looked at the apparently small number of records about real-life astronauts, Peel played Mighty John Glenn by Peter Colombo. I wasn’t persuaded by it. Indeed, all the signs are that the 93 minute file I used to make selections for this broadcast were not, going by my personal reaction to it, a vintage set of tunes.
No less than four initial selections ended up being rejected by me when it came to blogging about them - and Junior Reid came close to making five.
i - Gat - minimalist, German electronica from Uwe Schmidt. My notes weren’t optimistic about its chances of inclusion, citing it as “A borderline case which may well miss the cut.” I mention that it didn’t start to interest me until the latter stages when “...it started to sound like a Halloween record”. I’ve no idea what this meant and couldn’t hear any traces of John Carpenter when I listened to it again, so it was out.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Shirt Jac - It’s only 88 seconds long, and I enjoyed the audio verite opening with it’s “live gig in the studio” feel. But they were pretty insubstantial hooks on which to hang the track on.
Daniel Johnston - Pinny Pinny - This was Johnston’s contribution to an album of children’s songs released by T.E.C Tones called Goobers. The tale of a hungry dog belonging to Mr Very Fat and Mrs Very Skinny has a nice twisted, nursery rhyme quality to it, with a twinkle in its eye, but fell flat with me given that Johnston appeared to be trying to channel Christopher Cross in his vocal performance. I was five years old when Arthur’s Theme (The Best That You Can Do) was released. Cross’s vocal caused me distress back then and my dislike of his voice and that song has only intensified in the 38 years that have followed. Rightly or wrongly, it’s the sound of lush, treacly, “feel the budget and let us feel your wallet” pap that I associate with mainstream American pop music from the late 1970s/early 80s. Trying to pull off a sort of Marvin Hamlisch -/ Randy Newman crossbreed which oozed good taste and musical confidence tricks, it made me feel manipulated, nauseous and jealous - because I couldn’t pull off anything that seemed that effortless. But any grudging respect got suffocated out of me by the waves of schmaltz which exponents of that style ladled all over their music. If I couldn’t stand the real Christopher Cross, then I wouldn’t have wanted to listen to something which aped his style, even in the hands of the great Daniel Johnston.
Blak Prophetz - Chapter One - the fact that this was a Kold Sweat release definitely contributed to it getting on the list, but it was unforgivably dull. This label has set higher standards than were met here.
There was one track which I slated for inclusion, but wasn’t able to get hold of to include on this blog:
Poster Children - Isis - Peel had played a few tracks from an album of Bob Dylan covers album called
Outlaw Blues. On first hearing, I was quite taken by the quickfire delivery of this piano ballad (co-
written with Jacques Levy) from Dylan’s 1976 album, Desire, but if it had been available it might have lost out due to unfavourable comparisons with the original - though I wouldn’t have known that back in 1992 given that my mum preferred Leonard Cohen and you’ll have to take my word for it given that my parents’ record collection offered no clues. If nothing else, the experience of hearing Isis has led me to wonder whether I, who’s always been ambivalent about Dylan, might be better placed to jump to his 70s records if I ever decide to give a thorough listen to his stuff. As I get older, that’s where the real gold seems to be.
Peel’s party playlist!
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