A Midsummer Night’s Dream: John Peel’s Music - Sunday 4 October 1992 (BFBS)

My gratitude to the people who recorded John Peel shows in the early 1990s and have subsequently uploaded them to the Internet is infinite and heartfelt.  Without them, this blog would not exist and I would have never had the opportunity to listen either to so much great music or to the great man in his pomp.  But with a new play to soundtrack, my journey to the John Peel Wiki page for 1992 threw up an issue with what was available from his Radio 1 broadcasts over October-December 1992.  My rule when it comes to listening to files for Peel shows is that I won’t listen to files which are less than 45 minutes long i.e the length of one side of a 90 minute cassette tape.  Unfortunately for me, most of Peel’s Radio 1 shows from the period in which I rehearsed and performed A Midsummer Night’s Dream are chopped up into multiple files under 45 minutes or as fragments of multiple shows condensed onto one file.  Most unsatisfactory for my purposes.  However, help was at hand in the form of the archive of shows which Peel recorded for British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) which went out for 2 hours every Sunday.  These will form the basis of the selections for tracks from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Although tracks from BFBS shows have been presented here before, what I hadn’t realised until listening to a series of them was that Peel recorded them live at the BFBS studios in London. I had assumed they were pre-records, but no and with Peel doing his Radio 1 shows on Friday and Saturday, it made sense for him to stay in London and record on the Sunday.  He described himself, going into this edition of John Peel’s Music as “the world’s most tired man” having been up since 5:30am.  The show opened with Two States by Pavement, whom Peel had gone to see in Cambridge during the week with his wife and two youngest children.  “The family which goes to see Pavement together is in good shape.”
He admitted to being somewhat behind the trends in mainstream pop music at that time but related that he had just seen Michael Bolton performing on a monitor in the studio.  He was appalled by the sight of Bolton’s hairstyle, as all right thinking people were at the time.  Nevertheless, it gives me the opportunity to link to my favourite thing he’s ever done: “Hi, I’m Michael Bolton”.
Peel played The Envictor by Buzz Hungry which had been released as a single via Bob Mould’s Singles Only Label.  Peel was staggered by a quote from Mould in which he revealed that he didn’t pay the bands on his label anything, but put the records out for them as a favour.  Peel was left wondering what favour Mould thought he was doing the bands with this arrangement.  Though would his own Dandelion label have lasted longer had he followed this business plan? Probably, though he clearly wouldn’t have been able to live with himself as a result.

The selections from this show were taken from a 93 minute long file. There was one track I would have liked to share but was unable to do so.  However, the artist involved is going to crop up quite frequently over the coming months:

Wawali Bonane - Fatoumata - Peel fell hard for the Congolese guitarist after picking up a copy of his album, Wawali Bonane et Generation Soukouss Enzenzé Vol 1a couple of weeks before this programme.  Tracks from it were on heavy rotation across subsequent shows and the album was included in his list of 20 favourite albums for a Guardian interview in 1997.

In terms of tracks which failed to make the cut, I found myself in a much less benevolent mood than I was with some borderline inclusions during The Comedy of Errors shows:

Marxman - Ship Ahoy [Full mix] - Celtic hip-hop with fiddles, penny whistles, Sinead O’Connor on backing vocals - all very impressive but a bit of a chore to sit through subsequently.   Still, they got Peel’s seal of approval despite the fact that, “At the fourth time of playing it, I realised that the woman yodelling in the background was Sinead O’Connor, but I already liked the record by then so had to overcome my natural prejudice against her.”

Therapy? - Teethgrinder - A few months after this programme went out, Therapy? released the Shortsharpshock EP featuring the mighty Screamager and winning me over to their charms.  Teethgrinder has long been regarded as a key track from their pre-major label days, but listening back to it, I was amazed at how bland it sounded.  A real “truth about Father Christmas” moment for me.  Peel not only played this version of the song but also the  Tee Hee Hee Dub Mix which was indistinguishable from the original version save for a brief new guitar line and the addition of some tablas.

150 Volts - Hi I’m Chucki (Wanna Play?) [Shut Up And Dance remix] - My issue here was not musical but moral.  Several times in subsequent years, Peel would receive letters/emails from people who remembered the track with its Child’s Play sample and wanted to know who had done it.  I was all set to include it here until my research led me to read an article on something I vaguely remembered from late 1992, namely the torture and murder of Suzanne Capper (caution advised).  Her tormentors used Hi I’m Chucki (Wanna Play?) as a signal to her that they were ready to inflict another round of torture on her.  With this in mind, I really didn’t feel as though I wanted to write something which would essentially amount to “Banging choon- if you can ignore the baggage”.  No blame on Stu Allan aka 150 Volts who never put another record out under that monicker but I’m afraid that I couldn’t ignore it.

The Flaming Lips - The Magician vs The Headache - God bless The Flaming Lips but this had a question mark against it from the start and didn’t stand up when it was revisited.  Also, those final 20 seconds simply couldn’t be borne.

Anything else?  Oh yes, happy 81st birthday, John.

Full tracklisting

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Inspiral Carpets - Fire (4 October 1992)

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By the time I started to follow “contemporary” music in around 1994/95, Oldham’s Inspiral Carpets were about to call it a day, at least on their initial run as a band - they would reform in 2003.  By the time they split in 1995, their former roadie had eclipsed the decent level of success that the band had enjoyed up to that point, almost overnight.  During the first two years that he spent on the end of seemingly every journalist’s microphone, Noel Gallagher had plenty of opportunities to cook up the myth of Oasis rise to superstardom.  When discussing his time working for Inspiral Carpets, he would talk of the frustrations he felt working for a band whose material wasn’t, in his opinion, as strong as the growing number of songs he was writing which just needed an outlet for the world to discover them.
By the time Inspiral Carpets released their third album, Revenge of the Goldfish, in October 1992, they’d laid Gallagher off from his role with them, leaving him to concentrate on working with his band and readying the ground for a debut album, Definitely Maybe, which was streets ahead of anything that his former employers had put out on their third album.  The servant had learned his masters’ tricks and comprehensively usurped them...except in one degree.  Namely, quality of longevity.  Because by the time Oasis came to record their  third album, Be Here Now in 1997, they could have desperately done with a track as good as Fire (or Dragging Me Down...or Here Comes the Flood or...) to cut through the coke’n’treble tedium.

There are a few lyrical themes on Fire which would be staples of plenty of Oasis songs, not least the search for God in a Godless environment.  It’s clear that, as far as the Inspirals were concerned here, the absence of God has given the Devil the chance to bring us Hell in our own homes.  It’s actually a very bleak lyric despite the frenetically, upbeat performance.  Unavoidably, the “Get ready to burn” refrains find singer Tom Hingley channelling The Crazy World of Arthur Brown though I think the Inspirals track is much more worth revisiting than Brown’s iconic Number 1 hit of the same name.

Revenge of the Goldfish was released the day after this show went out and Peel had nothing but good wishes for the band’s prospects with it, not least because he declared himself “a fan of them as human beings.”  One of them had invited him to their wedding, but work commitments had prevented him from going.  In the event, the album peaked at Number 17 in the UK Album Chart, the only one of their four albums from their initial run as a band not to make the Top 10.

Video courtesy of Inspiral Carpets

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Son of God - Sunday Raver [Religion Causes Another War mix] (4 October 1992)

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Hyperbole was a fundamental element of rave culture.  This was music that was going to change the world.  The angst and violence that defined punk and grunge music were replaced by love, love, love - albeit shot through with energy that rejected passivity and which implored its listeners to go into the world and make it their playground.  The raves themselves took on the feel of religious events with the participants worshipping at the altar of the music and the drugs that went with it.  It did not take long for this sense of quasi-religious association to bleed through into the music as DJs worked in classical, hymnal and religious samples into their tracks so as to swell them to a state of ecstatic grandeur as the beat dropped.
Over 1991/92, John Peel included several such records such as Love and Death by Marcoesh, In the Name of the One by Prudens Futuri and No Fortuna by Traumatic Stress that evoked a sense of ecstatic grace on the dancefloors.  Son of God’s Sunday Raver feels a little more down-at-heel than some of those tracks.  Rather than projecting to the back of a cathedral, it’s the sound of Sunday school kids cutting loose outside a church hall in Hackney.  However, the looseness of the arrangement here contrasts favourably to the other tracks’ bombast.  And while we are reminded throughout of the need to “keep the Sabbath day holy”, it does at least sound as though Son of God can have fun while doing so.  This is tremendously important to remember when we factor in that the early 90s were, through the increasing proliferation of things like Sunday trading and Sunday football, the start of the movement to make Sundays less boring than they had been for centuries.  It may seem inconceivable now, but when I was a child, the country came to a stop on Sunday.  It was restful for adults, I’m sure, but for the young it felt interminable and the turning of the tide through the late 80s/early 90s was very welcome. Another example of the many small revolutions and changes that rave culture nudged into being even if the larger scale goal of a loved up world, united through music remained unrealised.

Video courtesy of Michael Eamon Osborne

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Mudhoney - Blinding Sun (4 October 1992)

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According to Sheila Ravenscroft, when it came to socialising with musicians Peel was always happier on home ground than he was on neutral or alien turf.  Stories are legion, especially once bands/artists started playing live sets from Peel Acres of Peel hosting revelry with his guests almost until - and in all likelihood beyond - the break of dawn.  However, away from home, Peel was liable to make a bit of a fool of himself.  Mostly, this was down to nervous excitement. He memorably took Polly Jean Harvey out for lunch shortly after he had started playing her records on his show and was so nervous about it, he talked incessantly throughout the lunch and, by his own admission, barely let Harvey get a word in edgeways.  In relating these stories at his own expense, Peel often feared that the subjects of them would come away from their meetings with him, doubting his sanity or unwilling to ever spend any time with him again in future.

Harvey gladly spent more time around Peel, but at time of writing it remains to be seen whether Peel regained the good graces of Mudhoney’s vocalist, Mark Arm after a disastrous meeting at the 1992 Reading Festival, just over a month before this edition of John Peel’s Music on BFBS went out.  Peel accepted full responsibility for his meeting with Arm lapsing into something approaching mutual embarrassment.  In trying to play it cool that he was talking to a musician he admired, “...You’re saying astonishingly stupid things and thinking, ‘I can’t believe it’s me that’s saying this.’ And he’s looking at you like, ‘You’re a real pillock!’, but you can’t stop yourself from doing it.  It was really quite embarrassing and I kind of hope I never see him again, certainly not at close quarters.” 

At the very least, Peel came away from the chat with Arm armed (sorry) with a cassette copy of Mudhoney’s new album, Piece of Cake.  He had given the cassette to his eldest son, William, who had not passed comment on the record and this had set alarm bells ringing for Peel.  Although he played Blinding Sun from the record, he confessed to finding the album a disappointment feeling there was a lot of filler in it, especially “...several kind of short tracks, which probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but which I doubt will stand the test of time.”  Of those short pieces, I liked the house music pastiche which acts as an entracte to the opening track of the record, but given that one of these tracks is someone making fart noises over a drumbeat, Peel definitely had a point.

Blinding Sun is one of the stronger tracks on the album, which I have to say I preferred far more than the previous year’s Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge.  However, it would be hard to argue with William’s silence if it was due to him comparing the album unfavourably to the standout moments on Mudhoney’s eponymous debut album from 1989.  Nevertheless, Blinding Sun is a good example of Mudhoney’s propensity to keep the listener grimly going through the filler in order to make their highpoints worth the wait.

Video courtesy of Warner Records Vault

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: The Orchids - Thaumaturgy (4 October 1992)

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“Thaumaturgy - the performance of miracles, specifically, magic.”

They’re called The Orchids, they hailed from Glasgow - of course they were going to be signed to Sarah Records.  As with most twee pop, the mood here veers towards the reflective and the nostalgic, but with a strong twinge of rueful rage bubbling beneath the seemingly benign surface.  In the case of Thaumaturgy - which Peel admitted he was nervous to include in the programme because he was unsure how to pronounce the title - everything comes back to one Saturday night in which it appears that the veil was torn from the eyes of James Hackett to reveal the true character of the friend or lover  that acts as the subject of the song.

Thaumaturgy is something of a borderline inclusion and doesn’t hit the heights of similar examples by the likes of Po! or Confetti.  But what I like about it is the way in which it captures the sense of how memories and incidents can retain a hold over us, no matter how “cold and tired” they may be.  In my new college environment, I would find myself, through late 1992 and early 1993, often being beguiled by the apparent thaumaturgy of some of my new colleagues only to eventually see how the illusions worked.  When I reflect back on that, even after 25+ years, I feel a mix of gratitude for the thrill of the illusions and regret at my youthful naivety. One day, I will be less harsh on myself over this.
One final curiosity from the track is the last 40 seconds featuring what appears to be a twee-pop attempt at incorporating a break-beat.

Video courtesy of tendingthepalebloom

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Mint 400 - Gas (4 October 1992)

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I used to have terrible trouble differentiating between Mint 400, Mint Royale, Galaxie 500 and Hillman Minx, so I’m delighted that this Peel show allowed me an opportunity to get some clarity over which band were which.

Mint 400 were second in order after Galaxie 500 and Gas was their first single.  Peel noted that there was quite a bit of buzz around Mint 400, but he wanted to see what else they came up with before deciding whether to add his voice to the hubbub.  For myself, I think there’s plenty to like here despite the slightly strained vocals of Paul Stroud.  I love how they’ve woven a skipping song melody inside these thundering guitars and while the lyrics are carbon dated by their early 90s general twentysomething ennui (“We’re all dead” etc) it also contains a sly dig at the environmental concerns of the time: “Green seas making them all mad/Gasoline to burn the bed”.  It’s also quite funny just how much this song tries to convince you that the characters in it are hard and dangerous, but they just sound like a bunch of delusionals whose idea of sticking it to the man would be to fill their car with leaded petrol.  It’s not an easy skill to pull off - sounding like likeable arseholes, but Mint 400 just about manage it here.

Alas, they didn’t manage it enough times for a lengthy career.  After releasing two more EPs in 1993, nothing more came out from Mint 400 until 1996 and an album called Intercomfort  which contained re-recordings of a number of earlier tracks, including Gas, which is where the version featured here comes from.  And after that, Mint 400 stood down and opened the floor up for Mint Royale and friends...

Video courtesy of Diego TafurAcosta
All lyrics are copyright of their authors.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: The Floor Federation - Music for the Masses {Part 1} [Norwegian Cat Mix] (4 October 1992)

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On September 7 1992, I started a 2 year BTEC Diploma in Performing Arts at Cornwall College.  When explaining it to people at the time, I would emphasise that the diploma was equivalent to 2 A-Levels, but looking back on it, I just remember a sense of delight and wonder that I was going to be doing drama for 2 years and in a non-school environment.
There were a few things about that first day at college which showed me how different the environment I was in now.  Firstly, the course featured a large number of students who were closer to 40 and 50 years old than 21.  One of them, John Carthew, said on arrival at our studio space, “I think the kids on the bus thought I was the driver’s dad.”  Secondly, at the end of the first day, which was mainly taken up with induction related content, the course leader, David Gregg, put on a video to fill the last hour of the day. At one point, he left the room and everyone continued to watch the video in respectful, silent attention.  At school this had usually been the signal for a million different conversations to break out and general anarchy, but here it brought home to me that I was now learning in an adult setting and even those in their late teens on this course were proper grown ups.

I didn’t know anybody on the course, but I made friends easily and drama is a subject in which barriers come down pretty quickly because they have to if productions are going to work.  The mix of personalities and ages on the group was fascinating and some interesting dynamics emerged.  Conflict could rear up and then die down quite quickly, but the conflicts could be far more emotionally violent than those I’d witnessed at school simply because people were bringing different levels of experience and expectation to what they were doing.  The group bonded well on a social level and through the autumn of 1992, I started to find myself regularly going into places that I’d not previously spent much time such as pubs and clubs.  I was also learning a lot about life and the human condition - indeed I feel I came out of the course as a slightly better informed human being
than I did an actor - while taking a ringside seat while people on the course went through marriage breakups, bereavements and a miscarriage.  I saw people at their worst and at their best.  I got closer to people (and women) than I ever had before though still remained something of an innocent through it all.  My sense of humour changed, principally due to hanging around with Tim Rolfe whose wonderfully sarcastic and sardonic view on life had me laughing louder and longer than anything had previously.  I grew accustomed to sights and smells that I’d never previously seen or sampled but which bore into my brain and are still evocative to me now: roll-ups, lots of roll-ups smoking tobacco and sometimes stronger substances (I didn’t partake); the lightless, black environment of a theatre’s bare stage; paint - slopped on scaffolds and backdrops; women’s perfume and the nape of Kate’s neck as I kissed it...but we’re getting ahead of ourselves there....
Most intoxicating of all, I got used to receiving praise from my contemporaries.  In activities, in
drama exercises, in readings, in auditions - I wasn’t getting mocked or having the piss taken out of
me, there were none of the bullshit hierarchies that dominate and control a school environment. This felt like a democracy and to hear people tell me that I was good at what we were doing and that I was a good person too...well, I thought I was in utopia, probably because I was. I’d reached a beacon of adulthood despite the fact that I was still only 16 years old.  The bullshit that comes with all of that was still to come, and I saw plenty of people on the course going through such bullshit, but somehow it seemed so much better than the bullshit one went through at school, because in this adult environment,  I felt that I had agency in a way I never had done before

Aside from classes, the BTEC diploma would have seen our group stage 6 productions over the two years of the course - one a term.  Year 1 would see us stage a Shakespeare play, a contemporary play and a group written “community” play.  Year 2 would see us stage a pantomime and two productions of our own choice.  The group was tasked with coming up with a name for the company for publicity purposes as “BTEC National Diploma Students present...” was felt to be a bit bland.  Everyone tossed in opinions and eventually we came up with the name, Castaway Theatre Company.  I’m guessing as a rift on “cast” in a play.  Don’t blame me, it wasn’t my suggestion.
In terms of our first play, given the enormous number of people on the course - it was the first year that the college had run it, so naturally they accepted everyone who applied.  I think there were 33 people on it at its most bloated - we looked for a Shakespeare play which could accommodate a large cast.  Admittedly that’s all of them, but David Gregg felt that A Midsummer Night’s Dream would be a good choice, not least because it offers three distinct groups of characters: the lovers, the mechanicals and the fairies.  Three members of the group took on responsibility for directing each group of characters and together with David formed the audition panel for the show.  I auditioned for a number of different parts, but the one I wanted was Oberon, the Fairy King.  I worked hard for it and it paid off as I got the role.  I was delighted, but knew that it marked a major step up in terms of complexity compared to roles I had previously done, but coming in off the back of another Shakespeare play, I felt in good shape for it.  The Second Merchant in The Comedy of Errors had
been a good warm up for this.  Now I was ready to tackle one of Shakespeare’s meatiest roles.

All the prep had taken place through September.  In my recollection, rehearsals started properly in the first week of October, though this may not quite be the case.  Nevertheless, it seems as good a point as any to rejoin John Peel and this rare mix of Music for the Masses by The Floor Federation, a brief, if Discogs is to be believed, excursion into performance by David Newton.  I’m guessing that this
was the Norwegian Cat mix based on the timings compared to the radio edits or more widely shared original mixes.  This one loses the vocalisations and slightly more dated synth sounds; instead going in a slightly more heavy piano led direction.  I love the layering of the pianos, the urgent staccato hammering of the keys and the way in which Newton winds the silky modulated synth lines in counterbalance to the pianos. Compared to some of the other mixes, it changes up chill for impact and is all the better for it.

Video courtesy of Webbie and taken directly from Peel’s BFBS show on 4/10/92.

Interval: GCSEs, The Mambo Kings and TV Hell (Summer 1992)

Once The Comedy of Errors had finished, I spent the summer of 1992 doing three things:

1) Playing (and losing) lots of cricket matches for Falmouth Under-16 team.

2) Acting as scorer for Falmouth Cricket Club’s Second XI

3) Waiting for my GCSE results.

I wasn’t feeling optimistic about the GCSEs. I’d failed all of my mocks the previous November, so was feeling under pressure when the time came to do the real thing.  My goal was to get at least 4 GCSEs so that I could study English Literature, Drama and potentially a language for A-Level, but it seemed a forlorn hope as I found myself variously failing to finish one of the French papers within the time limit;  sitting in utter befuddlement at some of the maths questions and reaching a nadir when I struggled through a question in a geography exam only to move on to the next question, which showed a picture of a field next to a small river and setting a task to write 500 words on why the site would be suitable for a power station to be built on it. I just gazed at it for a few minutes before thinking to myself, “This is the fucking pits!” and then writing something which even while I was doing it had me thinking, “This is bullshit. I haven’t got a clue and they’ll know as soon as they start reading this.”  I felt terrible.  All that time spent at school, willing myself to be able to be at home reading comics, watching videos, playing with friends etc. If only I’d dedicated myself to doing 1 or 2 hours extracurricular study at home each week, but I lacked application, willpower or the ability to see the bigger picture, and now I feared that it was going to come home to roost with my GCSE results.  My parents had been very angry after the mock results and in a fit of bravado I’d dared them that I would do better come the summer, but my mind kept projecting the phrase, “We’re not angry, we’re just disappointed”.  Neither of my parents had much in the way of formal qualifications - my father had gone into the navy when he was 15, while my mother’s school qualifications were gained in Ireland. I had a lot resting on my shoulders with my father particularly desperate for me to get qualifications as he was desperate for me not to work in something like the building trade as he did, and which I would have been singularly incapable of doing anyway.

The summer ticked down to results day, which I think fell either on 20 or 27 August 1992. I walked down to the school to get my results with good wishes from my parents and a determination to learn whatever lessons I needed to from the results.  In the event, they were a perfect encapsulation of what
 my life has often felt like.  Not a triumph, not really a success, but respectable enough and a lot
better than I feared. I passed in 3 subjects - one more than Rodney Trotter at least - so I had rescued something from the disaster of my mocks, but I didn’t have enough GCSEs to qualify for A-Levels, and I couldn’t do retakes either because I only had one Grade D and that was in the optional subject of Latin. Had I got it in Maths, History, Geography or Science, I could have tried for retakes in November. Mr. Trueman, the school’s exam officer had a chat with me and after hearing that I’d have studied drama if I could have done, he suggested I contact David Gregg at Cornwall College and do the BTEC Diploma in Performing Arts, which would be equivalent to 2 A-Levels.  I met David the following day at Cornwall College’s Maritime Campus in Falmouth and was offered a place on the course which would run over 2 years and started on 7 September.  1 day a week would be spent at Falmouth School working with drama and music teachers I’d known from Oliver! and The Comedy of Errors but the other sessions would take place at various venues throughout Falmouth.  I had to all intents and purposes, left school and new adventures awaited!

Boosted by my partial success with the GCSEs, I had phoned one of the girls I had been in The Comedy of Errors with and asked her on a date (click on the Comedy of Errors link above to get
more background on what had attracted me to H).  To my delight, she agreed to go out for an evening with me and we agreed to meet up on Bank Holiday Monday, 31 August.  I spent the weekend in a thrilled state of anticipation but was stuck about what to do and where to take her. I hadn’t started going in pubs yet and I wanted to do something with the evening rather than just walk around - and walk is what we would be doing as I hadn’t yet learned to drive. Eventually, I decided that I would take her to the cinema. The only problem was that Falmouth was, at that time, still in the early stages of a 22 year wait for a mainstream cinema to reopen in the town.  I didn’t want to spend time waiting for a bus to go to Truro or Redruth in order to see Lethal Weapon 3 or Alien 3 (which I would have been too chicken to see back then given that I was still afraid of horror films at the time), so I
resolved to take her to Falmouth Arts Centre to see The Mambo Kings, because what 17 year old
Cornish woman could possibly resist the enticing prospect of an evening watching a film about Latin
music?   Well, evidently this one could, because when I popped down to WH Smith, where she worked, on Bank Holiday morning to check that we were still on for the evening, she looked very worried upon seeing me and apologised to say that, unfortunately, she couldn’t make it, but maybe some other time.  I walked out of WH Smith’s knowing that there would be no other time, judging from her body language, but I was confused as to why the sudden change of mind and attitude.  I hadn’t even mentioned the words “Mambo Kings”, indeed I hadn’t even spoken to her since the previous Thursday when she had enthusiastically accepted my invitation to meet up on the Monday.

I got my answer a few weeks later when I saw her out in the street holding hands with another boy.  Shortly after that, I told a friend of mine, who knew her, about the whole curious business and he came up with an explanation that was either a remarkable piece of reverse serendipity or he was a genius liar trying to spare my feelings.  According to my friend, H and the boy I had seen her with had been going out together for two years.  Over the Bank Holiday weekend, between my call and our proposed date, my friend had seen H at a party held by The Young Generation in the aftermath of their production of Charlie Girl.  H and her boyfriend had both been in the show, but only H had attended the party. She told my friend that she had split up with her boyfriend earlier that week after a row, but was regretting it and worried that he wouldn’t want to take her back. My friend, not knowing that I had asked her on the date, advised her to talk to her boyfriend and the rest was history.  If the story is true, I’m glad I didn’t call the week before only to be told, “Um, I’m going out with someone” and have to laugh my own offer off.
Whenever I saw her at Smith’s after that, she was always courteous but detached.  My mate, Ben, was convinced she fancied him, often telling me about warm smiles and long looks she’d given him whenever he shopped there.  He was a bastard that way, like most teenaged mates are.

So instead of a nervy evening wondering how well things were going with H. while Antonio 
Banderas and Armand Assante were battling the Cuban Mafia between mambos, I spent Bank
Holiday evening watching BBC 2’s TV Hell theme night; an evening “celebrating” the worst of
British television.  The content ranged from the notorious (Bill Grundy’s sweary teatime interview 
with the Sex Pistols), the daft (some of the eccentrics who turned up on Nationwide - bagpipe playing  parachutists, people who claimed they could jump on eggs without breaking them etc), the pompous (BBC drama follies like Churchill’s People and The Borgias), the tacky (North Sea ferry set soap opera, Triangle opening with, in the words of Stuart Maconie, “Kate O’Mara sunbathing topless under a sky of pure lead.”), the dull (1982 Saturday night talkshow, Sin on Saturday, which used the Seven Deadly Sins as its theme but failed to excite audiences and was cancelled before the end of its run despite the efforts of Oliver Reed to enliven proceedings), the disturbing (I had unsettled sleep on the night of August 31 after catching sight of one of the representatives of the mysterious Albion Free State, although it was slightly mitigated by the story of one of the representatives kicking the other one in the groin when he drew a knife on the producer of Open Door upon their arrival at BBC TV Centre.  The full clip is on YouTube and looks rather quaint in full context, especially given that one of their aims was to take over pubs), the pretentious (Channel 4’s alternative culture show, Club X, which ultimately foundered on a mix of unwatchable content and the logistical problems which came from staging a live discussion about Dadaist art with acid house music playing in the background. The set of the show was modelled on a nightclub with music playing live and loud throughout the discussions) and the plain wrongheaded (early Channel 4 kids programme, Minipops, which took a harmless-on-paper idea, “pre-pubescent children sing pop songs” and ran into a huge storm when it presented its pre-pubescent cast in full make-up and dressed in ballgowns and nightdresses singing songs loaded with sexual content. Minipops was originally broadcast just before my 7th birthday, I took it against it at that age because I thought it looked poncey. Channel 4 management shared my opinion, but used a differently rhyming word to me though...)

In the middle of all this awfulness and looking resplendent in a Bill Shankly T-shirt, John Peel appeared to present Rock Bottom, a look at some of the tackiest, naffest, campest and crappiest moments in the BBC’s music archive. He was the only credible candidate who could have presented
the show and matched the tone of what TV Hell was looking for, though despite the low-hanging fruit that the programme offered up for our derision, Peel’s links and demeanour tended more towards the “grudging admiration” mentioned at the top of the programme rather than sneery sarcasm.  Looking  at the Top 10 of awful songs which ended the programme, the irony for me is that while 8 of the songs would have me leaving any disco to go outside for a cigarette, which would be interesting given that I don’t smoke, I’ve now reached the age where the Number 1 record in that list would, if enough drink had been taken, get me on the dancefloor.  I’ve also developed an affection for the delightfully silly Y Viva Espana.
Of course, some of you watching the TV Hell video may feel that some of the disc jockeys featured in it have subsequently been guilty of far more heinous things than the music showcased in the  programme, but I couldn’t possibly comment.

One final bit from TV Hell saw it kind of predict this blog by featuring both John Peel and “Nicholas Craig’s” guide to period acting “Well, the decision to go for the chicken legs early seems to be paying dividends already.”

I still haven’t seen this film yet...



Videos courtesy of John Peel and Warner Bros.