Having gently introduced himself to Jakki Brambles’ audience, yesterday , with a playlist that could be called a 50/50 split between John Peel’s Record Box and the Radio 1 Daytime Playlist, Peel spent his second day tilting the balance 60/40 in favour of his records. This was heralded by him opening the show with Teenage Kicks. There’s football on one of the monitors here in the 1FM studios and The Undertones in me ears. Can life possibly get any better? The bald facts say that was Number 31 in the charts in 1978, but it’s been Number 1 in my heart ever since. He was also starting to get sloppy when giving the titles of the daytime records i.e. Jump He Say (of which more in a moment), Ain’t No Fear (Ain’t No Use) etc.
He gave thanks for a number of complimentary faxes that he’d received from listeners, with a majority of them wanting to know more about Camille Howard. He programmed a track from each day, and today treated the audience to Miraculous Boogie.
In the interests of balance, he also read out what he described as the first grumpy fax that he had received. In it, the correspondent demanded that Peel play some “good music.” Peel told the audience about the times he would receive similar requests from people who had turned up to the John Peel Roadshow. The problem being that they never explained what they meant by “good music”. The grumpy faxer also wanted to know where Brambles was. I don’t know where Jakki is and you spell her name with two “k”s. This kind of dismissal of audience feedback was almost unheard of on daytime Radio 1, though in subsequent years, Chris Moyles thought nothing of replying rudely to critical messages from his listeners - though he had usually done something to deserve censure from his audience. What I want to know is, where were these critical listeners when Peel’s was interfering with dance music tracks on his evening shows, by dropping in sound effects of speeding motorcycles? This has been a particular bane of mine from the Peel shows I’ve been listening to from the summer of 1993, and I will learn to listen warily in future years to shows broadcast after he’d been to the TT Races. To mollify this particular grumpy listener, he played O Carolina by Shaggy.
A few minutes after that, he played Johan Cruyff’s recording of Oei Oei Oei (Dat Was Me Weer Ein Loei), as part of a daily spin of tunes from the Bend It series of football songs, issued by Exotica Records. However, after about a minute he took the record off claiming that the audience didn’t deserve to hear the rest of it. One can only imagine the number of radios being switched off at that point; being assailed by unfamiliar music is one thing, but being insulted by the DJ playing it is quite another. In Good Night and Good Riddance, David Cavanagh suspects that the premature ending was on the instructions of a Radio 1 executive, appalled that a Schlager song was going out on the BBC’s youth radio station at 1:30pm in the afternoon, where an Annie Lennox track should be. It did at least link to one of the correspondents who had faxed in to to say that they were listening while convalescing with a broken leg, which they’d suffered in a football match. In sympathy, Peel talked of the time that he’d had his wrist broken in a football match, courtesy of John Birt. Who’s to say what part of Peel the station managers may have wanted to break once Cruyff started honking away.
Football dominated the news and thinking of Peel today, somewhat. He sent his good wishes to Ipswich Town ahead of that evening’s game with Chelsea at Portman Road. The team had only taken 3 points from their last 10 games, with no wins since 30 January. It’s time to stop the slide, he declared. But the wait for a win went on as the game finished 1-1. Meanwhile, the news reported that the families of victims of the Hillsborough disaster had been given licence to change the wording on the verdict of the first inquiry from “accidental death” to “accidental death due to lack of care”. The news also featured the none more 1993 news story of Group 4 Security bungling a prisoner transfer, once again, and letting another prisoner escape.
As for what I’d have taken from the show and put on a mixtape, we start with a man who the 1993 me could easily be accused of getting wrong…
David Bowie - Jump They Say
Video courtesy of David Bowie VEVO
The news that David Bowie had a new album out would have been greeted with polite indifference by me at this time. I was absorbing 60s music, and Bowie was 70s & 80s as far as I was concerned, bar one notable exception. If you’d asked me on 6/4/93 to tell you which Bowie songs I knew, I’d probably have mentioned this track along with Space Oddity, China Girl - the video of which I remember watching with a babysitter on Top of the Pops, when I was 7 and both of us finding it absolutely hilarious for some reason - and the only other one I could comfortably name back then would have been er… Dancing in the Street. As I said, getting Bowie wrong.
To me at that time, he was just another rock star, albeit I was vaguely aware that he had gone through a number of different looks. I wasn’t one of those people who regarded 1987’s Never Let Me Down album or Tin Machine as some sort of personal affront, because I wasn’t aware of them. But I did recognise in Jump They Say’s compressed air of paranoia and mental overload that if I did want to get into Bowie, this might be a decent jumping on point. I still haven’t heard Black Tie, White Noise, in fact I haven’t heard any of Bowie’s studio albums in their entirety. The only thing I have is a mixtape with selections from Bowie at the Beeb - 1968-72, but I know differently now. And if I do binge his back catalogue, I may well start with any of Black Tie White Noise, Never Let Me Down or the Tin Machine albums. I think he’d approve of that.
Tiger - Chaos
Video courtesy of Danny Sinclair.
By playing this newish Tiger single, Peel may have been making a pitch towards all those who bought O Carolina, Informer and Mr. Loverman to see whether, if they liked those, they might be interested in something a little less polished, but no less exciting. I know that when I blogged about Tiger’s track, Beep Beep, I pined for a world where that could have been a hit, but I’m not surprised that neither that or Chaos caught on. Tiger is too much of a whirlwind, too…well chaotic, for easy consumption, and once he sets out his stall that he’s here to cause chaos either in a sound system battle or something more dangerous, he slips his bonds and is off and away. All that this listener can do is admire his artistry, and then, when it’s time, slip back to the Shaggy/Snow/Shabba singalongs, though I’d prefer this from the latter.
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Hong Kong Garden/The Smiths - Reel Around The Fountain [Peel Sessions]
Videos courtesy of VibraCobra23 Redux and Scott Smith
I’ve paired these together as they are both a) Peel Session recordings and b) my first exposure to either track was due to clips of both songs (though not both versions) being included in Turn That Racket Down. Before doing any research, I had thought both songs may be about sex. I’m aware that Reel Around the Fountain has always had a sexual subtext around it, though no one is clear on whether that refers to loss of virginity, grooming or pedophilia. Given how exultant Morrissey sounds in the song, I don’t think there’s anything too troubling in the sentiments of the song. My own take is that it’s about sex between a younger man and an older lover, with Morrissey playing both participants, especially in the “15 minutes with you…” lines. His voice conjures such an air of decadence that transports us to the country house where this liaison is taking place. This is one of the Smiths drawing room songs - as per the sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart - you can imagine a Noel Coward or a Cole Porter sitting down at their piano, and in an unguarded moment, producing something like this for their guests’ amusement. In fact, it always baffled me that Johnny Marr quit the group over Morrissey’s wish to cover Cilla Black songs, given that he had spent 5 years or so acting as a kind of 1980s version of Donald Swann by providing music to the lyrics of a slightly more twisted, Mancunian Michael Flanders. The recording is from May 1983 and was subsequently issued on the sessions and b-sides compilation, Hatful of Hollow. Reel Around the Fountain would be the opening track on The Smiths eponymous debut album.
I thought Hong Kong Garden might be referring to a brothel, but according to Siouxsie Sioux, it referred to a Chinese restaurant of the same name in Chislehurst, where she and her friends had witnessed, and been disgusted by the racist behaviour of skinheads who had abused the people who worked there. The song was written in solidarity with the people who worked there, though I have to say that the lyrics don’t do a great job of conveying that. It would be easy for people to interpret the “Harmful elements in the air…” sentiments as being critical of Chinese immigrants, especially as the song sets up reasons for leaving Hong Kong - pollution, dodgy local customs - and posits that the most obvious thing to do on arriving in Britain is to open a takeaway. Also, I wonder if the line “A race of bodies small in size” might have inspired Eric Idle to write the song, I Like Chinese (“They only come up to your knees”).
The single was released in August 1978, six months after they recorded the session version, and reached Number 7 on the UK Singles chart. Had the owners been smart they could have offered a discount on meals to anyone who brought a copy to the restaurant. The queues might also have kept the skinheads at bay too. Disappointingly, 46 years on, people are still having to put up with this shit.
Hole - Beautiful Son
Video courtesy of youshotAndyWarhol.
I have a friend who believes that Kurt Cobain was a closeted trans woman. It’s inspired her to create a zine and a show called All Apologies which “…questions our desire for trans celebrities and what happens when they do not exist - delving deep into internet discourse, classical mythology and radically misremembering Nirvana’s iconic 1994 (sic) MTV Unplugged concert….it fights back against the pressure on trans people to mold (sic) ourselves into images that are acceptable to society and the danger that lies when we are not able to live as our full vibrant selves.” The show is touring in 2025.
2 years ago, I blogged about Been a Son after Peel played it on his BFBS show of 10/1/93. I was conscious of Emma Frankland’s supposition and bought the zine because I felt that there may have been a trans subtext to Been a Son. Unfortunately, none of the evidence around the inspirations for that song supported the trans theory, it was just a case of Kurt sniping at his father’s perceived disappointment at having a daughter for a second child instead of another son. On a superficial level, I could see where the argument was coming from. Look at any photo of Cobain in which he’s not either clowning around or looking palpably ill or fatigued, and you can’t help but be struck by how beautiful he is. Had word clouds been a thing when Nirvana were at their peak, it’s probable that androgynous would have featured in there alongside the more obvious words associated with Kurt Cobain’s public image and art.
However, the release of the Hole single, Beautiful Son, this week in 1993 offers some evidence to support the “Kurt was trans” theory. Courtney Love claims that the sentiments of the song were inspired by Kurt’s predilection for cross dressing when he was a child, but given how besotted Cobain was by Love, it’s easy to read into the song that the wearing of dresses and lipstick wasn’t just a childhood phase but the makings of an erotic night in at Chez Cobve. In Beautiful Son, we’re invited to see rock music’s most famous couple of the period channelling the romance of Brian Jones and Anita Pallenberg, which also used to involve transvestism and gender swapping roles as part of their sexual routine.
Regardless of the truth, or how deeply one wants to delve into the gender issue, what shines through in the record is a strong sense of love from Courtney for Kurt because of how she saw him as a human being. In fact, this record sounds as close to giving off a feeling of contentment about life and love as any grunge era tune has. Beautiful Son gave Hole their first UK Singles Chart entry, peaking at Number 54.
The Cure - Friday I’m in Love
Video courtesy of The Cure VEVO
Including this on a metaphorical mixtape is a no brainer, surely.
Betty Boo - Hangover
Video courtesy of RHINO
Lack of brains also plays a part in including this, instead blame rampaging teenage lust. Hangover is a terrible record by any metric. It features a pedal steel guitar line which gives the lie to Peel’s assertion that any song or band is improved by having one , a dreary string section and lyrics/vocals from Betty herself that have to be among the least inspired she ever recorded. Nonetheless, I fancied her something rotten in the early 90s and the stylists on her music videos knew exactly how to push teenage boys’ buttons, whether it was by making her the school classmate of our dreams or or an alien overlord, all red blooded men would have been happy to serve, she looked amazing - and the tunes weren’t bad either.
If I’d just heard Hangover on the radio, I’d probably have scrunched up my face, declared it a dud and moved on. But my first exposure to it was seeing the video on The Chart Show and gosh, darn it! They’d done it again! This ropey song about a cheating lover and the messiness of the breakup was being promoted by a video which had me prepared to overlook the source material’s flaws. Betty Boo as an Apache Indian squaw - or to be more accurate Betty as an actress playing an Apache Indian squaw. Where do I sign? With her too handsome boyfriend playing the cowboy hero - and winning the fury of every heterosexual man who saw the video by getting to snog Betty for 12 seconds (I just counted every single heartbreaking one of them) - and a scheming blonde supporting actress playing the cowgirl villain who uses her wiles to seduce him both onscreen and off it, the video director appears to be going for a Body of Evidence meets Gene Autry vibe. Only this time, the story is told with Betty in the Julianne Moore role, her boyfriend as Willem Dafoe and the cowgirl - who is so wonderfully archly played, she should be twirling a moustache - as Madonna.
I actually bought Hangover, mainly due to the fact that pictures from the video were included with the releases though, irritatingly, they seemed to give greater prominence to the cowboy than they did to Betty or the cowgirl. However, the combined efforts of me and my fellow pervs could get it no higher than Number 50 on the UK Charts. Shortly after this, Betty Boo had to be laid aside and Alison Clarkson had to take on bigger challenges than improving her chart placings. Her career was put on hold for a number of years, as she nursed her mother through terminal illness. Betty Boo never really came back into public consciousness as a performer, though as a writer, Clarkson hit the jackpot by co-writing Pure and Simple, which would go to Number 1 in 2001 when it was recorded by Hear’Say.
Linda Laine and the Sinners - Low Grades and High Fever
Video courtesy of The Age of Innocence
New Order - Regret
Video courtesy of New Order.
They’re back and they’re still good, declared Peel after playing this first single from New Order’s imminent new album, Republic. Radio 1 considered this important enough to merit a New Order Day on the station, set for 23 April and going under the somewhat confusing title of New Order to Order. No, I don’t get the connection, either.
I remember seeing Regret when they performed it live via satellite on Top of the Pops, from a Los Angeles beach, accompanied by members of the cast of Baywatch. Despite the ludicrous set-up, I was very impressed by Regret and glad to be able to put faces to the name of a band I’d heard of, but not knowingly heard yet. I wanted to buy Regret, but struggled to track down a copy of what I later came to understand was the album edit. I didn’t have a CD player at the time, but nowhere in Falmouth seemed to stock the cassette version. Eventually, on a muggy, drizzly Monday morning in April, I ended up buying the 12-inch remix version, glumly sitting in the lounge at home and trying to convince myself that the Sabres Slow ‘n’ Lo mix was as good as having the “proper” version. At least I didn’t have to worry about that kind of bullshit when I bought Hangover.
Babe the Blue Ox - Gymkhana
Video courtesy of Babe the Blue Ox
Towards the end of each day’s programme, Peel presented a feature called The New Nirvana in which he would play a record by a band/act who Peel stressed… did not necessarily sound like Nirvana, but were being touted as being like them. On the Monday, he had played Congratulations by Motorolla, but today he played a track from the Brooklyn based trio, Babe the Blue Ox, whose album (Box) had been put out in the UK via Rough Trade. The guitars and drums sound as rough as Nirvana, but the overall effect is of a harder rocking B-52s. I liked Gymkhana a lot, although it isn’t a particularly profound song. Having listened to a small sample of other tracks by them, there’s a lot to enjoy in Babe the Blue Ox’s music and style. It’s always compelling to listen to, with plenty of surprises such as in tracks like Rube Goldberg and Beat You To It. They signed to RCA in the mid-90s, but they seemed to drop off Peel’s radar after Spring 1993. Nevertheless, if I put on a theme night and called it Loft Rock, promoting the best in upscale New York music of the early 90s, and formed the playlist around Babe the Blue Ox and Love Child, I’m sure that me and the four other people who attend it would have a wonderful time.
Elsewhere on the playlist, Peel added to the glut of Gimme Shelter cover versions that were being put out at this time by playing one from a 1989 Inspiral Carpets Peel Session. He also played Prom Queens by Mambo Taxi to mark the fact he was doing a gig with them on Thursday.
I had a couple of choices on my original list which fell from favour. Two I think were Peel choices and one may have been on the Brambles show playlist:
X-103 - Curse of the Gods - this wasn’t on the Atlantis album which Peel played a suite of tracks from to bring his 4-hour show to a close on 27/3/93. It had been released a few months earlier on an EP called Thera. For me the track was too repetitive to merit inclusion on the mixtape. Repetition’s not necessarily a disqualifying factor for me, but this didn’t quite cut deep enough to draw me back to it.
The Pooh Sticks - The World is Turning On - This is a perfectly acceptable and short indie rocker from the Swansea collective, but when I heard it again next to tracks like Beautiful Son and Gymkhana, I began to see the merit in Taylor Parkes’s line that Britpop was less of a reaction against grunge, and more a reaction against early 90s British guitar music. They’re just on different planets from each other, and The World is Turning On sounds like it’s on Pluto.
PM Dawn - Norwegian Wood - In the initial listen, I was seduced by the idea of this Beatles cover. When I came back to it, I was nauseated by how lacklustre it sounded.
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