Oliver: Admiral Bailey - A Nuh Sin (29 December 1991)

If I tell you that the title to this track is pronounced, "I No Sin", you may be expecting an early 90s prototype of It Wasn't Me.  The shrill opening histrionics of a mortified woman seem to give the game away, but instead Glendon "Admiral" Bailey goes in a different direction, dispensing relationship advice to women looking to pacify their men and to men who let their jealousy get the better of their good sense.  There's a nice undertone of protesting too much, which I find an attractive touch and his flow is as impeccable as Ed Robinson. Highly recommended.

EDIT - This is not the version Peel played on the show I heard.  That was taken from the Digital-B release.  The woman at the start isn't really present there and the whole thing seems a little more down-at-heel than this re-recording for the Mi Big Up album.

In drama news, I did a Peel from the soundbox last week.  I was doing the sound for Hayes Players' production of Noel Coward's play, Relative Values.  Not a particularly onerous task, a handful of standard effects (doorbells, car horns etc) and curtain music for scenes.  For the interval music, I used iTunes, having bought an album of 40s light music to cover the interval.  I'd taken a handful of tracks from the album to use for curtain music, which I programmed into the sound software we were using and was waiting to cue up a piece called Ascot Enclosure to begin the second half while waiting for a lady in a walking frame to return to her seat.  Once she was in place, I pressed the button on the laptop and brought up the faders on the soundboard to be greeted by the most unholy cacophony.  Strings, brass and xylophone were brought together in what sounded like a hellish avant garde freak out that I couldn't remember being there before.  Eventually, the curtain open and I faded everything down.  "What happened?" I wondered aloud.  The answer was that I had had both the sound software and iTunes playing simultaneously.  If nothing else, it showed me how piss easy mixing is (one track was much further on the other, so it sounded strange but kind of worked, despite its unexpectedness).

I also bought David Cavanagh's new Peel Show biography, Goodnight and Good Riddance last weekend.  I've dipped into it.  It will be a while till I read it in full.  Very glad to have it and relieved that it doesn't make this blog obsolete.  As I said before, his book doesn't have the clips or the hi-hi-larious theatre anecdotes that I can offer you here.  I hope you'll think this town is big enough for the both of us.

Video courtesy of #AdmiralBailey.