As this edition of Kat’s Karavan tipped over from Friday night to the morning of Saturday 30 January 1993, John Peel took the opportunity to wish his in-laws, Dennis and Eileen Gilhooly a happy 50th wedding anniversary. I have been very lucky in knowing and loving them as I have been in marrying their daughter. My notes for the show don’t reveal whether he dedicated any of the records he played on this edition of the show to Dennis and Eileen. Certainly it wasn’t any of the, quite large, number of tracks that I had initially included but went cold on - more on them, shortly. It may have been that he sought to take Dennis and Eileen back to their courting days of the early 1940s by playing something by Spaelimenninir I Hoydolum, whose eponymous 1977 album of waltzes and polkas had been a staple of his playlists ever since then.
Maybe he chose to celebrate the Golden Wedding anniversary by dedicating the Number 44 track in the Phantom Fifty to them. I think that some of the sentiments of Gorgeous Blue Flower in my Garden by Th’ Faith Healers would have appealed to lifelong lovers. Given the tortured journey Peel had gone through to get the 1991 Festive Fifty played on the radio, I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when Peel discovered that he’d been mis-numbering the entries and originally had Gorgeous Blue Flower in my Garden up at 42 in the list.
Peel also gave a shoutout to John C Donelkevic, who was currently visiting the UK from Connecticut. He had passed onto Peel a copy of Boot by Freak Baby. Peel played the b-side of the record, which was called Peel, strangely enough, specifically so Donelkevic could hear his copy of the record played on the radio.
The selections from this episode were taken from a full 3 hour show. It feels like I’ve been working through 29/1/93 forever and it would have taken a lot longer had there not been 5 tracks which fell from favour when I listened back to them:
Steakdaddy Six - Rubber Pants: Released via the Twelve Inch Records label from Urbana Illinois. Peel paired it with another Twelve Inch release by Dis called Ed Was Solace, which was on my list but not shareable.
Eddie Fowlkes - I Wanna Know [Bandulu mix] - Should have been a no-brainer given that I liked what I’d heard of Bandulu, but it didn’t stand up at the time - listening to it again as I type this I think I may have been wrong to discount it. Peel was agonising over the correct pronunciation for Fowlkes’s surname. “Folks?” “Foulks?” The Infonet label had sent him a note on this, but he’d lost it. Perhaps it was this uncertainty which caused him to play the record at the wrong speed at the start. In the end, he plumped for “Foulks”.
Little Walter - Sad Hours: One of the world’s first amplified harmonica players, apparently. A fact which gives me an excuse to post my favourite amplified harmonica track, Goddamn by Son of Dave.
The Jesus Lizard - Puss/Gladiator [Peel Session]: Early 1993 was turning into a busy period for The Jesus Lizard. Puss was due to go out as one half of a split single with Nirvana. Drummer Mac McNeilly was about to become a father. Bassist David Wm. Sims was about to set up a record label called Torsion Music and to Peel’s great delight, they looked set to sign the Northern Irish band, In Dust, though this did not subsequently happen.
Pepe Kalle and Rochereau - Forgive Me: A soukous miss. Despite featuring Popolipo on guitar, this is pretty forgettable stuff until it reaches the playout. When I first heard it, I thought the playout, from 2:43, was stratospherically impressive. Peel himself described it as sounding like he’s about to take off for somewhere really spectacular. But on second listen, it didn’t really hit the heights which the radio waves suggested it did.
There was one track, I would have liked to include but couldn’t:
Tse Tse Fly - Bus Window: You can access that track on YouTube, but every time I went to play it, the video stalled and I’m talking about every time over several days. So, you know…ya snooze, ya lose. The band came from Leeds and the track was on a 10-inch album called Duckweed Smuggled Home. The sound was more late-70s New Wave than reflective of the early 90s music sound.
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