Sunday, September 03, 2006
John Peel Day
According to those good people over at John Peel Everyday, October 12th has been declared John Peel Day by his former employer the BBC. It's October 12th because that was the date of Peelie's last broadcast for the Beeb. Details about the day can be found at JPE. Readers in the UK and from overseas not familiar with John are urged strongly to check out the site, or to visit the Peel pages at http://www.bbc.co.uk . Especially if you cut your cultural teeth on rock and roll. Peel was the greatest rock and roll dj of them all, and his contribution to the development of UK music, surely this country's greatest export, can't be measured. If there's a band out there today who bear no trace of the Peelie influence, they're probably crap.
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2 comments:
When you first hear about somebody like that when they're retiring, or you discover a scene after it's already happened - you feel like you missed out, but you can tell they're as much a part of history and worthy of study as any other history lesson.
And being that I'm a Yank and all - it'll take me forever to catch up on all the content at the BBC web site. I read a lot of their in depth stuff and country profiles and so on.
Let me know if you're able to read any of the Peel stuff or listen to some of the broadcasts. John was a true icon of independent music over here--the only dj, for a very long time, who would play music by new bands, or bands too wild and original to fit into the mainstream playlists. He almost single-handedly broke punk rock in the UK back in '76/ '77 and continued to plough his own very distinctive furrow right up to his death in 2004--while, in true couldn't-give-two-shits maverick Peel style, hosting a sedate family programme on Radio 4 that some of his music show listeners couldn't abide.
The voice of John Peel is always in the back of my mind when I write something on SP., particularly if I'm giving in to the temptation to be a bit pretentious and as we say over here "up myself". Peel mastered a kind of acerbically self-effacing wit that you can find evidence of in the Peel Quotes section of the "John Peel Everyday", and had a hatred of bullshit exceeded by no one. He also lived in Suffolk, my home county, and spoke lovingly of the place and its people. Which automatically makes him a good guy in my book.
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