Thoughts, prompted by a tish John Peel biography

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Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
Read a John peel biography by Mick Wall over the weekend (actually on saturday eve waiting for Match Of The Day to come on). A shabby effort all round, no doubt slammed together to cash in on his death (it must have taken about a week to write - giveaways being the huge font size and endless tributes from other DJs/musician/personalities which go on for 20 pages or so). i only read it because it was a birthday present from a good friend and I knew they'd asked me if I'd read it.

Anyway... dunno if it was the effect of this tardy hagiography but I've begun to assess the mans legacy in a rather more objective, perhaps negative light. In particular, although there's no doubting his passion for music, I'm beginning to doubt how much he understood it. After all, isnt there a point where open mindedness, taken to extremes, just becomes blind unwillingness, or inability, to discriminate on any musical grounds at all?

And if (as appears to be the case) the sole criteria for your assessment of a musical work is an inverse of the general consenses towards it - ie. only liking the stuff no-one else likes as creed - isnt that more of a social criteria than a musical one?

Or am I being a sacreligious little tyke?
 
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martin

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Gabba Flamenco Crossover said:
Anyway... dunno if it was the effect of this tardy hagiography but I've begun to assess the mans legacy in a rather more objective, perhaps negative light. In particular, although there's no doubting his passion for music, I'm beginning to doubt how much he understood it. After all, isnt there a point where open mindedness, taken to extremes, just becomes blind unwillingness, or inability, to discriminate on any musical grounds at all?

And if (as appears to be the case) the sole criteria for your assessment of a musical work is an inverse of the general consenses towards it - ie. only liking the stuff no-one else likes as creed - isnt that more of a social criteria than a musical one?
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It's true that the book is lame, and that you could argue, if you wanted to be ultra-cynical, that Peel's championing of new music could have been done by anyone, providing they had a secretary to open up all the new vinyl and CDs sent in by post each day.

However, don't ever forget just how utterly fucking shit Radio 1 was - how in the early 90s even, Johnny Walker, Alan Freeman and Bob Harris were going strong on this supposedly trendy young station. As for 'blind unwillingness to discriminate on any musical grounds', I don't think this stands up as a valid criticism. He had enough independence to play what he wanted, why would he play records he honestly thought were poor? And in any case, wasn't this part of the appeal, you didn't get some Bruno Brookes Lite telling you what was hip, you might have had to sit through a Wedding Present B-side, some Ukrainian banjo jazz and PJ Harvey to get to the Extreme Noise Terror Peel Session, but the diversity of his show simply didn't exist in any other radio format in the UK - and even now, I've yet to hear anyone else coming close.

And even if he did just play the records nobody else would, and which your average stereotypical R1 listener wouldn't like (not true anyway, as it didn't stop him playing Pulp, Status Quo, etc), I wouldn't complain - again, remember Bruno Brookes and Jackie Brambles and the fucking dross they played. Chesney Hawkes and Bon Jovi, 5 times a day.
 
L

LRJP!

(Between Blank & Boring)
I reckon he was more than just an obscurantist; you can criticise him for idiosyncrasy and even sentimentality but his picks were clearly things that interested him, even if he didn’t *like* them. He also remained as loyal to bands that got pretty big (Belle & Sebastian, Pulp, The White Stripes*) and scenes which were totally ignored by Radio 1, if not mainstream culture in general (best example I guess would be Hardcore)...

I thought Morely was pretty good on this yesterday:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,13887,1569737,00.html

*massive Dissensus faves obviously ;)
 
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Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
martin said:
He had enough independence to play what he wanted, why would he play records he honestly thought were poor?
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I think maybe he considered it his duty to play them. He took the whole reithian public service aspect of his job very seriously. I'm not arguing that he wasnt a splendid broadcaster or that his radio show didnt perform an incredibly valuble role for a lot of musicians.

He's quoted in Rip It Up & Start Again as saying 'Even I dont like the bands that I like' which is a fascinating comment - suggests he suppressed his own tastes to give bands the exposure, because he knew they wouldnt get it anywhere else. Or at least that there was a gulf between his public tastes and his private ones.

I dunno, i am playing devils advocate but he gets treated like a saint by practically everyone in music which just gets my back up. But then he probably wasnt too keen on it either. It would have been nice if Mr Wall could have done some proper research and written a more balanced book, then maybe i wouldnt have to go off on these idle speculations...
 
P

Peak

Member
peel

dunno about unwillingness to discriminate - there was a period in the 80s when Peel was clearly at odds with his core audience and didnt bother much to hide his impatience/irritation (e.g. when his show increasingly embraced the sonic inventiveness in dance/hip hop but the festive 50 was chock full of minor variations on the indie theme)

I remember him taking off a Violent Femmes track 1/2 way through once and saying sorry, thats just self-indulgent wank isnt it? or words to that effect.
 
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don_quixote

Trent End
Gabba Flamenco Crossover said:
He's quoted in Rip It Up & Start Again as saying 'Even I dont like the bands that I like' which is a fascinating comment - suggests he suppressed his own tastes to give bands the exposure, because he knew they wouldnt get it anywhere else. Or at least that there was a gulf between his public tastes and his private ones.
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i reckon "even i dont like the bands i like" was actually peel being self-deprecating - i wouldnt read anything into it
 
O

owen

Well-known member
wasn't that quote from around 86 or so? that would explain it somewhat- i'm sure peel has been quoted somewhere as saying he found c86 very conservative.

(tho there is the bogshed over joy division thing mentioned in the wire obit...)

if anything the problem with the Peel show was that most of his audience preferred the wedding present to culture, though they were played equally as frequently. but then did reggae (or jungle, or hip hop) fans listen to peel as much as schmindie types?

heard a happy hardcore track a year or two ago praising john peel for being the only national DJ to play the genre, but called rather pointedly 'John Peel Is Not Enough'
 
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