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John Peel's record collection available online
Topic Started: May 1 2012, 11:24 PM (218 Views)
Schrodinger's Cat
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This might interest one or two people here.

John Peel's record collection is being made available online - they've started at a a a k (who?) and are progressing from there.

http://www.johnpeelcentreforcreativearts.co.uk/

http://thespace.org/items/s000004u

http://thespace.org/content/s000004u/albums/

Unfortunately, I can't try it out at the moment as it uses Spotify - I'm on Ubuntu and Spotify isn't available for Linux :(
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becky sharp
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Thanks,SC...I have Spotify
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rumbaba
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I saw an article about this in the paper, thanks SC.

If I'm honest, I have to say that JP, nice man that he was, although he spent an enormous amount of time listening to music appeared to know nothing about it. I know people will list the great acts he championed before other people caught on but even a stopped clock is right twice a day. I tried on many occasions to listen to his late night show but found it, most of the time, to be unlistenable. He appeared to have no critical faculties at all and I imagine his record collection to be everything and anything that any band or solo act ever sent to him. No doubt it was meticulously catalogued but a lot of it should have gone in 'the round file'.
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Schrodinger's Cat
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He was a great fan of Captain Beefheart though, rumbaba, so he had some musical taste ;)
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rumbaba
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Agreed SC, even a stopped clock is right twice a day :)
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May-Cee

Peel and Andy Kershaw were great pals; Peel more or less his mentor in the Biz.
But in his autobiog, Kershaw says that Peel's criterion for playing most stuff was that if he didn't, nobody else would.

Which is admirable in a way; but, as Kershaw suggests, a bit of quality control might also have been in order.
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caissier
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I liked John Peel most for his pithy droll dry remarks ..... just fantastic, I thought, creating a witty, clever atmosphere. The music was usually strange but interesting for that and there was always the feeling that he was looking for the experimental and unprecedented, which might be good when you'd managed to get the brain around it. Dazzlingly cool, I thought ....... John Walters, I remember, was not so over-awed and often took the piss.

On Home Truths he went all cosy and smushy imo but still found remarkable personal stories. An old school friend popped up one Saturday morning. He had been an adoring fan from earliest times. He had 'gone gay' (I know, but I think he did) but stayed living with his wife with his new partner. I really wouldn't be surprised if he'd engineered the whole thing to get to tell JP about it.
Edited by caissier, May 3 2012, 01:57 PM.
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May-Cee

I hope my post didn't come across as too churlish; that wasn't the intention!
As a curious teenager hungry for new horizons, he was one of my heroes; and introduced me to lots of weird'n'wonderful stuff.
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caissier
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He received a lot of adulation but in some early achive recordings he comes over as a bit up himself and superior ...... He was a showbiz figure after all
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rumbaba
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I didn't dislike him and we shared some musical heros but he used to play all sorts of rubbish and 'The Fall' were his favourite band. For me, it was a bit of an affectation, he liked to 'own' the acts he championed: what better than to support stuff nobody likes, except your 'followers'. His blokishness and scouse accent were 'developed' , like Nigel Kennedy's 'cor blimey Guv'nor schtick. To be fair, he made no secret of his posh background.
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