Remembering Peel
I have just finished reading Mick Wall's touching and provocative tribute to the irreplaceable John Peel and feel both suitably moved and hugely nostalgic. Vivid memories of my own teenage discovery of Peel's exciting and intriguing late night out-put have come flooding back with all of those vivid "time and place" embellishments. I think everyone who loved the man and had a serious interest in music can remember exactly where they were as a first chance encounter with the Peel show became an epiphany like moment. Entranced, and captivated by something extraordinary that pushed the boundaries of their own taste, or preferred genre, to previously unimaginable realms.
In the late 70's we would congregate in a remote garden shed which I had rigged with a somewhat bodged electricity supply from our seemingly distant parents house. It was in this shed with its dim lights, one bar electric fire, improvised curtains, and my brothers celestial maps on the walls, that we would listen with an almost religious devotion to Peel. Looking back, those cheap lager fuelled nights in "the shed" seemed like the perfect and most fitting kind of setting; unpretentious, down to earth, charming and wonderfully eccentric, just like John himself. I think I owe my continued fascination for all that is most innovative in music to John Peel, and I shudder to think what my own CD collection would have been like with out him.
In the late 70's we would congregate in a remote garden shed which I had rigged with a somewhat bodged electricity supply from our seemingly distant parents house. It was in this shed with its dim lights, one bar electric fire, improvised curtains, and my brothers celestial maps on the walls, that we would listen with an almost religious devotion to Peel. Looking back, those cheap lager fuelled nights in "the shed" seemed like the perfect and most fitting kind of setting; unpretentious, down to earth, charming and wonderfully eccentric, just like John himself. I think I owe my continued fascination for all that is most innovative in music to John Peel, and I shudder to think what my own CD collection would have been like with out him.
