left picture: Peel & me in a London pub, 1988 or thereabouts. Jesus, look at that haircut! And, even worse, that jacket: I look like a fugitive from East Germany!!
right picture: at Peel Acres, a few days later: in the background you see a small (!) part of just one (!) of the four (!) double-sided (!) shelves where Peel stored his 7" singles in!!
Dearest friends,
yes, yes, I know: three posts within one month, so you might think 'what the hell is wrong with this guy ... nothing happens for half a year and now he is bombing us with articles!' Be relieved to learn though that I just do this in order to draw your attention to the fact that today is October 25th!
Six years ago on this very day I was honeymooning in Jamaica, me and Mrs. Loser were driving in a hired Jeep from Negril all the way to Port Antonio, rather a hard drive because of the bad roads, but nevertheless fun fun fun ... which came to a sudden stop when reaching the suburbs of Kingston: it was announced on the radio that John Peel had died. Now, this, to date, has been the greatest shock in all of my life, I can't remember anything that hit me that hard so far. Peel had not only been a hero for me since I first heard him on BFBS back in 1983, over the years he became a true friend. Whenever I was in London we would meet up and have a few beers together and he always was friendly and honest to me. Never bad tempered or arrogant, nothing like that, never! I know this may sound rather silly for you to say, but losing him was like losing a close family member .....
Now, Webbie over at the Football And Music - blog had a brilliant idea, and I immediately decided to participate. I think the easiest will be to quote him here:
"There once was a Radio 1 led John Peel Day, but they stopped doing it a few years ago.
The day is still commemorated and kept running with various events taking place at places around Europe, but my fear is like with 6 Music this day is slowly being killed off.
We shouldn’t forget his memory and should not forget his legacy. All those bands, all the music that we discovered thanks to him.
There should be a web version of the John Peel Day, with this one being commemorated by all the bloggers, tweeters, LJ users and tumblr’s out there. If you are Facebook then please join in too.
So on the 25th October 2010 I want everybody to post a Peel Session track by any of their favourite bands.
That date, you’ve probably already worked out, is the date when we lost the great man…
This was partly inspired by JC using the same idea he had with the Paul Haig Day and I hope that he and all his fellow writers will join in to support this one."
Well, there ain't very much more to say to that, right? Apart from the fact perhaps that you should pop over at Football And Music and have a look what the other contributors have to say/post. As far as I'm concerned, I use the opportunity to play to you not one, but ten of my favourite Peel Session - tracks .... and here we go:
25/02/1981 - TX - 03/03/1981
18/10/1978 - TX - 23/10/1978
11/12/1982 - TX - 11/01/1983
04/12/1978 - TX - 11/12/1978
28/04/1980 - TX - 12/05/1980
24/07/1984 -TX - 02/08/1984
03/09/1979 - TX - 17/09/1979
11/06/1985 - TX - ?
21/01/1980 - TX - 23/01/1980
22/08/1984 - TX - 17/09/1984
And, finally, here's the great man himself. This was recorded by the BBC's answering machine one day before John Peel died whilst being on holiday in Peru:
John Peel Phone Call 24.10.04 (mp3)
Webbie, again thanks a lot for your idea and I do hope that it helps us all to 'keep it Peel' indeed!
And, finally, here's the great man himself. This was recorded by the BBC's answering machine one day before John Peel died whilst being on holiday in Peru:
John Peel Phone Call 24.10.04 (mp3)
Webbie, again thanks a lot for your idea and I do hope that it helps us all to 'keep it Peel' indeed!
Have fun,
Dirk
3 comments:
wonderful words and memories amigo....
Great stuff.. so much stuff...
Brilliant Dirk, just brilliant.
great post Dirk.
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