John Peel’s record collection is the stuff of
legend. He’d sit in Peel Acres, listen
to his new acquisitions, meticulously catalogue them, create typed index
cards, then cherry pick tracks for his show.
It’s estimated he had 26,000 LPs alone. Now, thanks to the John Peel Centre for
Creative Arts, these are very slowly being drip fed on to a new site called The Space. Each week, the first 100 albums,
in alphabetical order, are put online.
Last week was the A’s; this week has been the B’s. At that rate, my CSE maths makes a completion
date of May 2017. It’s a well-designed
site that looks like a real record collection and it allows sight of the front
and back covers, the inner sleeve plus Peel’s own index cards. My initial excitement has been tempered
though by discovering it’s not possible to listen to the actual records. Where the records are available on Spotify
there is a link (okay if you have Spotify) but other than that it’s just
looking at record sleeves. I suppose complicated
licensing issues are at the root of this but making a record collection available to look at is a little pointless. Such legalities aren’t usually
abided to by the users of YouTube so that’s a good second stop, and where I listened to stuff from the couple of mid-70s soulful disco LPs by Ace
Spectrum. It is also a shame it’s not
possible to zoom into the sleeves. Despite
those frustrating grumbles it’s still a way to fritter away hours searching
for new music and a reminder of Peel’s anything goes taste.
Everyone has their listening to John Peel stories; it was
a rite of passage. I began tuning in
when I was twelve, on a wrist radio tied to the plank of wood that stopped me
falling out the top bunk. It was called
a wrist radio but as this was the early 80s it was the size of a cereal bowl. I had to keep the volume low so not to wake
my little brother, who had yet to discover rock and roll, asleep below. I dreamed of being a punk, inspired by a gang I’d
watch from my bedroom window at night.
They’d sit on the stone boat in the park that backed onto our garden, smoking,
drinking, lighting fires and occasionally kicking a ball around. It looked a great way of life and I still hold them responsible for spraying “The
Ruts” on our street sign.
It was one thing wanting to be a punk, it was quite
another to getting to hear the music so Peel was the way in. One night he announced he was going to play
the new single by The Clash. This was
exciting. I knew who they were but had
never heard them. How would they compare
to Never Mind The Bollocks, which my
school friend had nicked from his brother to give to me? I loved that album, even if – and maybe
especially because – I had to hide the sleeve from my mum and knock off the sound during the potty-mouthed abortion bit in “Bodies”. I can’t remember Peel’s introduction but do
recall my utter disbelief and disappointment when “This Is Radio Clash” filled the
airwaves. What on earth was this hippity-hoppity New York street funk nonsense supposed to be? How was this punk?
Luckily a second wave of punkish upstarts was springing
up and it was these short, sharp, shouty and sometimes funny 45s, which
captured my imagination far more than those old fogies. The Ejected’s “Have You Got 10p?” was a played
almost nightly; The Addicts “My Baby Got Run Over By A Steamroller” has stayed
with me (I taped it and mum asked if it was a infant or a loved one flattened); but my favourite band from that period were Action Pact, whose two
sessions had me leaping off my bed to release the pause button on my hi-fi to
record. There are two of their LPs in
Peel’s collection, which prompted me to revisit them for the first time in
since those boyhood days. Surprisingly
they’ve weathered well, owing much to X-Ray Spex, which I didn’t realise back
then.
But many nights would be a test of patience and lasting through from 10pm to midnight was a rarity. I'd turn the radio up for the talking and down for the music. His contrariness in deliberately playing outlandish and often diabolical records was a thing to be admired if not listened to. The internet age has made us more impatient and we can, if we want, click away after the opening bars of some Hungarian electro drone duo or a Congolese folk band but his show made you stick with it or bail out and potentially miss something wonderful. Coupled with the weekly music press it was the only place a kid like me could discover music outside the charts and peek into other worlds; that was our internet. As for "This Is Radio Clash", it was an amazing record, so far ahead of its time. John Peel knew.
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