The Official John Peel Box Listeners thread. Classic/Dud, if you may.

it's funny but i've done the winamp shuffle thing about 10 times now, for about an hour each time, and i've still to hear the sheena easton.

and i enjoy the little snippets of peel on the end of odd tracks, adds a bit of colour.

it does suffer from being completely lacking in those genres that are post-7" though. i've bought exactly one 7" single this year, for instance.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,14932-1836864,00.html

alex, peel lost a lot of records when he moved back from the states, maybe that explains it.

I can't wait to find out what people think of the Sheena Easton B-side. She co-wrote it herself, you know...

Happy rediscoveries, sounding better than I remembered:
No More Ghettos In America - Stanley Winston
New Religion - Some Chicken
There Must Be Thousands - The Quads
It's Better To Have - Don Covay
...and, well, it has to be said: Down Down - Status Quo

New discoveries:
Popatop - Andy Capp, Surfin' Hootenanny - Al Casey, and the 1960s psych-pop stuff: The Misunderstood, Idle Race, The Move, Yardbirds, The Nice. Love all that.

I said it on the other thread, but my fav discovery so far is Mel and Tim 'Starting All Over Again.' Love, love, love it!

And that Clague song 'The Stride' is pretty amazing too. Love John's intro and outro about beating up those who don't like it.

Hey! (I run their mailing list and have seen them a number of times.)

The Cat Power songs struck me as dull. I'm not her biggest fan anyway, but these seem weak compared to other things by her.

I've really liked some of these White Stripes songs (more than I've liked other things by them), esp China Pig and Astray Heart - they sound nice and fucked up.

And the Izzy Royal is beautiful.

so why are we still missing the b-side if you've a personal connection?! come on ned, get with the program 8)

I do indeed have said B-side, it surfaced on a couple of comps over time. Now if this is a case wherein by my providing the B-side I get a folder with the rest of the songs then all is well. ;-)

Also, once you've heard Klaus Nomi's take on "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead", is there need for any other?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/alt/johnpeel/peelenium.shtml

Check 1958 for Link Wray.

"40. Golinski Brothers - Bloody + Toy (BADGE RECORDS) 1980 2x copies"
Badge Records? They were on Attrix weren't they? "Bloody" was on Vaultage '79 IIRC

"79. Quads - You've gotta jive + There must be thousands (BIG BEAR RECORDS) 1979"
Nice enough song but nothing special.

"96. Status Quo - Down down (VERTIGO) 1974"
Wtf was rare / special about this?

"119. The Users - Sick on you + I'm in love with today (RAW RECORDS) 1977 2x copies"
Again, nothing special as far as I remember.

"123. The White Stripes - Party of special things to do + China pig + Ashtray heart (SUB POP)"
But no Beefheart....

Hotel Yorba is the least annoying White Stripes song of the lot, it actually seems to suit his whine. who knew?

I figure the singles that don't seem obvious to us may have been a gift, or held special significance for him. I don't think it's always about the music.

la peste's "better off dead" is way better than "black," i reckon.

*hyperventilates*

Oh, Stewart! One of the greatest punk singles ever! How could you!

As The Users were the first live band I ever saw (*), this one would definitely be in my "special" box as well.

(*) Not strictly true. The first live band I ever saw was Cherry Vanilla backed by The Police, sound-checking with "Shake Some Ashes" before The Users came on.

So I started guessing that Vaultage '79 was a collection of not just Attrix but also their Brighton mates' releases. Could that be true? Attrix surely wasn't big enough to pick up releases on tiny labels like Toy for wider release, which is the only other explanation I can come up with.

You might be surprised

"Oh, Stewart! One of the greatest punk singles ever! How could you!"

Their second one ("Kicks In Style") was better iirc.

Was it on Toy Records as well as Badge Records? If so, is there a copyright date on it? The most perplexing thing about this as far as I'm concerned is that if anything this appears to have been compiled (Vaultage '79) before it was released (Badge Records ©1980).

Not that this is going to keep me awake at night you understand....

Not too surprised about the 7" list, I have two of them (without looking) Will look now.

ACH! I wouldn't have known that I remembered this one until I heared it! "Still you godda have a larf! ha ha ha ha ..."

see, i laughed upthread at mark only just now discovering boards of canada and now i find myself looking up the white stripes back catalog on amazon...

there's another song that rhymes 'giro' and 'cairo' (like Bloody does) but i can't remember what it is. probably something very unhip.

To be honest, this whole set's acted like a 'virtual John Peel experience'. Discovering stuff I'd like, having another go at listening to stuff I didn't like before, and a whole bunch of stuff I'd liked at the time but forgotten (or never knew) who it was.

1980

Track 1
Twenty Four Hours
Artist: Joy Division
Composer: Joy Division

Track 2
Totally Wired
Artist; The Fall
Composer: Riley/Scanlan/Hanley/Smith

Track 3
9 To 5
Artist: Sheena Easton
Composer: F Palmer

Track 4
Bloody
Artist: Golinski Brothers
Composer: Gibbs/Golinski/Harries

Ooohh, that's a wonderful thing

It was "Cairo" by Joy somebody, a reggae single from around 1978 which got played on Radio 2 quite a lot for some reason. It was then covered by Amazulu, who released it as their debut single.

Chorus: "Can't get no Giro, working in a bar in Cairo..."

http://www.xs4all.nl/~tapirs/front7.htm

Especially:
Lonely Saturday Night. Wow. That howl is so chilling. Not knowing Peel (being from the US) but hearing his favorites I think he latched on to those moments when the artists jump out of the wax and grab you by the throat, either to make you laugh, cry, or choke. "Ghettos" is like that, too.

The rockabilly stuff including Sugar Bee and Feathers' singles. Makes me wish the British Invasion was more like the British Coming for Tea because this music shouldn't have died the way it did, left only to... who? Chris Isaak?

Golinski Brothers, Bloody. Incredibly affecting.
The soul tracks from Mel & Tim / Eddie & Ernie / J.A. and J.T.: makes me wish that there was a closer blues/soul radio station to LA than the amazing one in Chicago, so I wouldn't have had to wait until 25 to be introduced to it.

That goes for much of this music, actually. The only time I wished I could've grown up in the UK. Like I said, I'm not as cool as most of you, but I'm glad I was able to be at a spot in my life when so much of this material grabbed me.

http://cafe-puschkin.blogspot.com/

Some of the cuts from the box to air on Radio 6 on Thursday 26th October. There's even voting for which you'd like to hear, a nice touch.

I'm saying no more for now, in case it doesn't happen...

one day they'll realise that there's a good show in there and play the whole thing. something like The Freak Zone on sunday afternoons plays this kind of stuff anyway.

reading the OMM this sunday and found out that Al Casey died recently. had been playing guitar for Lee Hazlewood all these years...

dandelion box set out soon as well.

I'm saying no more for now, in case it doesn't happen...

(i listed the others in the supplied comments box, so maybe they'll be nice)

anyway, so far:

The Freshmen - You've Never Heard Anything Like It
Laurie Anderson - O Superman
Upsetter - Bucky Skank

Pocket Fishrman - The Leader Is Burning (10:18)
The Move - I Can Hear The Grass Grow (11:23)
Sam & Dave - I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down (12:46)

Sheena Easton - 9-5 (13:42)
Eddie & Ernie - Time Waits For No One (15:05)
Medicine Head - Your Guiding Hand (15:46)

Lamacq tracklisting is a bit weird, i'm not sure i understand it. does he play the same half dozen tracks every day with extras now and again? madness.

(That is what passes for a joke at this time of the afternoon.)

Perhaps I will listen on my portable device later, staring at the screenlet to see what's what...

Sheila's pick next...

oh, lamacq's just chosen one himself...
White Stripes - Lord Send Me An Angel (17:24)

off home now