John peel is dead!

[Rick Stirling]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3955289.stm

[kleinluka]

who

[Rick Stirling]

John Peel.

[FAT_CAP]

R.I.P Mr Peel - what a shock /images/graemlins/frown.gif

One of the only radio shows around where the music was more important than some corporate controlled playlist ...definately will be missed on the airwaves.

[Dukester]

never heard of him myself, but that doesn't mean anything.

interesting that he had worked in dallas around the same time we moved there.

at least he got to go on his vacation "to a place he really wanted to go" before he died. RIP.

[danr]

that's a real shame, John Peel was far and away the best thing on the radio.

Though i do now feel it's appropriate to point out to the Modern Internet that upon hearing the news, our own Chunkey responded "was he Bergerac?"

[Daz]

My God, that is absolutely gutting. I met him once or twice when my sister worked for Radio1. I had no idea. She must be pretty upset.

Kleinuka: Whats with the 'who' when his obituary is clearly posted above? Moronic. He was a British music institution. His show 'The Peel sessions' promoted unsigned bands for decades.

[firestarter]

=[
To those that don`t know, John Peel was a DJ that helped shape music trends rather just report upon them. He played whatever the fuck he liked, as many times as he liked.
Respect.

[bearkub]

wow, I consider myself a pretty big music buff and I have never heard of this guy. Sounds like he was a pretty right-on cat, though. Especially considering that people would send him demo tapes and he would just play them.

Sad, indeed.

[sundance]

yeah, the guy was 65 and still on the main pop music station even after all the others of his generation had either retired or been forced out. the man was a legend and an institution here. and he'd probably find that comment hilarious.

[Daz]

kub: you can listen to some of his shows here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/listen/index.shtml?hp_lhn

scroll down to alternative.

[jzero]

Ahh, another legend passes...

I credit John Peel with inspiring the radio DJ style I love, the guys who inflict their record collections on you, thus exposing everyone in range to unknown greatness. Thanks for the link, Daz!

/jzero

[Jackablade]

Dammit, what a fucking awful way to start the day.

Vale John. The world would have been a much duller place without you. You will be missed.

[HarlequiN]

"And now a song by a band with the curious title of 'Anal Beard'"
- John Peel

Says it all really. RIP JP.

[JonT]

RIP.

Radio, and music will never be the same without him /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[Rick Stirling]

Tributes have poured in.

Glastonbury festival is renaming a stage in his honour:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3957699.stm

Lots of cut and pasting now:

U2, Nirvana, The Velvet Underground, Roxy Music, Rod Stewart, Pink Floyd, The Sex Pistols and T-Rex are among the others he helped introduce to the public.

His playlist included The Doors, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix, and he got the first play of The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Peel is best-known for loving and championing The Undertones' song Teenage Kicks. He said he could not hear the punk anthem without bursting into tears.

Legend has it the band sent Peel a tape and he wrote back, signing his letter with a rubber stamp: "John Peel, The World's Most Boring Man."


When Peel played the song, an executive from the Sire label signed the group.

He once played the song twice in a row on Radio 1 because "it doesn't get any better than this".

At that time, Pulp were starting out and singer Jarvis Cocker handed their first demo tape to Peel on one of his roadshows.

Peel invited them in to record a session in 1981, giving them their first national airplay


Former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr said the band's early success was "largely due to the John Peel show"

"He really did trawl through mailbags of demo cassettes. That's why we had Pulp and T-Rex, because he'd been discovering bands like that since 1967."

Prime Minister Tony Blair described Peel as "an extraordinary and unique personality".

"He unearthed different sounds and people and made them accessible and popular... he was a genuine one off - and a warm and decent human being too."

[danr]

there was the one time he played a record at 33rpm, and had no idea whether it was supposed to be played at that speed or not. He played it at 66rpm the next night to make sure.