Wednesday, October 27, 2004

John Peel RIP

Went to a gig last night. Saw the excellent 22/20s do 55 minutes of very high-octane, excitable RnB. They only spoke about twice but once to say something along the lines of...

'We have had a fantastic 2 years which has included playing Glastonbury but we also played the John Peel show and in a cynical world he was a man of integrity.'

Then they piled into the next number. It seemed a fitting tribute. Peely was always more interested in the music than the people, unless they were ordinary people.

I listened to him after I'd put the light out from about 1971-75 every night discovering great music - Floyd, early Sparks, Roxy Music...

More recently he accompanied me home on many long journeys from training events 1992-2002 as I worked on the road. He found me Lexus, The Experimental Pop Band and Witness to name but three. I still have a few handwritten notes of the names of bands I'm not sure I spelt right and a rejection letter from Home Truths but if I ever find Anderbeat(?) I'll be delirious.

Devastated.

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