My Bloody Valentine performing in 2008.

Shoegazing (also known as shoegaze) is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged from the United Kingdom in the late 1980s. It lasted there until the mid 1990s, with a critical zenith reached in 1990 and 1991. The British music press—particularly NME and Melody Maker—named this style shoegazing because the musicians in these bands stood relatively still during live performances in a detached, introspective, non-confrontational state, hence the idea that they were gazing at their shoes.^[1][2] The heavy use of effects pedals also contributed to the image of performers looking down at their feet during concerts.

The shoegazing sound is typified by significant use of guitar effects, and indistinguishable vocal melodies that blend into the creative noise of the guitars.^[1] A general description given to shoegazing and other affiliated bands in London in the early 1990s was The Scene That Celebrates Itself. In the early 1990s, shoegazing groups were pushed aside by the American grunge movement and early Britpop acts such as Suede, forcing the relatively unknown bands to break up or reinvent their style altogether.^[1] Recent times have seen a renewed interest in the genre among "nu-gaze" bands.

Style[link]

Common musical elements of shoegazing consist of distortion, droning riffs and a "wall of sound" from noisy guitars. Typically, two distorted rhythm guitars are played together to give an amorphous quality to the sound. Although lead guitar riffs were often present, they were not the central focus of most shoegazing songs.

	"Unfamiliar" noicon "Unfamiliar" by Ride from their EP Today Forever, released in 1991. "Soon" noicon "Soon", from the 1991 album Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, features a dance-oriented beat behind three tracks of Kevin Shields' "glide guitar".
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Vocals are typically subdued in volume and tone, but a strong sense of melody generally exists underneath the layers of guitars. However, lyrics are not emphasized and vocals are often treated as an additional instrument.^[3] While the genres that influenced shoegazing often used drum machines, shoegazing more often features live drumming.

The name was coined in a review in Sounds of a concert by the newly-formed Moose in which singer Russell Yates read lyrics taped to the floor throughout the gig.^[4] The term was picked up by the NME, who used it as a reference to the tendency of the bands' guitarists to stare at their feet—or their effects pedals; seemingly deep in concentration, while playing. Melody Maker preferred the more staid term The Scene That Celebrates Itself, referring to the habit that the bands had of attending gigs of other shoegazing bands, often in Camden, and often moonlighting in each other's bands:

The shatteringly loud, droning neo-psychedelia the band performed was dubbed shoegazing by the British press because the bandmembers stared at the stage while they performed.^[1]

The term was often considered pejorative, especially by the English weekly music press who considered the movement as ineffectual, and it was disliked by many of the groups it purported to describe,

Shoegazing was originally a slag-off term. My partner [K.J. "Moose" McKillop], who was the guitarist in Moose, claims that it was originally leveled at his band. Apparently the journo was referring to the bank of effects pedals he had strewn across the stage that he had to keep staring at in order to operate. And then it just became a generic term for all those bands that had a big, sweeping, effects-laden sound, but all stood resolutely still on stage. - Miki Berenyi^[3]

Ride's singer Mark Gardener had a different take on the groups' static presentation:

"We didn't want to use the stage as a platform for ego, like the big bands of the time did, like U2 and Simple Minds. We presented ourselves as normal people, as a band who wanted their fans to think they could do that too."^[2]

The most commonly cited precursors to shoegazing are Cocteau Twins,^[1][5] The Jesus and Mary Chain, and My Bloody Valentine. But common musical threads between the different bands include garage rock, '60s psych, and American indie bands like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr.^[3]

The first bands to attract the shoegazing label (Slowdive, Chapterhouse, Ride, Moose, Lush and Pale Saints) were largely influenced by My Bloody Valentine, and emerged in the wake of their breakthrough in 1988 with the "You Made Me Realise" single and the album Isn't Anything,^[1][6] and the shoegazing label has more recently been applied to My Bloody Valentine themselves.^[7] Other artists that have been identified as influences on shoegazing include The Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, Hüsker Dü, Spacemen 3, The Chameleons, The Cure,^[8] Bauhaus,^[7] Galaxie 500,^[9] and The Smiths.^[3]

Michael Azerrad's book Our Band Could Be Your Life cites an early 1990s Dinosaur Jr. tour of the United Kingdom as a key influence.^[10] While not classified as a shoegazing band, Dinosaur Jr. did share a tendency to blend poppy melody with loud guitars and laconic vocals. A lengthy 1992 US tour featuring My Bloody Valentine, Dinosaur Jr. and Yo La Tengo raised the genre's profile in the US considerably.

History[link]

The Scene That Celebrates Itself[link]

A general description given to shoegazing and other affiliated bands in London in the early 1990s was The Scene That Celebrates Itself. The first stirrings of recognition came when indie writer Steve Lamacq referred to Ride in a review for the NME as "The House of Love with chainsaws". The shoegazing genre label was quite often misapplied. Key bands such as Slowdive, Chapterhouse and Ride emerged from the Thames Valley and as such Swervedriver found themselves labelled shoegazers on account of their own Thames Valley origins - despite their more pronounced Hüsker Dü-meets-Stooges stylings.^[11]

Decline[link]

The coining of the term "The Scene That Celebrates Itself" was in many ways the beginning of the end for the first wave of shoegazers. The bands became perceived by critics as over-privileged, self-indulgent and middle-class.^[3] This perception was in sharp contrast with those bands who formed the wave of newly-commercialised grunge music which was making its way across the Atlantic, and those bands who formed the foundation of Britpop, such as Pulp, Oasis, Blur and Suede.^[2] Britpop also offered intelligible lyrics, often about the trials and tribulations of working-class life; this was a stark contrast to the "vocals as an instrument" approach of the shoegazers, which often prized the melodic contribution of vocals over their lyrical depth. Lush's final album was an abrupt shift from shoegazing to Britpop, which alienated many fans; the 1996 suicide of their drummer signaled Lush's dissolution. Nothing has surfaced from My Bloody Valentine since Loveless, aside from their 2008 reunion tour. Plans for a new album have been confirmed, with frontman Kevin Shields explaining their silence by noting, "I never could be bothered to make another record unless I was really excited by it."^[12]

Post-movement directions[link]

Slowdive eventually morphed into the country-infused Mojave 3 and the dream pop Monster Movie, while other shoegazing bands either split or moved in other directions. The Verve (at the time known simply as "Verve") went more towards mainstream rock on their 1997 album Urban Hymns, before singer Richard Ashcroft released a number of solo albums. The Verve later reunited and released a new album, Forth. Mark Gardener and Loz Colbert of Ride released an album as The Animalhouse; in 2006, Gardener's first solo album was issued. The use of electronic dance and ambient elements by bands such as Slowdive and Seefeel paved the way for later developments in post-rock and electronica.^[3] Several former members of shoegazing bands later moved towards post-rock and the more electronica-based trip hop. Adam Franklin of Swervedriver released lo-fi albums under the moniker Toshack Highway.

A resurgence of the genre began in the late 1990s (particularly in the United States) and the early 2000s, that helped usher in what is now referred to as the "nu-gaze" era.^[13][2]

There is also a post-shoegaze style that began to grow in the early 2000s sometimes known as "blackgaze," which incorporates the darker elements of black metal with elements of shoegaze. Some artists of "blackgaze" styles are French bands Alcest and Shyy, and German bands Soliness and Heretoir.

See also[link]

• List of shoegazing musicians

References[link]

External links[link]

• musicOMH.com Shoegaze revival feature
• Shoegaze examples at Earbits.com

Jon Gooch, more commonly known by his stage names Spor and Feed Me, is a drum and bass, electro house and dubstep producer and DJ from Hertfordshire, England.^[1]

Biography[link]

Spor obtained his name from one of the first set of samples he collected, entitled 'Spore Tactics', and a favorite piece of artwork by a friend, Karl Kwasny^{[citation needed]}. However, he soon dropped the "e" from the word to balance the arrangement of letters when displayed in a graffiti style^{[citation needed]}. After a school friend introduced Jon to the world of Drum & Bass he began experimenting with software to create his own music.

Spor attracted the attention of Renegade Hardware's label manager (at the time) Chris Renegade, and secured a deal with the label. Much of his work was released through this label, and soon Jon began DJing sets. He has also released work under the name 'Final Reckoning' with Codex, as well as under the name 'Unicron'. After a successful partnership with Renegade Hardware and Barcode Recordings, and releases with Teebee's Subtitles Recordings, in 2006, Spor and long-term friend Chris Renegade launched Lifted Music and signed music from producers such as Apex, Evol Intent and Ewun & Phace.

On 24 February 2010, Spor released his second double EP, Conquerors and Commoners on the Lifted Music label ^[2]. In an interview with K Magazine, he said the title was inspired by a quote by Harlan Ellison^[3]. The album was well received by drum & bass fans, with two of the tracks from the album ("Halogen" and "Kingdom") being played on Andy C's popular Nightlife 5 mix CD ^[4]. Spor has since then been traversing the globe playing his music at clubs across the world under the Lifted Music guise.

Spor's electro house side project, Feed Me, has also been rather successful. A two track EP has been released under Deadmau5's label, mau5trap, along with a track on Noisia's label as well. He released a second EP under mau5trap on 25 December 2010, titled 'Feed Me's Big Adventure'. It features eight new tracks including both electro house and dubstep. His third EP of four tracks is called 'To the Stars' has been available to the public since 3 June 2011. He released another EP titled 'Feed Me's Escape From Electric Mountain' on 6 February 2012. It features 6 new tracks, with vocals from Hadouken! and Lindsay.

Jon was also involved in a second side project called 'Seventh Stitch', which produced alternative IDM. He worked with another artist called Aker.

He has said he would like to release his debut album in August, 2012.

Discography[link]

Feed Me[link]

Releases[link]

Guest appearances[link]

Production credits[link]

Remixes[link]

Spor and other[link]

• Spor – Pacifica EP (2011) (LFTDUB002D)
• Noisia & Spor – Falling Through (2010) (VSN009)
• Spor – Pacifica (Vocal Mix) (2011) (LFTDUB003)
• Spor – Pacifica (Instrumental Mix) (2011) (LFTDUB002)
• Spor – Halogen (2010) (LFTD009)
• Spor – Kingdom (2010) (LFTD009)
• Spor – Overdue (2010) (LFTD009)
• Spor – Kaori (2010) (LFTD009)
• Spor – Some Other Funk (2009) (LFTD006)
• Spor – Silver Spaceman (2009) (LFTD006)
• Spor – Do Not Shake (2009) (SHA025)
• Spor – Aztec (2009) (SHA025)
• Spor – Claret's March (2008) (LFTD005)
• Spor – Stoppit (2008) (LFT005)
• Spor – Breathe In, Scream Out (2008) (SUBTITLES066)
• Spor – Resolute (2008) (SUBTITLES066)
• Spor – Valentine (2008) (Featuring Baz Abdul) (SUBTITLES066)
• Spor – As Dust Falls (2008) (SUBTITLES066)
• Spor, Apex, Ewun & Evol Intent – Dirge (2008) (LFTD003)
• Spor & Ewun – We Dominate (2008) (LFTD003)
• Spor, Ewun & Evol Intent – Levitate (2008) (LFTD003)
• Spor & Phace – Dying Of The Light (2008) (LFTD003)
• Spor – Supernova (2007) (LFTD002)
• Spor – 103 Degrees (2007) (LFTD002)
• Spor – 1 UP (2007) (LFTD002)
• Spor – The Resistance (2007) (LFTD002)
• Spor – Molehill (2007) (SUB057)
• Spor – Knock You Down (2006) (LFTD001)
• Spor – Hydra (2006) (ZIQ159)
• Spor – Powder Monkey (2006) (SUB055)
• Spor – Ignition (2006) (RH73)
• Spor – Dreadnought (2005) (RH72)
• Spor – The Eyes Have It (2005) (RH72)
• Spor – Lose It (2005) (RH72)
• Spor – To The Death (2005) (RH72)
• Spor – Cyberpunk (2005) (BAR12)
• Spor – Way Of The Samurai (2005) (BARLP01)
• Spor – Alpha Trion (2005) (BARLP01CD)
• Spor – Dante's Inferno (2005) (BAR07)
• Spor – Brickbeats (2005) (BAR08)
• Spor – Haunt Me (2005) (BAR08)
• Spor – Haywire (2004) (RH63)
• Spor – Outbroken (That Track) (2004) (RH62)
• Spor – Nebulous (2004) (RH62CD)
• Spor – Running Man (2004) (NITE002)
• Spor – Insecticide (2004) (TOV67)
• Final Reckoning – A Thousand Worlds (2005) (TOV73)
• Final Reckoning – Ghosthacker (2005) (TOV71)
• Final Reckoning – Nothing Less (2005) (TOV73)
• Unicron – Orion's Five (2005) (TOVLP06)
• Unicron – You Must Believe (2005) (TOV69)
• Spor – Three Ravens (2004) (BAR04)
• Spor – Judderman (2004) (DMIND008)
• Spor – The Whisper (2004) (DMIND008)
• Ewun – Hate Machine (Spor Remix) (Shades of Black LP, Barcode Recordings)
• Infiltrata & Spor – Three Faces (2006) (BAR14)
• Konflict – Messiah (Spor Remix) (2005) (RH65)
• Unknown Error & Spor – Untitled (2006) (SUB057)
• Unknown Error – Shadows (Unicron Remix) (2005) (TOV69)
• The Qemists – Stompbox (Spor Remix) (2007) (ZEN12205)
• Bad Company UK – Bullet Time (Spor Remix) (2009) (BT003)
• Don Diablo & Example – Hooligans (Spor Remix) (2009) (DATA219TP1)
• Two Fingers – That Girl (Spor Remix) (2009) (BD134)
• Noisia – Machine Gun (Spor Remix) (2010) (DIVISION005)
• Hadouken! - Turn The Lights Out (Spor Remix) (2010)

Unreleased^{[citation needed]}

• Fallout – Hesitate (Spor & Toxin Remix)
• Lumidee – Never Leave You (Spor Remix)
• Pendulum – Toxic Shock (Spor Remix)
• Spor – That's That (feat. MC Illy)(Spor Remix)
• Spor – Wretch
• Spor – Blue Girl
• Spor – Electro Funeral
• Spor – Cooka
• Spor – The Origin
• Spor – Deathray
• Spor – Little Change
• Spor – Thugged Out Elves
• Spor – Push Me, Pull You
• Spor - After The Flood
• Spor - Absinthe
• Spor - Bitten
• Spor - Bad Cards
• Spor - Knock You Down VIP

References[link]

External links[link]

• Lifted Music
• Trouble on Vinyl Group
• Spor at Discogs
• Spor at rolldabeats
• Spor at Last.fm

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2010)

John Peel
John Peel in a studio in Yalding House
Birth name	John Robert Parker Ravenscroft
Born	(1939-08-30)30 August 1939 Heswall, England
Died	25 October 2004(2004-10-25) (aged 65) Cusco, Peru
Country	United Kingdom
Website	BBC minisite

John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004. He was known for his eclectic taste in music and his honest and warm broadcasting style.

He was one of the first broadcasters to play psychedelic rock and progressive rock records on British radio, and he is widely acknowledged for promoting artists working in various genres, including pop, reggae, indie rock, alternative rock, punk, hardcore punk, breakcore, grindcore, death metal, British hip hop, and dance music.

Peel's Radio 1 shows were notable for the regular 'Peel sessions', which usually consisted of four songs recorded by an artist live in the BBC's studios, and which often provided the first major national coverage to bands that later would achieve great fame. (These 'sessions' are similar to 'Live Lounge' sessions recorded today for the station.) Another popular feature of his shows was the annual Festive Fifty countdown of his listeners' favourite records of the year.

Peel appeared frequently on British television as one of the presenters of Top of the Pops in the 1980s, and he provided voice-over commentary for a number of BBC programmes. He became popular with the audience of BBC Radio 4 for his Home Truths programme, which ran from the 1990s, featuring unusual stories from listeners' domestic lives.

Life and career[link]

Early life[link]

Peel was born in Heswall Cottage Hospital in Heswall on the Wirral Peninsula, near Liverpool, and grew up in the nearby village of Burton.^[1] His father was an upper middle class cotton merchant,^[2] and he was sent away to be educated as a boarder at Shrewsbury School.^[3]

His housemaster, R H J Brooke, whom Peel described as "extraordinarily eccentric" and "amazingly perceptive," wrote on one of his school reports, "Perhaps it's possible that John can form some kind of nightmarish career out of his enthusiasm for unlistenable records and his delight in writing long and facetious essays."^[4] In his posthumously published autobiography, Peel revealed that he had been raped by an older pupil while at Shrewsbury.^[5]

After finishing his National Service in 1959 in the Royal Artillery as a B2 radar operator,^[6] he worked as a mill operative at Townhead Mill in Rochdale^[7] and travelled home each weekend to Heswall on a scooter borrowed from his sister. Whilst in Rochdale Monday to Friday, he stayed in a bed-and-breakfast in the area of Milkstone Road and Drake Street. Peel was a vegetarian.^[8]

United States[link]

In 1960, he went to the United States to work for a cotton producer who had business dealings with his father.^[9] Once this job finished, he took a number of others, including working as a travelling insurance salesman, remaining in the United States until 1967. While in Dallas, Texas, where the insurance company he worked for was based, he spoke to John F. Kennedy as the presidential candidate and his running mate, Lyndon B. Johnson, who were touring the city during the 1960 Presidential election campaign.

Following Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, Peel passed himself off as a reporter for the Liverpool Echo in order to attend the arraignment of Lee Harvey Oswald, and he and a friend can be seen in the footage of the 22/23 November midnight press conference at Dallas Police Department when Oswald was paraded before the media.^[10] He later phoned in the story to the Liverpool Echo.

While working for the insurance company, Peel filed card programs for an early IBM 1410 computer (which led to his entry in Who's Who noting him as a former computer programmer), and he got his first radio job, albeit unpaid, working for WRR (AM) in Dallas. There, he presented the second hour of the Monday night programme Kat's Karavan, which was primarily hosted by the American singer and radio personality Jim Lowe. Following this, and as Beatlemania hit the United States, Peel got a job with the Dallas radio station KLIF as the official The Beatles correspondent on the strength of his connection to Liverpool. He later worked for KOMA in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma until 1965 when he moved to KMEN in San Bernardino, California, using the name John Ravencroft to present the breakfast show.^[11]

While in Dallas, in 1965, he married his first wife, Shirley Anne Milburn, in what Peel later described as a "mutual defence pact". The marriage was never happy and although she accompanied Peel back to Britain in 1967, they were soon separated. The divorce became final in 1973.^[12]

Return to Britain[link]

Peel returned to England in early 1967 and found work with the offshore pirate radio station Radio London. He was offered the midnight-to-two shift, which gradually developed into a programme called The Perfumed Garden (some thought it was named after an erotic book famous at the time - which Peel claimed never to have read). It was on "Big L" that he first adopted the name John Peel (the name was suggested by a Radio London secretary) and established himself as a distinctive radio voice.

Peel's show was an outlet for the music of the UK underground scene. He played classic blues, folk music and psychedelic rock, with an emphasis on the new music emerging from Los Angeles and San Francisco. As important as the musical content of the programme was the personal—sometimes confessional—tone of Peel's presentation, and the listener participation it engendered. Underground events he had attended during his periods of shore leave, like the UFO Club and "The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream", together with causes célèbres like the drug "busts" of the Rolling Stones and John "Hoppy" Hopkins, were discussed between records. All this was far removed from Radio London's daytime format. Listeners sent Peel letters, poems, and records from their own collections, so that the programme became a vehicle for two-way communication; by the final week of Radio London he was receiving far more mail than any other DJ on the station.^[13]

After the closure of Radio London in 1967 Peel wrote a column under the title The Perfumed Garden for the underground newspaper the International Times (from autumn 1967 to mid-1969), in which he showed himself to be a committed, if critical, supporter of the ideals of the underground. A Perfumed Garden mailing list was set up by a group of keen listeners, which facilitated contacts and gave rise to numerous small-scale, local arts projects typical of the time, including the poetry magazine Sol.

BBC career[link]

Peel in a record shop in Bochum, Germany

When Radio London closed down on 14 August 1967, John Peel joined the BBC's new pop music station, BBC Radio 1, which began broadcasting the following month. Unlike Big L, Radio 1 was not a full-time station, but a hybrid of recorded music and live studio orchestras. Peel recalled, "I was one of the first lot on Radio 1 and I think it was mainly because ... Radio 1 had no real idea what they were doing so they had to take people off the pirate ships because there wasn't anybody else." Peel presented a programme called Top Gear. At first he was obliged to share presentation duties with other DJs (Pete Drummond and Tommy Vance were among his co-hosts) but in February 1968 he was given sole charge of Top Gear; he continued to present the show until it ended in 1975. Peel played an eclectic mix of the music that caught his attention, which he would continue to do throughout his career.

During 1969, after hosting a trailer for a BBC programme on VD on his Night Ride programme, Peel received significant media attention because he divulged on air that he had suffered from a sexually transmitted disease earlier that year. This admission was later used in an attempt to discredit him when he appeared as a defence witness in the 1971 Oz obscenity trial.

The Night Ride programme, advertised by the BBC as an exploration of words and music, seemed to take up from where The Perfumed Garden had left off. It featured rock, folk, blues, classical and electronic music. A unique feature of the programme was the inclusion of tracks, mostly of exotic non-Western music, drawn from the BBC Sound Archive; the most popular of these were gathered on a BBC Records LP, John Peel's Archive Things (1970). Night Ride also featured poetry readings and numerous interviews with a wide range of guests, including personal friends Marc Bolan, journalist and musician Mick Farren, poet Pete Roche, and singer-songwriter Bridget St. John and stars such as the Byrds, the Rolling Stones and John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The programme captured much of the creative activity of the underground scene. Its anti-establishment stance and unpredictability did not find approval with the BBC hierarchy, and it ended in September 1969 after 18 months. In his sleeve notes to the Archive Things LP Peel calls the free-form nature of Night Ride his preferred radio format. His subsequent shows featured a mixture of records and live sessions, a format which would characterise his Radio 1 programmes for the rest of his career.

After separation from his first wife, Peel's personal life began to stabilise, as he found friendship and support from new Top Gear producer John Walters - and from his girlfriend Sheila Gilhooly, who he identified on-air as "the Pig". Peel married Sheila on 31 August 1974. The reception was in London's Regent's Park, with Walters as best man. Peel wore Liverpool football colours (red) and walked down the aisle to the song "You'll Never Walk Alone". Their sheepdog, Woggle, served as a bridesmaid.

Peel's enthusiasm for music outside the mainstream occasionally brought him into conflict with the Radio 1 hierarchy. In early 1977 station controller Derek Chinnery contacted John Walters and asked him to confirm that the show was not playing any punk, which he (Chinnery) had read about in the press and disapproved of. Chinnery was evidently somewhat surprised by Walters' reply that in recent weeks they had been playing little else.^[14] In 1979 Peel stated: "They leave you to get on with it. I'm paid money by the BBC not to go off and work for a commercial radio station...I wouldn't want to go to one anyway, because they wouldn't let me do what the BBC let me do."^[15]

Peel's reputation as an important DJ breaking unsigned acts into the mainstream was such that young hopefuls sent him an enormous amount of records, CDs, and tapes. When he returned home from a three week holiday at the end of 1986 there were 173 LPs, 91 12"s and 179 7"s waiting for him. Another example in point is that in 1983 unsigned artist Billy Bragg drove to the Radio 1 studios with a mushroom biryani and a copy of his record after hearing Peel mention that he was hungry, the subsequent airplay launching his career.^[16] Another example is that John Peel's favourite record for over a year in the late seventies/early eighties was Mopsie Beans EP "One Out" .^[17]

Peel Acres

In the 1970s Peel and Sheila moved to a thatched cottage in the village of Great Finborough near Stowmarket in Suffolk, nicknamed "Peel Acres". In later years Peel broadcast many of his shows from a studio in the house, with Sheila and their children often being involved or at least mentioned. Peel's passion for Liverpool F.C. was reflected in his children's names: William Robert Anfield, Alexandra Mary Anfield, Thomas James Dalglish, and Florence Victoria Shankly. His later shows also regularly featured live performances (broadcast live, unlike the pre-recorded Peel sessions), mostly from BBC Maida Vale Studios in West London, but occasionally in the Peel Acres living room.

Studio at Peel Acres

In addition to his Radio 1 show, Peel broadcast as a disc jockey on the BBC World Service, 30 years on the British Forces Broadcasting Service BFBS (John Peel's Music on BFBS), VPRO Radio3 in the Netherlands, YLE Radio Mafia in Finland, Ö3 in Austria (Nachtexpress), and on Radio 4U, Radio Eins (Peel ...), Radio Bremen (Ritz) and some independent radio stations around FSK Hamburg in Germany. As a result of his BFBS programme he was voted, in Germany, 'Top DJ in Europe'.

Peel was an occasional presenter of Top of the Pops on BBC 1 TV from the late 1960s until the 1990s, and in particular from 1982 to 1987 when he appeared regularly. In 1971 he appeared not as presenter but performer, alongside Rod Stewart and The Faces, pretending to play mandolin on "Maggie May". He often presented the BBC's television coverage of music events, notably Glastonbury Festival.

Later years[link]

Between 1995 and 1997, Peel presented a show about children, called Offspring, on BBC Radio 4. In 1998, Offspring grew into the magazine-style documentary show Home Truths. When he took on the job presenting the programme, which was about everyday life in British families, Peel requested that it be free from celebrities, as he found real life stories more entertaining. Home Truths was described by occasional stand-in presenter John Walters as being "about people who had fridges called Renfrewshire". Peel also made regular contributions to BBC Two's humorous look at the irritations of modern life Grumpy Old Men. His only appearance in an acting role in film was in 1999 as a "grumpy old man who catalogues records" in Five Seconds to Spare, although he had provided narration for others.^[18]

He appeared as a celebrity guest on a number of TV shows, including This Is Your Life (1996, BBC), Travels With My Camera (1996, Channel 4 TV) and Going Home (2002, ITV TV), and presented the 1997 Channel 4 series Classic Trains.^[19] He was also in demand as a voice-over artist for television documentaries, such as BBC One's A Life of Grime.

At the age of 62 he was diagnosed with diabetes, following many years of fatigue.^[20]

In April 2003, the publishers Transworld successfully wooed Peel with a package worth up to £1.6 million for his autobiography, having placed an advert in a national newspaper aimed only at Peel. Unfinished at the time of his death it was completed by Sheila and journalist Ryan Gilbey. It was published in October 2005 under the title Margrave of the Marshes. A collection of Peel's miscellaneous writings, The Olivetti Chronicles, was published in 2008.^[21]

Death[link]

Peel died suddenly at the age of 65 from a heart attack on 25 October 2004, on a working holiday in the Inca city of Cusco in Peru. Shortly after the announcement of his death, tributes began to arrive from fans and supporters both in and out of public life. On 26 October 2004 BBC Radio 1 cleared its schedules to broadcast a day of tributes. London's Evening Standard boards that afternoon read "the day the music died".

Peel had often spoken wryly of his eventual death. He once said on the show Room 101, "I've always imagined I'd die by driving into the back of a truck while trying to read the name on a cassette and people would say, 'He would have wanted to go that way.' Well, I want them to know that I wouldn't."^[22] At one point, he said that if he died before his producer John Walters, he wanted the latter to play Roy Harper's "When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease". Walters having died in 2001, it was left to Andy Kershaw to end his tribute programme to Peel on BBC Radio 3 with the song. Peel's stand-in on his Radio 1 slot, Rob da Bank, also played the song at the start of the final show before his funeral. Another time, Peel said he'd like to be remembered with a gospel song. He stated that the final record he would play would be the Rev C. L. Franklin's sermon "Dry Bones in The Valley".

On his Home Truths BBC radio show John once commented about his own death: "I definitely want to be buried, although not yet. I'm 61 on Wednesday - just a working day for me, I'm afraid - so actuarily (sic) I should have a mile or two left in me, but I do want the children to be able to stand solemnly at my graveside and think lovely thoughts along the lines of 'Get out of that one, you swine', which they won't be able to do if I've been cremated. I think I want 'Teenage dreams, so hard to beat' on my gravestone and every night at dusk the trumpeters of the 5th Battalion King's Shropshire Light Infantry to play Misty in Roots' Mankind over the grave. Lovely."^{[citation needed]}

Peel's funeral, on 12 November 2004, in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, was attended by over a thousand people, including many of the artists he had championed. Eulogies were read by his brother, Alan Ravenscroft, and DJ Paul Gambaccini. The service ended with clips of him talking about his life and his coffin was carried out to the accompaniment of his favourite song, The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks".^[23] Peel had written that, apart from his name, all he wanted on his gravestone were the words, "Teenage dreams, so hard to beat", from the lyrics of "Teenage Kicks".^[24] A headstone engraved in accordance with his wishes was placed at his grave in 2008.^[25] Peel is buried at St Andrew's Church, in the village of Great Finborough, Suffolk.

Life in music[link]

Peel sessions[link]

A feature of Peel's BBC Radio 1 shows were the famous John Peel Sessions, which usually consisted of four pieces of music pre-recorded at the BBC's studios. The sessions originally came about due to restrictions imposed on the BBC by the Musicians' Union and Phonographic Performance Limited which represented the record companies dominated by the EMI cartel. Because of these restrictions the BBC had been forced to hire bands and orchestras to render cover versions of recorded music. The theory behind this device was that it would create employment and force people to buy records and not listen to them free of charge on the air. One of the reasons why all of the offshore broadcasting stations of the 1960s were called "pirates" was because they operated outside of British laws and were not bound by the needle time restriction on the number of records they could play on the air.

The BBC employed its own house bands and orchestras and it also engaged outside bands to record exclusive tracks for its programmes in BBC studios. This was the reason why Peel was able to use "session men" in his own programmes. Sessions were usually four tracks recorded and mixed in a single day; as such they often had a rough and ready, demo-like feel, somewhere between a live performance and a finished recording. Peel remained on BBC Radio 1 for 37 years, until his death in 2004. During that time over 4000 sessions were recorded by over 2000 artists.^[26] Many classic Peel Sessions have been released on record, particularly by the Strange Fruit label.

Festive Fifty[link]

An annual tradition of Peel's Radio 1 show was the Festive Fifty—a countdown of the best tracks of the year as voted for by the listeners. Despite Peel's eclectic play list, the Festive Fifty tended to be composed largely of "white boys with guitars", as Peel complained in 1988. In 1991 the broadcast of the chart was cancelled due to a lack of votes, although many have speculated that it was because it didn't feature a single entry from the dance acts that Peel had been championing that year^{[citation needed]}. Topped by Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", this Phantom Fifty was eventually broadcast at the rate of one track per programme in 1993.^[27] The 1997 chart was initially cancelled due to the lack of air-time Peel had been allocated for the period, but enough "spontaneous" votes were received over the phone that a Festive Thirty-One was compiled and broadcast.^[27]

Peel wrote that "The Festive 50 dates back to what was doubtless a crisp September morning in the early-to-mid Seventies, when John Walters and I were musing on life in his uniquely squalid office. In our waggish way, we decided to mock the enthusiasm of the Radio 1 management of the time for programmes with alliterative titles. Content, we felt, was of less importance than a snappy Radio Times billing. In the course of our historic meeting we had, I imagine, some fine reasons for dismissing the idea of a Festive 40 and going instead for a Festive 50, a decision that was to ruin my Decembers for years to come, condemning me to night after night at home with a ledger, when I could have been out and about having fun, fun, fun."^[28]

After his death, the Festive Fifty was continued on Radio 1 by Rob Da Bank, Huw Stephens and Ras Kwame for two years, but then given to Peel-inspired Internet radio station Dandelion Radio, which continues to compile it to this day.

Dandelion Records and Strange Fruit[link]

In 1969 Peel founded Dandelion Records (named after his pet hamster) so he could release the debut album by Bridget St John, which he also produced. The label released 27 albums by 18 different artists before folding in 1972. Of its albums, There is Some Fun Going Forward was a sampler intended to present its acts to a wide audience, however Dandelion was never a great success, with only two releases charting in national charts: Medicine Head in the UK with "(And The) Pictures In The Sky" and Beau in Lebanon with "1917 Revolution".

As Peel stated:

It was never a success financially. In fact, we lost money, if I remember correctly, on every single release bar one. I did quite like it but it was terribly indulgent. Not as indulgent as it would have been had I not had a business partner, admittedly... I liked having a label. It enabled you to put out stuff that you liked without, in those days, having to worry about whether it was going to work commercially. I've never been a good business man.

Peel appeared on one Dandelion release: the David Bedford album Nurses Song with Elephants, recorded at the Marquee Studios, as part of a group playing twenty-seven plastic pipe twirlers on the track "Some Bright Stars for Queen's College".

In the 1980s Peel set up the Strange Fruit Records with Clive Selwood to release material recorded by the BBC for Peel Sessions.

Production (albums)[link]

• 1969: Mike Hart Bleeds - Mike Hart
• 1969: The Year of the Great Leap Sideways - Occasional Word Ensemble
• 1969: Soundtrack - Principal Edwards Magic Theatre
• 1970: New Bottles Old Medicine - Medicine Head
• 1970: Burnin' Red Ivanhoe - Burnin' Red Ivanhoe (co-produced w/ Tony Reeves)
• 1970: The Going's Easy - The Greatest Show on Earth
• 1970: Horizons - The Greatest Show on Earth
• 1970: The Asmoto Running Band - Principal Edwards Magic Theatre
• 1972: Bugger Off! - Stack Waddy
• 1976: Between The Poppy and the Snow - Robert MacLeod

Favourite music[link]

John Peel wrote in his autobiography, Margrave of the Marshes, that the band of which he owned the most records was The Fall. Regulars in the Festive 50, and easily recognised by vocalist Mark E. Smith's distinctive delivery, The Fall became synonymous with Peel's Radio 1 show through the 1980s and 1990s. Peel kept in contact with many of the artists he championed but only met Smith on two, apparently awkward, occasions.

The Misunderstood is the only band that Peel ever personally managed—he first met the band in Riverside, California in 1966 and convinced them to move to London. He championed their music throughout his career; in 1968, he described their 1966 single "I Can Take You to the Sun" as "the best popular record that's ever been recorded."^[29] and shortly before his death, he stated, "If I had to list the ten greatest performances I've seen in my life, one would be The Misunderstood at Pandora's Box, Hollywood, 1966 ... My god, they were a great band!"^[30]

His favourite single is widely known to have been "Teenage Kicks" by The Undertones; in an interview in 2001, he stated "There's nothing you could add to it or subtract from it that would improve it."^[31] In the same 2001 interview, he also listed "No More Ghettos in America" by Stanley Winston, "There Must Be Thousands" by The Quads and "Lonely Saturday Night" by Don French as being amongst his all-time favourites. He also described Lianne Hall as one of the great English voices.

A longer list of his favourite singles was revealed in 2005 when the contents of a wooden box in which he stored the records that meant the most to him were made public.^[32] The box was the subject of a television documentary, John Peel's Record Box. Out of 130 vinyl singles in the box, 11 of them were by The White Stripes, more than any other band in the box.^[33]

In 1999 Peel presented a nightly segment on his programme titled the Peelennium, in which he played four recordings from each year of the 20th century.

Awards and honorary degrees[link]

Peel was 11 times Melody Maker's DJ of the year, Sony Broadcaster of the Year in 1993, winner of the publicly-voted Godlike Genius Award from the NME in 1994, Sony Gold Award winner in 2002 and is a member of the Radio Academy Hall of Fame. At the NME awards in 2005 he was Hero of the Year and was posthumously given a special award for "Lifelong Service To Music". At the same event the "John Peel Award For Musical Innovation" was awarded to The Others.

He was awarded many honorary degrees including an MA from the University of East Anglia, doctorates (Anglia Polytechnic University and Sheffield Hallam University), various honorary degrees (University of Liverpool, Open University, University of Portsmouth, University of Bradford) and a fellowship of Liverpool John Moores University.

He was appointed an OBE in 1998, for his services to British music. In 2002, the BBC conducted a vote to discover the 100 Greatest Britons of all time, in which Peel was voted 43rd.

Legacy[link]

Since his death various parties have recognised Peel's influence. A stage for new bands at the Glastonbury Festival, previously known simply as 'The New Bands Tent' was renamed 'The John Peel Stage' in 2005, while in 2008 Merseytravel announced they would be naming a train after him.^[21]

In 2009 the first blue plaque to bear his name was unveiled in Heywood, part of Rochdale, Greater Manchester to recognise Peel's contribution to the local music industry in financing Tractor's recording studios.

On 13 October 2005, the first "John Peel Day" was held to mark the anniversary of his last show.^[34] The BBC encouraged as many bands as possible to stage gigs on the 13th, and over 500 gigs took place in the UK and as far away as Canada and New Zealand, from bands ranging from Peel favourites New Order and The Fall, to many new and unsigned bands. A second John Peel day was held on 12 October 2006, and a third on 11 October 2007. The BBC had originally planned to hold a John Peel Day annually, however Radio 1 has not held any official commemoration of the event since 2007, though a number of gigs still take place around the country to mark the anniversary.^[35][36][37]

At the annual Gilles Peterson's World Wide Awards, the "John Peel Play More Jazz Award" award was named in his honour.

In his Heswall birthplace a pub was opened, named The Ravenscroft, in his honour.^[38]

A number of Peel-related compilation albums have been released since his death, including John Peel and Sheila: The Pig's Big 78s: A Beginner's Guide, a project Peel started with his wife that was left unfinished when he died, and Kats Karavan: The History of John Peel on the Radio (2009), a 4 CD box set. Rock music critic Peter Paphides said in a review of the box set that "[s]ome artists remain forever associated with him", including ...And the Native Hipsters with "There Goes Concorde Again", and Ivor Cutler with "Jam".^[39] A sizable online community has also emerged dedicated to sharing recordings of his radio shows.

Peel's adult sons Tom and William Ravenscroft have followed him into radio DJing and music journalism, with an emphasis on spotting new talent.

In 2011, BBC 6 Music inaugurated the annual John Peel Lecture, named in honour of the DJ.^[40]

In May 2012 a campaign was started to turn demolition threatened Bradford Odeon into the John Peel Creative Arts Centre in the North^[41]. It is proposed that part of his record collection is housed there, plus converting the building back to a live music venue. He met "The Pig" at a gig at the University of Bradford.

See also[link]

• List of Peel sessions
• Category:Peel Sessions recordings

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Heatley, Michael (2004). John Peel: A Life in Music. Michael O'Mara Books Limited. ISBN 1-84317-151-1. 

Further reading[link]

• Margrave of the Marshes, Autobiography with Sheila Ravenscroft, Bantam Press, 2005. ISBN 0-593-05252-8
• The Olivetti Chronicles. Articles for The Observer, Radio Times, The Guardian a.o., selected by his wife Sheila and their children. Bantam Press 2008. ISBN 978-0-593-06061-2

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: John Peel

• Radio 1's John Peel pages
• John Peel Biography by BBC Radio 1 (PDF)
• A sorted directory of links referencing Peel's working life