John Peel has died

steviem

just announced, was on a working holiday in Peru. Aged 65

RIP


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

tman

RIP

was just about to buy his fabric live cd for my dads birthday...

mr_angry

No way!

m4cker

rip he wdid coverage of glastobury this year for bbc. i guess 65 year old men shouldn't go to rock festivals.do you think he camped
rip john peele

pork99

Irreplacable.

Yet Simon Bates is still alive.

There is no God.

ferdi

heavy. he was cool for an old guy, he played great music on his radio show, no modern presenter has anything on the late great JP.

RIP

bringitdown

R.I.P.

dee mm

Very sad, R.I.P.

Mossy Monk

damn, very sad to hear that
RIP

BuffyBot

A big shame

optiplexgx270

and John Peel is who or should i say was who? :P

DMC

Unbelievable.

I am totally shocked.

Creamy Goodness

optiplexgx270 wrote:

and John Peel is who or should i say was who? :P

probably one of the best BBC radio presenters ever...

sad to hear about that R.I.P.

Sleepy

Christ sake, optiplex, click on the link before asking stupid questions

RIP Peele, one of the last of the old guard!

mycroft

optiplexgx270 wrote:

and John Peel is who or should i say was who? :P

Heathen

Read about him here or his obituary here

I Guarantee theres at least one band who you love that John Peel was the first person who played them on the radio.

After announcing Peel's death on Radio 1, the station played his favourite song, Teenage Kicks, by The Undertones.

Proper order.

aidan_walsh

Not being a real follower of BBC Radio, I thought this was the Avenger...

But, R.I.P none the less...

ferdi

your thinking john steed

flikflak

Just heard and cant believe it. He always seemed a genuine bloke and the true champion of the unsigned band.
Thoughts with his wife Shelia and his family.

aidan_walsh

ferdi wrote:

your thinking john steed

Ah thats right... She was Peel, wasn't she... Oh well...

simu

shocked :eek:

flav0rflav

from http://www.wordiq.com/definition/John_Peel

Definition of John Peel

This page is about John Peel, the British radio DJ. For the subject of the 18th century song D'ye ken John Peel? see John Peel (farmer). For the writer of books connected to television series such as The Avengers and Doctor Who, see John Peel (writer).
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (born August 30, 1939), known professionally as John Peel, is a British disc jockey and radio presenter. He was one of the original DJs of BBC Radio 1 in 1967 and the only one still on Radio 1 today. Known for the extraordinary range of his taste in music and the not infrequent blunders (for example playing records at the wrong speed) which mark his shows, John Peel is one of the most popular and respected DJs in the United Kingdom.

He was born into a well-off family in Heswall near Liverpool, and educated as a boarder at Shrewsbury School. After finishing his National Service in 1962 he went to America and initially worked for WRR Radio in Dallas, Texas. He later worked for KOMA in Oklahoma City and KMEN in San Bernardino, California. He returned to England in 1967 to work for the offshore pirate radio station Radio London ("Big L") where he first adopted the name "John Peel"; his programme was known as The Perfumed Garden. Radio London closed in August 1967 when new legislation made the offshore broadcasters illegal, and Peel joined the BBC's new pop music station.

Right from the start at the BBC with his show Top Gear, produced by John Walters, John Peel displayed his eclectic and cutting-edge taste in music. He was largely responsible for introducing BBC listeners to punk rock, reggae and hip-hop. He was the first English DJ to play a record twice in a row - "Teenage Kicks" by The Undertones (which is famously his favourite record), and is an unapologetic champion of long running Manchester band The Fall. Naturally his style brought him into conflict with other DJs at the BBC such as Tony Blackburn and Simon Bates, but his popularity outlasted theirs and he is still a major force in independent music, both in the UK and across Europe. His radio show is now sometimes broadcast from his home, named Peel Acres, in Suffolk and has a somewhat homely feel with his wife, Sheila, whom he affectionately refers to as "The Pig" and his daughter, Flossie, often being involved or at least mentioned.

John Peel's show features the famous "John Peel sessions". Bands are invited to record exclusive tracks for the programme in a BBC studio, a relic of the days when agreements with the Musicians' Union restricted the amount of music the BBC could play from records. Sessions are usually four tracks recorded and mixed in a single day; as such they often have a "rough and ready", demo-like feel, somewhere between a live performance and a finished recording. Many classic Peel sessions have been released on record, particularly by the Strange Fruit label. In recent years the show also has regularly featured live performances, mostly from Maida Vale in London, but occasionally in the Peel Acres living room.

Peel has also played many older records on his show, specifically in two sections he introduced:

The Pig's Big 78 - as the name suggests, his wife chooses a 78rpm record, which he plays.
The Peelennium - broadcast over his last 100 shows of 1999, this covered the music of the 20th century. Each show covered a different year in turn - four records from the year would be played and main news stories covered.
An annual tradition of the show is the "Festive Fifty" - a countdown of the best tracks of the year as voted for by the listeners. Despite Peel's eclectic playlist, the Festive Fifty tends to be composed largely of "white boys with guitars". This has frustrated Peel somewhat, and in 1991 he went so far as to cancel the rundown. Topped inevitably by Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", this "Phantom Fifty" was eventually broadcast at the rate of one track per programme, some years later. The 1997 chart was, unusually, a Festive Thirty-One.

In addition to his Radio One show, he also broadcasts as a disc jockey on the BBC World Service and on Radio Eins in Germany. His audience has also broadened to include listeners around the world listening to Internet audio broadcasts.

In more recent times he has appeared to mellow somewhat, hosting a magazine style, documentary show, Home Truths, on BBC Radio 4 about everyday life in British families. John Walters, who was an occasional stand-in for Peel on Home Truths, described it as being "about people who had fridges called Renfrewshire".

He has also been in demand as a voice-over artist for television documentaries and advertisements, though he reportedly refuses to work on adverts for products that he doesn't use himself.

Peel was eleven times Melody Maker's DJ of the year, Sony Broadcaster of the Year in 1993, "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. He has several honorary degrees including two doctorates and an honorary fellowship of Liverpool John Moores University. He was appointed an OBE in 1998.

John Peel is a fan of Liverpool Football Club.

In April 2003 the publishers Transworld agreed to a total package worth up to £1.6 million for his autobiography. The planned release date is in 2005.

pearsquasher

you know ive listened to his 3 weekely shows everyday in work for the past year nearly and had planned to record them and edit them down to the best bits.. which usually was the whole show. He was a hero..... like your fave uncle with never a bad thing to say about anything despite his grumpy dead-pan veneer. He was really funny too.....played the entire record and if he got the speed wrong, he'd play it again at the right speed.

i'm so sad about this

Lump

I'm sure work will be very quiet tomorrow. As people said he was a massively popular radio 1 Dj

R.I.P

De Hipster

RIP ...a true master of radio & music appreciation, will be sadly missed.

radiospan

This is such sad news to hear, I'm genuinely shocked.

John Peel's diversity of music knowledge was great, I remember listening to his show over the past few weeks. At one stage, he played a piece of music from the 30s back-to-back with some modern electronica which I thought was really cool. One of my favourite bands (Polysics) were one of the last to record a Peel Session, just a few days before they played here in Cork, I think.

Boards of Canada and Dave Clarke recorded some great sessions over the years too.

As Pork99 said, irreplacable.

R.I.P.

mad m

he had one of those distinctive voices too were you knew it was him talking..pity!....

Deadwing

Thats pretty sad, but i guess he was 65 so its not like he was taken too young, he had a good life and really was a champion of underground music.
I remember back in the day when i bought incesticide, reading the sleeve notes and seeing some songs had been recorded with john peel and thought 'no way? That old guy?! Hes old, what does he know!!". But Yeah, he really was cool for an old guy, worked with alot of great bands, from joy division to nirvana.

Third_Echelon

some more thoughts here:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=196361

Wertz

Man, I was listening to R1 at work today when they came on air with this: I been listening to his nightly show on and off for almost 12 years. I ended up spending the next 3 hours just thinking about death and crap.

He introduced me to so much stuff (mainly electronic/dance/hiphop) which I grew to love. But the way it was with his show, he could play literally anything, and I wouldn't stop listening.
No-one can even hope to fill this guy's shoes, and it's a big blow to up and coming bands/groups who he most likely would have championed on their way to bigger things.

Jesus, weekday nights are going to be a lot emptier.

Requesant in pace.

nlgbbbblth

I am absolutely saddened and gutted by this news

Looking at my record collection I reckon that I first heard a lot of the bands on John Peel's show.

It was his show where I first heard The Fall back in September 1985, having had a really ****ty day in school [just started 2nd yr] and Cruisers Creek comes on the radio. The start of a long and fulfilling relationship....

Loads of others, Sonic Youth, The Wedding Present, Public Enemy, Culture, The Congos, Aphex Twin, My Bloody Valentine, Pixies, tons of jangly C86 pop, some mental drum'n'bass etc. All that stuff I heard via John Peel and our ****ty MW reception down in New Ross.

His Festive 50 was literally inspirational to me

I honestly thought he would go on forever - well obviously not really - but you know what I mean.

A devastating loss and my heart goes out to his family

Thanks for the music John

pork99

Deadwing wrote:

But Yeah, he really was cool for an old guy.

for an old guy, for a young guy, whatever, he was just cool

and I've just remembered that Noel Edmunds is still breathing.

I'm gutted.

ur mentor

Gosh, what memories he brings back.
Great music from unknown bands.
He made a difference to alot of people both bands and fans alike.
RIP

Paddy20

We have just lost a really unique independent spirited broadcaster, who loved music, life, his family, his pets and his home.

He not only played music for generations of people who took the gift of music and songs as seriously as he did, but he also broadcast a programme about people's lives and eccentricities on BBC Radio 4 {The station for the older generation, like me }.

I feel as though I have lost a real friend. Goodbye John, may you rest in peace in music heaven.

Wertz

Paddy20 wrote:

He not only played music for generations of people who took the gift of music and songs as seriously as he did, but he also broadcast a programme about people's lives and eccentricities on BBC Radio 4 {The station for the older generation, like me }.

Yeah I've heard Hometruths a good few times on a saturday morning: always something interesting on it.

Still can't get over the fact that we'll not hear the mish mash of random musical styles he used to grace the airwaves with again though; I mean there's no-one who could blend country, D'n'B, polka and death metal into the first 15 minutes of a radio show (seriously) and make it sound as if that's how it should have been.

klong

one of the few DJs i genuinely liked

his music was so eclectic and that was great
RIP Mr P

pork99

Without John Peel, most of my favourite bands would still be working in an office somewhere.

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

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/3955417.stm

Karl Hungus

Rip tbh.

Wertz

For anyone that can receive R1 fm, there's a tribute show (most likely the first of many) on from 11-1 at the moment, hosted by Steve Lamacq. Promises to dig up some oldies...

You can listen online either:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio1.shtml

Pigman II

I'm totally shocked by this news. I only found out now on Sky News about 30 mins ago and I still can't take it in.

I first read of Johns championing reputation about 8 years ago but I only actually started listening to his show about 3 years ago but I was immediately hooked and listened almost religiously to it ever since every tue-wed-thu. With his love of music and his enthusiastic and constant search for the 'new sound' it made him seem like a man belying his 65 years. I honestly believed I'd still be tuning into his show in 20 years time so to get this news has just hit me like a punch in the guts.

Whether it was the Pigs Big 78, The Festive 50, or the now celebrated Peel Sessions it all went together to convince me that he was the #1 source to go to if you wanted to discover what was still right about music in this world of increasingly polished, packaged rubbish that now dominates the airwaves.

I know he was just a voice on the radio but I'm gonna miss the guy almost like a close family member. I can honestly say I've never felt such affection for a member of 'the entertainment media' as I did for John and the world is gonna be a lesser place without him in it.

Farewell John and my sympathies to Sheila and your four children of which you always spoke so fondly. Music is never going to be the same for me again without you around.

luckat

Thats pretty sad, but i guess he was 65 so its not like he was taken too young

Whatt?

FranknFurter

R.I.P.



His sessions with The Cure, amazing.......

will be missed muchly, played a huge part in my taste in music.

rabbitinlights

His Mix Cd from Fabric Live is just amazing, would have loved to have seen him when he played his only live set in fabric, I hope his family understand how many peoples lives he has touched......... The world is a much poorer place with him gone.


Sean

pork99

10 Reasons Why John Peel Was Cool (from an American perspective but still says it all)

http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2004/10/2602.cfm



Favourite John Peel quotes;

http://ilx.p3r.net/thread.php?msgid=5178027

From when he was presenting Top of the Pops. After a video of the dismal Aretha Franklin/George Michael duet (i forget it's name), it cuts back to Peel who says something along the lines of:

"You know, Aretha Franklin can make any old rubbish sound good, and i think she just has."

Classic.