Thursday 16 February 2017

Oliver!: John Peel Show - Radio 1 (Saturday 7 March 1992)

Due to lack of choices, except for the American Sitcom flavoured, Holiday by Duck Hunt, I've skipped Peel's NachtExpress show of Monday 2 March, 1992 and jumped on to the following weekend.  The choices for this show were taken from a recording of the last 80 minutes of the programme.  If I was to sum it up in a word, I'd say it was cack, or to be more accurate, Kak - a short-lived American group from the late 60s.  Peel received a letter from a lady called Pepper in Bristol, who requested a spin for the track, Electric Sailor from their eponymous 1969 album.  The dedication was for her fiancĂ©, Neville, who remembered Peel playing it in the late 60s.  The record meant a lot to Neville and he managed to track down an original copy a few months prior to the 7/3/92 show for a mere £18.  Peel felt that this was good value for a record which he saw as indicative of some the better stuff being released in the period.  It now retails for just over 5 and a half quid on Discogs.  Neville was so pleased though, he intended to be buried with it.

Three tracks fell from favour with me when it came to blogging:

Babes In Toyland - Spit To See The Shine [Peel Session] - taken from the eagerly awaited, by Peel, album of their first 2 Peel Sessions.  I still don't get it I'm afraid.  Lumpen, dull and really rather ordinary to my ears.  I can tell they throw themselves into what they do, but I find it all so mannered as to be completely unengaging. Margins are fine, because as you'll see, I praise the likes of Daisy Chainsaw for a similarly uninhibited approach, but whereas they thrill, Babes In Toyland sound like a primal scream exercise that has to be endured while you worry about your car park ticket expiring.

Dyke and the Blazers - So Sharp - it's always vaguely heartbreaking when you realise that a horn laden soul tune from the days when such records were coming out faster than Wigan Casino could play them, actually isn't all that much cop.  I had initially chosen it for nostalgic reasons, because when I was a kid, the only horn laden track that had much resonance at my school was El Bimbo from The Blue Oyster scenes in Police Academy.  And this was raised by anyone who did anything that could be construed as homosexual.  Listening to it just now, I'm not sure I was entirely right to bypass it.  Maybe one of those tunes that you need to come back to after a few weeks to fully appreciate it.  Not El Bimbo though, which is rubbish in any version.

Code Red - Dreamer Dream - "Or better still, stay up and listen to Lynne Parsons." One of those end of show dance records, that sounds like a shot in the flagging arm at the end of 3 hours, but all sound and fury when listened to in isolation.

Peel's mood for the weekend hinged on the result of the FA Cup quarter-final between Liverpool and Aston Villa, which was live on BBC 1 the following day.  A match which I could barely bring myself to watch as I felt against all reason that it should have been Ipswich playing Villa that day.

Which tunes would you want to be buried with?

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