OffsetGuitars.com

As you would know (or should if you don't) John Peel was a BBC radio presenter who championed bands early in their career and was a big supporter of punk/post-punk/indie music. He was on radio from the 60s until his death in 2004.
Someone has put together a comprehensive list of the live recordings from his show, a lot of them including the man himself in addition to the band.
There is something there for everyone, so enjoy.
https://davestrickson.blogspot.com/2020 ... sions.html

Good stuff!

That’s quite a resource.

By happenchance I had this on when I saw your post, I think I bought a couple of dozen when they were releasing them.



I know photoS of records are sad and boring...promise not to do it again.

D

I saw this a couple of days ago. Fantastic!!

I've been wanting something like this for years. In the past it was very easy to go into the BBC archives & search for a session but find actual audio much trickier, in a lot of cases.

shadowplay wrote: ↑

Thu May 14, 2020 10:12 pm

That’s quite a resource.

By happenchance I had this on when I saw your post, I think I bought a couple of dozen when they were releasing them.



I know photoS of records are sad and boring...promise not to do it again.

D

I've got a bunch of those, Joy Division, Siouxsie, I think my first GoF record was a Peel sessions but living in the antipodes although we could buy the Peel Sessions releases we never got to actually listen to actual radio show so I find these which include him interesting, even if he was a scouse red supporter!

Having his voice at the beginning or end of a track is a very lovely thing.

What’s weird about that lis5 is remembering taping a lot of them Off the radio in when I used to listen to Peel (late 70s - early 80s) and I remember making up sleeves for them. they’ll be in a box in a lockup somewhere.

Funnily I was holding court with my kids last night about the access anything culture of the internet and why I felt it wasn’t all good. It might sound weird but I slightly pine For the days when an artist was just a name on the page until you managed to get a hold of the record,

I mean now you can just go and listen to anything or Discogs it but for me the ‘struggle’ was and is part of the joy*. Like I only ever saw a copyofacopyofacopyofacopy of The Cramps: Live at Napa State Mental Hospital (And even then it took some doing) and don’t want to see it without a blizzard of bad tracking.

Yeah yeah...losing my edge...but never my romance.

D

*my last relic is that I still try and keep the blind buy flame alive

PS I can be bothered looking To find an archive but it wasn’t just peel that did sessions, Janice Long and David ‘Kid’ Jensen did them too, like Peel hit and miss but a lot of good ones and Strange Fruit put put a few of them like (off top of head) The Flowerpot Men and Danielle Dax.

shadowplay wrote: ↑

Thu May 14, 2020 10:40 pm

Funnily I was holding court with my kids last night about the access anything culture of the internet and why I felt it wasn’t all good. It might sound weird but I slightly pine For the days when an artist was just a name on the page until you managed to get a hold of the record

See that was huge here, especially growing up in a regional city, I grew up in a city 90 minutes (back then) south of Sydney.
So when we were younger before it was okay to travel to the "big smoke" we would buy the latest Melody Maker or NME we could find in the local newsagency but they were six months old because they were shipped by boat, the airmail copies were four times the price if you could find them. Then you would read about these bands, that were all so exotic and far away, so we were basing our opinions on what the outdated music papers were telling us until we were able to find the actual bands in the racks of the local record store. Occasionally there was something on the music show on the national broadcaster, called Countdown, that gave you a glimpse, like Iggy or PiL but it was geared towards the top 40, hence the name of the show.
My first serious girlfriend, who happened about 12 months after I started becoming serious about music, lived in a suburb where you could receive the Sydney indie station JJJ and then everything changed!

sammynb wrote: ↑

Thu May 14, 2020 11:00 pm

shadowplay wrote: ↑

Thu May 14, 2020 10:40 pm

Funnily I was holding court with my kids last night about the access anything culture of the internet and why I felt it wasn’t all good. It might sound weird but I slightly pine For the days when an artist was just a name on the page until you managed to get a hold of the record

See that was huge here, especially growing up in a regional city, I grew up in a city 90 minutes (back then) south of Sydney.
So when we were younger before it was okay to travel to the "big smoke" we would buy the latest Melody Maker or NME we could find in the local newsagency but they were six months old because they were shipped by boat, the airmail copies were four times the price if you could find them. Then you would read about these bands, that were all so exotic and far away, so we were basing our opinions on what the outdated music papers were telling us until we were able to find the actual bands in the racks of the local record store. Occasionally there was something on the music show on the national broadcaster, called Countdown, that gave you a glimpse, like Iggy or PiL but it was geared towards the top 40, hence the name of the show.
My first serious girlfriend, who happened about 12 months after I started becoming serious about music, lived in a suburb where you could receive the Sydney indie station JJJ and then everything changed!

Yeah you were a bit of a step away for sure. Though even in the Late 70’s into early 80’s when I’d bluffed my way into my first record shop job I was still buying records off lists blind. That’s a good thing though because I think I could stick my neck out and say that this is where you find the really interesting stuff, the cracks within the cracks.

These days you can listen to anything*, I guess this is why I get a bit groused at those ‘get me into XYZ’ threads because you can bloody well do it yourself for no cost since most everything is out there to listen to for free, so you’ve avoided all the expense and digging about people had to do back then and you still want fed like a baby bird.

I also feel that the sheer volume of freely available old shite in some ways strangles the opportunity of new music. I basically consider myself quite lucky that when I seriously started buying records I didn’t really give a shit about back catalogue.

Reading your section about geographical distance and difficulty in accessing media reminds me of the impact I-D magazine made in the early 80’s where a whole generation of future designers and other style and fashion workers living in crap towns finally had some sort of impetus and connection to ‘cool stuff’. A magazine literally changed their life and gave them direction.

Anyway I was thinking about BBC session stuff that really made a mark on me and these two not dissimilar in feel tracks sprung to mind since I consider them superior to the album versions.

Nico - Frozen Warnings

Danielle Dax - Numb Companions (Janice Long Session)

D

*context free which I guess is a plus minus situation.

the first cranes session has an unreleased song, til tomorrow (unless it was renamed).

amazing

At the risk of sounding ungrateful, this list is far whiter, far younger and far guitarier than Peel's actual show, or sessions, ever were. He played a lot of reggae and a lot of folk, not to mention lots of drum n bass and hip hop- although I'm not sure he ever had hip hop guys doing sessions. He did have loads of folk sessions by people like June Tabor though.

Anyway, still great.

FrankRay wrote: ↑

Fri May 15, 2020 3:09 pm

At the risk of sounding ungrateful, this list is far whiter, far younger and far guitarier than Peel's actual show, or sessions, ever were.

It is but if you look at the rest of the blog of the person who created the list, it's not mine I just posted the link, their music taste is obviously Punk biased.
There's Rory Gallagher from '73 so how much more diversity do you want????

It's just youtube links right? So they have to search and find everything... plus it's very recent.

THIS LIST IS BEING UPDATED REGULARLY AND THERE'S MORE HERE AND EVEN MORE HERE