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jazzy_daveJohn Peel "The Olivetti Chronicles" (Bantam Press)
A posthumous collection of 20 years worth of writings.
John Peel was a bit of a hero of mine - a true champion of music in all it's shapes and forms (and when I say all, I mean all). He had a late-night BBC Radio 1 show in which he would play the most eclectic selection of music you'll ever come across. It was almost guaranteed that in the space of an hour, he would play something that you absolutely hated, but also at least one thing that you would love - at any rate the one thing he would definitely do would be to introduce you to a whole range of music that you'd never heard before - or thought to have listened to. In fact, a quote from the last piece in the book:
"The programmes I do for Radio 1 have always been (roughly) based on the principle that what you're buying, listening to and enjoying is all very well but there exists also something else, less favoured, but equally worthy of your attention. I mean, there's a guitarist in a Peruvian band (and I'm not making this up) who's a knock-out - and who knows what marvellous bands there may not be in, say, Poland or Zaire or Iceland. I want to know about them - and to let you know about them."
(Sounds magazine, 20 Jul 1974)
There was, and still is no one on Radio to match him for broadening your horizons - and, almost single-handed, he influenced my own musical tastes alongside those of Giles Peterson and the all-encompassing Wire magazine. But basically, he was a very big influence on me and many others of my generation and the generation before as we were growing up.
He was also the kind of DJ that made you feel like he was speaking just to you. Maybe some of your friends. He was cosy. His writing style, while variable, not careful, often rambling, sometimes bizarre and quite frequently off topic, is very similar to the way he spoke - every time I picked up this book, I could hear his voice - something that made me a little sad on several occasions.
If you're looking for literary style, you're not going to find it in this book. But charm, humour, a passion for music and Liverpool FC and a hefty dislike of the Osmonds, you will find in spades. A joy to read.
A posthumous collection of 20 years worth of writings.
John Peel was a bit of a hero of mine - a true champion of music in all it's shapes and forms (and when I say all, I mean all). He had a late-night BBC Radio 1 show in which he would play the most eclectic selection of music you'll ever come across. It was almost guaranteed that in the space of an hour, he would play something that you absolutely hated, but also at least one thing that you would love - at any rate the one thing he would definitely do would be to introduce you to a whole range of music that you'd never heard before - or thought to have listened to. In fact, a quote from the last piece in the book:
"The programmes I do for Radio 1 have always been (roughly) based on the principle that what you're buying, listening to and enjoying is all very well but there exists also something else, less favoured, but equally worthy of your attention. I mean, there's a guitarist in a Peruvian band (and I'm not making this up) who's a knock-out - and who knows what marvellous bands there may not be in, say, Poland or Zaire or Iceland. I want to know about them - and to let you know about them."
(Sounds magazine, 20 Jul 1974)
There was, and still is no one on Radio to match him for broadening your horizons - and, almost single-handed, he influenced my own musical tastes alongside those of Giles Peterson and the all-encompassing Wire magazine. But basically, he was a very big influence on me and many others of my generation and the generation before as we were growing up.
He was also the kind of DJ that made you feel like he was speaking just to you. Maybe some of your friends. He was cosy. His writing style, while variable, not careful, often rambling, sometimes bizarre and quite frequently off topic, is very similar to the way he spoke - every time I picked up this book, I could hear his voice - something that made me a little sad on several occasions.
If you're looking for literary style, you're not going to find it in this book. But charm, humour, a passion for music and Liverpool FC and a hefty dislike of the Osmonds, you will find in spades. A joy to read.
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