John Peel - The scope of music on these shows is still gobsmacking.

September 11, 2012 5:04 PM

A user on Soundcloud has posted 458 full John Peel shows. The shows range from 2004 BBC episodes all the way back to several 1967 Radio London shows. Some of the shows playlists can be found on the John Peel wiki as well. John Peel has, of course, been mentioned on the blue before.
posted by BigHeartedGuy (31 comments total)

This needs a full index.

Or maybe it doesn't. I chose one at random and found out that, yes, there was a session with The Fall. Bless.
posted by maudlin at 5:13 PM on September 11, 2012 [7 favorites]

Does anybody know if these shows are ones that were previously thought lost, or are they a collection of all the previously available ones?

It is always good to see John Peel appear on the blue again.
posted by mnfn at 5:27 PM on September 11, 2012

.
posted by Artw at 5:28 PM on September 11, 2012

I fucking love the internet. I am so lucky to live at this point on the timestream, as a human being, on Earth, with access to a computer with speakers. Life is good. Thank you for posting this.
posted by not_on_display at 5:33 PM on September 11, 2012 [4 favorites]

This... needs a torrent.
posted by ardgedee at 5:58 PM on September 11, 2012 [3 favorites]

The Peel wiki is quite helpful.
posted by larrybob at 6:03 PM on September 11, 2012

Sound cloud also has "The Blues Mobile" where Dan Aykroyd plays Elwood Blues hosting a Blues radio show.
posted by Chekhovian at 6:09 PM on September 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

But what about Emma?
posted by eriko at 6:12 PM on September 11, 2012

"There never was a greater, not even Mark E. Smith." - John Peel

His Beefheart show is on 2004-7-7.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:13 PM on September 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

My bands were played on 25 June 93 and 8 Jan 94, hm, and Feb 97 on the World Service.

Not exactly heavy rotation, but can anyone figure out if these shows are archived?
posted by unSane at 6:15 PM on September 11, 2012

D'ye ken John Peel?
posted by orange swan at 6:25 PM on September 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

17 December 2003: Christ., who was the first artist to be asked for an encore by Peel, so the stories go. The Peel Session has never been released.

If you like Boards of Canada, it's in that vein. On Discogs, and Bandcamp, each release for ₤0.50! And here I imported the CDs and vinyl like a dolt.

/shameless shill
posted by filthy light thief at 6:57 PM on September 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'll finally be able to hear Peel talk about The Colorblind James Experience!
posted by TomSophieIvy at 7:30 PM on September 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yes!
posted by Jimbob at 7:39 PM on September 11, 2012

This page is a good place to start if you're looking for a particular artist in the collection. Right now I'm basking in my old college fave Meat Beat Manifesto (show #376). Sometimes I really miss this music.

Thanks, you really are a BigHeartedGuy.
posted by vverse23 at 10:36 PM on September 11, 2012

It was good to catch that Peel's son, Tom Ravenscroft, now presents a show on BBC6 Music.
posted by rongorongo at 12:13 AM on September 12, 2012

This is a treasure trove. I've got a couple of dozen Peel shows digitised from my own off-air cassette tape recordings, and I love hearing the music in context with Peel's comments. I just enjoy the man's company so much.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:33 AM on September 12, 2012

This is great, I miss listening to Peel - when I was first getting into music I'd hide under the duvet and listen with headphones so as not to wake the parents...

And his delivery was always great. 20 minutes into the 2004.10.13 episode - "This is Duran Duran Duran, and a track from the LP 'Drunk on Cock' - I did warn you."

Much missed!
posted by TheWaves at 1:34 AM on September 12, 2012

Great stuff. I never listed to Peel all that much at the time but it was nice to know he was there. It is nice to know these are there.

Personal Peel story. As a student in the mid-70s I had to work a full time to keep myself going through my first year at college, it was evenings and weekends in the Student Union coffee bar. One Saturday, Peel was playing a gig and came in before the show for a coffee and toasted sandwich which I made for him. It was quiet and he may even have been the only customer so we exchanged small talk while he was waiting for his order.
posted by epo at 1:56 AM on September 12, 2012

Hmmph! "listened" and "full time job"
posted by epo at 1:57 AM on September 12, 2012

I wanted to make a "of that 450, how many contain The Fall?" joke, so I could sort the wheat from the chaff.

Alas. I grew up not knowing Peel, only the Peel Sessions.
I bloody love The Peel Sessions, and I have several Christmas countdowns downloaded from the olde days which are pretty good. I've actually uncovered some good first wave punk bands like that.

So, this is a bloody great find.
posted by Mezentian at 2:15 AM on September 12, 2012

Great stuff, thanks for posting. I do wish that there were more late 70s shows, but this just goes to show how ephemeral this can all be.
posted by carter at 3:48 AM on September 12, 2012

This... needs a torrent.

Someone put together a lot of individually tracked Peel Sessions, breaking the jumbled lot into 17 parts. There doesn't appear to be any attempt to format the folder or file naming.

Otherwise, downloading these directly from Soundcloud would probably be easier and quicker, plus you could organize the files as you see fit (alphabetical by artist, chronological by date, etc).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:15 AM on September 12, 2012

This list of Peel Sessions is only half useful, especially since some shows (like the Beefheart, see StickyCarpet) are repeated, and some of these shows aren't sessions at all. We should crowdsource the info here; we'd make millions.
posted by 0bvious at 7:46 AM on September 12, 2012

Did they take them down? They seem to be all gone.
posted by cazoo at 9:38 AM on September 12, 2012

Yep. All gone.

I can understand why Soundcloud might be nervous about intellectual property issues here, particularly given that there must be several thousand bands involved in those broadcasts, let alone the BBC's own copyright.

It still seems a shame, though. I'd have thought John Peel himself would be glad to have his shows still available and his family would feel the same. The BBC's seemed willing to turn a blind eye on this particular issue as far as Peel's shows are concerned, and most of the bands would surely approve too.

The sheer weight of admin involved in getting the number of clearances that would be needed to make these recordings available on a strictly legal basis rules out that approach, so we're left with the current rather unsatisfactory impasse. Mind you, I've got ten more Peel shows downloaded now than I had when I woke up this morning, so no complaints there.
posted by Paul Slade at 10:11 AM on September 12, 2012

Alas, these seem to have been taken down.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 10:12 AM on September 12, 2012

At least some of them are still there by searching: http://soundcloud.com/search?q[fulltext]=John+Peel+Show and look for the +dB tracks
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 10:19 AM on September 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Fear not. Help is at hand.
posted by Webbster at 10:23 AM on September 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

I think they are all still here, it's merely the collage/set that has disappeared.
Be that as it may, I think I'm better off running wget on those Soundcloud files right now, so let's hope they stay up until I'm finished ;)
posted by bigendian at 12:36 PM on September 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

A damn shame that they are completly gone from Soundcloud now. I managed to get my dirty hands on the Peel Out In The States 1-8 & 17-24 but missed 9-16. Bugger.
But salut to dB+ for uploading them in the first place.
posted by BonusMcGregor at 6:02 AM on September 14, 2012