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John Peel Sessions
- lihaciudaniel 6y agoThank you this is why I love hacker news I can find good music
- jjgreen 6y agoHoly crap, what a goldmine, thanks for posting that!
- ArtWomb 6y agoEpic. Have been searching for this master list for awhile ;)
- twic 6y agoIt's not a complete list. For example, The Rock of Travolta aren't on it, despite having done a Peel session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QsfPJKbAtc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QsfPJKbAtc
- macca321 6y agowow
- reedwolf 6y agoMy favorite of these was the Velocity Girl session.[0] Recommended for fans of shoegaze, dreampop, etc. Edit: Just noticed that list doesn't include the VG session. You can listen to it on YouTube: [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3hE5alv55E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3hE5alv55E
- glitcher 6y agoMaybe add this link to that site's comments and perhaps it will get added.
- glitcher 6y agoAlso My Bloody Valentine from 1988: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtsOqxnZPto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtsOqxnZPto
- adfm 6y agoVictim's Family (US) John Peel session # 1. 11th July 1989 (Restored & mastered) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fegGi0sd2aU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fegGi0sd2aU
- kickscondor 6y agoOh hey - forgot about these guys. Nice find!
- YarickR2 6y agoI don't see This Mortal Coil being mentioned either; and can't help but mention it here , so it won't get lost
- JKCalhoun 6y agoA year before their minor hit, "I Can't Stop Smiling'.
- memsom 6y agoI have this on a CD somewhere - there was a "Subpop John Peel sessions"[1] CD released in the 90's that had Mudhoney (missing from this archive), Velocity Girl, Seaweed, Pond, Tad and Codeine. [1] Edit - found a link: https://www.discogs.com/Various-1989-1993-The-John-Peel-Sub-Pop-Sessions/release/1528819 https://www.discogs.com/Various-1989-1993-The-John-Peel-Sub-...
- glitcher 6y agoAwesome list! I'm sure there are many more out there somewhere, hopefully this can grow as more recordings surface? Brings me back the glory days of labels like Too Pure and Strange Fruit :)
- telaandrews2 6y agoStrange Fruit put out so much quality music
- cptnapalm 6y agoI had heard of Napalm Death, but couldn't find anything until I happened across the Peel Sessions at Tower Records. Loved it. Nobody else did.
- singingfish 6y agoI saw them live in '89 headlining an insanely cheap 5 band lineup. Awesome, jaw dropping stuff. I heard that more recently they had a gig booked at London's Victoria and Albert Museum where someone had designed them a sound system that was supposed to disintegrate over the course of the gig. Unfortunately the gig got cancelled due to fears over the structural integrity of the building.
- kt103099 6y agoAnd... they're gone. Starting to be DCMA'd one by one.
- crtasm 6y agoIf you mean the 'video unavailable' message: changing to a normal YouTube URL instead of an embed fixed that for the couple I tried.
- mindslight 6y agoSeriously. Imagine if these had been curated and hosted on a public network, instead of a proprietary platform where exposure means death. lynx -dump | youtube-dl it is.
- anaphor 6y agothe embed links don't seem to work with youtube-dl very well, I wrote a python script to convert them (in the sibling comment to this)
- mindslight 6y agoWhat seems broken? The latest version of youtube-dl doesn't seem to be having trouble with the embed links. Is this something I'm going to regret later?
- anaphor 6y agoWhen I ran it, it wasn't actually downloading anything. I'm honestly not quite sure why. Maybe there's a difference in versions. Edit: ah I think it was because of some whitespace getting inserted, so actually not a problem.
- layoutIfNeeded 6y agoYou’re looking for the mixing bowl.
- anaphor 6y ago
- Myrmornis 6y agoWow what a crazy goldmine. E.g. `Pulp - Peel Session 1981` that is some pretty old Pulp.
- amiga_500 6y agothe last one on that was really great. interesting that even then, the band had that great style.
- Phemist 6y agoSlightly off-topic: I had no idea opening a youtube link with /embed in the right part the URL would make the video go to full screen in the browser window, and thus get rid of the UI noise that is youtube in 2020. I should make this happen for all youtube.com links I open, it's quite a pleasant experience.
- the_arun 6y agoI too learnt this today :)
- bhrgunatha 6y agoFor now it also allows you to watch age restricted videos without being forced to sign in.
- djaychela 6y agoI've also found it useful when I want to create a re-sizeable video window to suit whatever else I'm doing, as it conforms to the browser size (I was doing this when I was watching FastAI lectures). As you say, much more pleasant!
- Phemist 6y agoYes! It also solves one of my pet peeves, really a first world problem. Watching 16:9, 1080p videos full-screen on my 32:9 screen lags my PC hard, on basically every video streaming site. The big black bars on either side of the video are apparently very expensive to render (firefox, ubuntu 20.04, ymmv). Theater mode exists on a few of these websites, but I would really like a more general solution. For now, with the help of @boriselec's plug-in, I am satisfied with the /embed trick for youtube.
- boriselec 6y agomade simple addon to do this https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-embed-link/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-embed...
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- Theodores 6y agoThe BBC should 'reissue' these paying the rights holders accordingly. Right now musicians are not getting revenue from PRS as no pubs/shops are playing music right now. Some 'Peel Sessions' got released on 'Strange Fruit' including the seminal 'the orb' epic track "A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld (Loving You)" that was put together by Jimi Cauty, who subsequently left 'the orb' to be one half of The KLF. Hence the Peel session of The Orb and the original pressing of the aforementioned track were the only truly awesome stuff they released. Incidentally this excellent blogpost of Peel Sessions does not include this particular 1989 classic. Note that first time round you would wait until Thursday 11 p.m. to tune in to John Peel on FM radio and record the good stuff with a spare cassette. You might record over that cassette a week or two later. Everything could be ordered through an independent record shop if you wanted it for real, expect one of a thousand pressings though. You would need to remember names of artists and their tracks from the radio, no rewind unless you had that tape running. Discographies didn't exist like now so you never knew if an alias of an artist was the artist you knew already or a new one. I respect people that piece all of this together today, however, somewhere in the BBC they have this archived and they could sort out the licensing problems the way it works on streaming platforms. Licensing problems are mostly due to defunct labels and who gets the royalties. For instance, if in 1988 'A Guy Called Gerald' was part of '808 State' on the 'Creed' label, then, in the Peel session, if it get replayed, where does the money go? The other members of the group went to be signed by ZTT leaving A Guy Called Gerald to do his own stuff in a different direction. The Peel session fell in-between albums with tracks from the old and the new. Sorting out the monies is tricky for the BBC to do but YouTube manage monetisation easy enough.
- bagpuss 6y agoregarding your last paragraph, I believe it’s not up to the BBC to get performing rights to each artist, they would pay a fixed fee to PRS and others. Registered or recorded airplay and performance gets attributed to artists and they (or the holders of their publishing) get their performance royalties. Whatever is left over is then divided out amongst the lower ranking artists in the form of a flat fee. If you’re an artist you can use an agent like PPL [1] to collect on your behalf. The above mess is why if your friends are recording a song , you should get performance credits for playing the triangle; could be worth £50 a year... https://www.ppluk.com/ https://www.ppluk.com/
- aidos 6y agoThat’s great. Most people probably haven’t spotted it (took me a few years to clock the connection) but Tom Ravenscroft (on radio 6) is his son. As you’d expect, he has a fairly encyclopaedic knowledge of music and you’ll always pick up good stuff on his shows.
- spatulon 6y agoFor those who don't know of him, John Peel was a presenter/DJ on BBC Radio 1 from the 60s until his death in the mid 00s. For as long as I've been aware of it, Radio 1 has followed a format of playing mainstream pop music during the day, with more specialised and esoteric programming in the evening. When I was a teenager, Peel's show was on at 10pm on weeknights, and his main focus was on championing new and undiscovered bands, across many genres. The Peel sessions were part of this show, where a band would come in to record a live performance of a few songs. I imagine a lot of bands can credit their success to John Peel playing their records and inviting them to record a session.
- dylan604 6y agoDon't know if they would actually qualify as bootlegs, but some of the most coveted tapes being traded in my highschool days were Peel session recordings. This was in the heart of BFE Texas in the 90s. I still don't know where these tapes came from, but these were my saving as everything else was country <shuddersDownSpine>
- rjsw 6y agoHe had worked in Texas so it seems appropriate that he should have had fans there.
- drcongo 6y agoHe was also present when the authorities paraded Lee Harvey Oswald in front of the press (and Jack Ruby): https://peel.fandom.com/wiki/John_F._Kennedy https://peel.fandom.com/wiki/John_F._Kennedy
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago... and to underline the diversity of the genres Peel championed: he was both one of the main early radio promoters of punk, but just a few earliers had championed Tangerine Dream's Phaedra as one of his favorite albums of the year. I think that if you wanted to try and come up with a simple way to describe what connected all the music that Peel championed over his long career, it would have to be something like "new energy". He didn't seem as interested in what a band actually sounded like as where their energy came from and what level it was on.
- telaandrews2 6y agoPeel Sessions were the best way for me to discover new music when I was younger. Still have Inspiral Carpets and Buzzcocks originals on vinyl.
- FatDrunknStupid 6y agoThe guy was a pedo - sorry no.
- mellosouls 6y agoApart from the wonderful world of music he curated, he was a warm, funny man, and I miss him. Quotes remembered by listeners: https://web.archive.org/web/20070712092327/http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=34945 https://web.archive.org/web/20070712092327/http://www.ilxor....
- amiga_500 6y agoI listened to him my whole time as a teenager. When he died, I remember hearing on the day and I was not that effected by it. When I got home, I think maybe seeing the radio or something, it made it very real. I sat on the bed and wept in a way most unlike me (relatives and close friends excepted). I've certainly never even come close to this kind of emotion for any "famous" person before or since. He was a wonderful DJ who introduced so many kinds of music. A real loss for the UK. And yet clearly here his work lives on, which is great to see.
- mellosouls 6y agoYes, I felt the same kind of loss, familial, and unique to him over other celebrities for me, just as you describe.
- ironic_ali 6y agoSame. And well put.
- C1sc0cat 6y agoAlong With Elvis and Amy I can remember where I was when I heard that Peely had died
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- nimchimpsky 6y agoalso got a few of nasty allegations against him, as was the fashion the seventies. Marrying a 15yr old isn't a good start.
- troughway 6y agoAutechre isn't on here - strange. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peel_Session_(Autechre_EP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peel_Session_(Autechre_EP)
- radley 6y agoit's just a list of session recordings he's found. The full Peel Sessions list is here: http://www.thepeelsessions.co.uk/bands.html http://www.thepeelsessions.co.uk/bands.html (link from another comment)
- amiga_500 6y agoI had no idea Peel had started these back in 1968. For example I didn't think he'd have had Jethro Tull on, I assumed he came after that. Clearly I need to read up. I listened to these as a teenager in the 1990s. Very nostalgic to hear this now. Also sad to think of the defenestration of radio 1, however at least radio 6 got some of their remit. Obviously there are loads to listen to, but just to highlight one I'm enjoying right now that wasn't what I expected Kenickie https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qv987NMRCoY?autoplay=1 https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qv987NMRCoY?autoplay=1 Much more melancholy than Hey Punka, which is really cool. I hope that these remain on youtube as all these are links to youtube, which seems a bit brittle.
- bufordtwain 6y agoMany of his complete shows can be downloaded as mp3's, see the following for instructions: https://peel.fandom.com/wiki/Mooo_Server https://peel.fandom.com/wiki/Mooo_Server. Also there is an online radio station inspired by Peel: http://dandelionradio.com/ http://dandelionradio.com/
- herjazz 6y agoYou could argue BBC Radio 6 music was inspired by him too.
- tmountain 6y agoThe Hot Snakes session is visceral and amazing. Peel had a way of bringing out the raw essence of whatever band paid him a visit. Great stuff.
- pan69 6y agoIt seems to be missing Dead Can Dance recorded June 1984 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5DxkeGJaFY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5DxkeGJaFY
- readingnews 6y agoIt seems to be missing items, like others have noted. The best for me was the New Fast Automatic Daffodils Peel sessions. Great session.
- navels 6y agoWell that's cool, I didn't know New Order did a 3rd session in 1998!
- nevster 6y ago"John Peel is not enough"
- singingfish 6y agoI see the listing has a unicode problem EinstÃrzende Neubauten
- nray 6y agoIn New Zealand as a young teen you had to wait until midnight before pop radio was turned over to one of Peel-inspired DJs until five in the morning, playing all this plus Aussie and Kiwi music. Sometimes it was easier to leave a C-90 taping and see what you got the next day. The Fall, The Birthday Party, Hunters & Collectors, Cabaret Voltaire
- kosmischemusik 6y agoIf found The Chills, Kiwi-pop band, had done a session. Would have loved to have heard a session by The Clean, Roy Montgomery and a few of the other Flying Nun label artists.
- vncecartersknee 6y agoLiterally just signed up to comment this but The Birthday Party's various peel sets are absolutely incredible
- kosmischemusik 6y agoSuggesting some of the not-so-popular bands that were invited to John Peel's sessions. If you're into psychedelic, space, stoner rock, shoegaze, noise rock etc, check out Bardo Pond, Bailter Space, Band of Susans, Lush, Loop, Sonic Youth, Spiritualized, Stereolab, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Jesus Lizard, My Bloody Valentine (missing from the list) Some other interesting bands: Broadcast, Galaxie 500, The Chills. And of course there were a ton of popular bands worth checking out.
- ascorbic 6y agoA good proportion of the famous bands performed sessions before they were famous. Some of them became famous in large part because of John Peel.
- kosmischemusik 6y agoYou're right. For example Nirvana became mainstream in 1991 with Smells like Teen Spirit. The happened to do a session in 1990. Pretty sure it contributed to their eventual success.
- pwdisswordfish2 6y agoThere is a German guy named Klaus Fiehe who has apparently been called “the German John Peel”. He played sax for Geier Sturzflug back in the day, is now with the Bollock Brothers and has been hosting somewhat off-mainstream radio shows for decades now. I love him very much and there is a very humble archive at https://fiehe.info https://fiehe.info. It only goes back to 2012, unfortunately… Nothing of the scale TFA boasts.
- onion2k 6y agoThis is awesome! My fiancee was in the band Comatose that did a Peel Session recording in 1998. I've never heard because we didn't start dating until years later. This is the session. https://www.youtube.com/embed/KtyoQC7zyvU https://www.youtube.com/embed/KtyoQC7zyvU
- throwaway_pdp09 6y agoCurious thing about JP I noticed was how he spoke. Everything he said was spoken a little slowly with a kind of constant measuring of quality with the result that whatever he spoke was worth listening to. He didn't waste words, he didn't (that I recall) ever 'chatter on'. Every word seemed to count. Maybe my memory deceives me but I do remember this, and it's something I try to emulate. Anyway, I'll check all this out. I did love the variety of stuff he played. Thanks, article poster.
- Daub 6y agoMy appealing memory of Peel is hearing him play the same song twice in one show, he liked it so much. Edit... just found out that the song in question (Teenage Kicks by the Undertones) was played at his funeral.
- goofballlogic 6y agoHe had his scandals but this guy was a legend. A real defining influence on my teenage years.
- santoshalper 6y agoIt's remarkable how much New Order in 1981 still sounds like Joy Division.
- EXO1 6y ago@ sander jordens
- FillardMillmore 6y agoThanks for sharing this list! John Peel was an international treasure. I'm American and I'm still quite familiar with him. My biggest gratitude to him is for doing everything in his power to bring my favorite band (and also, his favorite band), The Fall, to a greater public recognition. Without him, who knows if they would have ever got a national TV spot - and for my money it still goes down as one of their best live outings. The video of their national performance on The Tube (1983) is below. As John Peel once said of the Fall: "They are always different; they are always the same". Rest in Peace to both John Peel and Mark E. Smith - both have added an non-quantifiable value to my life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE-6xoh1khg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE-6xoh1khg