Old people in Europe/Listening to the Family Cat

[hirez]

I are recently discovered quite a large pile of Peel programmes on that there internets. This is a happy thing, but made me wonder about stick-waving at young people and the inevitable hatefulness of modern music.

I don't actually think that whatever-it-is that scratchy indie combos or people prodding at cheap synths on the kitchen table are calling music these days is utter pish. Although landfill-(schm)indie didn't help, and given modern modes of living, there is no kitchen table.

However, I think I'm missing a decent curator. It seems obvious to me that the combo of the NME and Peelie had a massive influence on what I care(d) to listen to. No-one else is going to get the job quite right, so I'm going to be sitting there thinking 'Christ this stuff's all hateful. I'm going to dig out the DJ Scandy CD instead.' Also, when I were a lad, we didn't have the internet and the telly was shite (and I lived in the middle of nowhere, etc) so stopping in and listening to the wireless most weekday evenings was a sensible entertainment option.

I may well have written one of these every year.

I suspect so, in fact.

Bugger.

Comments

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

Agreed; I still think there is a place for good radio & journalism by way of a filter for all the choice we now have.

In the meantime, try plugging Late of the Pier into Spotify/LastFM and see if that bridges the gap.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

The thing I didn't mention is that I had space in my head to actually pay attention to music.

There's too much noise now.

[reddragdiva]

I stopped paying serious attention to music around early 1992.

Now playing catchup on the early 1980s.

[liz-lowlife.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! Seconded with Late of the Pier!
There are a lot of bands out there just as good as them also, but you have to trawl through the Zane Lowe-esque trash to find them.

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

No idea what you mean by Zane Lowe trash - he's an excellent source of info on new music... such as Latr of the Pier who i'd have overlooked if not for him. Some people find his overenthusiastic nature a little grating, but i'd much rather that than, say the 'everything's average nowardays' stylings of, say, Nick Grimshaw or the Mojo-wedged historical chin stroking of Stuart Maconie.

Music always has been and always will be 90% crap (/ not to your liking, if I'm being charitable) , but the quality of the filter ias an issue; Peel loved music and got to choose what he wanted, and that's a luxury that's not afforded *anywhere* on the BBC anymore. The network is poorer for it.

But as JH-R says, it's the *other* noise of life that gets in the way more. When was the last time you sat and listened to an album *and did nothing else?* not this decade for me.

(Incoherent ramblings brought curtesy of 3G whilst riding shotgun as if to prove a point)

[liz-lowlife.livejournal.com]

I listen to Zane Lowe (indie Tim Westwood annoyance factor 11) cos he does actually play some really good stuff.... I have discovered many a new band because of him, but you do still have to sift through the shit to find it!
When was the last time I just sat and listened?
Every damn time I light a candle and veg out with Anthony or IAMX or dance like a loon on the floorboards to Sub Focus!

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

"I remember when it was all fields (of the nephilim) around here..."

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I've mentioned hearing a track around the age of 17 and trying to get hold of it, only to find it recently as an MP3. Rome on $5 a Day, by Xex. It's possibly the most god-awful piece of music I've ever heard. So though in theory I'd love to re-listen to all that stuff, in reality I'm not so sure!

[reddragdiva]

It's somehow heartwarming to listen back and realise this stuff was actually 99% shit.

[reddragdiva]

All the NME I read in Australia in the 1980s didn't make sense until I listened to Peel shows from the 1980s.

NME just wrote about whatever Peel played. That's it. That's the entire thing.

Where were the particular stashes of Peel you found, perchance?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

'John Peel torrent compilation' is a handy search term. Probably.

[liz-lowlife.livejournal.com]

I shall make it my mission young Hirez, to build you a little compilation CD that I can give you at Whitby (assuming that you are going) with the intention of giving you hope that there is still some outstanding music out there.
Would you like that?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

That's a lovely idea. Yes.

[liz-lowlife.livejournal.com]

Then consider it done. :o)

[reddragdiva]

And yes, the answer is someone at Radio 1 in the evening slot who is intrinsically incorruptible.

The problem is, IMO, that the UK didn't have college radio the way the US and Australia did. That made life a hell of a lot easier for us.

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

For a long while, Colin Murray was indispensable on radio 1 weekday evenings before he decided sport was more fun than music and buggered off to radio 5. There's some good specialist shows on at stupid o'clock - I'm rather partial to Kissy Sell-Out's diy c&p mashups - but the more choice available, the more one good solid fount of wisdom like Peel is missed...

[echo-echo.livejournal.com]

Wholly agree. I miss both the music press of the 90s and John Peel. John Peel was hugely hugely important to the development and propagation of non-mainstream music in the UK and his death still leaves a massive void. I might have hated 70-80% of what he played, but I didn't expect to like everything, it was the gem you knew was around the corner that you waited for. I don't know of anybody who these days is that entrenched as not to give a f**k that they play what they think deserves playing without either being more interested in their own career or pandering to something faddish.

The NME died a sad death around 2000 for me when it started desperately scrapping around in the dirt for sales figures and to hell with it everything it ever was.

I honestly haven't read it in years. The all encompassing world view seemed to become a very narrow tunnel, propagated by the most ego centric journalists I've ever had the displeasure of reading. They really did believe their own hype.