Search the Archives
About this site
In June 2000 I started blogging at peteashton.com and 10 years later in June 2010 I decided to stop. Blogging here, that is. I started a clean slate over on I Am Pete Ashton and maintain all manner of other web presences which are all listed here along with my contact details.
You probably came here via a Google search or from following a link on some old blog post somewhere. I hope what you find is useful in some way, though do check the publication date - it might be rather old now.
Thanks for your eyeballs.
Pete Ashton
Peely
Posted on October 26, 2004 by Pete Ashton
I’m loading a pallet onto the shrink-wrapping machine and the radio news catches my ear. I turn to the guy in the booth. You what? “Some people are going to be pretty upset about this” he says. Yeah, me being one of them. As Teenage Kicks starts it’s unexpected stint as most playlisted song of the day I find myself slightly stunned, unable to compute this information. He’ll never broadcast again. I’ll never hear his show live again. Kids discovering music now and in the future will not have his guiding voice. It’s over and it’s too early, far too early.
I continued my work in a daze, making little mistakes and bumping my pallet truck into things, as it sunk in. I sent a couple of text messages to people I guessed hadn’t heard and got bemused replies. Is this a wind up? A little later some guy is singing raucously along to Teenage Kicks obviously oblivious to why it’s being played. That phrase, “some people are going to be pretty upset about this” is flowing through my mind. I’m probably the only person in this warehouse who’s affected by the news.
I can’t remember when I first heard his show. It was probably around 1989. I was 17, had just discovered The Pixies and was making up for some seriously lost time music-wise. Up until then my music taste had been pretty terrible, growing up in Croydon and listening to Capital Radio. As I moved to Winchester Radio One moved to FM and became my chosen station. At the time he was playing music in trios. A guitar track, a dance track, a world track, a guitar track and so on. I loved the guitar stuff, hated the dance stuff and was bemused by the world stuff, but I stuck with it. Soon I came to tolerate and eventually love the whole show, which is kind of the point.
Throughout the 90s I tended to be the only person in my immediate group of friends that listened to him. As time has progressed this has changed as when that identification is made one tends to have made a friend for life and this evening nearly every weblog I read has a post like this on it. I don’t think he has fans as such or followers. Rather he made a certain frame of mind acceptable and this, I think, is his real legacy.
In fact I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s not really about the music. The music is a conduit for something else, something quite intangible which I think comes down to that fucked up sense of juxtaposition he imposed on us. He made having an open mind cool, which is saying something when you think about it. Once you’d accepted that you could listen to every form of every form of music and appreciate it on its own merits then you could apply this to everything else in life. Any form of creative endeavour is worthwhile. The fact that someone, anyone, is doing something different and interesting becomes vital.
On the whole fans (for want of a better word) of him tend to be sensitive folk who just want things to be nice, who feel beaten down by the relentless enforcement of mediocrity. He not only provided a place on the radio for us to retreat to, his spirit encouraged others to do the same. Every small club, fanzine, website, setup of any description that implicitly encourages people to just do stuff owes him a debt, and they know it. The generation, generations really, that grew up with him learned something important and it stuck with them. We’re the ones who smile when we see enthusiasm, who know that there is so much more to life. We’re the ones who get it.
John Peel, thank you.
This entry was posted in Agency Worker. Bookmark the permalink.
9 Responses to Peely
Steve Miller sent me. This post captures exactly how I feel – the music was paramount but it wasn’t all there was to him. One person in my office just said that he didn’t have an ego, just genuine enthusiasm for music that he wanted to share. It’s awful that he’s gone.
Great post.
Cheers
Cathy
Yes, you have captured the John Peel I knew. Just the other day I was listening to him joke about how easy he thought it was going to be to collect his pension (“I just showed up and expected them to give me a cheque, but it doesn’t work quite like that”) and now he won’t be collecting that pension at all.
Only slightly different music education. Radio Clyde and Peel in the late 70′s early Eighties. Exposure to bands via both. VY/Husker DU/Pixies etc . Actually also moving to Winchester and doing weekly trips to London to buy new albums. Moved to LA. Meeting lots of people through shared music.
On Saturday i saw the Pixies live for the first time. Thousands of miles from here this all started but i can still hear the voice over the radio.
Thank You John.
It is a measure of the man that he stood by Radio 1 even when they sidelined him to a show so late at night. I doubt it crossed his mind to quit because he still loved what he was doing and knew that he was doing something important.
Radio 1 management should hang their heads in shame. They have lost a radiant star, and it great man betrayed by little men.
Peely, you introduced me to the delights of the Inspiral Carpets, All About Eve, The Pixies and so so much more. And not to forget the great ‘Home Truths’ on Radio 4.
RIP John Peel.
You’ve nailed something there which I’ve been grasping for in my own mind, Pete… that strange underlying link between the Peel ethos and the blog ethos which I’d never spotted until this week.
I see the Sun has reproduced Andy Kershaws comments from C4 news in todays edition.
Thanks Pete
Great post. Like a lot of people, I’ve struggled to articulate my reaction to the news. As much as I’m indebted to Peel for switching me onto music that might otherwise have remained off the radar, the significance of his show on my life had as much to do with its form as in its content. He was a rock and roll free thinker, someone who – by his very existence – reassured us that we were not alone.
RIP
I felt the same sitting in my office in San Diego
I was probably the only person in my building affected, no, crying at this news.
Great post.
I love the fact that about 60% of the weblogs I link to wrote about Peel’s death. This is more reation from people I admire than a Bush re-election will prompt. Fact.
The man was something very, very special.