Author: geoff

Starting in the late 1960s, John Peel introduced a generation of British radio listeners – including me – to wondrous and strange “underground” music: Captain Beefheart, the Incredible String Band, Country Joe and the Fish, and many, many more. (Who can forget the Purple Gang’s “Granny Takes A Trip”, an innocent little ditty whose title was guaranteed to get a rise out of BBC management?) He even started his own record label, Dandelion, to give a chance to college bands like Principal Edwards’ Magic Theatre. And the wonderful thing was that he wasn’t stuck in one era: he was always looking ahead, introducing listeners to the unexpected, for nearly 40 years.
On my last trip to England, I was driving down the M40 and tuned in to a talk radio show which seemed to defy all the rules for the genre. It juxtaposed topics in a head-spinning way: the silly, the sad, the ecstatic, and the profound. The host’s voice seemed familiar, but I was concentrating on my driving, and so…. And then at the end I learned that it was John Peel, in a non-musical role, and I realised why the program had challenged conventions. Because he always did. Thanks, John. And goodbye.
Update: Chris just posted a nice piece with a link to John Peel’s favourite song, Teenage Kicks by the Undertones.
Update: The radio show was Home Truths. You can listen to a tribute issue of this wonderful program at the BBC Radio 4 website.

It’s like waiting for a bus… you hang around for ages, and then along come several. Well, in this case the waiting has been for the mail from England, which finally delivered two very special CDs with one thing in common: Steven Wilson.
In the USA, Steven Wilson is best known as the leader of Porcupine Tree, the progressive and increasingly heavy rock band that began with some home produced tracks with a fictitious back-story and has now become a major force, with albums such as The Sky Moves Sideways, Signify and In Absentia. But in Europe, he was always better known for a variety of collaborations with different artists using different names. Which leads us to today’s crop.
First up is Blackfield, a new project by Steven and Aviv Geffen. The songs are simple, short, direct, and beautiful; the sound is that of Lightbulb Sun-era Porcupine Tree, with full, sensual arrangements. Deeply satisfying. The album is short – ten songs, just over 30 minutes – and there’s a bonus CD with two new tracks plus a live version of Cloudy Now and an MPEG video of the title track.
The second album is Speak by No-Man. Tim Bowness and Steven Wilson have been No-Man since the late 1980s, and this material first appeared on cassette back in 1989, long before they had a recording contract or a sense of where they were going! Although unmistakably by the same artists who gave us the rich soundscapes and tone poems of Flower Mouth and Returning Jesus, Speak is more eclectic, less structured. Fragments of melodies, rhythms, and “found sounds” of indefinite provenance sweep in and disappear as if dissipated by a sudden breeze, while Tim’s quietly insistent words pull you in. I have all of No-Man‘s later work; it’s good to be able to hear their roots.
Blackfield has been released in the USA, but No-Man recordings are hard to find. The best source is Burning Shed Records in England.