Oct 25, 2010

A massive cry-baby remembers John Peel

On July 28th 2004, I set in front of my green ghetto blaster-style radio weeping like a baby. Orbital were playing their last ever performance together. That gig, on a John Peel Maida Vale session, broke me.

I am a massive wuss.

Of course, Orbital later reformed, piddling all over my ridiculously inflated sense of loss, but that's not the point. It was a beautiful wireless moment when radio did everything that radio is meant to do when it's not Scott Mills or the bloody Archers. Seriously, if Mills ever gets a part in the Archers, I'm moving to a hideaway a mile under the ocean where my FM signal will be fuzzy at best.

Later that year, my sense of loss was compounded when John Peel ascended unto the great record shop in the sky. The bearded git made me cry twice in one year, which isn't bad for someone I had never met.

And so it seems appropriate, six years after Peel's death, to post a bit of that session on my blog. Both band and presenter remain a massive inspiration. I can only hope John Peel will piddle over my ridiculously inflated sense of loss by making a Jesus-style comeback halfway through the Olympic games.

4 comments:

Jason Crabtree said...

I'm waiting for the day when System 7 make a comeback. Always thought it barmy that they chose to name themselves after a Mac operating system... so if they ever stage a comeback, will they upgrade and call themselves Mac OS Version NN.NN or something similar?

Fat Roland said...

Or just 'Lion'.

I miss my System 7 t-shirt. Nice and minimalist with a few wee circles on it.

JPM said...

Iron Lion Zion.....

Let's face it they'd be better to call themselves OS X than, say, Snow Leopard (aka OS X 10.6)

That'd make them sound like a crap guitar band.... and who'd want to go chasing upgrades?

Fat Roland said...

I knew I shouldn't have referred to operating systems. OUT OF MY DEPTH! OUT OF MY DEPTH! *blows whistle*

Speaking of crap upgrades, I see Cast have rebooted themselves...