Did John Peel have any radio enemies in his long career?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/alt/tracklistings/peel_tracklistings_2003.shtml

(Wednesday's isn't linked off that page, but it's here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/alt/tracklistings/peel_archive.shtml?20041027)

Ballboy have been played on all three nights so far.

As for Moyles, well according to his show on Wednesday morning, he claimed that Peel had pinched his arse and said 'you're not a bad lad really'.

Re: Garfield I trust him entirely. Expensive Habits is even better than The Nation's Favourite. I think he understands how to do composite oral history - hence the MO book.

btw - I can confirm he was 65% through the biography

Peel started it with a few nasty comments informed by a hippy's distaste for an MOR sellout playing commercial rubbish. Given that "Bannockburn"s main love was Motown and soul and Peel was championing The Third Ear Band and similar, Peel's contempt for the other's taste isn't so easy to defend retrospectively.

Partly as a result of Peel's hostility Blackburn was kidnapped and threated by a bunch of nutters who wanted "good" music played on Radio 1.

Peel was always apologetic (and I suspect more than a little ashamed) about this episode later in life - he also ackowledged that Blackburn had actually been playing much better music than he was at the time.

S

!!! when was this?

I'm sorry to hear he's never enjoyed anal sex: maybe he should try relaxing his sphincter a bit.

Blackburn really just played Motown and Philly - otherwise he stuck to the candyfloss MoR of the time; Pickettywitch, New Seekers, Brotherhood of Man, etc.

Maybe it's because he's already so far up there himself that there's no room to accomodate anyone else?

And while we're on the subject....

"Blackburn really just played Motown and Philly - otherwise he stuck to the candyfloss MoR of the time; Pickettywitch, New Seekers, Brotherhood of Man, etc."

Do you remember how he used to slag off reggae? Starting to play reggae versions of a song then ripping them off after a few seconds and replacing them with a Motown (or similar) / MoR version of the same song, announcing that he was now going to play us that song "properly"? Twat.

IIRC his big song of the time was "You Were The Summer Of My Life" by Simon May; that song always got him crying.

(kids, if you've never heard "You Were The Summer Of My Life," consider yourself very lucky - it's episode four in the 279-part series "Why Punk Was Necessary")

Ah, Hughie Green and his massed squaddies doing "Stand Up And Be Counted" in the same studios - and in the same week - as the Pistols on Grundy.

I found a copy of the single in MVE for 30p and clearly couldn't let it lie. It is beyond ghastly. "For God's! Sake! Britain! - WAKE UPPPPP!!!!"

I mean, Mike Love's also a right-wing nutcase but at least he TRIED to understand The Kids with "Student Demonstration Time." Sung through a megaphone, no less.

Oh yes, and let's not forget Pete Murray on Open House on Radio 2, May '79, Thursday morning of the election:

"A vote for Labour is a vote for Communism. MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOUL IF YOU VOTE LABOUR."

The show was cancelled shortly thereafter.

Cats, abortions, Girls Aloud and Margaret Thatcher, as far as I can tell.

http://www.lemony.co.uk/B3ta/Page%20images/patsharp.jpg

Absolutely ludicrous haircut of course but a pleasant enough guy I suppose in a slow, dull, vacuous, bovine kind of way.

Really didn't have either the slightest interest in or the first fucking clue about music 'though.

Er, it was Tony Parsons who said this wasn't it?

As well you know, not necessarily a prerequisite for being a DJ - cf. DLT and "Noelie" possessing no record collection. When Bob Harris went bankrupt Bruno Brookes tried unsuccessfully to impound his record collection (BH said it counted as "tools of his trade" and thus couldn't be seized by the bailiffs) on the grounds that "DJs don't need to have record collections - radio stations have libraries, don't they?"

It's Tony Parsons we're talking about - not Morley.

Pat Sharp began his broadcasting career at 210 if I'm not very much mistaken; long before Mike Read, around the time they managed to pull themselves back from the very brink of oblivion by somehow managing to get "Diddy" David Hamilton and sell his show to (it seemed) just about every other independent radio station in the country.

Incidentally, he may have been the station's saviour in financial terms but I think it's fair to say Mr. Hamilton was not exactly a popular man with the rank and file at Radio 210.

Inexplicably managed to get two entirely different anally self-inserted former '70's / 80's NME hacks muddled up for a second then.

(You look. I'm not)

Really? I remember Steve Wright but not Mike Read.

I've never really listened to 210 myself to be honest but had - uh - let's say "other connections" with them for a while in the early '80's.

Come to think of it 'though, I really should have known that Mike Read was at 210 back then because of his Trainspotters connection!

Other tracks in which he wallowed ("Just listen to the words of this one"):
The Jackson's "Dreamer", Patrick Juvet's "Just Another Lonely Man", and England Dan & John Ford Coley's "Love Is The Answer", which he once played twice in a row.

They missed out "I wanna hear...Dougie Donnell-Y!"

And Bryce Curdy - that'll teach him to play Ornette and Beefheart on a Friday evening, won't it?

Sorry girls, he's married etc etc

http://www.radioclydereunited.co.uk/Mike%20Riddoch2.gif

We saw them again in the Covent Garden Rough Trade shop 18 months later. Moore gave me an extremely puzzled look, as if I'd just accidentally run over his hedgehog with my lawn mower.

Is that actually true? I remember the Smashy and Nicey sequence about that, but I didn't realise it was based on Blackburn...

in fact, a stage-play drawn from the actual transmissions themselves would be wonderful...

!!! when was this?

Um, don't know, sorry. I was hoping someone else could chip in some more details. I know the story is true though, it was a pretty big news event in the UK (and obv on Radio 1) for a few days.

Radio City, Liverpool, I believe. Got a picture of him with a tiny Sally somewhere.

People that must have listened to 210 at some point: Kenneth Branagh, Ricky Gervais, Sharon Davi(e)s, Lenny Henry, Bill Hiney.

I admired their brand perserverance in the shift from Radio 210 MW to the meaningless Two Ten FM, though. Well, I say "admired".

Stevie, if I do that stage play, you can have two tickets on opening night.

Marcello: Koons/Blackburn is not worthy of reply. How dare you!

Oh, go on, then, all of you. Talk about Two One Oh some more.

that should be your title.