Keeping It Peel 2.2: the podcast

So you've read the Keeping It Peel post, marvelled at our exquisite taste (and Peel's, of course), but thought to yourself, "Y'know, there's an awful lot there — I wish there was some kind of digest of all this: perhaps a 48-minute podcast including a track from each of the artists featured, some of which tracks were included in the post, others of which are different Peel session tracks from the artist in question. It would be nice if it included a few extras as well. Yes, that'd do juuuuuuust nicely."

Well, quite. Presenting: that thing you were wishing for:



You can download all 43.9 MB-worth of it here. The way of these things dictates that the sound quality varies between songs, and sometimes within a song, but I hope it doesn't detract from your listening pleasure. I mean, I've even made some of the songs fade in and out of one another, all posh like.

The tracklist is:

(0:00) Jimi Hendrix, Radio 1 'jingle' — 15/12/1967
(1:15) Half Man Half Biscuit, "Uffington Wassail" — 25/08/1999
(4:24) Elvis Costello & the Attractions, "Less Than Zero" — 25/07/1977
(7:48) John Cooper Clarke, "(I Married a) Monster from Outer Space" — 03/10/1978
(10:13) Datblygu, "Baban, Nerfau Mor Rhydd"
(12:20) Viv Stanshall, "In the Final Analysis" — 16/10/1975
(15:44) The Symbols, "Last Rose of Summer"
(17:47) Laura Cantrell, "Indoor Fireworks" — 08/05/2003
(22:07) Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, "Better Rooms" — ?
(24:33) McCarthy, "An MP Speaks" — 07/10/1986
(26:26) Manic Street Preachers, "Been a Son"
(28:52) The Delgados, "Accused of Stealing" — 29/03/2000
(34:43) The Fall, "Winter" — 26/08/1981
(42:47) Pulp, "I Love Life" — 12/08/2001

The dates are when each song was recorded. Those tracks without dates come from sources other than Peel sessions:

"Baban, Nerfau Mor Rhydd" comes from the Datblygu album Wyau;

"Last Rose of Summer" was covered by the Delgados at Peel's request in a 2002 session;

I thought that "Better Rooms" was from a Peel session, but after putting it on the podcast, I couldn't find any info on it. So it's most likely for another show altogether (The Evening Session, maybe?). Ah well. It's good, though!;

"Been a Son" (a cover of the Nirvana song) was recorded for Radio 1's The Evening Session (I think!).

Note: when you load this gem of a thing onto your music-spraying machine of choice, the "album cover" accompanying it will be that for the BBC 5 Live World Football Phone-in. I do not know how this happened.

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Keeping It Peel

Welcome to the second annual Keeping It Peel, a celebration of the music brought to us by the late John Peel (although he wasn't "the late John Peel" when he doing the bringing, of course. Just in case there was any confusion, like). I and like-minded souls are commemorating the man by posting Peel session tracks and various related goodies on our internetted medium of preference (check out the Keeping It Peel site to see what others have been doing). Below is our selection, chosen at random by 's-Hertogenbosch, the SIATVS blind lots-drawing dog.

(Here's how we did it last year.)

Thanks, as so often, go to Webbie, for the whole thing is his doing; and, of course, to John Peel. He may only have been a conduit, but what a conduit.

Onward!

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Elvis Costello & the Attractions — "Less Than Zero"



Deco is more associated with Charlie Gillett, who was the first DJ to play his demos. But he actually did four sessions for Peel. This version of "Less Than Zero" is taken from the first of those, in 1977. This would, I suppose, be one of the first recorded appearances from the Attractions (perhaps the first?).

Also, for no extra cost, have "Shipbuilding". It's actually from a session for Peel's Top of the Pops co-presenting bud David Jensen (see above), but it's irresistible.

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Laura Cantrell — "Indoor Fireworks"



And here's a Costello song performed by Laura Cantrell. The sound quality takes a dip in the middle of this, but the performance more than compensates.

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McCarthy — "An MP Speaks" — from That's All Very Well, But...: The Best of McCarthy



A rumour that McCarthy were actually from Barnsley and named themselves after Mick was started by me earlier in this sentence, and flatly denied by me in this later section of same.

The Manic Street Preachers covered a couple of McCarthy songs: "Charles Windsor" and "We Are All Bourgeois Now". Strangely, they never did a Peel session. However, in their early days, they sent Peel a letter whose revolutionary brio so impressed him that he gave them their first airplay. The band were prolific letter writers at that time, as they aimed to spread the word. My parents even got some:

"Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character. Poetry must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.": F. T. Marinetti

Dear Mr. and Mrs. O'Rrarci,

We suffer from the putrid stench strangulation of the aristocratic hegemony. Ours is a culture of underclass barricade rust death. The QEII futurepast atrocity spectacle rains down on our boredom like Chapterhouse's piss. It's time to fill the galleries with slurry. It's time to blow up the museums, rebuild them from their own rubble, then blow them up again. It's time for a new art stance. Our single New Art Riot is out next Monday on Damaged Goods.

Love,

The Manics

PS. Belated thanks for the Monopoly game you got us for Christmas. I (Nick!) like to play as the iron (natch), James likes to be the car, Richey uses a scab he picked off his arm and Sean plays as the hat, which he sometimes wears on his head!

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Viv Stanshall — "In the Final Analysis"



"An Absence of Whelks" (Parts 1-4)









"English as tuppence, changing yet changeless as canal water, nestling in green nowhere, armoured and effete, bold flag-bearer, lotus-fed Miss Havishambling opsimath and eremite, feudal still, reactionary Rawlinson End..."

Leader of the Bonzo Dog Band, eccentric, and lifelong Viv Stanshall, Viv Stanshall was ... Viv Stanshall.

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The Fall — "The Mixer" — from The Complete Peel Sessions 1978-2004



The Fall, The Fall, The Fall, The Fall, The Fall.


"He Pep!"



The Fall, The Fall, The Fall, The Fall, The Fall, The Fall, The Fall, The Fall.



The Fall.

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John Cooper Clarke — "Readers' Wives"



I don't think Clarke sounded as good with a band behind him as he does on his own. But it's all relative, is it not?

Those of a certain tendency may listen to the following and come away singing "C-O-R-G-IIIIIIIII..."

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Pulp — "I Love Life" — from The Peel Sessions



From Pulp's last Peel session proper, in 2001.

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Datblygu — "Baban, Nerfau Mor Rhydd" (Baby, Nerves So Loose)



"Rhawt" (Rout)



I'm cheating a bit here. Neither of these are session tracks; I'm not that sold on most of that album, to be honest. But there's some cracking stuff on the Wyau, Pyst and Libertino albums, which are available on a 2-CD collection. The tracks above are from Wyau and Pyst respectively.

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Half Man Half Biscuit — "Uffington Wassail" — from hmhb.co.uk



"A Country Practice" (live)



Yeah, yeah.

Also, some studio "cuts", as I'm totally sure Nigel Blackwell calls them:

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The Delgados, "Pull the Wires from the Wall"



I've misplaced my Delgados Complete Peel Sessions, so you'll have to make-do with a YouTube upload. (Make do, says he!)

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And on that note: till next year...

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Up-tiddly-up-updates

So, The Classical has reached its funding target. As we prepare to blow the lot on fine cheeses and rare 7" singles we'll buy but never actually listen to, before working out another Kickstarter pitch get the site started, we thank those who donated, spread the word, or psychically willed us to succeed.

At the moment, some fellow Classicists are over at Deadspin, discussing in the demotic American tongue the National Series: a based-ball competition of such repute that even I know of it. This year's Autumn Classical is a repeat of last year's epic struggle between the fearsome base-scoring machine of the Oklahoma Polar Bears and the fearsome base-preventing machine of the Tallahassee Wowz (formerly the Tallahassee Wowzer, formerly the Tallahassee Wowdoggzz, formerly the Kentucky Jolly Cowboys). The Polars stormed to victory in the Duke of Wellington Conference, defeating the venerable Virginia Based-Ballers in the Based Bowl by 89 bases to 2. Meanwhile, the Wowz claimed the Philadelphia Hot Jackets as their victims in the dramatic deciding rubber of the Dick's Sporting Goods Division of Glory. The aggregate score in the two-legged affair was tied at 5.2 bases each, and the extra third innings failed to separate the sides. The decision thus went to the panel of judges: fifteen-time All-Star Jimmy "Fingers" Jones, eighteen-time National Series loser Harry "Thumbs" Kopaszewski, and star of TV's Who's the Boss? Tony Danza. After their deliberations, they decreed that the Wowz's sliding had been considerably more awesome than that of the Hotsies, and awarded Tallahassee the pennant (the trophy having been stolen the previous day). The Wowz celebrated with the traditional mass brawl. Watch out in the Nationalies for Terence Lovely VI, their mighty short-step: he bowled one of the all-time great strikes against the Buffalo Assclowns in game 19 of the 2007 Snapple Division of Glory repechage round, a feat people won't shut the fuck up about to this day.

In other news...

Last year, we joined in with the Ravenscroft commemoration fest Keeping It Peel, and we're doing it again this year. It's next Tuesday, and we'll most likely be posting way too many Peel session tracks and various other stuff. If you want to take part, go here.

Webbie, the footballomusical expert behind Keeping It Peel, has made it a year-round concern with a series of Peel-related podcasts. I had the honour of selecting the choons for a Half Man Half Biscuit pod. Even better was the HMHB playlist chosen by Danny Last of European Football Weekends. And there's more where that came from. Go see!

Which leads us on to the happy news that, for the first time in the wretched history of this place, a new Half Man Half Biscuit album has been released!(!!!!!) It's called 90 Bisodol (Crimond), and don't even try guessing how good it is. God knows what the korfball enthusiasts will make of it, though. Above is the Marc Riley session version of one of its tracks, "Tommy Walsh's Eco House". Three verses, three deaths: can't say fairer than that.

Taylor Parkes, who you may know from When Saturday Comes and elsewhere, has written a great piece at The Quietus on Half Man Half Biscuit. Any article on HMHB which acknowledges that there's something more to them than slagging off Una Stubbs is already doing better than average, but Parkes nails the essence of the band better than anyone else has. Last year, also at The Quietus, he wrote a terrific piece on Mark E Smith as a narrative lyric writer. We want to write things like that when we grow up.

You'll be relieved to know (Nigel Blackwell must read the HMHB Lyrics Project) that the embarrassing error in the Riley version of "Left Lyrics in the Practice Room" by which reference is made to "Martin" Poom has been corrected on the album. Phew!

SEGUE
Speaking of which, Ireland play Estonia in next month's Euro 2012 play-offs. Hurrah for us! But our qualifying campaign has left the royal us feeling a smidge uneasy. Indulge us for a few moments as we tell you why over at The Run of Play.

I have also cleared the way for my becoming a grumpy old man by waxing nostalgic for the days of mass three o'clock kick-offs in English football over at TheScore's Footy Blog, which is now under the stewardship of old friend and, if I recall correctly, third ever SIATVS reader, Richard Whittall.

All that, plus Elliott's post hereabouts this week, is enough to be getting on with, you greedy sods.

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The Manchester City Dilemma - What Happens When the Novelty of Hating the New Rich Rubs Off?

Please welcome once more Elliott from Futfanatico. You only hate him because you're jealous.

Part of you has to love the verve of our billionaire plutocrat overlords. Otherwise, your actions would make very little sense according to conventional logic. Weekly, you pump gas into your fine horseless carriage and thereby donate to City's next blockbuster signing, right? Gas prices go up, but you sleep easy knowing that Sergio Agüero's paycheck won't bounce this week. Granted, these funds do eventually trickle down to important benevolent causes, like the Adebayor Charity for the Advancement of Live Music and the Roque Santa Cruz Designer Low-Cut Gray Shirt Foundation. None of this would be possible without your regular petroleum patronage. Right? RIGHT?

Well, I am not you. I detested Chelsea when Abramovich arrived with his wheelbarrow of shady roubles. However, Chelsea is more a billionaire's plaything, an overpriced toy with defective penalty-kick-taking appendages. I don't detest City, though: I hate them. I hate the nascent Sheik empire at Eastlands, but I hate them for the right reasons. You, however, hate them for the wrong reasons. And that is why my hate will burn eternal, while surrounding flames eventually extinguish.


Your basic and fleeting reasons for hating them? Jealousy. Envy. These are the most common reasons to detest City. Did you realize you were such a boring conformist? Me neither. These reasons, sadly, are also the worst. Allow me to regurgitate some oft-vomited sports writing ink. Did City just sign one of your key players? Shocker! Anger! Do you wish your team had a transfer kitty half the size of City? Envy alert! Everybody, including you, secretly (or openly) wants the new Financial Fair Play rules to put an end to "Financial Doping". I just don't want to hear any more of your middle-class moping. The plutocrat billionaires with lobbyists and CEO chums will find an end-around, so don't hold your breath. Instead, take a step back and genuflect. Look at both thyself and thy plutocrat.

Why is the Sheik pumping so much cash into City? Is it to win titles? Is it to find a high revenue & low profit venture to wash some sticky cash? These are ancillary motives. The real reason the Sheik is cashing in his chips on the Blues is you. Yes, you read that correctly. You. Your fine self. And you are playing right into his diabolical hands.


I note at this point that OPEC is so 1970s. Basically, the Russian Arctic is the new oil-rich desert. Ergo, those OPEC folks have lost their monopoly. They don't even have the clout anymore to control prices and squeeze out small-time American businesses. Pathetic. Yet, at the same time as this decrescendo, businesses from the Gulf bought a FIFA World Cup, Málaga, Manchester City, and the front of Barcelona's jersey. Coincidence? Casualidad? Nein.


In sum, the Sheik wants your love. The Gulf is diversifying and attempting some serious PR to try and steer away from an unsustainable business model. And you? You? You were probably too busy singing offensive songs about Emmanuel Adebayor to notice. Not only can you not see the woods for the trees: you see the leaf and scream to high heaven. Yet your jealous hatred sends mixed signals. Hatred demands attention. Hatred requires an emotional connection that the Sheik mistakenly interprets as love. You are gasoline to his flame. The Sheik is a screaming teenager with a new tattoo, and you salivate at the expensive butterfly tramp stamp. Disdain for the new rich is also a passing emotion. Eventually, the new rich lose the "new" tag. And then what?


My hatred burns an eternal, focused blue because I hate the Sheik for a permanent character flaw. I hate the Sheik because he seeks your love. He is needy. He is clingy. He paid a lot of money for Adebayor just because he wanted you to look at him paying a lot of money to buy Adebayor. And you looked. And you raged, your mouth agape. The more the Sheik seeks your petty eyeballs, the more I hate him. And when he doesn't unabashedly seek them, I construct a mental image of him secretly plotting his next grand "look at me right now" move. You must get over your own pettiness. Get over the transfers, the designer watches. Learn to hate in the purest form, or risk finding yourself watching City on Saturday mornings and applauding that dashing duo of Agüero and Silva. And then crying uncontrollably in a locked bathroom.

So the next time a petro-based Gulf business buys the club down the street, don't complain about new signings. Simply shake your head in disgust and mutter "Pathetic." If you do anything else, you play into their plans...

Elliott blogs about soccer at Futfanatico.com. His soccer eBook, An Illustrated Guide to Soccer & Spanish, is available for only $5.99 on the Amazon Kindle. Check out a free preview here.

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