Start communicating with the radar in your room

If you know where the title of this post comes from without having to Google it, you're a very sad person. With an earworm. Especially if you know the live version that appeared on an NME CD in February 199—

Whoa! What happened there?! Ahem. Anyway, next Monday, 25 October, SIATVS will be participating in #keepingitpeel, a wee celebration of the late John Peel's contribution to music. #keepingitpeel is the initiative of Webbie from Football and Music, and the idea is that bloggers who appreciate Peel's work through the decades post a favourite track from the practically infinite archive of sessions performed on his BBC Radio 1 show. If you have a blog and would like to take part, see here.

I say a favourite track, but the next few days will be spent by the staff here at SIATVScorps whittling the provisional list down to a manageable couple of hundred. Also, you might be expecting us to foist some tenuous sporting connection onto our effort; but put it this way: among the middle names Peel and his wife gave their children are Anfield, Shankly and Dalglish. Consider that angle covered.

Here's a bit of a preview. Above is a version of Blur's 'Strange News from Another Star' performed by Damon Albarn at the BBC, dedicated to Peel. On the other side of this link is an example of how Peel helped the musicians he liked by the simple means of giving their music an airing. Several years after putting The Fall on national television for the first time, he did the same for three Welsh-language bands who, as he explains, barely got any coverage even in Wales itself. I'll forgive you for skipping over Anhrefn and Y Cyrff to approximately 4:08, where Datblygu sing (okay, mime along to) 'Casserole Efeilliaid'. According to Colin B. Morton (he tried to change the world by writing a really quite good comic strip for the NME), "it is about gay TV-presenters making a casserole, and Mr. Edwards doesn't care about their sexuality, he just wants to know what is in the casserole". My money's on Hudson & Halls.

Till Monday, pop pickers.