The Campaign for Terrence Oblong - John Peel

My friends at school all had crap taste in music; Wham, Iron Maiden, Duran Duran, I would flee their house as soon as they put music on. I had no close friend or elder brother to introduce me to the records that would shape my life. I just had John Peel.

John Peel (born Ravenscroft) was a DJ, radio presenter and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004.

He was one of the first broadcasters to play psychedelic rock and progressive rock records on British radio, when punk rock emerged in 1976 he was its first champion. He was also the first to play pretty much everything else to a national audience: dub reggae, post-punk, post-post-punk, electronic music and various varieties dance music, indie rock, extreme metal, thrash, and British hip hop. I started listening to Peel during the mid to late 80s, because he was the only DJ on mainstream radio worth the effort of pressing the on switch.

He played music you wouldn't hear on the Stock, Aitken and Waterman churnoutathon that was daytime Radio 1. I was lured in by bands like the Smiths and the Wedding Present, bands which were rarely played on daytime radio even after they started having hits, and of course my beloved Half Man Half Biscuit. Peel played an eclectic mix of whatever music caught his attention, from an old Elvis Presley track to the latest Japanese thrash metal. He introduced me to German electro, American hip hop, Bert Wheedon and Melt Banana.

Peel's willingness to play records by unsigned bands led to him being constantly bombarded by demo tapes and records by young wannabes. Peel made every effort to listen to the demos and would play them if he liked them, though not always at the correct speed. On one show Peel announced that he "could murder a curry". Sensing an opportunity, Billy Bragg drove to the Radio 1 studios with a mushroom biryani and a copy of his first album. Peel duly played the record, at the wrong speed.

Peel also had the wizard’s gift of Peel sessions, recorded in the BBC's Maider Vale studio. Peel needed these sessions because DJs on Radio 1 were only allowed to play a limited number of records per hour (to reduce royalty costs and save money) but he refused to interrupt music with the constant jabber of chitter-chat that you heard during the day. Thanks to this money-saving scheme, we have thousands of unique recordings, songs that were never released on record by some of the great bands: Bowie, T Rex, the Clash, Pulp, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Throbbing Gristle. The sessions were played over the course of a show, meaning that if you wanted to hear the Smiths in session you had to listen to the entire show (there was no i-player to skip to your favourite tracks in those days), by which means I was slowly introduced to the full extent of Peel's musical landscape. 

For listeners like myself, Peel was the only chance to hear the breakthrough bands, the new sounds I would read about in the NME. Throughout his career he championed acts that nobody else would play. Some, like David Bowie and Mark Bolam, would shun him once they achieved the fame they desired. Others would cherish his support 'til the end of their days.

He gave acts that nobody knew a chance to be heard, for some that single play would be the height of their musical career, for others it would be the launch of a major career. In their autobiographies, performers like Billy Bragg, Attila the Stockbroker, and the Wedding Present's David Gedge all describe the moment they heard their track played on the Peel show for the first time. For people like Gedge, getting a track played on the Peel show was an end in itself, the ultimate achievement, that he went on to have 20 hit singles was just a bonus. To this day, when the Wedding Present play their first single in live gigs it is preceded by a recording of Peel's introduction to the track the first time he played it. 

In the months before he died, John Peel's show was switched from a just-about-accessible 10-midnight slot, to an 11 to 1.00 am weekday slot. I heard his last show in the 10-12 slot in full, and I remember texting a friend shortly before midnight because he played Duran Duran (my friends' music taste would never improve, Peel's was eclectic to the end).

Peel died suddenly from a heart attack on 25 October 2004 at the age of 65.  His gravestone includes the lyrics "Teenage dreams, so hard to beat", from "Teenage Kicks", his all time favourite track.

Since his death the new acts stage at Glastonbury was renamed The John Peel Stage, a John Peel Arts Centre has opened in his adopted home of Ipswich. And Radio 6 Music, launched in 2002, has been described as an entire station of John Peel music. His son, Thomas Ravenscroft is a regular presenter, as is Peel discovery Jarvis Cocker. There is even a weekly show broadcasting archive sessions, mostly from the John Peel show. John Peel lives on in the music he made possible.