01 January 1979

Show

Name

• John Peel Show

Station

• BBC Radio One

YYYY-MM-DD

• 1979-01-01

Comments

• Last of four long-lost shows featuring the 1978 Festive Fifty, along with "some of the more significant sessions from the past year".

Sessions

(All repeats)

• Boomtown Rats #2 First broadcast: 26 May 1978. Recorded: 1978-05-15. No known commercial release.
• Elvis Costello & The Attractions #2 First broadcast: 20 March 1978. Recorded: 1978-03-12. No known commercial release.
• Dé Danann #1 First broadcast: 03 February 1978. Recorded: 1978-01-25. Their only session for Peel, although they had previously done others for Radio 2. No known commercial issue.
• Reggae Regular (aka the Regulars) #1 First broadcast: 03 July 1978. Recorded: 1978-06-12. No known commercial release. Described as "from [recorded in] April".
• Siouxsie & The Banshees #2 First broadcast: 23 February 1978. Recorded: 1978-02-06. Available on Voices on the Air [The Peel Sessions] (Universal/Polydor).)

Tracklisting

• Siouxsie & The Banshees: "Hong Kong Garden" (Peel session)
• Reggae Regular: "Not Any More" (Peel session)
• Elvis Costello & The Attractions: "Pump it Up" (Peel session)
• Boomtown Rats: "(Watch Out for) The Normal People" (Peel session)
• Dé Danann: "Trip to Durrow" / "The Maid behind the Bar" (Peel session)
• Siouxsie & The Banshees: "Carcass" (Peel session)

(JP: "Well one or two authorities have suggested that the sessions, the two sessions which Siouxsie and the Banshees has recorded for this programme, under the direction of Tony Wilson, have been rather better than the LP, and I actually, rather, I tend to go along with that. Excellent though the LP is, I like these sessions better.")

• Elvis Costello & The Attractions: "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" (Peel session)
• Reggae Regular: "Where Is Jah?" (Peel session)
• Boomtown Rats: "Living in an Island" (Peel session)
• Dé Danann: "Love Will You Marry Me?" (Peel session)
• Elvis Costello & The Attractions: "You Belong to Me" (Peel session)
• Siouxsie and the Banshees: "Overground" (Peel session)
• Boomtown Rats: "Like Clockwork" (Peel session)
• Reggae Regular: "Weed Stalk" (Peel session)
• Dé Danann: "Tom Billy's Jig" / "Sean Ryan's Jig" / "The Sandmount Reel" / "The Clochar Reel" (Peel session)
• Elvis Costello & The Attractions: "The Beat" (Peel session)
• Boomtown Rats: "Me and Howard Hughes" (Peel session)

(JP: "We keep getting sessions planned with them, new sessions for us which, for one reason or another, they don't seem to be able to do. Perhaps we've got one lined up for early in the new year, perhaps they'll do one. It would be very nice if they did anyway because, although they're famous and so on, it would still be nice to get a session out of them.") This never happened.)

• Siouxsie & The Banshees: "Helter Skelter" (Peel session)
• Reggae Regular: "Fool's Game" / "Fool's Game" [dub] (Peel session)

1978 Festive Fifty

(JP counts down the Festive Fifty so far: "Nothing in there from Magazine, nothing in there from Sham 69.")

• 10. Undertones: "Teenage Kicks" (7" single, 1978)
• 9. Public Image Ltd: "Public Image" (Public Image, 1978) Virgin Records
• 8. Buzzcocks: "What Do I Get?" (7" single, 1978) United Artists
• 7. Clash: "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais" (7" single, 1978) CBS
• 6. Sex Pistols: "Pretty Vacant" (Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, 1977) Virgin Records
• 5. Magazine: "Shot by Both Sides" (Real Life, 1978) Virgin Records [version unconfirmed]

(JP: "This is one of those programmes - actually a lot of them are - where you really wish you knew what people who are listening to the programme are actually doing. Y'know, whether people are saying "What's all this Festive Fifty that he's talking about?", or whether there are actually people sitting there, like, writing it all down and wanting to know what's going on. Probably none of those at all, I should imagine.")

• 4. Stiff Little Fingers: "Suspect Device" [single version] (7" single, 1978) Rough Trade / Rigid Digits
• 3. Sex Pistols: "God Save the Queen" (Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, 1977) Virgin Records

(JP: "And I will say this: If I were to compile a list of me own top 20 rock singles of all time, which would include things like the Stones' "Satisfaction" and Peter Gunn's "Duane...", er, I mean Peter Gunn's "Duane Eddy" or Duane Eddy's "Peter Gunn" even, who can say, your top six would probably get in there as well." Curiously, this would seem to omit "Teenage Kicks", long touted as his favourite record of all time, although he declares himself glad that it was in the chart. But a record that does meet with his approval is the number 4 choice, not surprisingly, since his promotion of it helped Stiff Little Fingers to get a deal with Rough Trade.)

• 2. Clash: "Complete Control" (7" single, 1977) CBS
• 1. Sex Pistols: "Anarchy in the UK" (Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, 1977) Virgin Records

(JP: "Got nearly twice as many votes as "Complete Control" and five times as many votes as "Stairway to Heaven" did two years ago when it became number one.")

(JP: "And I must say, I thought you chose very well indeed. I was knocked out with it all myself.")

File

Name

• Peel 78 part 4.mp3

Length

• 1:59:36

Other

• 168,194 kB; 192 kbps

Available

• Shared via Peel Newsgroup. Many thanks to Bill!
• Mooo