Plays both sides of the latest single from the recently split Smiths.
The George Trevare old-time dance tune from the 40s is "one from what must be a limited catalogue in praise of Stalin." (YouTube)
The Fall are playing at the upcoming Reading Festival. Peel says earlier that in the day he wrote a piece for the Radio Times on his years as a Reading compare in the 1970s and that he has more good memories of the experience than bad ones.
Mentions that the Johnnie Ray track was banned when it originally came out (in 1954) because it was "too shocking." ("Bet that had your nostrils flaring," JP says after the song is played.)
Gap Band track is #20 in the latest singles chart. Peel says he heard it in the car on the BBC World Service chart rundown and realized how good it sounded.
The news includes a report on the 1987 "Mecca Massacre" and the end of the Iran-Contra hearings. In response to a series of bombings in Tunisia, Thomson lay on more flights to repatriate British tourists.
Complete show now available, stitched together from the various previously available file. Details in File section below.
Sessions[]
Heresy, #1. Recorded 1987-07-26. No known commercial release.
Fall, #11 (rpt). Recorded 1987-04-28. Available on The Complete Peel Sessions (Sanctuary). JP mentions that this replaces a session by the Butthole Surfers that could not be broadcast due to 'problems with the tapes'. The Butthole Surfers session was eventually broadcast on 12 August 1987.
↑Heresy's track ends with the vocalist blurting out the words "squalid musicianship". John Peel laughs at this, because it is a quote from his review in The Observer of a live appearance by the band, published shortly before the Peel session was recorded. The full sentence was "although some of Heresy’s more extended works allow the four musicians to stray into what could be misread as demonstrations of squalid musicianship, they are at their best playing dislocated stuff at extreme speed."