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COUNTDOWN: Just a reminder for people still using Monaco that the final switch to the new skin is due on Nov. 3. After that, it will no longer be offered as an option. Sorry. Nothing to do with me.
Start of show: “Well, I know there are numerous Swansea City supporters listening to this programme, and if you are, well, you’re gaining a king among men, I can tell you that. [1] Tonight’s is an all-record programme, including the top 13 taken from the magazine Ripped & Torn – some predictable, some surprising, some good and some extremely dreary. Also, in response to tens of thousands of requests, all of the Buzzcocks Spiral Scratch EP, plus two parties – one of them interesting and exciting the other one rather dull. And as often happens these days, we kind of have an oriental feel to the start of our little get-together. Siouxsie & The Banshees. Thank you. Oh boy…”
On File 1, sound is pretty variable and especially bad during the first couple of songs from Spiral Scratch. This is probably due to the white mould found on a lot of the 400 Box cassettes detaching and clogging the head on replay.
Plays the original of ‘Nothing Takes The Place Of You’ (the cover by Mike Spenser & The Cannibals was later found in John Peel's Record Box).
A three-song blast of Elvis Presley, a year and a day after his death.
High quality recording is available for the portion of the show from Toussaint McCall through to Human Jangle from the Derby Box tape DB001, while the latest 3 segments from the Peter Mitchell Tapes add some quality and fill most of the gap in the File 1 recording
(JP: “Ah, street credibility rules. That's George Formby from 1932. With the Chinese Laundry Blues preceded by Siouxsie & The Banshees, a little late getting here but they got here eventually with Hong Kong Garden. This is from the Who album, Who Are You.")
(JP: "Thought you'd catch me out there, didn't you? Those are The Who and that's Who Are You. I mean, the LP's Who Are You. That was Guitar & Pen. And this is something which Pete Townshend has also been involved in, which I think is rather more interesting actually, I must say. These are The Skunks on Eel Pie Records. Good From The Bad.")
(JP: “Those are The Skunks on Eel Pie Records. And it's called Good From The Bad. And this next record by Freddie McKay or is it Mackay? It's called Jah Love I and you can tell it's an authentic Jamaican pressing because it's dreadful. I mean the pressing is. Music's fine, though. Jah Love I as I say.”)
(JP: 'Freddie MacKay, I think we'll settle for that, it gets worse, this pressing, it seems just ridiculous when it gets to the middle, listen to the noise. Listen to that. Ah, that's real recording techniques for you. Jah Love I, Freddie MacKay, McKay, and that's on the Lucky Star label. Look, I'm sounding slightly hysterical tonight, it's because the studio is gradually collapsing around me. We've got something like one and a half turntables working, but we'll fight on doggedly and this on top of a day during which the hot water tank of Peel Acres ruptured and depositing thirty three and a half third gallons of scalding hot water into the ceiling and I had to rush around with a hammer and a screwdriver banging holes in said ceiling to drain the water off. It's been a fun day, I can tell you that. That Spiral Scratch EP in just a moment. In the meantime though, this is the new single from Status Quo. I forgot to mention that at the beginning of the programme. It's called Again and Again and Again.')
(JP: “And that's the new single from Status Quo, Again and Again and Again and Again. And just in time for the Reading Festival. Speaking of which, I have a postcard from H, who writes from Llangefni to say "See you at Reading, fatty" and to request something by the Buzzcocks. Well, in fact of course you always when you're on the radio you always say you had thousands of requests for things in order to justify playing the things that you actually want to hear yourself, but I have had a lot of requests from people who want to hear the Spiral Scratch EP, which is now deleted and very hard to get and apparently selling at ludicrous prices if you can get hold of it which is recorded when the Buzzcocks were John Maher on drums, Steve Diggle on bass, Pete Shelley on guitar and Harold Devoto on vocals. I'm going to play it in just a moment. One of the letters I got.... (details of letter edited out of transcript of File 1, even though present, and, extremely weirdly, exactly the same segment is missing from the audio of the newly available file 5) .....so here it is without interruption.”)
(JP: "And those of you who were around at the time may recall that I was very enthusiastic about the first Boston LP when it was issued a couple of years ago. I’m substantially less enthusiastic about the second one, but there’s some tracks I thought you might be interested in hearing and here’s one of them.")
The chart from the August 1978 issue of Ripped & Torn
(JP: “And I thought it would quite interesting tonight to play you an alternative chart. You see them printed in the weekly music papers, and this one comes from Ripped & Torn number 13… From votes sent in by readers, a good hundred of them sent in lists of ten current favourite singles, and they claim that it is Britain’s most accurate alternative chart. And there are only two rules about the records that you nominate – they should be punk or punk related stuff or records that have been released. Well, all of these have been.”)
John Peel's Ripped & Torn Top 13 Alternative Chart - August 1978
(JP: “And the most interesting thing about the chart is that really it is not very interesting… But I mean, it isn’t very exciting to be honest with you. For example, this is at #12. It’s also scratched too, to add to the indignity of the whole business.”)
(JP: "Well there you are. Ripped & Torn readers have placed that at number 5 in their chart. At #4 is East Sheen by O Level, which I can’t actually play to you because it’s got a rude word in it. I know that neither you nor I are going to be particularly inflamed by hearing a popular colloquialism for human waste, but there are those who listen to the radio and watch TVs and go to films in order to be offended so they can make a lot of noise about it, and they call this protecting the nation from a tide of filth. So I can’t play you O Level.”)
02: Clash: (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais (single) CBS
(JP: "Of course, I feel a little like Paul Burnett doing a programme like this. Of course he’s a little shorter than I am, but… This, perhaps again rather surprisingly, is number one.”)
(JP: I think we’ll try a little experiment on tomorrow night’s programme as well. I think we won’t start with Siouxsie & The Banshees and end with Ashley Hutchings for a change. How’s that? Sounds pretty radical I know, but I think it’s worth trying, don’t you? Anyway, good night.”)
↑Almost certainly a reference to the transfer to Swansea of former Liverpool captain Tommy Smith. The other possibility is veteran LFC midfielder Ian Callaghan, who joined the Welsh club managed by ex-Liverpool striker John Toshack around the same time.
