John Peel Wiki

Changes to the look of John Peel Wiki will take place in the near future due to a new skin being rolled out over Oct/Nov across Wikia. Please see the Wikia Staff Blog for further details. On this site, the changes will affect the navigation from the left menu, as well as introduce a fixed page width with narrower content space. Please be patient while adjustments are made for the switch to the new system.

UPDATE: As the change is now in force for some users, I have switched the navigation to the simplified one for the new system. Please check Navigation in the Help section if you can't find things. I also initially made small adjustments to the front page layout, but have now reverted to the old look until all users are on the new system.

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.

Steve W

READ MORE

John Peel Wiki
in: 1973, Peel shows, Available online, Top Gear

18 December 1973

Sign in to edit

Show[]

Name
Station
YYYY-MM-DD
  • 1973-12-18
Comments
  • A long-lost show that is not only one of the very few extant examples of Peel on the radio between 1971 and 1974, but is also the show in which he unwittingly played a session by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno backwards (apparently, only Brian Eno, who was listening to the broadcast at the time, noticed).
  • The availability of this show is due to Ken Garner of the Yahoo Peel Mailing List, who was loaned the original cassette. On December 18 2008, he said, "The community radio station Radio North Angus in the East of Scotland will be airing a bit of Peel history thought lost for ever this weekend. My correspondent Andy Garibaldi, station DJ, and music promoter, will be devoting his show this coming Saturday 20th December to a tribute to Peel, and plans to play some clips from his almost complete, 35 year old cassette recording of Peel's infamous Top Gear "Sounds of the Seventies" show of 18th December 1973... the show in which Fripp and Eno's 'private tape' of their No Pussyfooting album was inadvertently played backwards by Peel."
  • He later added, "Apologies for the size, but I had to experiment with settings to avoid that mp3 shuddering we all know and fear, given the high levels of mid-low frequencies - I think - on the tape. I have also pasted here my transcript of what's on the tape and what I know from my research to be missing from it." (Reproduced below)
  • Now only available as a single file.
  • Peel welcomes listeners who had just switched off their TV sets - the BBC Genome listings for this day show a normal TV schedule, but it may well have been that they had been changed to conserve electricity. The three-day working week didn't officially begin until 1 January 1974, but Prime Minister Edward Heath had announced "a number of measures" on 13 December, including early closedowns for all TV channels.[1]

Sessions[]

  • Fripp & Eno, one and only session. Private tape, recording date unknown. No known commercial release. The circumstances surrounding this famous incident are related on page 81 of The Peel Sessions (Garner, K., BBC Books, 2007).
  • Bridget St. John, #7. Recorded 1973-12-03. No known commercial release.
  • Jack The Lad, #2 (repeat). Recorded 1973-09-17. No known commercial release.

Tracklisting[]

Part One

  • (Announcement by Stuart Grundy)
  • Paul McCartney & Wings: 'Jet (LP-Band On The Run)' (Apple/Emi)
  • Fripp & Eno: 'Heavenly Music Corporation' (Peel Session)
  • Faces: 'Maybe I'm Amazed (7 inch)' (Warner Bros)
  • Jack The Lad: 'Back On The Road Again' (Peel Session)
(JP: 'It's around this time that we collect a whole handful of listeners that we wouldn't normally get if the television was working, and I'd like to tell you that, I'm very very sorry, but there's no television on. (chuckles) I'm very disappointed that you can't watch it, but, seeing as you can't, you can either listen to us, and we don't talk very much but we do play quite a lot of music. Or you can turn over to Radio Four, where they've got a talk on spinach or something like that.')
  • Queen, 'Liar (LP-Queen)' (EMI)
  • Bridget St. John, 'Curious & Woolly' (Peel Session)
  • Travis Wammack, 'Scratchy (7 inch)' (Sonic)
  • Pink Floyd, 'Bike (double LP reissue-A Nice Pair)' (Harvest)
  • (tape flip - noises at end of Floyd track and Peel intro to next Bridget St. John track lost)

Part Two

  • Bridget St. John, 'Choosing, You Lose One' (Peel Session)
  • Jackie Brenston, 'Juiced (LP-Chess Golden Decade Vol. 1)' (Checker)
  • (11 p.m. news bulletin)
  • Ian Carr's Nucleus, 'Caliban (LP-Roots)' (Vertigo)
  • (tape flip in copy made soon after original tape misses Peel link)

Part Three

(JP: 'I'd like to see what they make of that on Come Dancing...Opinion in here is divided...I think it's great, I really do, magnificent in fact, in the Tangerine (Dream) tradition, I suppose. Very very good, and well worth having the LP, incidentally.')

File[]

Name
  • a)-c) Peel 1973-12-18 Parts 1-3
  • d) Sounds of the 70s BBC Radio 1 (John Peel)
Length
  • a) 00:46:20
  • b) 00:13:01
  • c) 00:44:28
  • d) 01:43:56
Other
  • a-c) Many thanks to Ken and Andy
  • d) Many thanks to Bill.
Available
  • a) to c) Not currently available
  • d) Mooo
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.