18 December 1992

Show

Name

• John Peel Show

Station

• BBC Radio One

YYYY-MM-DD

• 1992-12-18

Comments

• The beginning of the 1992 Festive Fifty.
• Entry #48 is the first of seven records in the chart not previously played on the programme.

Session Repeats

• Pavement, #1. Recorded 1992-06-23. Available on Slanted & Enchanted: Luxe And Reduxe (Matador).
• Terry Edwards, #1. Recorded 1991-12-15. Available on Birth Of The Scapegoats (Hux).
• Klezmatics, one and only session. Recorded 1992-07-14. No known commercial release.
• Half Man Half Biscuit, #5. Recorded 1992-06-02. No known commercial release.

Tracklisting

File a starts

• Elmore James: 'Stranger Blues'

(JP: 'I think for once I'll not tell you the story about the first time that I heard that... In case you're wondering, and you may well be, why it is that we never indulge in any of that kind of DJ chit-chat, you know, when Tommy Vance hands over to me, it's cos I'm intimidated by the fact that he always says, (affects deep growl), "Now it's eleven o'clock", and then I come in with (affects high-pitched BBC whine), "Thank you, Tommy", in that sort of voice, and I just feel really inadequate, frankly.')

• Half Man Half Biscuit: '4AD3DCD' (Peel Session)
• Gunshot: 'Killing Season (12 inch)' (Vinyl Solution)
• Pavement: 'Kentucky Cocktail' (Peel Session)
• Terry Edwards: 'Four' (Peel Session)
• Papa San: 'Price Increase (Compilation LP-Muslim)' (Xterminator)
• Klezmatics: 'Honikzaft' (Peel Session)
• Teenage Fanclub: 'The Concept (CD single)' (Creation)
• (11.30 p.m. news: some Albanian children have been refused entry to the UK for Christmas, during which they were going to see Manchester United play)
• Huggy Bear: 'Sizzlemeat (EP-Kiss Curl For The Kids Lib Guerillas)' (Wiiija)

(JP: 'It makes you proud to be British, doesn't it, keeping those Albanian children at bay? That's the Christmas spirit, 1992-style. On the other hand, I suppose, taking them to see Manchester United is a little tough.')

• Terry Edwards: 'Lubbock Texas' (Peel Session)
• Half Man Half Biscuit: 'Floreat Interior' (Peel Session)
• Wawali Bonane: 'Fatoumata (LP-Wawali Bonane)' (Maciste)

(JP: 'If I live to be 100, which is frankly pretty unlikely, I shall never tire of that.')

• Pavement: 'Secret Knowledge Of Backroads' (Peel Session)
• 150 Volts: 'Hi I'm Chucki (Wanna Play?)-Shut Up'N'Dance Remix (12 inch)' (Ruff Quality Recordings)
• Bivouac: 'Fishes (12 inch-Abc)' (Elemental)

(JP: 'Those are the Bivs, as they're known to their trillions of fans worldwide.')

• Klezmatics: 'Keyser Tartar / Terkish Yale Yevye Tamts' (Peel Session)

(JP: 'I assume the titles here are in Yiddish, and as I don't know anybody who speaks Yiddish, I can't actually tell you what they are with any authority, but suffice to say those are the Klezmatics in session, and if they come this way again during 1993, they will most assuredly be in session again.')

1992 Festive Fifty: Numbers 50-39

(JP: 'You may recall last year, if you're a regular listener, that I abandoned the Festive Fifty in a fit of pique. Well, it was a bit more than that. The letters weren't really coming in in sufficient quantity to make it worth doing, so about half way through it I abandoned it, although a chart for last year has actually been compiled by a listener in Sheffield. Last time I spoke to him, he wasn't actually sure what his own name was: this is true. So perhaps I'd better not credit him by name on the radio 'cos it might cause even greater confusion. But at some stage I shall let you know what the Festive Fifty for last year was, for those handful of demented folk who'll be quite curious to know. But we move on to the Festive Fifty, obviously for 1992, and we start in time-honoured tradition with the fiftieth record, which goes something like this.')

• 50: Fall, 'Birmingham School Of Business School (LP-Code: Selfish)' (Fontana)

(JP: 'Yes, listeners, we're into the Festive Fifty, in which we shall meet lots of old friends and stop for a sandwich and a mug of ginger beer along the way.')

• 49: Verve, 'All In The Mind (Maxi)' (Hut)

(JP: 'I always get really nervous each year when the Festive Fifty comes round, if indeed it does come around, because I always think I'm going to do something really ludicrous, like play the wrong track, or instead of playing something by, say, the Fall, putting in a record by John Cougar Mellencamp or something, and not noticing, and have you all laugh at me. In this year's Festive Fifty, I think there's a record number of records that I've never played on the radio previously: seven, in fact, altogether in the Fifty, and this is the first of them.')

• 48: Sugar, 'Helpless (LP-Copper Blue)' (Creation)
• 47: Pavement, 'Conduit For Sale! (LP-Slanted And Enchanted)' (Matador)
• 46: Wedding Present, 'Falling (7 inch-B side of Silver Shorts)' (RCA)

(JP: 'I'm tempted to say that somebody in our house must have been trying to play that on like the dishwasher or something. Absolutely incredible: the worst pressing I think I've ever heard! I mean, I played it during the year and it was alright, so what's happened to it in the meantime I simply don't know...it actually sounded like it was a cylinder, not even a 78. I apologise for that, and I hope it hasn't spoiled your enjoyment of the programme, listener.')

(A wrong speed moment. (JP: 'Everything is going wrong. You see, I shouldn't have said that I dreaded doing the Festive Fifty because I feared that things were going to go wrong, because as soon as I said that, obviously, they start to go wrong. Typical.'))

• 45: Buffalo Tom, 'Taillights Fade (Maxi)' (Situation Two)
• 44: KLF vs Extreme Noise Terror, '3 A.M. Eternal (7 inch)' (KLF Communications)

(JP: 'A great moment. Only 2 minutes and 45 seconds of it, but it was excellent stuff.')

• 43: Big Stick, 'On The Road Again (CD-Drag Racing Underground)' (Albertine)
• 42: Pavement, 'Circa 1762' (Peel Session)
• 41: Wedding Present, 'Sticky (7 inch)' (RCA)

(JP: 'That was a rather less than wonderful pressing as well. Perhaps we've got stylus trouble here at 1FM, I don't know.')

• 40: Ride, 'Leave Them All Behind (12 inch)' (Creation)

(JP (while the next track plays on regardless): 'That gave me the opportunity to pop out into the corridor for a little deep knee-bending.')

• 39: Boo Radleys, 'Lazarus (12 inch)' (Creation)

• (1 a.m. news)
• Prudens Futuri: 'In The Name Of The One (12 inch)' (80 Aum)

(JP: 'I apologise for the, well, disorder during the Festive Fifty. I like these things to go neatly if possible, and it was one of those programmes where quite clearly nothing of the sort was going to happen: anything that could go wrong would go wrong, and I was expecting really to spontaneously combust or for one of the records to do so at the very least, but we got through it OK. I promise tomorrow it'll be much neater when I come round to doing the Festive Fifty in tomorrow night's programme.')

• Klezmatics: 'Klezmatics Khosidl / Fisher Lid' (Peel Session)

(JP: 'To be honest with you, the main reason I don't like things to go wrong during the Festive Fifty is because I know lots of people record it, and then play it again and again later on. The idea of them laughing far into the future at the ludicrous mistakes is really more than I can bear.')

• Terry Edwards: 'Knife' (Peel Session)
• Big Stick: 'Broadcast Booth (CD-Drag Racing Underground)' (Albertine)

(JP: 'What a great track, despite your voting the best track, in my view, from the CD 'Drag Racing Underground'.')

• Half Man Half Biscuit: 'Mars Ultras (You'll Never Make The Station)' (Peel Session) (only a short part of this on file 2)
• Gatorade's: 'The Space Anthem (12 inch)' (Jack U Rebels)
• Pavement: 'Here' (Peel Session)

(JP: 'I have another confession to make to you actually, because last night there was a 1FM kind of Christmas party for the people in the office and so forth, and for the DJs...I'm not much of a party person, really. I tend to be the one who ends up sitting in the corner brooding...I actually danced with somebody last night, and I'm a man who doesn't dance. I've danced three times since I left school, and on one of the three occasions, it was only because a woman at a darts club dinner in Stowmarket wanted to dance with me, and she was physically stronger than me: she dragged me out onto the dance floor and made me dance. She regretted it, though. I danced to (conspiratorial whisper) a Whitney Houston record! Oh boy oh boy. Will you ever think good of me again?')

• Curve: 'Doppelganger (LP-Doppelgänger)' (Anxious)
• Terry Edwards: 'Eighty One' (Peel Session)

File a ends here
File b starts

• Klezmatics: 'Doyna / Freyt Aykh Yidelekh' (Peel Session)
• Half Man Half Biscuit: 'Goodnight Irene' (Peel Session)
• Scaremonger: 'Soon We All Will Have Special Names (EP-Scaremonger)' (Praxis)

(JP: 'When I said earlier on that the previous number by Terry Edwards was his last, in fact that wasn't quite true, because he has four more, and these are drawn from the catalogue of Napalm Death.')

• Terry Edwards: 'You Suffer/Your Achievement/Dead/The Kill' (Peel Session)

File b ends

• (2 a.m. news and Lynn Parsons)

File

Name

• 1) 18th December 92 Parts 1 & 2
• 2) F50_1992_1a, 1b, 2a & 2b
• a) 1992-12-18 Peel Show L245+L243.mp3
• b) 1992-12-18 JP L279

Length

• 1) 00:46:37, 00:46:54
• 2) 00:47:22, 00:47:22, 00:47:23, 00:47:23
• a) 02:40:03
• b) 00:16:14

Other

• 1) Starts with Gunshot track and cuts out after FF #42.
• 2) Complete show
• a) File created from L245 and L243 of the SL Tapes, digitised by Dr_Mango.
• b) File created from L279 of the SL Tapes. Digitised by ML.

Available

• 1) Currently unavailable
• 2) IAP's Tapes
• a) Mooo
• b) Mooo

Footnotes