John Peel Wiki
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800px-BlueMarble-2001-2002
(See also John Peel Around The World. For further details of Peel's travels outside England, see Countries.)

It wasn't all wonderful BBC Radio One or even only UK radio. This page is an attempt to track our man's shows around the globe. Below is a first attempt at a preliminary listing of some of the material available online.

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America[]

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Peel started his radio career in the United States in the early 1960s and worked successively for KLIF in Dallas, KOMA in Oklahoma City and KMEN in San Bernadino, California, under the his real name of John Ravenscroft (shortened in California to John Ravencroft). The DJ marked the 40th anniversary of his radio career on his BBC Radio One programme of 11 October 2001, although he admitted he was unclear about the exact date of his first appearance on the Kat's Karavan show on station WRR in Dallas, where he was an unpaid "blues expert" (see Kat's Karavan (1961)). A brief extract is available on the Pirate Radio Hall of Fame tribute page. Very few clips from Peel's US career remain, although some were aired on Radio Radio and other documentaries.

In a January 1968 International Times: Perfumed Garden Column JP mentioned that he had been interviewed in London for the San Francisco "community rock" station KMPX, but so far no broadcast date or trace of the interview has been found.

Radio Luxembourg[]

Back in 1971-2, JP had a series of shows on Radio One's competitor. A selection of tracklistings are now available.

Finnish Radio[]


Initially made available via three dedicated torrents. Nowadays, appear to be most commonly available via John Peel Torrent Compilation 16 of 17 (2004 & Shows from Finnish Radio). A fourth torrent was also available, but it does not appear on the above compilation.

A selection of Radio Mafia Peel tracklistings from 2002 are available at the station's homepage from the pulldown menu marked "Biisilista-arkisto".

Ö3 (Austria)[]

Main article: Nachtexpress

Peel presented a monthly series of programmes called 'Nachtexpress': recordings of several of these have recently come to light. According to the original taper, these shows went out between 12 and 1 a.m. every first Monday of the month.

Peel Out In The States[]

Twenty-four shows taped at Peel Acres for distribution to US stations in 1993 via 12 promo CDs. Some of these are available as audio streams at Pates Tapes.

Radio Eins[]

Several shows available via John Peel Torrent Compilation 17 of 17 (Various).

Full online tracklistings of shows from 1999 to 2003 were available here, but the document appears to have been removed. In the meantime, here is a snapshot of that page from Wayback Machine which at least gives show dates. A request for the complete tracklistings at the Peel Mailing List met with more success, and various downloaded versions of the Peel pages at Radio Eins are available, please see this message.

FSK[]

Peel contributed monthly shows to this German radio station based in Hamburg by sending them DAT tapes from the mid 90's until his death in 2004. He also visited the station and took part in an interview there when he visited Hamburg and also spoke to the German band with the same initials FSK meaning Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle, whilst in the country; which were both shown on Travels With My Camera: Autobahn Blues, recorded in 1995, but broadcast on Channel 4 in 1996.

Radio Bremen[]

Peel worked at this German radio station in Bremen between the 80's and early 90's and used to take his children William and Alexandra with them there, where he recorded shows for the station. However, according to Margrave Of The Marshes, Peel found the environment working there very hostile, due to the engineers not liking the music and him speaking in English, although having his children with them made it more comfortable.

BFBS[]

Main article: BFBS

JP recorded many two-hour weekly shows for the Forces' network. Some of these from the early 90s are avilable on John Peel Torrent Compilation 8 of 17 (1967-1993) and John Peel Torrent Compilation 9 of 17 (1994-2001), but more are gradually becoming available from the later part of the decade.

Already in the mid 70s JP hosted a one hour show on BFBS, called "Rock Today". In Germany this show was aired on early Sunday mornings, or late on Wednesday night. In the early 80s (81?) JP then got the two hour show we all loved, called "John Peel's Music", still cursed by impossible programming times. In Germany there was a large following of local teens and twens at the time.

VPRO[]

Dutch station. Homepage mentions a three-hour streamed tribute, including mid-eighties show during first hour, following introduction in Dutch. Links for this appear to be broken at the time of writing. This included this incomplete version of 29 January 1986 (VPRO).

BBC World Service[]

  • Peel broadcast a half-hour weekly show for many years. All available shows can be found on BBC World Service page, see also Calendar. All available pages, including shows, can be found in category: BBC World Service (see categories below).
  • There is also a World Service tribute edition of Music Biz from 20 October 2005 (thanks to Peel Mailing List user dunelm61).(file deleted)

XFM[]

XFM was an indie radio station in Portugal, which was founded in 1993. It lasted for four years until its closure in July 1997. The motto of the station was 'Para uma inmensa minoria', which in English translates as 'For A Huge Minority'. The radio station was not related to another of the same name that was established in the UK in 1992 and first broadcast full time in 1997.

Peel did several programmes for the radio station between 1993 and 1994, recorded at Peel Acres. According to a 2005 Portuguese language blog written by Nuno Galopim, a Portuguese DJ named António Sérgio along with Nuno met Peel in Manchester and offered him a chance to do programmes for the show, which he accepted.

Tokyo FM[]

In 1986, Peel recorded a programme for Tokyo FM on a show called Suntory Sound Market, presumably when he was in Japan during October/November of that year. The show was broadcast on 19th January 1987, where Peel choose 11 Japanese records that he bought in the country that he liked.

Latvia[]

John apparently also recorded some shows for a radio station in Latvia in the early 1990s.

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