John Peel
If there is a “hero” in my life, than its – of course – John Peel (Wikipedia Link). The legendary radio dj from UK who did radio shows for 37 years! Started with broadcasting offshore on the ship “Galaxy” for the pirate station Radio London until his final BBC show.
“…The new boy in any job often gets the short straw and so it was on board the Galaxy. John had to present two shows. He covered for whichever DJ was on shore leave as well as taking care of the late night show London After Midnight. John seemed perfectly happy to play the hits of the day but did also manage to slip in the odd personal choice on occasions. There is a wonderful recording of him discussing the first Velvet Underground album on Pete Drummond’s Coffee Break feature. It is hard to imagine what the mainly housewife audience made of such tracks as “European Son To Delmore Schwartz” with their cup of Camp coffee!….”
Original snippets from this shows on –> offshore.radio.co.uk
Pic taken from Free Music Archive
He died in 2004. I had the chance to see him DJing at the Sonar Festival some years ago (hmm.. 2003?) in Barcelona. He is my “hero” cause he just didn’t care of genres. He liked music and he was maniac. He loved music no matter what genre and his aim to bring it out to the people is what I feel very obliged to.
–> “A balance between things that you know people will like and things that you think people will like”
Someone has uploaded a massive amount of John Peel Shows recently to Soundcloud. More than 457!! shows are over there beginning with his show “perfumed garden” from 1967.
Here is the trailer for the british comedy “The boat that rocks”. The story of the pirate radio boat “Galaxy”. Its a fun movie to watch:
