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Underground > Radio & Music >

Very sad news: John Peel dies

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12:02 / 26.10.04

I am listening to Radio 1 as they're broadcasting this - terrible, sad sad news. He had a heart attack on holiday in Peru and died immediately.

I don't know what to say. They're playing 'Teenage Kicks' for him.

12:08 / 26.10.04

Yeah, just picked up on this in the office.

BBC News story here.

Only 65, and on holiday, too. There really aren't many words I can say, and there are even fewer people who could ever match him.

12:10 / 26.10.04

Absolutely gutted. I hope he was discovering exciting Peruvian music as he went. Doing what he loves. One of the greatest thrills was hearing him play our band's single on his show last year. Met him a couple of times during my musical career and he was an absolute gent.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:11 / 26.10.04

Fuck. I can't quite believe it.

12:13 / 26.10.04

...

I don't know what to say.

This is the wrost news I've heard for a long, long time.

It seems like all the best people keep dying.

12:18 / 26.10.04

Just heard - shit.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

12:21 / 26.10.04

This is really awful. Didn't believe it for a while, either...

12:27 / 26.10.04

Yeah we heard around the office here a few minutes before the news went out. Totally gutting. Hearing Teenage Kicks on Radio 1 was totally bizarre and quite moving. Sigh.

12:29 / 26.10.04

Enjoy that great gig in the sky, John.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:29 / 26.10.04

Oh, bollocks. As a provincial teenager, John Peel was one of the indications that there actually was something better out there...

12:31 / 26.10.04

It is hard to believe, isn't it? Everyone in my office is just carrying on as usual and I'm all upset.

12:33 / 26.10.04

Likewise, Ariadne. When I first read about it I thought, that can't mean that John Peel (as though there were any others...)

12:35 / 26.10.04

everyone in the office - there's a good twenty-year age range in here today, i'm the youngest, and none of us are rabid fall fans - is just looking around blankly and muttering 'bugger' every few minutes.

bugger.

12:45 / 26.10.04

That is a shame. As with some others here, I was never Peel's biggest fan, but I did like the old guy.

Still, as demises go, a heart attack in the ancient city of Cuzco is pretty cool. Way to go.

12:45 / 26.10.04

Yeah, damn. Horrible shock. You just don’t expect someone like Peel to die, not like this. I don’t usually associate sudden, massive heart attacks with such a mellow attitude, with such an unreserved love of life and music and youth.

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

12:46 / 26.10.04

Fuck. John, you fucking rocked. Very much missed.

13:01 / 26.10.04

I still can't get anything together to say, but I'll quote this bit from Everett True to speak in my place;

Don't know what to write. I'm gutted. I saw him on 'Room 101'a year back, and he was talking about his fear of death. It left a real, deep impression on me. He was scared. I could so desparately relate. It made me so sad, seeing Peelie like that. I hope he resolved it before his end. I don't know what to say. I t's undeniable that his influence and musical taste and enthusiasm brightened up my own life, and that of fucking thousands of my friends. I never envied him, always admired him: felt that just once - just for one time - someone from our side had managed to slip through and infiltrate the mainstream. And he continued to work his enthusiasms and his passion for music all the way through, uncaring as to what others thought. He was also about the best presenter I think I ever heard on radio: I loved the way he'd um and ah, stumble over words, mumble, in a medium where brashness and glibness are prized above all.

Thanks for giving us so much, mate.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:21 / 26.10.04

To me, the amazing thing about Peel is that he rarely if ever sounded bitter or smug about all the obscure, genuinely wide-ranging (ie, eclectic before that word became unusable) music he loved and the fact that so much of it was neglected by so many others. Think about that, and then think about how many people with fairly middle-of-the-road tastes do get simultaneously bitter and smug about it. Yeah, it's a loss all right.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:22 / 26.10.04

Also, I kinda adored the way he always maintained that 'Teenage Kicks' was the best song ever written. Because it kinda is.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:26 / 26.10.04

That's just... wrong. Like Burroughs, John Peel was supposed to live for fucking ever. God's not playing fair.

From Guardian Online:

Veteran DJ John Peel, 65, has died.

He suffered a heart attack shortly after being taken ill during a working holiday in the city of Cuzco, Peru, with his wife Sheila.

John Peel was a DJ on BBC Radio 1 since it was founded.

His evening radio show occupied a unique position in British popular music, popularising such diverse acts as Jimi Hendrix, Marc Bolan and the Sex Pistols.

"He passed away. We don't have any details. We received a phone call at 4am from his brother to inform us," said Jonathan Clare, a British embassy official in Lima.

The BBC in London said Peel was on a working holiday in Cuzco with his wife, Sheila.

Radio 1 Controller Andy Parfitt said "John Peel was a broadcasting legend. I am deeply saddened by his death as are all who work at Radio 1. John's influence has towered over the development of popular music for nearly four decades and his contribution to modern music and music culture is immeasurable.

"Hopeful bands all over the world sent their demo tapes to John knowing that he really cared. His commitment and passion for new music only grew stronger over the years. In fact, when I last saw him he was engaged in a lively debate with his fellow DJs over the state of new music today. He will be hugely missed. "

Haus of Mystery

13:28 / 26.10.04

Yeah. Proper sad. saddest news in a long time. All the best to his family, and let's hope he's in his own Valhalla, where NO song is longer than two minutes...

13:29 / 26.10.04

He had a palpable enthusiam for and desire to share the music he was into and, as flyboy said, he never came accross as being smug or self satisfied about it.

When I was in school he had his show on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and I used to listen to the whole thing with a pen and paper by my side, writing down the name of the records that I liked, without John Peel I'd be listening to very different music if I had any interest in music at all.

13:33 / 26.10.04

fave peel moment: introducing tracks on that 'bowie at the beeb' cd, c. '67?

in fact, any recording of his voice where he's still well posh.

well y'know, not posh, but proper old-school bbc RP

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:39 / 26.10.04

I always remember him crying (but not in a Paltrow way) when he accepted that award for services to British music. That was so sweet.

13:47 / 26.10.04

Kind of lost for words right now. It's not like hearing that a performer or celebrity's died - Peel was always just one of us, pootling along doing what he loved. Seemed to always be talking about various members of his family, too - listening to his shows was like having a chat with a mate in the pub.

Somebody upstairs must have made a mistake.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

13:51 / 26.10.04

Pootling is the right word. Combine pootling with what Flyboy said and that is what I think, I just can't write it.

He is worthwhile and the greatest and also a legend for so many different things. He even made watching Glastonbury on the telly interesting.

14:14 / 26.10.04

Christ, I'm really shocked, and, as I much as I love the guy, I'm shocked that I'm so shocked.

So count me double shocked.

Fuckinell

14:36 / 26.10.04

Also, I kinda adored the way he always maintained that 'Teenage Kicks' was the best song ever written. Because it kinda is.

I remember him saying on the radio once (after 'Teenage Kicks' had made him cry yet again) that he wanted to get "our teenage dreams, so hard to beat" written on his tombstone. I hope he was serious.

...

Christ, just try to imagine any other DJ in the world actually CRYING at the end of records they play on a semi-regular basis and not caring.. what an amazing guy.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:48 / 26.10.04

There's another BBC story with more tributes here.

BBC 6 Music's Liz Kershaw said he was "the least musically snooty person we know".

Exactly.

Tryphena Absent

14:49 / 26.10.04

We should hold a wake.

14:55 / 26.10.04

I just posted about this on conversation but I'm properly gutted- absolutely irreplaceable in my mind- how the fuck????

I think we all know that he helped introduce the world to so much stuff- Bowie, Hendrix, Bolan, The white stripes, The Fall, Pixies, Sex Pistols, Nirvana the list could go on and on. (and so many obscure one off singles that we'll never hear the likes of again)

My only true radio hero - No corporate playlist and an agenda to always break new ground.

He once told me off at Glastonbury for throwing water bottles at the Frank & Walters....

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:56 / 26.10.04

I am tempted to suggest a pub in central London at about 6ish, but I don't know if the bank will let me get money out today. Hmmm.

15:14 / 26.10.04

A pub wake sounds right. I'm off out to meet Loomis for our own little wake soon. I've been listening to the radio and trying not to cry.

15:14 / 26.10.04

I'm sure a lot of the tributes and stuff will concentrate on the groups most associated with him - The Undertones, The Fall, Captain Beefheart - but after a few hours thought I think the best reasons why John Peel was so brilliant are firstly his total disregard for the idea that music should be divided according to genre or era or social demographic, and secondly his combination of complete open-mindedness with complete honesty.

Where else on the radio can you find a guy (let alone a 65 year old guy) who plays everything from Robert Johnson to Melt Banana to Beenie Man to The Raincoats to thousands of anonymous techno white labels to Soft Machine to James Carr to Bilge Pump to Sun City Girls to Gene Vincent to Wiley to Laura Cantrell to Belle & Sebastian to Venetian Snares to The Hellacopters to Max Romeo to Pavement to Anaal Nathrakh... just because he LIKES IT ALL, and doesn't see anything strange about that, and thinks you might like it all too.

As somebody else who likes it all, I've always found that attitude hugely encouraging.

And nobody else I can think of could do a show like that without being very studied and deliberate and slightly elitest about it... But Peel literally played (god it feels weird writing this in the past tense) what he felt like in pretty much whatever order he thought seemed sensible, and despite covering such a vast sphere of specialist music, he never, ever made the listener feel like an outsider, he never tried to make himself sound clever or superior or down-with-the-scene, he never sneered if somebody emailed asking a really dumb question... he never tried to make any obscurist us-vs-them point or to present himself in a particular manner: he just played the music cos he liked it.

solid~liquid onwards

15:18 / 26.10.04

^_^ *missing you dude

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