Keeping it Peel

In 1980, I and a couple of friends formed a band and we wrote to John Peel to tell him about it. I don't really know what made us think he'd be at all interested, but, at the time, it seemed the natural thing to do. We didn't have a tape, we'd never played live, we barely had any songs - in fact we were barely a band at all. We just wrote and told him how much we enjoyed his show, that we'd formed a band and to look out for a tape....... sometime in the future! Amazingly, he wrote back. In a handwritten letter of encouragement he said that he looked forward to hearing our 'fab teen combo' and signed it 'music lovin' Johnny P'. We were all astonished that he took the time to personally write to us and the letter took pride of place on the wall in the drummer's house, where we regularly met to practice.

The band, unfortunately, didn't last. We played three local gigs, never committed anything to tape and, within a matter of months, ground to a permanent halt. It was great fun while it lasted though. Our drummer, Andrew, won custody of Peel's letter. Andrew went on to create experimental electronic music of some note, which he continues to do to this day, and yes, his music was eventually played on John Peel's show.

Our short-lived little group was massively influenced by the music Peel was playing at the time, specifically Joy Division, to the extent that we covered 'Wilderness' from 'Unknown Pleasures' in our set. Here's the original, for Andrew and Chris (the boys in the band) and, of course, for music lovin' Johnny P, who would've turned 75 this weekend.

Version City #31 - Half Man Half Biscuit sing Tim Buckley

A Peel session favourite from 2002. An inspired cover, segueing into the unmitigated genius that is 'Vatican Broadside'. You won't spend a more enjoyable three minutes this week.

Kleenex / LiLiPUT

Championed early on by John Peel (which is how I bumped into them), Swiss band Kleenex signed to Rough Trade in 1978 and, in a six year career, blossomed from scratchy art-punk primitives into angular, melodic adventurers. Given their chosen name, they can't have been altogether surprised when, in 1979, a solicitor's letter dropped onto the doormat, threatening legal action if they didn't re-brand themselves pretty damn sharpish. So, in 1980, after one of their occasional line-up re-shuffles, the group re-emerged as LiLiPUT and continued, undaunted, on their post-punk way. 

Kleenex/LiLiPUT released an EP, five singles and one LP between 1978 and 1982, with a second album arriving in December 1983, by which time they'd already split up. Since then there's been a 46 track compilation of their entire studio output and a CD/DVD collection of live rarities, together cataloguing every recorded moment of their existence.

Objectively selecting representative tracks by a group you love can be a fiendishly difficult business, so I've simply plumped for three personal faves. Single number four, 'Die Matrosen' from 1980, spotlighting that most under-used weapon in the post-punk armoury - the whistled chorus. Also from 1980, the brilliant 'Hitch-Hike', a song that, in a sane world, would've been a single, but instead was lost, hidden away on a various artist, Swiss music sampler album. And finally, the faintly unsettling 'Terrified', from that posthumous 2nd LP in 1983.