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John Peel (Ravenscroft) 1939-2004
At the helm of the Geronimo Starship,
1970, Hollywood Festival (pic: Barry Plummer)
Recent evidence* indicates that, around 1969/70, John Peel supplied Geronimo with copies of recordings that,
because of embargoes and copyright restrictions, he was not allowed to play on BBC Radio
1. This would have been typical of John's desire to champion
new music and make it available to listeners. Festive
50's, disinterred thirty three and a thirds, Dandelion,
Biscuit, The Pig, Home Truths...
There are so many ways to remember John Peel's championing of
new music. Here's just one of them. From 1967, the sleeve
notes for the Elektra album 'Select Elektra':-
"In these
days, often rancid, it is written in some plastic bound
handbook that recorded creations and love are to lie smothered
beneath the grasping need for 'Chart' records. New labels
spin, laden with good intentions, into the fringes of our
understanding with signs crying 'brave' and 'new'. Shortly
shattered and spent, they drift, senseless, into on of several
oblivions. Either they wither and die or, being bloated now,
find the equally frightful safe death of compromise and 'star'
artistes of cynical adaptability.
There are those
brave and beautiful companies feeding on miracles and devotion
which have struggled for years without fouling their
consciences. They have provided us with jewellery to scatter
in our minds - they deserve our salutes and whenever support.
Only one label
has discovered purity lying in the same elusive bed of
success. They sign few artists but those they sign find
themselves overnight on Olympus. They release few records but
those they release are honest and essential. They publicise
little, for the very excellence of their crafts is, in itself,
a cry from every discerning roof-top.
You know who I'm
talking about."
Teenage dreams,
so hard to beat
JOHN PEEL
*from recent interview with John
Lundsten, Geronimo sound engineer,
talking about John Peel's involvement in 1970:
"Harley Street, of course, is almost a stones throw away from
Broadcasting House where the wonderful Mister John Peel was. I
think it, it was either Barry or Hugh, it certainly wasn't me,
but they made contact with him. We, and he, were great
enthusiasts of the terribly obscure, who was then considered a
terribly obscure artist - Captain Beefheart. And Peel had a
whole load of acetates of sessions - a lot of them have been
subsequently released, as the 'Safe As Milk' album, for
example, and a lot of other stuff which he was absolutely
delighted with the idea that seeing that we didn't have the
copyright clearance hassles that he would have had, he
couldn't possibly play them. He gave us a copy of these. There
was quite a few things actually we got as well, like the
unmixed tapes of the Let It Be album, the early mixes without
the massive string overdubs..."
*Interview extract from forthcoming Geronimo television
documentary and book
Copyright 2004-2011
Mark Dezzani (Europa Productions) and Chris Bent (Radio
Geronimo website owner),
not to be reproduced elsewhere
without permission
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