JD on Coke Part 4 ireallylovemusic’s John Doran laments the loss of John Peel. The Jesus and Mary Chain ‘Upside Down’ Creation My parents lived in a semi in the west bound outskirts of Liverpool on the lip of St Helens when I was young. The little room I slept in didn’t have much in it apart from my books, a Dansette, some records and a little mono radio cassette player which I used to tape the charts. I can remember the day fairly well when I lost my John Peel virginity. In fact, rather like losing my actual virginity, the experience was frightening and unpleasant but as soon as it was over I wanted to repeat it again as quickly as humanly possible. Now, as a floppy fringed, fey 14 year-old I thought I was too cool for school just because I had a copy of the ‘Pretty in Pink’ soundtrack, ‘Blue Monday’ 12” and ‘Songs To Learn and Sing’. So there was little to prepare me for what happened when I left Radio One playing after the Janice Long show ended. I’m not sure if it was the first song that he played; I’m not sure if it was the twelfth but when the tsunami of feedback that is ‘Upside Down’ by The Jesus and Mary Chain came gushing out of my speaker, my tiny world was, for want of a better phrase, turned upside down. I had never heard anything like it. I remember thinking ‘Are people actually allowed to make music like this? Isn’t there some kind of law preventing them doing this?’ I was disgusted. I was appalled. I was in love. And so a pattern was formed; as soon as I presumed to think that I’d heard it all, Peelie would be there to prove otherwise. He would be on hand all through my adolescence and twenties to grasp my preconceptions about music and violently smash them to shards while plummily laughing and intoning “Wow, that’s the stuff!” Along came The Butthole Surfers, Pussy Galore, Dub Syndicate, Sonic Youth, World Domination Enterprises, The Pixies, LFO, Aphex Twin . . . and on and on it went. During the hot summer of 1989 as we piled into a completely un-roadworthy Nissan Sunny, he provided the soundtrack to the first pilgrimage to Reading Festival. After ‘Widower Maker’ and ‘Booze, Tobacco’ by the Buttholes faded out he wished us a good festival. It was the year I left home. It was the year I first fell in love. It was the best year of my life. And he played the music all the way through it. You may think I’m overstating the case if I say I think he changed my life; but I don’t. Let me try and explain. I’ve never really got that tongue tied on meeting famous people. I haven’t got the energy and pretty much despise celebrity anyway. But there was one occasion when I went to see Frank Black DJing at the Borderline in north London. Friends kept on nagging me to go and say hello to him, knowing that The Pixies are my favourite rock band and I’d always regret it if I didn’t. Eventually I acquiesced and walked sheepishly over to him. I waited for all of the other wall-eyed, mouth breathing, borderline stalkers to finish before making my own psychotic lunge at him. “Ch – Ch – Charles”, I stammered. “It’s lovely to meet you; I’m a massive fan. How’s the tour going?” “Well, you know man, I just get in my car, look at my map and drive on to the next venue”, he growled back. I giggled like a convent girl on prom night and then, overcome with completely atypical passionate abandon, lunged at him and hugged him. I hadn’t quite fully embarrassed myself so I decided to add: “Dude! I saw you play when The Pixies were supporting Throwing Muses in 1987 and that gig changed my life! It’s because of you I’m a music journalist now.” I was wrong though. It was because of John Peel. He instilled into me a love for challenging and strange music, the shock of the new and the romance of hunting out bands that you could truly call your own. Besides, I wouldn’t have heard of The Pixies if it wasn’t for him and wouldn’t have got to see that apocryphal sounding gig with a handful of other people, a cigarette machine, a dog and a bald hippy lying face down in a pool of Special Brew vomit. In fact without people like Peel, (and arguably without just him alone) the Pixies would never have broken in this country at all. (And by extension, they wouldn’t have gone on to garner the world wide reputation they have now.) The truth of the matter is that there are plenty of indie imprints, bands and journalists who do owe not just a massive debt to him but their entire careers. He was packing his records into the back of his car at All Tomorrow’s Parties after another typically eclectic set when I last saw him earlier this year. Again, friends egged me on to go and say hello. I refused; my logic being: “I can’t. It’s John Fucking Peel.” But I should have said hello and I should have said thanks. For me, Peel was like his favourite band The Fall, something you were passionate about for a few years but even later when you weren’t a constant listener, he was always there to be returned to. And always with the sense of “Christ, this is brilliant. Why don’t I listen to this all the time?” He never lost his ability to shock and impress by introducing us to crazed and beautiful new forms of sound. After saying for the 318th time in my life that I heard it all before and music had been pushed right to its outer limits I tuned into Radio One a few years ago to listen to his Meltdown Festival. I settled down into my chair with a news paper and a glass of wine while I listened to him introduce Merzbow. Within three seconds I had dropped my drink on the floor and was contemplating diving under the table for cover. When I heard that he was dead I had a great deal of difficulty in not crying. I’d never really been affected by the death of someone that I’d never known personally before and never thought I would be. Someone commented recently that maybe he kind of reminded you of a much hipper, funnier version of your dad, which is possible. But I think it was a mix of the fact that he changed my life and, in a very strange way, his death represented the last of the bridges to my youth, burning and falling into the water for ever. Anyway, goodbye John and thanks. John Doran © talktodoran@hotmail.com