I just wrote a huge amount about Peel and Blogger crashed. Maybe it’s trying to tell me something.

I’ll try again.

You would never have caught Peel running into a bands dressing room after a gig and yelling

“I AM REBORN! THAT WAS LIKE TAKING YOUR FIRST E!”

I witnessed it.

Peels importance is not as a divining rod of talent, it’s as a symbol against the modern music industry. A pays B to make record. A pays C (who A and B do not know personally) to talk about how good Bs record is to D, E and F. D, E and F do not know C personally either but they trust their word.

Therefore if you run out of money somewhere between B and C you won’t get any radio play or press. The idea that someone who has been paid to talk about a record is more knowledgable that someone who just wants to talk about it is fucking absurd.

Peel being on Radio One was the finger to that idea. You could release your own record and send him it and he could well play it. Hell, he could ring you up while you’re at work and tell you how much he liked it. He also had an acute understanding of how much money a session fee actually represented to a band who worked full time and had little time or energy to spend making music. It represents tour money, money for another record release, money to pay your rent, studio money, equipment repair. I am sure I would have given up playing music ages ago were it not for the small but important cash (and confidence) injections afforded by Peel in the last few years.

I hope to God the BBC don’t see this as the opportunity to get rid of a program they have never understood. There’s a great team behind the Peel show right now who could take it over easily and it would be right, do not re-design, do not look for a celebrity replacement. But you know what’ll happen.

Here’s a picture from my 25th birthday with lots of people who contribute to Diskant in one way or another.

Nice one John.

Posted: 10|26|04 at 4:00 pm. Filed under: people.
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