Tales from The Lids
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The Last Breaths
of
Summer
On The Edge of The
Fall
A Tribute to the
Late, Great
John Peel.
'I'm the
bloke who comes on late
at
night and plays
records by
sulky
Belgians!'
(John Peel – 'Top Of The
Pops' circa 1982)
'I'm the bloke who comes on late at night and plays records
by sulky Belgians!'
(John Peel – 'Top Of The Pops' circa 1982)
A chilly Sunday afternoon on the very last day of October.
It was fast approaching noon in the
post, big night-out hush that descends
on Liverpool City
Centre like a weighty,
velvet curtain, the
kind that falls
with grim finality at the end of
an at once captivating but dimly- recollected
stage show: a thickly-billowing
accompaniment to the
nursing of collective
hangovers, regretful musings and
the heart-sinking realisation
that there's a very
real possibility lives
are about to be
irrevocably changed.
For the worse...
Always for the worse.
Christ, even the
shrieks of the
greedy, butty snatching Mersey
seagulls seemed half-hearted, muffled, the sound of a man with a woollen scarf
wrapped tightly round his face, coughing fitfully into a gloved hand as a
dense, impenetrable fog-bank drifts in from the invisible river.
It's an unarguably dead time.
And Liverpool resembles a ghost town.The sort that Terry Hall once sang so evocatively about back
in the era of the riot-torn early 1980s. (At least until Craggy Island's 'Spin
Meister' contrived to reduce that plaintive, soulful lament for the sad decline
of England's inner cities, to
bursts of unconstrained hilarity...(* A Father Ted, reference - Ed).
I'm walking alone along an all but deserted Dale Street, with no one but a shark-eyed traffic warden, exhibiting all the warmth and sunny personality of Kim Il Sung afflicted with a terminal case of the trots, and a hopelessly optimistic 'Big Issue' seller sat in the shuttered entrance of Tait’s Health Store, looking every bit as forlorn as the solitary ‘Bird Lady’ in Mary Poppins (in fact, I could see what looked suspiciously like dried pigeon-shit stains splattering the shoulders of his crumpled navy-blue coat), as he mechanically croaked out his pleas to purchase the publication in a voice that couldn’t have been any flatter than if Jo Brand had sat on it after participating in an epic cake-eating contest.
I'm walking alone along an all but deserted Dale Street, with no one but a shark-eyed traffic warden, exhibiting all the warmth and sunny personality of Kim Il Sung afflicted with a terminal case of the trots, and a hopelessly optimistic 'Big Issue' seller sat in the shuttered entrance of Tait’s Health Store, looking every bit as forlorn as the solitary ‘Bird Lady’ in Mary Poppins (in fact, I could see what looked suspiciously like dried pigeon-shit stains splattering the shoulders of his crumpled navy-blue coat), as he mechanically croaked out his pleas to purchase the publication in a voice that couldn’t have been any flatter than if Jo Brand had sat on it after participating in an epic cake-eating contest.
I only had enough on
me for a couple of pints, and a whole mountain of sorrows to drown, so I
guiltily averted my gaze as I walked past him, staring at the pavement as
though there was something of immense interest there amongst the squashed pink
chewies, discarded cigarette butts and crumpled remains of
‘Lucky Dip’ cards. I then turned left into Hackins Hey, a side jigger, in the
most literal, Liverpudlian sense of the word, and entered ‘Ye Hole In Ye Wall’,
the city's oldest alehouse. Built in the impossibly distant-seeming year of 1726, and reputedly erected on a Quaker
burial site, the former coaching house is rumoured to be haunted by at least
two ghosts: The spectre of a Spanish
sailor who, according to legend, was stabbed to death for having the temerity
to refuse to take the 'King’s shilling', and a black cowled figure that is
apparently so solid-seeming it is often mistaken for a real flesh and blood
regular (although quite how anyone would consider a
man dressed in
a hooded, monkish
robe propping up the bar, or sat in the shadowy corners, on any occasion
other than some local fancy dress fund-raiser, to be a perfectly ordinary
customer, perhaps says something about the potency of the pub’s vast array of
real ales – unless assorted priests frequently elect to pop in for a swift half
during a break from taking confession, of course).
I wasn’t looking for phantoms, real or imagined, on this particular Sunday afternoon, however. Although I have to admit I was planning on raising a glass
or two to the cherished memory of the recently departed. And the second that I
stepped across the threshold, and smelled the familiar odours of traditional
pub food, cask- conditioned beer and the wispy smoke from a roaring fire, I
knew I’d come to the most appropriate venue imaginable in my attempt to soothe
the heart of all sorrows. Or at the very least immerse that most fragile of bodily
organs in sense-numbing alcohol.
This was a place where visions and images of the past shimmered in the move-less air with all the sepia-toned
vividness of the numerous framed photographs of the City Centre, and its
glorious yesteryear, that lined the oak- panelled walls.
And as for me…I was only recalling the events of a few days earlier, and
the loss of someone who’d I’d regrettably never met, in the flesh so to speak,
but who I nevertheless missed with all the desperate, aching sadness that
trawls forlornly in the wake of a loved one’s absence.
TWO
I ordered a frothing pint of ‘Hobgoblin’ and a single malt whisky chaser before taking a seat in one of the two cosy, oak-wood panelled booths (the one nearest the real coal fire – that pervasive Autumnal chill was gradually seeping into my bones with all the grim and steely determination of a persistent gate-crasher at a house-warming party).
I ordered a frothing pint of ‘Hobgoblin’ and a single malt whisky chaser before taking a seat in one of the two cosy, oak-wood panelled booths (the one nearest the real coal fire – that pervasive Autumnal chill was gradually seeping into my bones with all the grim and steely determination of a persistent gate-crasher at a house-warming party).
The bar was fairly busy, even at this relatively early hour,
with the usual Sunday crowd of older people, all dressed up in their
weekend finest: the
men, proud and distinguished in
immaculate freshly-ironed three-piece suits, the
women in extravagant
hats and party frocks. Most of
them were gathered in the opposite snug, and as I watched, a couple of acoustic
guitars, a banjo, and a ‘gob- iron’ or two magically appeared seemingly from
out of nowhere and within seconds, and amidst much cheering, and ear-piercing
‘Wuh-yells!’ of encouragement, an impromptu ‘band’ began belting out highly
passable renditions of ‘Your Cheating Heart,’ ‘I Walk The Line,’ and ‘The
Leaving Of Liverpool.’
I watched transfixed as prior to me taking my first eager
step along the road to beery, pseudo-consolation, my eyes were drawn to an
elderly woman who was sat amongst the group. At
least in a
physical sense. One
glance at the dreamy
expression playing upon
her perfectly-made up features as she absent-mindedly twisted
her plain gold wedding ring around and around her finger like a golden wheel of
mis-fortune was enough
to indicate that spiritually, she was about a
billion light years removed from any of
her companions.
That, and the fact that she was staring intently at a slant
of late October light
that spilled greyly through the pub’s windows, and where dust motes
danced in madly swirling eddies. It was obvious to me that her rheumy eyes were
focused on some distant, cherished memory, momentarily brought to back life by
the strains of a well-loved song, drifting on the lukewarm air like a symphony
for the remorseless passing of time.
And that brought me back to the sole reason for my being
here.
Alone.
I was here to remember, too. It was October 31st 2004.
Halloween.
A mere five days since news broke of the untimely death of
one of the greatest musical (or indeed otherwise) influences on my life…..
John Peel with END Fanzine editors Peter Hooton & Phil Jones
THREE
The afternoon when I first heard John Peel had tragically passed away, (although it turned out he'd died the previous day, during a working vacation in Peru), I was sat at my office desk at the solicitor’s firm where I used to work, supposedly poring over that afternoon’s stack of paperwork and mindlessly dictating our criminal client’s details onto our computer database. In actual fact I was busily engaged in arguing the toss with one or two of my colleagues over the pros and cons of Liverpool fielding what amounted to a reserve side in that night’s League Cup tie at Millwall.
The afternoon when I first heard John Peel had tragically passed away, (although it turned out he'd died the previous day, during a working vacation in Peru), I was sat at my office desk at the solicitor’s firm where I used to work, supposedly poring over that afternoon’s stack of paperwork and mindlessly dictating our criminal client’s details onto our computer database. In actual fact I was busily engaged in arguing the toss with one or two of my colleagues over the pros and cons of Liverpool fielding what amounted to a reserve side in that night’s League Cup tie at Millwall.
The increasingly heated conversation had suddenly been
interrupted by the shrill, insistent ringing of the telephone. It was a friend
calling to relay a slice of truly awful news. And immediately, everything else
had ceased to matter.
As with the equally unexpected death of the late, great Joe
Strummer, of The Clash, (and in company with an endless cast of
taken-before-their-time luminaries,
including Ian Curtis, Bob Marley,
Malcolm Owen, Kurt Cobain,
Bill Shankly and John Lennon: a cluster of eternal stars that eternally
'lend light to the Vaults Of Heaven'), I was totally overcome by a powerful
combination of both shock and bitter-sweet nostalgia. It’s one of life’s
harshest lessons to find that, after all, the heroic, untouchable icons of our
youth are, every bit as fallible and ultimately killable as the rest of us mere
mortals.
I replaced the receiver and excused myself on the pretext
that I needed some fresh air.
And was that really so far from the truth?
I’m not so sure it was. I'd suddenly found it difficult to
catch my breath in the overbearingly
stuffy confines of the office, and I'd stumbled, gasping and misty-eyed, into
the firm’s car park, ignoring the concerned glances of my workmates and their
half-formed enquiries as to whether I was feeling okay. My head was too busy
reeling with the implications of irreplaceable loss and the recollections of
the very first time I’d heard John Peel’s iconic programme two and a half
decades earlier…..
I'd been a few months shy of my fifteenth birthday, and
about to enter my final year at a genuine contender for the title of
the worst school
on Merseyside, on
just about every conceivable level. Inter-school discipline? Inspiration to realise
your even a tiny
portion of your potential? Awareness of your any
prospective career opportunities? These were all about as alien a series of
concepts to our so-called teachers and governing heads as educational
excellence was to Pol Pot and his Cambodian Year Zero Campaign.
There were the odd occasional glimmers of life-affirming
optimism to be found amidst the grey, soul-destroying drudgery of my
school-days, however.
For instance during our one hour dinner break, my friend’s
and I would gather under the corrugated iron roof of the bike sheds, on even
the brightest and warmest of days, and there, out of sight of the teachers and
their arse-kissing prefects, we’d act out the rituals of stereotypical
teenagers; smoke a surreptitious
ciggie or two,
play cards for a massive
big stake of 10 pence a hand, make increasingly outlandish boasts about our
alleged sexual conquests, and listen to music on the cheap radio-cassette
player provided by the resident ‘sweat’ in our gang, its unbearably tinny
speakers blaring out an endless procession of heavy metal rock songs.
I can’t say I cared much for that particular genre. Those 15-minute guitar solos and the cheesy lyrics about getting
it on with Satan’s Horny Sex Slaves,’ just didn’t do it for me. But we put up
with it, just the same, and at some point those dirty, sleazy power chords and
shrieking, over-top- vocals faded to a hardly noticeable background noise, like
the lazy drone of an aeroplane passing high and invisibly overhead.
And then one day, 'El Sweato' announced he had to go
down to London with his parents to
attend his auntie’s funeral, but he would very kindly leave the tape recorder
for us in his locker. This news was greeted with a silent chorus of euphoric
cheering, because it meant we could now play whatever music we liked and a big
mad scramble for tapes ensued.
I don’t know
whether you’d call
it chance, fate or blind luck, but one of the few bona fide Punks in our
class, a tall, gangly boy with jet-black spiky hair who we christened, (with a
quite deplorable lack of imagination) ‘Sid’, got his tape in there first. I’d
disappointedly thrust my ‘Top Forty recorded-off-the-radio ‘Memorex’
cassette back in
my trouser pocket
and prepared to relegate the anticipated tuneless dirge to an infinitely
more tolerable ‘background hum.’ And thirty-odd
minutes later I found my life had been magically
transformed.
The tape proved
to be a
compilation of wonderfully exciting bands, some
vaguely-familiar: (The Clash,
The Damned and The
Teardrop Explodes), others
I’d never heard of before (The
Notsensibles, Peter & The Test Tube Babies,
The Fatal Microbes), and by the time the bell sounded for the dreaded resumption of
lessons, my entire body was tingling with a fully-blown adrenaline rush. Not wanting to appear un-cool in front of the rest of the gang, I took
‘Sid’ to one side
and whispered quietly;‘That’s one smart tape that, kidder. What did yer record it
off ?’
He looked me
up and down
and smirked disdainfully;‘Friggin hell, lad, haven’t you ever heard of John Peel?’ 'Nah, I haven't, yer know,' I mumbled, feeling a little like
the way I did when one of the math tutors asked me a tricky question about
Algebra or one of those fiddly-fuck
equations. And then I was struck with what I thought at the time was a sudden
spark of brilliant inspiration: 'Oh, hang on, isn't he the fella who invented
the bizzies?'...
'That's Robert Peel, ya bell-end,' 'Sid' replied, and from
the look in his eyes, he plainly thought he was dealing with
someone who considered the likes of Brotherhood Of Man and Boney M to be the
epitome of 'teen-dream hipster' music,
back in the sun-kissed days of early Summer, 1978. I was about to put him in
his place by telling him I was the proud
owner of a Darts
cassette, so he needn't bother launching into a lecture about cutting
edge, modern-day rock and roll, when, mercifully, he placed his right hand on
my shoulder and leaned close to me in the manner of someone about to pass on a
piece of worldly advice:'Honestly, lad,’ he said, ‘do yerself a favour, grab hold of
a radio tonight, and
fill yer lug-holes
with a dollop
of Peelie's prog. I’m telling yer, you won't regret it. He plays some of
the bossest tunes, ever!’
When I got
home that evening,
I hastily scanned
the programme guide in 'The Daily Mirror,' and there it was. Stark and
simple, and totally bereft of any clues as to the nature of the programme's
contents.
Radio One. 10pm. John Peel
I only owned a crappy, portable transistor back then, the
kind of
hopelessly screechy plastic affair
that rendered even the very heaviest of reggae dub bass tracks tinnier
than a Mikey Dredd gig being held inside a giant-size tin of Golden Virginia,
but it just about did the job.
I remember it was a Thursday night. There was school the next day, and
my mum and
dad had imposed
a strict 'Lights Out, Music Off By Ten' policy, during the week, so
an hour before the 'curfew,' I'd gotten into bed, placed the radio on my
pillow, leaned my ear against the speaker and switched on a couple of minutes
before the show was due to start.
I thought at first I must have tuned to the wrong frequency
when I was eventually greeted by an innocuous-sounding, old-time rhythm and
blues intro. I was just reaching for the dial when the tune suddenly faded and
the DJ began speaking in a laid-back, faintly Scouse twang laced with a ready
wit and a self-deprecating sense of humour. I knew immediately, even at that
relatively tender age, that here was someone who was the complete antithesis of
every phoney radio presenter I’d heard before or indeed since. And when at last
he’d fallen silent, there followed a welter of unbelievably eclectic music, a
heady mix of punk, new wave, reggae, ska,
and totally unclassifiable alternative music that held me enraptured for
the next two hours.
Oh, and to cap it all, he made it abundantly clear during
the show that he was, like myself, a massive fan of Liverpool FC. He’d given
both of his (then) children, William and Alexandra the additional names
Anfield, (he gave the kids
had a little
later in life,
Thomas and Florence, the names
Dalglish and Shankly)
and almost refused, on one memorable occasion, in 1980, to play A Forest
by The Cure, for no other reason than the song’s title bore a resemblance to
the name of Liverpool's greatest rivals at the time (Lordy, how times do
change).
I mean, honestly, could it get any better.
I also quickly learned to love the fact that the usual array
of cheesy jingles and horribly inane advertisement breaks were noticeable only
by their absence, that he sometimes played records at the wrong speed, and upon
realising his mistake, simply lifted the needle (sometimes with that ear-
piercing, stylus-scratching schweewchhwwupp sound pouring from
the speakers), and
started them all
over again, with the accompaniment of an embarrassed chuckle. It was
more than apparent that he held a great and genuine affection for
the music he
was playing, despite
his apparent tongue-in-cheek irreverence (at one point he re-
christened, for reasons best known to himself, Ian McCulloch’s iconic
Liverpool band as
‘Echo & The Knights Of The Bun’) and he actively
encouraged his listeners to write to him so he could provide them with details
of how to obtain a particularly obscure record released on
some defiantly independent label,
a billion light years distant
from the familiar majors: Le Disque du Crepescule, Factory
or Creeping Bent, say. These were
tunes John loved so much he wanted you yourself to personally own a copy.
He was once asked by some faceless interviewer from one of
the music paper weeklies; ‘What is your greatest talent? John replied, with
typical display of drier than a Death- Valley-puddle wit, ‘Well, I can make a
noise like a dolphin and I’m really good at parallel parking.
'I keep hoping I can find some way to combine these two talents for commercial gain’. It’s true, too, that like the legendary Joe Strummer, lead
singer with the aforementioned Clash,
that whenever John Peel spoke it felt like he was talking to you
personally, his eternally benign tones drifting from the radio’s speaker in a
quiet and gentle torrent.
It’s little wonder then that the likes of the XFM presenter,
and former singer with the band Kenickie, Lauren Laverne, called him a
‘surrogate father ’, and bands like Stiff Little Fingers, The
Cockney Rejects and
The Undertones, referred to him
warmly as 'Uncle John'.
It might sound
like a sentimental
cliché, the kind
the hordes of heartless cynics, the smug, crisp white, open- necked
shirt wearing zealots writing in middle-age- pandering publications, and the
faceless nobody's who prowl the grim backwaters of the Internet's forums, would
sneeringly dismiss as being a “typical example of Merseyside mawkishness,”
but deep within the innermost core of my
heart, the place where all truth lies constant and immutable, I felt like I actually knew John Peel, be he
Father or Uncle, or just plain close friend.
And that blessed familiarity was instrumental in bringing me
closer to all these wonderful new bands, the do-it-
yourself-mentality and, ultimately,
the inspiration to write...
And I only wish I'd
had the opportunity to tell him in person.
And thank him...
That, and the fact that I completely disagreed with his assertion that Teenage Kicks,
classic though it is, is the greatest, most impossible-to-improve-upon song
ever....
I've got an
old Darts cassette
that says 'Daddy
Cool,' knocks spots of that greasy-haired, snorkel-wearing, warbler, any
day…
In the days and weeks that followed that hugely rewarding
experience, listening to 'Peelies' show became more than just a habit. It
became a kind of nightly ritual.
Here was a DJ, whose voice was so rich, oddly-soothing and laced with a surreal sense of humour, I actively sought
to keep
his introductions to
any given track
on tape, though Mr Peel himself
made no secret of the fact that he hated the way other radio presenters talked
over any part of the song. On the rare
occasions that he mistakenly did so, he’d quickly mumble apologetically:
‘Sorry, that’s me talking over the end of
the track ruining it for anyone recording!'
But, the strange fact was, nothing could have been further
from the truth. I remember my friends and I would walk around town, with a tape
recorder, (a real ‘ghetto blaster ’, long
before I was
aware the term had
been invented), belonging to a
friend by the name of Jason Barnes, playing back the previous night’s show in
its entirety, and later re-recording all the songs we especially liked, complete with
John’s frequently amusing intro’s, onto compilation tapes, just like our mate,
‘Sid.’
Peelie was also responsible for initiating a love of live music and for our
gang taking the logical step of attending gigs
at the likes
of Brady’s (formerly
Eric’s) on Liverpool’s famous
ley-line riddled, Mathew Street, to see bands I would likely never even have
heard of otherwise, and for my picking up the latest vinyl releases (ask yer
granddad’s, kids!) from Probe Records, (see the article in issue one of Tales
From The Lids), then situated on the corner of Whitechapel, on Button Street,
by artists so wilfully obscure they’d often disband the moment they’d achieved
their sole ambition of having their track played on national radio.
The show was also
responsible for unleashing within me a whole
host of musical
inspirations, foremost amongst them, a love of dub reggae music and
left field electronica, as well as Punk, Indie and New Wave, and giving me the
incentive to become lead vocalist in an mildly successful local band (Last
Night At The Fair and The Lids, for all you completists out there), and
eventually, to take up DJ- ing virtually every weekend, playing the usual array
of weddings, birthday parties, anniversary’s, retirement do’s, Witch dunkings
and the like, but with more than a handful of old and new ‘alternative anthems’
thrown in, ‘striking a blow for the good guys,’ as I like to call it in my more
hubristic moments.
It is to my eternal regret that I had seldom listened to
Uncle John’s programme in the four years or so prior to his death, not I
hope, because I’d grown inured to the auditory magic or begun to take
it for granted, but rather with the advent of MTV 2 and the rise of the
internet, the sources of hearing
vital new music
had grown exponentially, and
listening to the radio late at night was no longer the nocturnal delight it
once was.
But still, as the
highly respected music
writer Charles Shaar Murray noted
at the time; ‘it was a comfort to know that both he and the magical hours
between ten and midnight, were still there.’
And now that sense of comfort had well and truly gone.
I was finding it difficult to imagine how anyone could ever
hope to replace John Peel.
Perhaps, I thought, sat in the snug surroundings of Ye Hole in Ye Wall, as the last few hours of autumn were swept away
on a chill wind that carried with it the
steel-cold promise of impending November, and the true birth of the year ’s
dying season, no one should even try.
I guess I can only speak for myself, but those ‘magical
hours between 10pm and midnight…?’
They’d just become as devoid of meaning as the tuneless nonsense
that fills the waves between stations.
Lee Walker Liverpool 8 January, 2013
JP treating The End with the respect it deserves
