peel sessions live

[Keith Hawley]

>i dislike radio 1s insistance on airing live music anyway, there's too
>much of it. the perfomances are usually too, er, raw and any
>atmosphere that there may have been at the venue just doesn't transmit
>well.

actually, as i understand it, it's not radio1's insistence, but the
musician' union. the MU came to an agreement in the 60s that all of the bbc
channels must play a certain proportion (2% or something) of live or
commisioned music (hence sessions).
generally i think this a Good Thing, but i agree that radio 1 seem to treat
it a bit half-heartedly. it IS possible to record good live sound... yet
they always make an arse of it!

i have heard it speculated that they deliberately spoil the quality of live
stuff (bad mixes, and talking over it) so that bootleggers can't get decent
recordings...
but who knows?


can i just put a spanner among the pigeons and say that peel playing gene &
bluetones IS of interest... at least to me.
i think this is because i don't listen to daytime radio, and can't usually
be bothered with lamacq; so i rarely hear a new Blutones single (for
example). i tend to write off these bands lumpenly (along with
shed7/cast/reef and all the rest) and am quite pleased if peel adjusts the
balance by pointing out that there's something of interest there [eg. an
excellent Gene session a couple of years ago... lovely slow piano songs...]
- and i'm glad of that.

course i've not actually bought any of Gene's records or anything...
but i have seen them live (they're a LOT better than you might expect...)
Peel enabled me to be a bit more open-minded about them; and ultimately
that's what his show is all about, no?

peel also championed Pulp for a bit, despite having said he hated them...
it's good that he's willing to be seen to change his mind...

i think it would only be a problem if he was playing ALL successful indie
bands - but he's being very selective...


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--    keith@...      --
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