"John Peel, with his 'Perfumed Garden" programme on Radio London..."

[Tom Roche]

On a sale table at a bookstore I found the book TIME OUT INTERVIEWS 
1968-1998, and Mr Peel's interview from 1970 is included. I scanned 
it in and here it is.


tom r
atlanta




The Time Out Book of Interviews:  J O H N  P E E L

Pop music seems to be splitting in two. In one direction Englebert 
and his mimics rush away with their adoring fans, whilst towards the 
other extreme, various groups and individuals led by the Beatles 
progress to a freer, improvised and distinctly creative sphere. 
Though most people seem content with the 'wallpaper' and fab forty 
Radio 1, a freer and creative presentation is creeping in under the 
figure-head of disc-jockey John Peel.

John Peel, with his 'Perfumed Garden" programme on Radio London, a 
mixture of records, poetry, letters and conversation, immediately 
satisfied a demand for intelligent listening and 'involvement' from 
the public. He will shortly have another 'Perfumed Garden' on Radio 1 
and at present is joint host on Sunday's 'Top Gear'. In a 
conversation with Bob Harris he talks about the way pop music is 
evolving and about his career and attitude to pop resulting in his 
becoming Britain's first really creative DJ. Perhaps one day, when 
the oldish DJs at present monopolising the network are eventually 
pensioned off, John Peel will be seen as a prototype for the future.

-----------------

(speaking) I think it is unfortunate to have a concept of what pop 
music is because it is expanding so much now. It is difficult to say 
whether the principal writers at the moment are song writers poets or 
what they are. Groups are veering towards the theatre and all kinds 
of elements are being introduced into popular music, which I think 
can only result in the improvement of all of them.

I think eventually it'll all just become one; everything will become 
fused. Pop music will become television will become pop music will 
become theatre will become poetry will become whatever... Things are 
progressing in this direction. The theatre is becoming involved, for 
example the light show type ideas and the film clips groups are 
doing, and the Beatles' 'Magical Mystery Tour'. Already pop music, 
poetry, films and TV are getting mingled in with one another until 
eventually you won't be able to say where one begins and the other 
ends.

There are some nice trends at the moment, one being that record 
companies are now prepared to issue LPs by new groups and singers 
before they release a single, because they figure they've got that 
much to say. That's a good thing because for years they've been doing 
that with Jazz and blues."

Groups need LPS

I think the Cream thing saying they don't want to do any more singles 
is good in a way, because a lot of groups need an LP to develop their 
ideas; they can't get them across in two and a half rninutes on a 
single.

It would be nice if the record companies would get round to issuing 
some LPs without instantly thinking of the profit thing at the end. 
Elektra records have only made a profit on one LP they have released 
in this country, which is incredibly sad when you think of some of 
the beautiful records they've issued, but they are still prepared to 
issue this type of thing in Britain.

Unmechanical Floyd

A lot of the groups have some good ideas too. The Pink Floyd are 
knocked a hell of a lot now, but they really have some superb ideas. 
I think the point is that they rely a lot on collective 
improvisation, so if one guy is off, it throws everyone else off. So 
sometirnes when you go to see the Floyd they are very bad and then 
other times they are incredibly good. But if a group is consistent it 
usually means, to my mind, that they are a bit of a drag because they 
are just mechanical.

If you do go and see the Troggs or Dave Dee, for example, you know 
they are going to sound exactly like their records. But the Floyd 
music is ultra-pop. It is really sensational music. The Soft Machine 
are superb too, and if anything, are even more into electronic 
improvisation than the Floyd."

Relaxed Hendrix

Then of course, Hendrix has some superb ideas. It is interesting 
really because Hendrix is more relaxed now. The first LP was 
incredibly exciting but at the same time a bit frightening too, 
because there was a sort of anger and violence in it. I must admit, 
though, that Hendrix, on stage, is a drag. I don't like all this 
erotic crap because I don't think it's necessary. You can play the 
guitar a hell of a lot if you're not pretending to be stuffing it. I 
just think that he is enough of a musician to be able to stand up 
without doing it.

Donovan is getting so good now. I don't know what he is like as a 
person, and I think this is important, but I think his songs are just 
exactly right. It doesn't seem to be fashionable at the moment to 
like Donovan, which is a great pity. The incredibly delicate things 
he does are so nice, things like 'Guinevere', the dream sequence, 
fantasy-type ideal situation things. I think Donovan is just 
beginning to get on the same sort of thing that Paul McCartney is on 
now, which is simplicity.

Beatle simplicity

'Hello Goodbye' is incredibly simple and yet at the same time very 
effective, because there is an awful lot happening in it and a great 
deal of depth to it. I have heard it said that Lennon is leaving 
McCartney behind now, but I think this is absolute rubbish. I don't 
think Lennon is leaving McCartney behind or viceversa, I just think 
that they are going in opposite directions.

But I think we are reaching the stage now where pop music is 
splitting in two. Like on one side you have the good groups like the 
Family, Nice, Traffic and Tyrannossaurus Rex (who incidentally are 
really incredibly good) and these groups will obviously go on doing 
better and better things. Then on the other side you've got the 
backwater of dirge-like things.

Frankie Vaughan dead

I really thought Frankie Vaughan was dead or working as a bus 
conductor or something, but they found him, so you really can't tell 
from where you are. But the really nice thing is that, with very few 
exceptions, everyone in the group-scene in England is incredibly 
cooperative. They don't have this 'I'm a pop group' thing that so 
many American groups seem to have and they are helping in different 
ways to get people involved in nice ideas and this will continue to 
get stronger.

I only wish that when I was younger there was a 'Perfumed Garden' 
scene, because I was so incredibly hung up and I'm sure it would have 
taken less time to get my ideas straightened out.

When I started to work for Radio London, I began by doing the 'fab 
forty' stuff and then I volunteered to do the late night show 
(12-2am), because no-one else wanted to do it. After a time I began 
bending the format a little more each night until, by the time the 
attention of the station management had been drawn to it, it was 
already an established fact.

'The perfumed garden'

The other disc-jockeys reacted against it to begin with because this 
is something a discjockey has always wanted to do, to have this 
freedom thing, but the Radio London programme administrator, Alan 
Kein, was quite jazzed about the idea, so I started doing the whole 
'Perfumed Garden', just bringing in more stuff as I thought of it, 
whatever happened to come up or whatever was suggested.

Letters played an important part in it. People would say, 'Hey will 
you try to do this?'and I would try to do it. I think it is the way a 
radio programme should be, although not all radio programmes because 
obviously you have to have some of the wallpaper music that Radio 1 
is providing so well at the moment.

But you also need, somewhere in your day or in your week, a programme 
where the people who are listening are not treated as though they are 
totally moronic. I don't know why I called the programme 'The 
Perfumed Garden'. I didn't know about the book at the time, it was 
just a nice idea, wandering at night through a perfumed garden. As 
far as I was concerned it was a state of mind.

I would like to think that it was more than just a pop record show 
because it did, I suppose, try to influence people into at least 
sitting up and thinking about the ideas that I think are important. 
It doesn't mean that I thought that everyone had to believe in them, 
it was rnore a question of 'here you are - do what you like with 
them'.

Involvement

But so many people became involved with it. I got incredibly involved 
myself and I think that if you're doing that regardless of what 
you're doing, it communicates to other people. But you have got to 
know that as you get involved in something, people are going to 
appreciate your involvement and perhaps try to become involved also 
and in this way the whole thing can just spill over. I really think 
that it can have consequences beyond anyone's wildest hopes, because 
if people become really strongly involved in something and they 
really believe in it and can get other people involved as well, 
you've got the start of something very important.

You see, the people who were deeply involved with 'The Perfumed 
Garden' weren't, in the main, people who were involved with the music 
scene. They were just very ordinary people living very ordinary lives 
in very ordinary places. The ideas behind it and the sense of 
involvement I felt may have communicated something new to them and 
they became involved. Something existed for them to become involved 
in, whereas previously nothing had.

I think that as Radio 1 progresses, always assuming that it is going 
to progress, the personal involvement will become greater because 
they'll realise that a pop radio thing, if it is going to work, has 
to be rooted in the community to a far greater extent than it is at 
the moment.

The 'non-hear' station

The really depressing thing, though, is that 98% of the people 
listening to Radio 1 really don't hear it, I mean they really don't. 
A discgockey could get up there and say 'That was a fucking good 
record' and I swear people wouldn't know he'd said it because they 
really don't hear.

'Top Gear', although obviously far from being ideal as a musical 
thing, is the best programme on Radio 1, purely and simply because 
no-one else, with the exception of Kenny Everett, is trying to play 
nice music. But when BBC television first started, it was a lowest 
common denominator thing then, all westerns, and gradually they 
realised that it wasn't necessary to do this all the time and that 
you could afford to put some nice programmes on. Ultimately I hope 
the same will be true of Radio 1.