[peel] WXYC Peel tribute show

[John Bravin]

This tribute show is very different from many in that it features clips from the early years.  There is some Beefheart, an excellent Tim Buckley session track and the intro to the first Led Zeppelin session.  In his tribute in Word magazine, Mark Ellen makes the point that Peel had four professional accents over his career (bone china minor royal, Liverpool friend of the Beatles, fey effete prince of hippiedom, and laconic classless mid-tempo rumble).  Listening to him reading poetry in the 60s it is amazing how different he sounded in those days.  

And  listening to this show I'm still impressed by two things - firstly that there was a three hour Peel tribute show on a radio station in North Carolina (three hours?, North Carolina?, he never even had a show there), and secondly that these days it's possible to listen to it (and the other similar shows) anywhere in the world via the Internet. Amid the debate about what the BBC will do with the Peel show I'm sure the future lies outside the terrestrial broadcasters.  I know not everyone has broadband yet, but within a few years there will be an explosion in audiences for internet stations that provide an everyday alternative to the stations like the BBC.  The challenge will be finding the right one amid the thousands out there.  When Peel was the only programme in Britain it was easy to make that choice, nowadays there are so many alternatives playing a similar mix (albeit none so far that approach Peel's delivery and innovation). But it is still fun discovering new ones - like Laura Cantrell's Radio Thrift Shop (which broadcasts every Saturday afternoon from 12:00-3:00 P.M. on WFMU 91.1 FM in Jersey City, N.J.,  and Real Audio streaming at www.WFMU.org) and KPIG on http://www.kpig.com/

Just like in the late seventies when anyone with a guitar and a garage could form a band, there is now the opportunity for anyone with talent and a dream to start a radio station.  I'm sure Peel would have embraced this idea - no longer are aspiring DJs dependent on the whim of stations like the BBC.  I remember Johnnie Walker once saying his dream was to be able to play music that he loved unconstrained by playlists to a captive audience in a institution like a prison.  I guess this is now possible to anyone with the vision, the energy and a PC.

John 

>Like many radio stations, WXYC in Carolina did a Peel-oriented show a
>couple of weeks ago. Note that I've not actually listened to
>it yet, so any intrepid listeners might be able to let us know... it
>is downloadable as a 169Mb (!) Mp3 so those with plenty bandwidth but
>less time could chip away at in bite-sized listens.
>
>http://www.wxyc.org/tnf/peel.html (any comments to the DJ,
>archiemcfly@...)