The Unofficial National Peel Archive

[John Bravin]

Sitting here on a sunny Good Friday starting to rip my collection of 
tapes from various Peel shows, intending to add them to the growing 
unofficial Peel archive.  Current one is from 1977 as part of the Peel 
shows where all the music was chosen by listeners (with often their own 
notes read out by Peel).  This particular show was programmed by Dave 
McClennan of Glasgow (are you out there Dave?) and featured Marley, Thin 
Lizzy (described by Peel as sublime), Be-bop Deluxe, Faces, Dylan, 
Jefferson Airplane ( Somebody to Love, the original of which was 
recorded in LA with Peel in the studio!), Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, 
Pink Floyd (from Wish You Were Here, described by Peel as wonderful, 
maybe an eye-opener to the taste revisionists out there).

There are many more shows from different eras, most with the Peel links 
intact (as many are now finding, the music is replaceable, but the links 
are the special bit).

On a nerdy practical note, I am recording these using Total Recorder in 
MP3 (Blade) 160kbps, 32kHz Stereo format.  Are there any better 
suggestions, given that some of the shows are from late night wonderful 
Radio 1 247 AM and not always of great quality? Currently a C90 side 
saves as about 55MB.

First tape is now finished. I'm on to 1980 with Ry Cooder, Twinkle 
Brothers, Scritti Politi, Automatics (the fine Tanks Over Poland), Mikey 
Dread, Reginald Bosenquet, UK Subs, Stupid Babies (Babysitters - anyone 
remember that), Elvis Costello and Captain Sinbad and Sugar Minott, 
Barcelona Choir (Death of a Novice).

John