[peel] Needletime / Nightride

[Paul Bryant]

--- ken garner <ken_garner@...> wrote:

> A few quick points.
> 
> 1. Peel had so many sessions before 1988, and
> repeated them at least 
> once, sometimes 2 or 3 times, because of needletime,
> the backdoor 
> deal by which the record companies in alliance with
> the musicians' 
> union restricted the amount of minutes per day each
> BBC Radio network 
> could play from commercial records.

Retrospective apology and heartfelt thanks to the
Musicians' Union, then. I remember we used to curse
these old fashioned fools who were stopping us hearing
pop music on the BBC and forcing Joe Loss and his Big
Band featuring Billy Bunter, vocalist, down our
throats. But in attempting to stem the tide of
progress, they did us all a favour by inadvertently
inventing the Peel session.

Anyway, thanks for the details, Ken. I'll let you get
on with your work now!

pb




 Peel's 3-hour
> original Top Gear 
> show would feature up to 6 sessions and had just 60
> minutes of 
> needletime allocated ("regarded as very generous!"
> Bernie Andrews 
> told me). Imports, white labels, etc were cunning
> ways round this to 
> an extent.
> 
> 2. Nightride was made by a production department
> (called Recorded 
> Programmes Service or RPS I seem to recall)
> specifically set up to 
> exploit non-needletime recordings (eg world music,
> speech, imports), 
> so it had no needletime at all
> 
> 3. ...er, but actually, according to my analysis of
> the Nightride 
> PasBs, (I could be wrong) there was actually only
> ever one session 
> repeated in Peel's run / wednesday nights, and that
> was... well, 
> would you believe it, the one 1st TX in the very
> first show on 
> 6/3/68, by the Incredible String Band! (rpt on
> 26/6/68). Why did he 
> do that? Probably because - and this answers a query
> made to me off 
> list by another ISB fan - on finding and checking
> the 26/6 PasB 
> tonight (at the bottom of one of my boxes) I find
> that there were 
> indeed 2 tracks aired that night that there had not
> been time for on 
> 1/3, 'Goodnight', and 'Won't You Come See Me', so it
> was in effect a 
> double session recorded back on 4/3/68, well worth a
> repeat! Don't 
> know how I missed those 14 years ago
> 
> 4. If I keep answering these wee questions - more
> fool me - I am 
> never going to finish the book. Can I do a deal with
> listers? I'll 
> try and come on once a week and answer one or two
> titbits if I can, 
> while striving not to give away so much such that
> nobody wants to buy 
> the book; and in return, more of those of you who
> can, have a check 
> through your diaries and tapes to see if you can
> answer any of 
> those 'blanks' or 'imcomplete data' dates in the
> chronology? (my list 
> is posted here under files, on the left there) Many
> thanks to the 
> half dozen or so who have already sent me such
> answers by e-mailing 
> off list, and thereby already got themselves an
> acknowledgement in 
> the book,
> 
> cheers
> 
> ken
> 
> PS, before any Pink Floyd fans charge in, yes of
> course I know a 
> later Night Ride session by them was repeated on Top
> Gear, but that 
> was the exception (different departments, you see,
> jealously guarded 
> tapes)
> 
> 
> 



 
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