Great quotes

[ford.alan@...]

Don't remember reading this at the time; some great quotes here.
It also confirms that John played Violent Femmes at least once ("Ugly" on BFBS).
Alan


--- In peel@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Fewster" <r.fewster@...> wrote:
>
> I've just been looking at the legendary Peel Quotes thread from the
> ilovemusic message board. Remarkably, it seems to still be going. Anyway,
> some fine fellow by the name of Arnie Matthews has taken great care in
> transcribing some Peel quotes from the BFBS Germany shows. SOme of them had
> me in tears, sure enough. Enjoy:
> 
> *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
> 
> Here are some of my favourite quotes from John's radio show for the British
> Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) in Germany:
> 
> *introduction*
> It's time again for two hours of John Peel's Music, guaranteed to put a
> smile on your face, a song on your lips and something undescribable on your
> feet.
> 
> *working at BFBS*
> It's wonderful down here at BFBS, because occasionally you get people coming
> around to sit in and watch the programme and listen to some of the sounds.
> And you know that they're gonna come in like 'I say, this is all jolly
> interesting, goodness me. So that's what a studio is, that's what a John
> Peel is like, is it?' And they sit there and then after about two records
> they crawl out like broken men.
> 
> A curious thing happened while that was going on: a member of the BFBS staff
> actually came into the studio and asked me about a record which I played on
> my domestic programme. She has actually taken an interest in the music, so
> of course she's been drummed out of the building as you can imagine, she's
> been beaten up by security people just around the back.
> 
> And from Richard, one of the three pieces of mail which arrived this week,
> and it says 'Look out for the german all-female ensemble called Breast. Have
> they made any records?' Well if they have I certainly wouldn't be able to
> play them on the BBC, not with a name like that, because at the BBC nobody
> has breasts of course. But here at BFBS they look at things very
> differently. I've got quite a reasonable set of breasts myself actually.
> 
> There's nowhere here to put my bicycle. In the old buildings, before we
> moved down here, I could take my bicycle and just leave it in somebody's
> office. But this can't be done any longer, because somebody whose job it is
> to go through all of the regulations to try and find things to obstruct
> people, and they came across the information... something to do with like,
> will the bicycle possibly foul the carpets in some way, although I'd like to
> see it doing it, or it constitutes a fire-hazard within the meaning of the
> act and all that kind of stuff. So it means that my bicycle is manacled to a
> parking-meter outside. But I did bring in the front wheel in case somebody
> stole that, and left that in the place where I normally leave my bicycle, to
> see exactly how much of a bicycle constitutes a bicycle. Because I had this
> problem once before with somebody else who would never allow me to bring my
> bicycle into their building, and I wanted to know how much of it you could
> bring in in parts before it became a bicycle. And of course people really
> aren't interested in these kinds of sophistries, they're more likely just to
> punch you in the face and tell you not to be such a smart aleck. But within
> the law, I think I'm right in saying, if you are riding a bicycle, then you
> are yourself part of that bicycle, so if the bicycle is banned from the
> building, then it seems logical that the rider should be as well, so in fact
> I shouldn't be here, as I am part of a bicycle, or indeed you could even say
> that I am a bicycle.
> 
> I was trying to get hold of a cup of coffee while that was going on and
> there is, immediately outside the door here, a large coffee making machine,
> but I'm told that this is for the use of BFBS UK only, which is quite
> wonderful. It's the kind of thing you think doesn't happen in 1984. I expect
> they got their own toilets somewhere as well, and their own lift, and
> they're probably allowed to bring their bicycles into the building, too.
> Privilege - what a wonderful thing it is. (plays a record)
> Very pleased to report that the BFBS UK elitist coffee machine seems to have
> broken down. There are lots of puzzled looking men probably called Eric
> staring at it this very moment, hands on their hips.
> 
> Here's an oldie which I always enjoy, you probably loathe it, I don't know,
> don't really care. It's my programme, not yours.
> 
> Kevin (one of the engineers), our man in the studded leather bracelets and
> AC/DC tour jacket says that they sound like a very sick Judas Priest, but of
> course in my estimation Judas Priest sound like a very sick Judas Priest.
> 
> Charles (one of the producers) was also suggesting that we should get the
> Emerson, Lake & Palmer version of the same piece and play that in next
> week's programme. First person to take a step towards me with it, I tell
> you, he gets it.
> 
> 
> A little scratchy towards the end, that's Barrington Levy and a ripple of
> applause for the BFBS equipment which was built out of old washing-machine
> parts in the late 1940s.
> 
> And this week's programme is being engineered by Nicky, who's loveliness is
> enough to drive fat men to drink, but in her defence she'll come and have a
> drink with you while you do it. But Kevin has dropped into the studio to
> tell me that he's just been to see, in the last week, Yes and Status Quo. So
> representatives from the Peel Foundation are taking him outside for a full
> frontal lobotomy in the hope that something can be done to improve his
> emotional condition.
> 
> 
> *letters and phonecalls*
> Not a great deal of mail this week, and I wish you would write, I'd be very
> grateful if you did, because BFBS interpret this as the programme becoming
> even less popular and it'll end up as being an insert into 'The pruning fork
> in peace and war - an eight part documentary starring Wendy Craig as nursy'.
> You have been warned.
> 
> And a letter, this is very welcome indeed, from Cyprus. It's been quite a
> long time since we had one from there, and it's from sapper Sam Parker in
> Nikosia, and as always I'll drag out the record to play you next week, but I
> just wanted you to know that your letter has arrived and has been greeted
> here with a great deal of excitement: 21 gun salute and massed brass bands
> playing in the street outside.
> 
> And here's a letter from Brad, who is Private Bradbury, from what looks like
> 1st Armoured Field Ambulance. Isn't that cheating? I don't know, I don't
> think you're allowed to do that. I mean the armoured ambulance is the sort
> of thing which happened in the First World War but not since. (plays a
> record)
> I must admit I've been fantasising about those armoured field ambulances
> while the record was playing, the idea of the Red Cross on the back doors
> parting as they are thrown open and a 25-pounder sticking out of the back.
> 
> A card from Michael, and he says, could I play a record for his friend who
> has just come back from Nepal after two and a half years where he's been
> talking with the stones. I'm not entirely sure this isn't a medical
> condition actually, Michael. If the stones have been talking back to him,
> then I think we have real cause for concern.
> 
> Actually, judging by the amount of mail this week, I would say that the
> west's defences are being overlooked as you all sit there scribbling away on
> postcards and letters.
> 
> I'll play you another track from that LP before the end of the programme,
> cause I rather like it, I must admit. It's also the kind of record which
> gets people writing in to say 'I shall never listen to your programme
> again!' ... that kind of thing... and in a rather perverse way I enjoy that,
> which is why there's only about twenty of us left. We have a secret
> handshake and a tie and everything. We can recognize each other in the
> street.
> 
> And Kay wrote to me from Bielefeld, where he or she is stationed. He or she
> or uncommited, I don't know.
> 
> And this is from Section 25. I have to warn you that this copy of the record
> is pressed off centre. In fact all of the copies of the record that I've got
> are pressed off centre, and I've got four copies of it, cause they sent me a
> new one each time I complained that they were pressed off centre, and the
> new one was always pressed off centre. So this is for Micky who, if the
> postcard he sent me is to be believed, lives in the middle of a field, and
> he'll probably appreciate a record that's pressed off centre.
> 
> This is for Monty, who wanted something by Crass for Angelica, which I
> thought was stuff you put on top of cakes, but in this case it seems to be a
> person.
> 
> My day started off particularly well with a phonecall from Richard in
> Germany who told me, he says 'Do you want any wine? My father owns a
> vineyard.' Owns a vineyard??!! So I said 'Next time I come to Germany I
> shall come and stay with you - probably for several years'.
> (plays a record)
> I'm always very pleased to get letters or indeed phonecalls from anybody
> whose family own vineyards - or Mercedes Benz dealerships, or, because I
> have so many children, a toilet paper factory as well, if you want to get in
> touch.
> 
> Well I'm rather reluctant to get into more deeply military requests after
> all the mess I made with that 'S.T.A.G.O.N.' business earlier on. Simon says
> I still got it wrong, after what he said to me I misinterpreted it or
> something. Who really cares? I mean you all know what 'bobbies' mean, yet in
> our house if you said the word 'bobbies' people would fall over.
> 
> Somebody has sent me, for which I'm extremely grateful, a postcard which
> actually's got water in it. I mean it's got liked a sealed... do you hear
> the water splashing about? That's a postcard! Actually's got a bit of the
> North Sea in it apparently, a picture of a trawler or something like that.
> It's probably full of disease, too, if it bursts it'll probably kill the
> whole of central London.
> 
> 
> *looks*
> (after Violent Femmes' 'Ugly' which ends with the singer shouting 'You're so
> ugly' repeatedly) - Oh I don't know, with the light from behind and a
> polythene bag over my head I can look quite arresting.
> 
> The people you don't actually know and who don't know you...when you turn
> up, and of course they're expecting you to look like one of Echo & The
> Bunnymen or something like that, and when you turn up looking like Echo &
> The Bunnymen's dad who hasn't been well for very many years, one can almost
> sense... the disappointment is almost tangible you know, which is why I tend
> to lurk here in the studios and not venture forth. It's like the 'Elephant
> Man' you know, bag over the head, that kind of stuff.
> 
> I've chosen to go to Portugal in the week of the Milk Cup final, so I shall
> be lying motionless in the sun like a beached whale while the lads are
> battling at Wembley.
> 
> They go on a great a length, I mean obviously to get their record played,
> but go on a great length about my sexy voice and so on, and of course that's
> one of the reasons why I don't travel very often, cause you always find...
> you gonna turn up somewhere, as I was when I first went to Berlin, and...
> people are gonna expect someone like Simon LeBon of Duran Duran to get off
> the plane, and when somebody who looks like Simon LeBon's uncle who had the
> unsuccessful operation gets off the plane... quite clearly, you see a lot of
> crestfallen folk, and it's more than I can stand frankly. And I just had
> another look at the letter that I mentioned before, and it says on the other
> side of it 'Would you please send us a photograph'. I've found actually,
> over the years, that it's best not to do this, because then you never hear
> from the people again and they stop listening, and quite often go into...you
> know, take holy orders, or go and start a new life in Papua New Guinea, and
> I think it's preferable if they don't do this.
> 
> One of the highpoints of my weekend in Berlin was the Atonal-Festival, and
> we weren't there for very long, it was just a lot of people shrieking
> really, banging instruments in a rather random fashion... But a young woman
> there did seem to show some kind of vague sexual interest in me, and like
> twenty years ago I should've been most gratified by this and probably tried
> to do something about it. But of course when you've deteriorated to the
> point that I've deteriorated to, you become a little uneasy. And I wondered,
> like, is she a dedicated sociologist who is prepared to stop at nothing to
> support some half-baked theory she has, or is she smashed out of her head,
> or is she just plain mad. And I rather suspect that she was smashed out of
> her head, because trying to get off with me is roughly equivalent to eating
> all of your meals out of wastebins.
> 
> I'm back from Crete, a gorgeous golden brown. If you could see me I'm sure
> you would want to dance around me.
> 
> As I mentioned before I never get invited to parties, and this is probably a
> good thing, because I'm the kind of bloke who ends up doing all the
> washing-up in rather a sulky fashion while everybody else gets undressed. I
> did once go to an orgy, but it was deeply embarrassing, because I haven't
> really got the figure for orgies and I had to sit there, pretending to be
> asleep for about four or five hours, while everybody else got on with it.
> Not for me at all.
> 
> *health*
> This week, as with most weeks actually, I'm feeling terrible, but obviously
> the show goes on, and I put on a brave face and things, but I always feel
> ill, and I've always attributed this to the fact that I just work to hard
> really. I'm the classic kind of bloke who drops dead, and I was just
> discussing this with Simon, and he said 'Have you ever thought of glandula
> fever?' in much the same way as you might say 'Have you ever thought about
> the glass-topped coffee-table?' And so I shall have to look into the
> symptoms of that and perhaps by next week I'll have developed it, who can
> possibly say. What a little ray of sunshine he is for sure.
> 
> While it was going on my gums started bleeding. I'm not exactly sure what
> the significance of this is, perhaps it's the prelude to a religious
> experience. I certainly hope not.
> 
> Why am I laughing? I don't know... it's incipient madness, that's what it
> is. I'm quite looking forward to that actually, as I drift into an
> unattractive middle-age. I quite like the idea of waking up one morning
> quite plainly mad, I mean not dangerously mad, but just mad enough to be
> sent off somewhere where I can just sit and watch television and eat Indian
> meals for the rest of my life. I should be entirely happy doing that. You
> know, just waking up one morning imagening that you're something like an
> umbrella stand or something like that, and I find it quite an attractive
> prospect, I must say.
> 
> 
> *records*
> (Sizzler: 'Rat Race') - Well, me too, at times, I have to admit, I'm a
> victim of the pressures of modern life. I know that one of these days
> something's going to snap in my head and I'll start imagening that I'm a two
> and a half mile section of the East Langs Road or something - or Phil
> Collins, whichever is the least interesting.
> 
> (XXOO: 'How will I know when I'm really in love ?') - Your hat will fall
> off. I thought everybody knew that.
> 
> (Brilliant: 'Scream Like an Angel') - How do these people know what an angel
> screams like? Answer me that. On one side of a paper only.
> 
> (Hugh Griffith: 'Chant Down Babylon') - Well at our house, before we go to
> bed every night, we always chant down Babylon for five or ten minutes, and
> yet it's still there in the morning.
> 
> (In Excelsis: 'Carnival of Damocles') - I'm not entirely sure Damocles was
> the kind of chap who went to Carnivals much, but that's the title of it.
> 
> (A Certain Ratio: 'I Need Someone Tonight') - Ah, I do like a deeply
> meaningful lyric, although I suppose if you need someone tonight, it is a
> meaningful lyric.
> 
> (Sisters of Mercy: 'Temple of Love') - I think that if I found myself in any
> temple of love I should just lie down on the pews and have a bit of a sleep.
> That comes with age.
> 
> (The The: 'This Sinking Feeling') - That's The The and on the record it says
> 'With every kick in the face and every hurdle you pass the rewards get
> greater.' and if you've been passing hurdles you should see your doctor as
> soon as you possibly can.
> 
> (Kukl: 'Songull') - Now this is... talk about not being able to pronounce
> things, I'm in real trouble with this next one, because the name of the
> band... well it's spelt K U K L. Now how would you pronounce that? I mean
> given that it's some kind of nordic language that you're not entirely
> familiar with. Well I checked around a bit, with people who know the band
> and they said, well, it's pronounced 'Curcle'. So I said 'Curcle', I mean
> that seems, you know, feasible... daft, but feasible... so K U K L, Curcle,
> so I went ahead and that's what I said when I did a radio programme
> featuring this domestically, and a member of the band phoned up and said
> 'No, it's not Curcle at all, it's...' he didn't say it like this at all but
> he said '... it's pronounced Krchk'. And I said, well how can it be
> pronounced Krchk, I said, cause there's no 'R' in it... there's an 'L'...
> and the 'L' is at the end, you know, all that kind of thing. Anyway, he says
> it's Krchk, so this is Krchk, and frankly the title of the piece I have no
> intention at all of trying to pronounce, it's spelt S O N G U L L and it's
> almost certainly pronounced 'Lester'. (plays the record)
> That's Kukl, pronounced Krchk and this is John Peel's Music, pronounced
> "Excuse me, but isn't that my ladder?"
> 
> (The Ruts: 'In a Rut') - I think it's fair to say that modern music is back
> in that rut again, actually, lots of beautiful youths in meaningful
> trousers.
> 
> (Vex: 'Sanctuary') - That's Vex and on the back of the sleeve it says 'four
> individuals with no set ideals making music to provoke thought' - and the
> thought which most immediately comes to me is that it's almost time that
> we've had enough records like that.
> 
> (Daniel Ponce: 'Bastardo Cuentos') - The name of the next artiste appears to
> be Daniel Ponce but it's actually pronounced, I think, Pon-che, and the
> track itself is called Bastardo Cuentos which translates approximately as
> 'Oh no, not another spanish referee'.
> 
> 
> *about jamaican pre-releases (on recycled vinyl)*
> 
pressed on Weetabix...
> 
> 
with real hazelnuts...
> 
> As you can tell, somebody has gone over that with the old Black & Decker
> sander just to give it that authentic feel.
> 
> It may not have done full justice to that expensive tuner you just bought,
> but it's a great record.
> 
> 
> *about loud or 'difficult' records*
> Well I expect they love their mothers.
> 
> Aren't you glad they don't rehearse next to you?
> 
> Well I'm glad I'm not their postman.
> 
> I don't think I shall be inviting them to my birthday party. They are the
> kind of people who park their vans so that nobody else could get in or out.
> 
> They sound like somebody's given a good kicking - set to music.
> 
> *miscellaneous*
> With that record he has qualified for the immortal soul.
> 
> We're coming up to exam results, you see, for our William, and he's got to
> get a certain number of passes at A level in order to get into university
> and do the thing that he wants to do, which is archeology, and in the way
> that fathers do, I insist that the main reason he wants to do archeology is
> because he's got it in his head that this means that he can lie virtually
> motionless for days on end in the accumulated filth of centuries, so he
> won't have to change his lifestyle particularly.
> 
> Rip, Rig & Panic have in fact broken up, because some of them live across
> the road from my mum. Not that they've told me that they've broken up but I
> can see them in there and they look broken up.
> 
> Really needs to be played loud enough to start a civil defence alert...
> 
> The musical equivalent to those children's TV programmes where you make a
> model of the Battersea power station out of egg-boxes.
> 
> It's called 'Another Black Friday' and the press of it has been good as far
> as I can tell: 'the best production at the present time','"a rise to new
> musical directions', 'a brilliant fusion of body and brain' ... I don't
> know, that sounds like a motorcycle accident.
> 
> This is a record by Ledernacken, which can't surely mean what I think it
> means.
> 
> 'Party Line' by Abbreviated Sealing, and of course whenever I criticize the
> name of a band somebody will write in and say "Of course what you don't
> realize is that it's a quote from Jean Jacques Pissoir's 'Vortex - A
> Threnody", and it may well be so.
> That's Stump and that's another track in the forthcoming Peel Sessions EP
> series, if you see what I mean. It's not quite that but I'm not gonna try
> and reconstruct the sentence in front of you.
>