Tom In Atlanta No More - but still has 300 tapes.

[Tom Roche]

Hello longtime PeelList friends,

It has been some time since I posted. Last year I began closing up 30 years
in Atlanta and moved to New Orleans - which of course has the most
music-rich history of any city in the US. Having a grand time; all the
effort to get here (and whew it was a damn chore) was worth it.

As stated previously, I had UK friends in the 80s and 90s recording and
shipping Peel BBC Radio One shows on cassette for me. Meanwhile I was
recording his BBC World Service Shows both over the air (SW low-fi) and via
a cleaner - but still mono - satellite link. My plan was to log all the
dates of the shows I have - and post to this list - before making the big
ATL to NOLA move, but life got complicated .... and I moved the all the
tapes here in November still un-catalogued.

(Somewhere I even have my own recording of the funeral service in Bury St
Edmonds. I believe the only Yanks to drop everything and fly over were Jack
White, Laura Cantrell and me.)

I want to inquire how your digitization of tapes is going. Are you ready
for another large batch? Obviously I need to post a logging of all the FM
shows I have... so that shows you have already archived are not shipped
over.

But what I have done this week is separated out all the BBCWS shows I
have... it is between 75 and 80, and the parcel weighs 12-13 pounds. All
the shows begin with an often-clueless continuity announcer intro-ing the
show (the best intro is the BBCWS promising music from "Prince Far The
First.") Then comes Grinderswitch and then an ever-changing clever greeting
from JP, then basically a 30 minute condensation of the week's 6 hours of
domestic shows, sans sessions. He would get maybe 4 letters a month and
he'd read those out, sometimes even a letter from me. Then Grinderswitch
again as the outro, later changed to any extendable techno track he liked.

For a time he was limited to playing UK tracks only, some BBCWS silly rule,
then about 1990 that changed. My satellite dish friend probably recorded
every show over 10 years, but we only saved the best ones and rolled over
the rest, alas. So the surviving shows are good ones.

Anyway, shall we extend the Peel Wiki to the World Service shows? Who would
like all these cassettes? And do we want to do a little funding-site thing
to pay for the overseas shipping? I can contribute but can shoulder all of
it.

Then I'll move on to logging the (plus or minus) 300 R1 tapes, yes?

Hello Martin Wheatley - still around? Hello Phil Edwards and the missus.
Hello Ken Garner?  Is David Cavanagh on the list? Love love love the Good
Riddance book.

If anyone on the list is passing through New Orleans and wants to re-define
the term "pub crawl" please please get in touch. I buy the first 4 rounds.
I am still doing film video editing.... here is a little taste of my new
world.

https://vimeo.com/155266481

I urge you to check out our startlingly good R&B/jazz/heritage station here
WWOZ-FM. Truly exceptional 24/7.

Let the good times roll ... and my best to all ya'll as we say 'round here.

Tom Roche