I haven't noticed a topic commenting on the death on Monday of British radio DJ John Peel aged 65. So here's one...

Why is it relevant to us here? Peelie has been broadcatsing the most unikely radio shows for over 3 decades on BBC Radio 1 (and more recently on the BBC World Service). The shows championed the most eclectic range of leftfield, indie, forgotten, and wonderful collection of music you could wish to imagine. Imagine a 2-hour highligths package of the best of the b-Net network stations here and then some more. Every show on this non-commercial radio channel was like that.

In the late 1970's you'd here punk alongside hardcore dub-reggae from Studio One and scratchy old Delta blues from the 1950's. In the 1980's you'd hear the birth of electronic dnacefloor music alongside jangly guitar bands and classic lost R&B. And so on.

Peelie liked the unusual and the unpolished and the unwanted from wherever they came from on the planet. So stuff from NZ's indie revolution in the early 1980's made its way onto his shows. The Chills did a Peel Show session in the 1980s , The D4 did one a few years ago too. The Clean were regulars on the playlist, The Bats and the JPS Experience also featured. But his favourite of them all was the mighty Snapper.

Unfortunatley in the 1980's and the early 1990's Flying Nun were so useless at self promotion that I even resorted to buying FN product here myself and sending it to Peelie in the hope he'd play stuff. He did (including the JPSE's "Precious" 7" single I sent him being broadcast to the world on the BBC world service). He sent a handwritten postcard thanking me and expressing his exasperation at not being able to find Flying Nun stuff in the UK.

He was here a few years ago too for some NZ music convention. I hope he went home with armloads of NZ music. No doubt that's where he heard the D4, who would have perfectly summed up what he loved in rock'n'roll.

So... I think a minute's silence followed by the playing of his favourite song "Teenage Kicks" by the Undertones would be a well-desrved mark of respect for a music revolutionary who has championed a few of NZ's finest over the years.

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