Start of show: "Gimme that harp, boy. What a treat, and more Beefheart in about seven minutes' time. In tonight's programme. we've got Melt-Banana for you, the stuff that they did at our Maida Vale studio last year, thirty minutes or so of that, but to start, this is..."
It's Peel's 61st birthday. To celebrate, he gives himself a Melt-Banana session repeat.
The previous night, JP and team met Britt Ekland at the Kerrang! awards. Peel dedicates a track to Ms Ekland in her hospital bed.
Two recordings are available. a), b) and c) contain only a section of the show, tracks marked ¶, but these include the session. d) is the full show.
(JP: “And we’ve been looking through all the newspapers, the tabloids in particular, about Britt Ekland, who was at our table actually at the Kerrang awards yesterday, last night, and fell and hurt her foot, break her foot – did she break her foot? And her wrist – broke her foot and her wrist. And she was very game, I have to say, but she would have been, she would have sustained worse injuries if it hadn’t been for our Lynn, who actually caught her as she fell to the floor. It’s true, isn’t it, and there’s no mention of Lynn in the thing at all. She saved Britt Ekland from greater injuries. And she was lying there on the floor and she was very game and we were much impressed, because she tried to get up and have another go, but she was obviously in great pain and just flopped back down onto the floor. And I was thinking about going and picking her up and carrying her onto the stage, but then I thought was I capable of carrying her. She’s not a big woman, but was I capable of carrying her up the steps? I thought my children didn’t deserve to see newspaper headlines that said something like, when I dropped dead, you know, newspaper headlines saying, ‘Veteran DJ Dies Underneath Britt Ekland.’ I thought they deserved more than that, and somebody else came and carried her up onto the stage anyway. But it was a heroic performance I felt and she went up in our estimation enormously, didn’t she? … She said also that she listened to the programme. I was tempted to say, ‘Name one record that I’ve played in the past ten years,’ but in case she’s listening tonight in her hospital bed, here’s a record for you, Britt.”)
Jamie Lidell: Said Dram Scam (LP – Muddlin Gear) Warp ¶
Redemeer: Radical Changes (2x12” EP – The Redeemer) Position Chrome ¶
(JP: “And Melt-Banana coming up in just a moment. We’re going to seize this opportunity – it’s about 31 minutes of this – seize the opportunity to do a lot of cake, I think. Am I right in saying this? Right, so this is what happened last September in our Maida Vale studios.”)
(JP: “Well, there you have it, my birthday present to myself. … So that was Melt-Banana recorded in our Maida Vale studios last September and rebroadcast to you as my birthday to you – and to myself, let’s face facts.”)
Recoil: Jezebel (Slick Sixty v RJ Remix) (CD single – Jezebel) Mute