30 December 1990

Show

Name

• John Peel Show

Station

• BBC Radio One

YYYY-MM-DD

• 1990-12-30

Comments

• The final part of the 1990 Festive Fifty, together with session repeats and JP's favourite records of the year.
• This show finds JP in garrulous mood, and a generous portion of his chat is reproduced below.

Sessions

• Babes In Toyland, #1 (repeat). Recorded 1990-09-09. Available on The Peel Sessions (Strange Fruit).
• Wedding Present, #8 (repeat). Recorded 1990-10-14. Available on The Complete Peel Sessions 1986-2004 (Castle Music).

Tracklisting

• Boo Radleys: 'Catweazle (LP-Ichabod And I)' (Action)

(JP: 'Oddly enough, Eric Clapton did a song called 'Catweazle' when he was a member of Cream, but it wasn't that one.')

• Rhythmatic: 'Demons (10 inch)' (0742)

(JP: 'Sorry, I was so busy tapping me toes to that, I missed the end of it...I always feel terribly envious when Andy (Kershaw) says stuff like, very casually just drops into the programme, I hope you've noticed that, "Oh yes, I was at Cropover in Barbados", and I think, "I've never been to Cropover in Barbados, never been to Barbados". Mind you, I did go to Islington last weekend to see Heavenly.')

• Heavenly: 'Our Love Is Heavenly (7 inch)' (Sarah)
• Raw Noise: 'Stench Of Death (Metal)' (7 inch EP-Untitled)' (Raw Noise)
• Cocoa Tea: 'Oil Ting (12 inch)' (Greensleeves)

(JP: 'When I played the dub of that in last night's programme, somebody rang up to complain! I was rather hurt by that.')

• Babes In Toyland: 'Catatonic' (Peel Session) #
• Babes In Toyland: 'Ripe' (Peel Session) #
• Babes In Toyland: 'Primus' (Peel Session) #
• Babes In Toyland: 'Spit To See The Shine' (Peel Session) #

(JP: 'It's a curious thing, you know, very childish this, but for weeks and weeks, when I type up the running orders for these programmes, because that's one of the little jobs that falls my way, when I'm typing, instead of putting 'one, two, three, four, five, six' at the top of the pages, I make up what I imagine to be some kind of sort of typical European numbers and things, and type them up there instead, and nobody's ever questioned it at all, and said, "What language are these things in, or indeed what do they mean?". So this week it's been 'ween, zor, driv, vor, flev' and 'zoks'. They probably think, poor twerp can't spell.')

• Mind Body 'N Soul: 'White Rabbit' (white label)

(JP: 'Do you ever find yourself wearing T-shirts with messages on them that are completely incomprehensible to you? For the last couple of days, I've been wearing a T-shirt which is now I'm afraid rather grubby, which has got 'This Yabbis' written on it, many many times in fact. I can't remember at all where it came from or what it means. What is a Yabbis?')

• Main Source: 'Watch Roger Do His Thing (12 inch)' (Wild Pitch)

(JP: 'Chesterfield looms very large in my domestic mythology because I once conducted one of those kind of celebrity auctions in Chesterfield, at a girl's school. I thought we were all going to become great friends, but they never got in touch with me again. I bought myself a book for £2, an autographed book that Tony Bennett had written, almost unreadable, I have to admit, but quite pleased that I got it nevertheless. It was there that I discovered that one of my pictures, no four of my pictures, autographed Radio 1 style publicity pictures, was worth one Mike Read picture, so I now know exactly how much mine is worth financially, because the Mike Read autographed picture that came up in the auction I did in Chesterfield went for 13p. So I know that one of mine is worth a quarter of whatever 13p is: not a lot. So when people write and say, "Can we have an autographed picture of you in our celebrity auction?", I'll say, "You've already lost money by putting a stamp on the envelope."')

• Thinking Fellers Union Local 282: 'Change Your Mind (LP-Tangle)' (Thwart)
• Fluke: 'Philly (7 inch)' (Creation)
• S.O.B.: 'Over The Line (CD-What's The Truth?)' (Rise Above)
• Mav Cacherel: 'Bolingo Ya Yissu (LP-Mav Cacherel)' (Kaluila)
• (tape flip)

1990 Festive Fifty: Numbers 14-01

(JP: 'I'd like to thank the people who did all the computering for me, and thereby saved me spending hours in front of the fire entering it in a huge logbook with a quill pen as I usually do, in a rather Dickensian fashion, so my thanks to John Sentence and the girls of Down House, particularly the Upper Fourth and Lower Fifth, and the people in the computer department, most especially Rosie Wintell and Patsy Patterson.')

• 14: New Fast Automatic Daffodils, 'Big (12 inch) (Playtime)
• 13: Lemonheads, 'Different Drum (7 inch)' (Roughneck)
• 12: Would Be's, 'I'm Hardly Ever Wrong (7 inch)' (Danceline) #

(JP: 'Certainly as good a record as has been made in 1990.')

• 11: Teenage Fanclub, 'Everything Flows (LP-A Catholic Education)' (Paperhouse) #

(JP: 'Before I play you the number 10 track, I've got a little yellow cut-out elephant, you know the type of thing, that people write notes on and so on, which I've been carrying around with me for quite some time. It says, "Hi, my name's Clara, I'm 14, from Moseley in Birmingham. This is a dumb letter, in fact I don't even know why I'm writing it, because it's not like I have contacts with a band and can get special stuff for you: I don't even know anyone else who listens to your programme. I can't even phone up on the fluff line because my mum and stepdad would kill me. You'll probably chuck this letter in the bin, or ignore it completely. Oh well, it's tough being 14." I know it is, Clara: this is for you.')

• 10: Orb, 'Loving You' (Peel Session)

(JP: 'You can see now why I had to reorganise all the timings of things, with a twenty minute and ten second track in the Festive Fifty. All of my original calculations had to go out of the window.')

• 09: Wedding Present, 'Corduroy (7 inch EP-3 Songs)' (RCA) #
• (tape flip)
• 08: Happy Mondays, 'Step On (Stuff It In Mix) (12 Inch )' (Factory)
• 07: Wedding Present, 'Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) (7 inch EP-3 Songs)' (RCA)

(JP: 'If our William had voted in the Festive Fifty, I think he'd have voted for this.')

• 06: Paris Angels, 'All On You (Perfume) (12 inch)' (Sheer Joy)

(JP: 'A record to be proud of, that, I think. Never fails to give satisfaction.')

• 05: Sonic Youth, 'Tunic (Song For Karen) (LP-Goo)' (DGC) #
• 04: Ride, 'Like A Daydream (EP-Play)' (Creation) #

(JP: 'It's obvious that not the entire nation is caught up with the Festive Fifty, because someone was just on the phone to ask me whether Carly Simon had ever recorded 'MacArthur Park', and I have to admit that I don't know the answer to that. This is number three, and it's not Carly Simon.')

• 03: Ride, 'Dreams Burn Down (LP-Nowhere)' (Creation) #

(JP: 'A cert for the top five in the Festive Fifty, I thought when I first heard that, and I was right. Actually, I could have made that up, but I didn't.')

• 02: My Bloody Valentine, 'Soon (EP-Glider)' (Creation) #

(JP: 'I reckon that the last two tracks were certain for the top five of the Festive Fifty, as I said before, but I never reckoned the winner would be the winner. It was a very very close thing between one and two: in fact, if it hadn't been for one sort of semi-spoiled ballot, the two would have been the other way round. But in the end, this came out as number one, and a great surprise to me.')

• 01: Fall, 'Bill Is Dead (LP-Extricate)' (Fontana) #

(JP: 'Well, to me a major surprise. Obviously, I'm quite happy to see it.')

• Ballou Canta & Soukous Stars: 'Sadia (LP-Sadia)'
• Wedding Present: 'Dalliance' (Peel Session)
• Wedding Present: 'Blonde' (Peel Session)
• Wedding Present: 'Niagara' (Peel Session)
• Wedding Present: 'Heather' (Peel Session)
• Where's The Beach: 'Tripping The Luv Fantastic (12 inch-Suakin)' (Mantra Communications)
• Babes In Toyland: 'Swamp Pussy (LP-Spanking Machine)' (Twin/Tone)

(JP: 'Happy New Year to all of you.')

File

Name

• 1-4) 30th December 90 Parts 1-4
• 5) JP19901230.mp3
• 6) Peel Festive Period 1990 Part 2

Length

• 1) 01:01:10
• 2) 00:45:41
• 3) 00:43:05
• 4) 00:29:00
• 5) 02:59:38
• 6)

Other

• 1-4) Good quality, though rather subdued at the very start.
• 5) Complete show in good sound quality. Thanks to Ray b
• 6) Excellent quality. Created from tapes SB848, SB849 and SB850 of Weatherman22's Tapes
• Part of this show is also available in the 'Festive 50s' folder of IAP's Tapes in substantially improved sound quality. The relevant files are:

F50_1990_0901 (Numbers 10-03)

F50_1990_0901b (Number 02 to end of show).

Available

• Parts 1-4 currently unavailable. Please direct re-up requests to Peel Mailing List.
• 5) Mediafire
• 6) [1]
• 7) IAP's Tapes

Footnotes