Thursday, August 07, 2008

John Peel's Top Gear, Saturday 27th. December 1969, 15:00 - 17:00

There's Christmas crackers, celebrity guests (some of them even genuine), an appearance from Miss Top Gear and, by the sound of it, a jolly time being had by all as Top Gear celebrates the er, bit between Christmas and New Year in truly festive style. Also featured: the pick of the year's session tracks, interviews (most of them hilariously inept) with Dick Heckstall-Smith, Robert Wyatt and Sandy Denny (pictured with JP opposite) and a very, let's say "competitive" chat with Pete Drummond.

Many thanks to Mick Capewell at the ever-excellent Marmalade Skies for supplying the tape of this show. (There's definitely a "Mick's tape" pun to be made there, but for the moment I can't be arsed.) For all you musos, here's the steps I used to rip the tape:

Maxell UR120 tape --> Pioneer DC-X88Z tape deck/amplifier --> headphone socket --> Stereo jack leads --> ADSTech Instant Music --> USB --> Toshiba laptop --> PolderbitS Sound Recorder and Editor --> Audacity --> LAME --> Kat's Karavan --> you

Feel free to pipe up with any suggestions if you think I've gone about capturing and encoding this all wrong, as I'm still relatively new to this. Oh and I did try to use Audacity to get rid of the tape hiss, but the end result was horribly metallic-sounding so I've left it well alone (apart from normalising).

(You may notice that this program does not, as promised in Peelie's intro, feature anything by the Keef Hartley Band. I can only assume that whatever track of theirs Peel was planning to play got bumped, because they're not mentioned in the outro. Certainly the show appears complete, with perhaps a little bit missing from the middle of the news bulletins.)

Total running time: 1hr56m. Files are 192K MP3.


PART 1 (29:20) Listen/Download (divshare). Alternative link (megaupload)
  • Johnny Walker handover
  • Miss Top Gear ("Pat Campbell of Nottingham") turns on the studio lights(!)
  • Top Gear theme
  • The Rolling Stones - Live With Me
  • The Plastic Ono Band - Dizzy Miss Lizzie
  • Richie Havens - High Flying Bird (session)
  • Chat with Dick Heckstall-Smith
  • Colosseum - Lost Angeles (session)
  • The Incredible String Band - This Moment (session)
  • News

PART 2 (30:18) Listen/Download (divshare). Alternative link (megaupload)
  • News (continued)
  • Juicy Lucy - She's Mine/She's Yours (session)
  • Michael Chapman - Postcards Of Scarborough (session)
  • The Family - Cat And The Rat (session)
  • Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band - Orange Claw Hammer
  • Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band - Wild Life
  • Roy Harper - Tom Tiddler's Ground
  • Chat with Robert Wyatt

PART 3 (27:33) Listen/Download (divshare). Alternative link (megaupload)
  • The Soft Machine - The Moon In June (session)
  • Griffin - What A Day It's Been (session)
  • Tyrannosaurus Rex - A Day Laye (session)
  • Chat with Sandy Denny
  • Fairport Convention - Farewell, Farewell
  • News

PART 4 (28:49) Listen/Download (divshare). Alternative link (megaupload)
  • News (continued)
  • Joe Cocker and The Grease Band - Lawdy Miss Clawdy (session)
  • Banter with Pete Drummond
  • Led Zeppelin - What Is And What Should Never Be (session)
  • Blodwyn Pig - It's Only Love (session)
  • The Beatles - Mean Mr. Mustard
  • Viv Stanshall no-show
  • Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band - Sofa Head (session)
  • Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band - Give Booze A Chance (session)
  • "Disinterred 33 1/3": The Firehouse 5 - Running Wild
  • The Fairport Convention - Jigs & Reels Medley (The Lark in The Morning/Rakish Paddy/Foxhunters' Jig/Toss The Feathers) (session)
  • Top Gear theme

8 comments:

entrailicus said...

Megaupload always causes me no end of hassle, so I guess I'll have to wait!

Thanks again for all the work that went into this.


Adam at FiS

Anonymous said...

Thanx!
Hallo

sexy said...
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Anonymous said...
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peterpiper said...

Many years.... no updates; no comments; no servers?

Only extract to be found - Sandy Denny interview on YouTube. Shame about all the rest.

cutpurseboy said...

anybody have this show to re-upload please

peterpiper said...

Eventually got show from a peel torrent.
Have put 4 parts & doc here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nkt5648cghvl30r/AAAq3LYb04ioIUAT7jUVqY_da?dl=0

Tim said...

PETERPIPER... YOU, MY FRIEND, ARE A FLIPPIN' LIFESAVER, THANK YOU SO MUCH.
AND THANKS TOO OF COURSE TO EVERYBODY INVOLVED IN THE RETRIEVAL AND SUBSEQUENT ENJOYMENT OF YET ANOTHER JEWEL IN THE PEEL CROWN.
THANK YOU
TIM