John Peel's Perfumed Garden - 12th. July 1967

Peel on the Galaxy

I'm indebted once again to Colin Ellis for this one.

This is the first two thirds (80min) of a Perfumed Garden show that I'd not heard before. Here, we find John refreshed from a week's shore leave and armed with "all kinds of beautiful records for you". Also features Peel reading the weather and discussing entries to the "Zodiac Cosmic Sounds" contest. A very beautiful thing, you see.

If you like this sort of thing, you might like to know that my upload of Guy Brown's reconstruction of the final Perfumed Garden is still being seeded here after more than 18 months. (You'll need to be bittorrent-literate to get it.)

Play/Download (72.8MB, 79:31, MP3)

Tracklisting

• All You Need Is Love - The Beatles (fades in)
• Epistle to Dippy - Donovan
• Meet Me In The Bottom - Howlin' Wolf
• Granny Takes A Trip - The Purple Gang
• You Don't Have To Go - The Misunderstood
• European Son to Delmore Schwartz - Velvet Underground
• Sparrow - Simon and Garfunkel
• Big Boss Man - Jimmy Reed
• Sagittarius - Zodiac Cosmic Sounds
• Fly Away - Blues Project
• Rock My Plimsoul - Jeff Beck
• White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane
• Mother, There's A Strange Man Waiting At the Door - Roger McGough
• Foxy Lady - Jimi Hendrix Experience
• 1.00 Weather
• February Sunshine - Giant Sunflower
• America Drinks, Status Back Baby, Uncle Bernie's Farm, Son of Suzy Creamcheese - The Mothers of Invention
• Dust My Blues - John Mayall's Bluesbreakers
• Fixing a Hole - The Beatles

John Peel and Pete Drummond - Top Gear - 1st. October 1967

That original Radio 1 lineup in full.
Drummond front row, third from left, Peel front row, extreme right.

To bookend the recent posting of the final Top Gear, we rewind eight years to the very first of Peel's Top Gears. This is not quite the first ever Top Gear, but it is the first on which Peel appeared. In fact this show, which Peel co-DJed with Pete Drummond, was Peel's first ever show on Radio 1, having played his last show on Radio London a couple of months earlier.

The Beeb really put the boat out for this one, as the session guests were (The) Pink Floyd, Traffic and Tomorrow.

This will probably be the most "DJ-ish" Peel you've ever heard, as he attempts at times embarrassing Smashie and Nicey-style "matey DJ chat" with co-host Drummond: very un-Peel. But its worth bearing in mind that John was only on a 6-week contract at this stage (only employed by the Beeb at all thanks to the championing of Bernie Andrews), so probably felt he had to toe the party line. At least to start with...

Interesting to hear JP refer to his current abode as 'Peel Acres' about 15 minutes in, as he was yet to move to Suffolk at this stage, and was currently living in a London flat.

Download (60.5Mb, 44 mins, 192K)
Recorded from 6music's rebroadcast about 18 months ago (from DAB). From memory, I believe I owe thanks to Pinball at Cook'd and Bomb'd for this MP3. Far better than my own crappy stream capture.

Tracklisting

• The Crazy World of Arthur Brown - Devil's Grip
• Tomorrow - Real Life Permanent Dream (session)
  
• Nirvana - Pentecost Hotel
• The Pink Floyd - Set The Controls (session)
• Tim Rose - Morning Dew
• Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit
• The Velvet Underground & Nico - Sunday Morning
• The Pink Floyd - Reaction in G (session) [fades after 30 seconds]
• [**Edit**]
• Tomorrow - Colonel Brown (session)
  
• Amen Corner - World of Broken Hearts
• Traffic - Paper Sun (session)
• Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band - Yellow Brick Road
• Big Maybelle - Every Day I Have The Blues
• The Move - Kilroy Was Here
• Skip Bifferty - On Love
• The Pink Floyd - Flaming (session)
• Tim Rose - Fare Thee Well [fades after 1 minute]

Note: Looks like the date is wrong in the filename, as apparently the show was broadcast on the 1st., not the 11th. of October '67. And you can't seem to rename your uploaded files with divshare, so I'm trusting you, gentle reader, to rename it after download. I care about these things, you know.