Listen to Siouxsie and The Banshees’ iconic John Peel session
In today’s world of manicured Spotify playlists and YouTube algorithms, the hunt for good music is a relative breeze. Previously, it was a maze of fan-made zines, late-night TV and overheard conversations at the rear end of pub venues. There was one reliable guide, however: John Peel. Peel was the beating heart of British music from the 1960s until a year before his death in 2004. As the captain of the country’s most prominent station, he promoted and celebrate some of the UK’s finest alternative talent, plugging everyone from T. Rex to Blur, and inviting nearly all of them to record live sessions. This salvaged recording of Siouxsie and The Banshees’ iconic Peel Session is one of the absolute best.
Peel was the ultimate radio broadcaster known for his dead-pan delivery, lightning wit and utter adoration for music. As well as introducing audiences to up-and-coming artists, he curated the famous Peel Sessions, which saw him support everyone from The Banshees to the understandably obscure You’ve Got A Foetus On Your Breath.
His resistance to authority once saw him abandon dry land altogether and establish himself as a host on pirate station Radio Caroline. This particular session, however, was recorded in the plush live room at London’s Maida Vale Studios. Peel’s sessions were famously anarchical, allowing audiences access to raw mixes of some of the most exciting band’s on the scene. The sessions would often turn relatively unknown acts into household names, and many have gone down in history.
The selection process for The Peel Sessions was a pleasantly informal affair. The DJ would sit down with producer John Walters and talk about what bands had piqued their interest that week. Once the list had been whittled down, a few phone calls were made, and the band would arrive in the studio to record their session in three or four hours.
Recalling the selection process in Ken Garner’s John Peel In Session Tonight, Peel said: “There are those who believe that there is in place some system, that meetings are held, that charts are pored over… John and I would list those bands who had not recorded a session for a spell, eliminating those whose work no longer pleased us or, more rarely, whose new-found celebrity status would mean that their agents, management and record companies would come together in holy union to frustrate our attempts at rebooking. We’d also add to the list the names of artists we had heard and liked on demo tape or record or seen and liked in performance.”
Make sure you chuck out Siouxsie and The Banshees’ fang-toothed Peel Session if you haven’t already.
