"Safety Net" is a song by Shop Assistants which was recorded in 1985 and released as a single in 1986.
56-557: The song was first recorded for the band's first session for John Peel 's BBC Radio 1 show on 8 October 1985. It was recorded for release on 24 and 25 October 1985 at Pier House, Edinburgh, and released as a single on guitarist David Keegan and Stephen Pastel 's 53rd & 3rd Records in February 1986, the first release on the label. The single reached number two on the UK Independent Chart , spending seventeen weeks in
112-425: A heart attack and died suddenly at the age of 65. Shortly after the announcement of his death, fans and supporters paid tribute to him. The following day, BBC Radio 1 cleared its schedule to broadcast a day of tributes. London's Evening Standard boards that afternoon read "the day the music died", quoting Don McLean 's hit " American Pie ". Peel had often spoken wryly of his eventual death. He once said on
168-400: A "grumpy old man who catalogues records" in the film Five Seconds to Spare . However, he had provided narration for others. He appeared as a celebrity guest on a number of TV shows, including This Is Your Life (1996, BBC), Travels With My Camera (1996, Channel 4 TV) and Going Home (2002, ITV TV), and presented the 1997 Channel 4 series Classic Trains . He was also in demand as
224-540: A column, The Perfumed Garden , for the underground newspaper the International Times (from autumn 1967 to mid-1969). When Radio London closed on 14 August 1967, Peel joined the BBC's new music station, BBC Radio 1 , which was first broadcast on 30 September 1967. Unlike Big L, Radio 1 was not a full-time station but a broadcaster of a mixture of recorded music and live studio orchestras. Peel said he felt he
280-483: A mixture of records and live sessions, a format that would characterise his Radio 1 programmes for the rest of his career. Peel's enthusiasm for music outside the mainstream occasionally brought him into conflict with the Radio 1 hierarchy. On one occasion, the station controller Derek Chinnery contacted John Walters and asked him to confirm that the show was not playing any punk , which he (Chinnery) had read about in
336-434: A month the average age of the audience dropped by 10 years and the whole social class changed – which I was very pleased about. In 1979, Peel stated: "They leave you to get on with it. I'm paid money by the BBC not to go off and work for a commercial radio station ... I wouldn't want to go to one anyway, because they wouldn't let me do what the BBC let me do." Peel's reputation as an important DJ who broke unsigned acts into
392-475: A radio programme of his own "so that I could play music that I heard and wanted others to hear". His housemaster, R. H. J. Brooke, whom Peel described as "extraordinarily eccentric" and "amazingly perceptive", wrote on one of his school reports, "Perhaps it's possible that John can form some kind of nightmarish career out of his enthusiasm for unlistenable records and his delight in writing long and facetious essays." Peel completed his national service in 1959 in
448-619: A result of his BFBS programme he was voted, in Germany, "Top DJ in Europe". Peel was an occasional presenter of Top of the Pops on BBC1 from the late 1960s until the mid-1990s, and in particular from 1982 to 1987 when he appeared regularly. In 1971 he appeared not as presenter but performer, alongside Rod Stewart and the Faces , pretending to play mandolin on " Maggie May ". He often presented
504-753: A snappy Radio Times billing. In the course of our historic meeting we had, I imagine, some fine reasons for dismissing the idea of a Festive 40 and going instead for a Festive 50, a decision that was to ruin my Decembers for years to come, condemning me to night after night at home with a ledger, when I could have been out and about having fun, fun, fun." After his death, the Festive Fifty was continued on Radio 1 by Rob da Bank , Huw Stephens and Ras Kwame for two years, but then given to Peel-inspired Internet radio station Dandelion Radio , and continues to be compiled. In 1969, Peel founded Dandelion Records (named after his pet hamster) so that he could release
560-587: A trailer for a BBC programme on VD on his Night Ride programme, Peel received significant media attention because he divulged on air that he had suffered from a sexually transmitted disease earlier that year. This admission was later used in an attempt to discredit him when he appeared as a defence witness in the 1971 Oz obscenity trial. The Night Ride programme, advertised by the BBC as an exploration of words and music, seemed to take up from where The Perfumed Garden had left off. It featured rock, folk, blues, classical and electronic music. A unique feature of
616-469: A voice-over artist for television documentaries, such as BBC One's A Life of Grime . In April 2003, the publishers Transworld successfully wooed Peel with a package worth £1.5 million for his autobiography, having placed an advert in a national newspaper aimed only at Peel. Unfinished at the time of his death, it was completed by Sheila and journalist Ryan Gilbey. It was published in October 2005 under
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#1732791966632672-489: A young adult in the city at night". Side A: Side B: John Peel John Robert Parker Ravenscroft OBE (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), better known as John Peel , was an English radio presenter and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original disc jockeys on BBC Radio 1 , broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004. Peel was one of the first broadcasters to play psychedelic rock and progressive rock records on British radio. He
728-441: Is widely acknowledged for promoting artists of many genres, including pop , dub reggae , punk rock and post-punk , electronic music and dance music , indie rock , extreme metal and British hip hop . Fellow DJ Paul Gambaccini described Peel as "the most important single person in popular music from approximately 1967 through 1978. He broke more important artists than any individual." Peel's Radio 1 shows were notable for
784-522: The Channel 4 miniseries Sounds of the Suburbs , "I've always imagined I'd die by driving into the back of a truck while trying to read the name on a cassette and people would say, 'He would have wanted to go that way.' Well, I want them to know that I wouldn't." Peel once said that if he died before his producer John Walters , he wanted Walters to play Roy Harper 's song " When an Old Cricketer Leaves
840-599: The Royal Artillery as a B2 radar operator. Afterwards, he worked as a mill operative at Townhead Mill in Rochdale and returned each weekend to Heswall on a scooter borrowed from his sister. While in Rochdale during the week, he stayed in a bed-and-breakfast in the area of Milkstone Road and Drake Street, and developed long-term associations with the town as the years progressed. In 1960, aged 21, Peel went to
896-501: The Strange Fruit label. In May 2020, an alphabetised catalogue of hundreds of classic Peel Sessions others had previously uploaded to YouTube was published. The Festive Fifty – a countdown of the best tracks of the year as voted for by the listeners – was an annual tradition of Peel's Radio 1 show. Despite his eclectic play list, it tended to be composed largely of "white boys with guitars", as Peel complained in 1988. In 1991,
952-469: The "Teenage Kicks" lyrics "teenage dreams, so hard to beat". A headstone featuring the lyrics and the liver bird from his favourite football team, Liverpool FC , was placed at his grave in 2008. He was buried in the graveyard of St Andrew's Church in Great Finborough . John Peel Sessions were a feature of his BBC Radio 1 shows, which usually consisted of four pieces of music pre-recorded at
1008-617: The 1960 election campaign, and took photographs of them. Following Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, Peel passed himself off as a reporter for the Liverpool Echo in order to attend the arraignment of Lee Harvey Oswald . He and a friend can be seen in the footage of the 22/23 November midnight press conference at the Dallas Police Department when Oswald was paraded before the media. He later phoned in
1064-728: The American singer and radio personality Jim Lowe . Following this, and as Beatlemania hit the United States, Peel was hired by the Dallas radio station KLIF as the official Beatles correspondent on the strength of his connection to Liverpool. He later worked for KOMA in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma , until 1965, when he moved to KMEN in San Bernardino, California , and used his birth name, John Ravenscroft, to present
1120-599: The BBC's studios. The sessions originally came about due to restrictions imposed on the BBC by the Musicians' Union and Phonographic Performance Limited which represented the record companies dominated by the EMI cartel. Due to these restrictions, the BBC had been forced to hire bands and orchestras to render cover versions of recorded music. The theory behind this device was that it would create employment and force people to buy records and not listen to them free of charge on
1176-550: The BBC's television coverage of music events, notably the Glastonbury Festival . From 26 September to 31 October 1987, Peel produced a six-part radio series on BBC Radio 1 called Peeling Back the Years . In it, he discussed his life and career at length with his long-time producer John Walters and also played some of his favorite records. The show's theme music was " Blue Tango " by Ray Martin which, Peel revealed,
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#17327919666321232-701: The Byrds , the Rolling Stones and John Lennon and Yoko Ono . The programme captured much of the creative activity of the underground scene. Its anti-establishment stance and unpredictability, however, did not find approval with the BBC hierarchy and it ended in September 1969 after 18 months. In his sleeve notes to the Archive Things LP Peel calls the free-form nature of Night Ride his preferred radio format. His subsequent shows featured
1288-483: The Crease ". Walters had died in 2001, leaving Andy Kershaw to end his tribute programme to Peel on BBC Radio 3 with the song. Peel's stand-in on his Radio 1 slot, Rob da Bank , also played the song at the start of the final show before his funeral. Another time, Peel said he would like to be remembered with a gospel song . He stated that the final record he would play would be the C. L. Franklin sermon "Dry Bones in
1344-569: The Manchester area from working in a cotton mill in Rochdale in 1959, Peel signed Manchester bands Stack Waddy and Tractor to Dandelion and was always supportive of both bands throughout his life. It is alleged that Peel spotted a Rochdale postmark on the envelope containing the tape sent to him by Tractor, then called "The Way We Live". As Peel stated: It was never a success financially. In fact, we lost money, if I remember correctly, on every single release bar one. I did quite like it but it
1400-547: The Pops in the 1980s, and provided voice-over commentary for a number of BBC programmes. He became popular with the audience of BBC Radio 4 for his Home Truths programme, which ran from the 1990s, featuring unusual stories from listeners' domestic lives. Peel was born John Robert Parker Ravenscroft at a nursing home in Heswall on 30 August 1939, the son of Joan Mary (née Swainson) and cotton merchant Robert Leslie Ravenscroft. He had two younger brothers and grew up in
1456-436: The Rolling Stones and John "Hoppy" Hopkins , were discussed between records. All this was far removed from Radio London's daytime format. Listeners sent Peel letters, poems and records from their own collections so that the programme became a vehicle for two-way communication; by the final week of Radio London he was receiving far more mail than any other DJ on the station. After the closure of Radio London in 1967, Peel wrote
1512-462: The United States to work for a cotton producer who had business dealings with his father. He took a number of other jobs afterwards, including working as a travelling insurance salesman . While in Dallas , Texas, where the insurance company he worked for was based, he conversed with the presidential candidate John F. Kennedy , and his running mate Lyndon B. Johnson , who were touring the city during
1568-650: The Valley". On his Home Truths BBC radio show, Peel once commented about his own death: "I definitely want to be buried, although not yet. I'm 61 on Wednesday—just a working day for me, I'm afraid—so actually I should have a mile or two left in me, but I do want the children to be able to stand solemnly at my graveside and think lovely thoughts along the lines of 'get out of that one, you swine', which they won't be able to do if I've been cremated." Peel's funeral took place in Bury St Edmunds on 12 November 2004 and
1624-411: The air. One of the reasons why the offshore broadcasting stations of the 1960s were called "pirates" was because they operated outside of British laws and were not bound by the needle time restriction on the number of records they could play on the air. The BBC employed its own house bands and orchestras and it also engaged outside bands to record exclusive tracks for its programmes in BBC studios. This
1680-451: The breakfast show. Peel returned to England in early 1967 and found work with the offshore pirate radio station Radio London . He was offered the midnight-to-two shift, which gradually developed into a programme, The Perfumed Garden . Peel's show was an outlet for the music of the UK underground scene. He played classic blues , folk music and psychedelic rock , with an emphasis on
1736-403: The broadcast of the chart was cancelled due to a lack of votes. Topped by Nirvana 's " Smells Like Teen Spirit ", this Phantom Fifty was eventually broadcast at the rate of one track per programme in 1993. The 1997 chart was initially cancelled due to the lack of air-time Peel had been allocated for the period, but enough "spontaneous" votes were received over the phone that a Festive Thirty-One
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1792-423: The chart in total. The song was voted to number eight on the 1986 Festive Fifty , with only tracks by The Smiths , Primal Scream , The Fall and "Kiss" by Age of Chance receiving more votes. "Safety Net" was described by David Sheridan of Trouser Press as "nothing short of brilliant". Gillian Watson of The Scotsman called the song an "early classic", which "captures how nervous and exciting it feels to be
1848-629: The debut album by Bridget St John , which he also produced. The label released 27 albums by 18 different artists before folding in 1972. Of its albums, There is Some Fun Going Forward was a sampler intended to present its acts to a wide audience, but Dandelion was never a great success, with only two releases charting nationally: Medicine Head in the UK with "(And the) Pictures in the Sky" and Beau in Lebanon with "1917 Revolution". Having had an affinity with
1904-479: The divorce became final in 1973. In 1987, Milburn took her own life. Peel married Sheila Gilhooly on 31 August 1974. The reception was held at Regent's Park , with Rod Stewart as best man. In the 1970s, Peel and Gilhooly moved to "Peel Acres", a thatched cottage in Great Finborough . In later years, Peel broadcast many of his shows from a studio in the house, with Gilhooly and their children often being involved or at least mentioned. Peel's passion for Liverpool FC
1960-421: The first Ramones LP – it was identical to the first time I had heard Little Richard – the intensity was frightening! So I played five or six tracks on the next show and immediately I received mail from people demanding that I never play stuff like that again. Whenever that happens I always go in the opposite direction, so I played more and it was great! It was a classic case of changing courses in mid-stream and in
2016-432: The mainstream was such that young hopefuls sent him an enormous number of records, CDs, and tapes. When he returned home from a three-week holiday at the end of 1986 there were 173 LPs, 91 12"s and 179 7"s waiting for him. In 1983 Alan Melina and Jeff Chegwin, the music publishers for unsigned artist Billy Bragg , drove to the Radio 1 studios with a mushroom biryani and a copy of his record after hearing Peel mention that he
2072-541: The nearby village of Burton . He was educated as a boarder at Shrewsbury School , where future Monty Python member Michael Palin was his contemporary. In his posthumously published autobiography, Peel said that he was raped by an older pupil while at the school. Peel was an avid radio listener and record collector from an early age, firstly of music offered by the American Forces Network and Radio Luxembourg . He recalled an early desire to host
2128-470: The new music emerging from Los Angeles and San Francisco. As important as the musical content of the programme was the personal – sometimes confessional – tone of Peel's presentation, and the listener participation it engendered. Underground events he had attended during his periods of shore leave, such as the UFO Club and the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream , together with causes célèbres like the drug busts of
2184-412: The only available women in the early 1960s were in high school. In 2012 a woman stated that she had a three-month affair with Peel in 1969, when she was 15 and he was 30. She said they had unprotected sex; this was shortly after Peel discussed contracting a sexually transmitted disease . The relationship resulted in a "traumatic" abortion. She stated that, "Looking back, it was terribly wrong and I
2240-494: The press and of which he disapproved. Chinnery was evidently somewhat surprised by Walters' reply that in recent weeks they had been playing little else. In a 1990 interview, Peel recalled his 1976 discovery of the first album by New York punk band the Ramones as a seminal event, At that time almost all the new bands comprised of people who had previously been in successful bands who had broken up then reformed.... Well I played
2296-521: The programme was the inclusion of tracks, mostly of exotic non-Western music, drawn from the BBC Sound Archive ; the most popular of these were gathered on a BBC Records LP, John Peel's Archive Things (1970). Night Ride also featured poetry readings and numerous interviews with a wide range of guests, including his friends Marc Bolan , journalist and musician Mick Farren , poet Pete Roche, singer-songwriter Bridget St John and stars such as
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2352-413: The regular " Peel Sessions ", which usually consisted of four songs recorded by an artist in the BBC's studios, often providing the first major national coverage to bands that later achieved fame. The annual Festive Fifty countdown of his listeners' favourite records of the year was a notable part of his promotion of new music. Peel appeared on television occasionally as one of the presenters of Top of
2408-563: The story to the Echo . While working for the insurance company, Peel wrote programs for punched card entry for an IBM 1410 computer (which led to his entry in Who's Who noting him as a former computer programmer ), and he got his first radio job working unpaid for WRR (AM) in Dallas. There, he presented the second hour of the Monday night programme Kat's Karavan , which was primarily hosted by
2464-474: The title Margrave of the Marshes . A collection of Peel's miscellaneous writings, The Olivetti Chronicles , was published in 2008. At the age of 25, while residing in Dallas in 1965, Peel married 15-year-old American girl Shirley Anne Milburn. The marriage was never happy, with reports that she was often violent towards him. Although she accompanied Peel back to England in 1967, they were soon separated and
2520-464: Was attended by over 1,000 people, including many of the artists he had championed. Eulogies were read by his brother Alan and fellow DJ Paul Gambaccini . The service ended with clips of him talking about his life. His coffin was carried out to the accompaniment of his favourite song, the Undertones ' " Teenage Kicks ". Peel had written that, apart from his name, all he wanted on his gravestone were
2576-409: Was compiled and broadcast. Peel wrote that "The Festive 50 dates back to what was doubtless a crisp September morning in the early-to-mid Seventies, when John Walters and I were musing on life in his uniquely squalid office. In our waggish way, we decided to mock the enthusiasm of the Radio 1 management of the time for programmes with alliterative titles. Content, we felt, was of less importance than
2632-468: Was described by occasional stand-in presenter John Walters as being "about people who had fridges called Renfrewshire". Peel also made regular contributions to BBC Two's humorous look at the irritations of modern life Grumpy Old Men . His only appearances in an acting role in film or television were in Harry Enfield 's Smashie and Nicey : The End of an Era as John Past Bedtime, and in 1999 as
2688-458: Was hired because the BBC "had no real idea what they were doing so they had to take people off the pirate ships because there wasn't anybody else". Peel presented a programme called Top Gear . At first he was obliged to share presentation duties with other DJs ( Pete Drummond and Tommy Vance were among his co-hosts) but in February 1968 he was given sole charge of Top Gear. He presented the show until it ended in 1975. In 1969, after hosting
2744-806: Was hungry; the subsequent airplay launched Billy Bragg's career. In addition to his Radio 1 show, Peel broadcast as a disc jockey on the BBC World Service , on the British Forces Broadcasting Service ( John Peel's Music on BFBS ) for 30 years, VPRO Radio3 in the Netherlands, YLE Radio Mafia in Finland, Ö3 in Austria (Nachtexpress), and on Radio 4U, Radio Eins (Peel ...), Radio Bremen (Ritz) and some independent radio stations around FSK Hamburg in Germany. As
2800-530: Was never charged with any offences. The journalists Sarah Woolley and Fiona Sturges, in The Independent , cite Peel's first marriage to Milburn in 1965 as an example, as Milburn was aged 15 and Peel 25 when they married; this was legal in Texas at the time. Peel told The Guardian in 1975, regarding his relations with young women, "All they wanted me to do was abuse them, sexually, which, of course, I
2856-618: Was only too happy to do." He told The Sunday Correspondent in 1989, "Girls used to queue up outside. By and large not usually for shagging. Oral sex they were particularly keen on, I remember. [...] One of my, er, regular customers, as it were, turned out to be 13, though she looked older." He jokingly added that he "didn't ask for ID". An interview originally published in The Herald in April 2004 stated that he admitted to sexual contact with "an awful lot" of underage girls. He said that
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#17327919666322912-458: Was perhaps manipulated." In July 2022 a petition was launched to rename the "John Peel Stage" at the Glastonbury Festival , because of the accusations. In 2023 the stage was renamed "Woodsies". Emily Eavis , co-organiser of the festival, said the name change "was not related to a recent petition". On 25 October 2004, during a working holiday in the Peruvian city of Cusco , Peel suffered
2968-422: Was reflected in his children's names: William Robert Anfield Ravenscroft, Alexandra Mary Anfield Ravenscroft, Thomas James Dalglish Ravenscroft, and Florence Victoria Shankly Ravenscroft. Thomas, now better known as Tom Ravenscroft , also became a radio DJ. At the age of 62, in 2001, Peel was diagnosed with diabetes following many years of fatigue. Peel has been accused of sexual misconduct, although he
3024-528: Was terribly indulgent. Not as indulgent as it would have been had I not had a business partner, admittedly ... I liked having a label. It enabled you to put out stuff that you liked without, in those days, having to worry about whether it was going to work commercially. I've never been a good business man. National service Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include
3080-481: Was the first record he ever bought. Between 1995 and 1997, Peel presented Offspring , a show about children, on BBC Radio 4 . In 1998, Offspring grew into the magazine-style documentary show Home Truths . When he took on the job presenting the programme, which was about everyday life in British families, Peel requested that it be free from celebrities, as he found real-life stories more entertaining. Home Truths
3136-450: Was the reason why Peel was able to use "session men" in his own programmes. Sessions were usually four tracks recorded and mixed in a single day; as such they often had a rough-and-ready, demo-like feel, somewhere between a live performance and a finished recording. During the 37 years Peel remained on BBC Radio 1 , over 4,000 sessions were recorded by over 2,000 artists. Many classic Peel Sessions have been released on record, particularly by
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