Mother of God… for me this is like being handed a time machine to go visit any point in my musical history. I could write volumes talking about how much John Peel informed my broad musical tastes growing up as a kid in the Shires; aside from grabbing Melody Maker and other music mags and zines, this was the only way to hear about all that other crazy stuff going on out there. Even now my memories are less of his playing Nirvana, The Pixies and the like that occupied the indie movement around ’90/’91, and more of the bands I never managed to find beyond his show. Wig, Belt, 7 Seconds of Nausea and Puffball are all names that stick in my memory precisely because I tried like hell to find their releases and failed. I eventually found a download of Wig’s “Just Obscene” just 12 months ago – so around 20 years after I first heard it!
I’m told that in due course every single piece of radio broadcast by the BBC will be made available to stream online, as part of the BBC Open program. I almost fear when that day comes, because I’ll lose days if not weeks to trawling the treasures that lie within. For now though, I’ll make do with this motherlode… as fine a surprise as I’ve ever had of a morning. Enjoy!
UPDATE 12/09/12: Inevitably, it looks like the BBC have issued a complaint to Soundcloud and the Sets are now empty. Boooo!! That said, they appear to have totally missed the fact that all the individual tracks are still up (for now). So, get searching!
