hiya,
i just put up our peel session from 2003. took a long time, eh? anyway the songs also have johns commentary.
growing up in new mexico, it was pretty hard to find new music that wasnt hardcore or classic rock. though i very much liked the former. there was no college radio in my town. nor was there an internet back then! i found an old newsstand by the university when i was in high school that sporadically carried the NME. this is how i eventually found the music that would inspire me beyond the 60s favorites. how i became a fan of music and personalities. one of these was john peel.
in 2003 we, the aislers set, were honored when asked to do a peel session. i cant speak for the rest of the band but i was especially thrilled. a peel session...the smiths the fall the go-betweens joy division robert wyatt...all my teenage loves that made me a pop music fan...they all had a session or more with the legend, john peel.
we recorded the session at the maida vale studios. the mic closet thrilled me. full of old neuman mics.the engineer set up an akg 414 on every drum! this blew my mind. jen played the studios b3 with leslie speaker. was a first for me hearing, live, an real b3. amazing. they tracked the session onto two inch tape. old tape and i wondered what they were taping over. what could it have been?
anyway the session went well. though it was clear that we were amateurs. our drums were borrowed and shitty, out of tune, and we had to do over dubs (which i guess is not regular) cos my trumpet playing and our singing was so off initially. i remember the nerves while waiting to hear the mix in the wait room outside of the big recording room where a symphony was rehearsing. the deal is its supposed to be fast and live. all things considered, it was. for us.
we left the studio and continued touring through england, up north till we got to scotland. we had a day off after our nice and sleazy show (i think. maybe it was before)and that was the day the sessions was to air. we had been out and about with belle and sebastian folks and settled into a bar in the west end when we found out the session was to air. stevie asked the bartender to shut off the music and turn on the radio when it was discovered the radio didnt work. thing is, the bars top shelves were lined with old single speaker transistor radios so we went through all off them. the bartender did. not a good battery among the bunch so stevie legged to who knows where and procured some fresh batteries. we were all huddled around a big chopping block of a table when he threw them in the radio and it came to life just as john peel started speaking. all of us, so many ears were so close to that single speaker in the middle of the table! the first notes of mission bells came out and, and i still cant describe the feeling. i was listening so hard and so proud. mission bells was just past the trumpet section and stuart asked me if i wrote that song. yeah. but my eyes were tearing up way before the question. best day of my music life for sure.