Mark Roach, John Peel and me – photo by Paul Kennedy

Back when I was still a radio lecturer in Auckland, we had news that John Peel was coming to town, and so I made efforts to try and get him to come in and give a guest lecture to my third-year class. To my surprise and delight, he agreed, and chatted for 90 minutes with a bunch of about a dozen or so undergrad radio specialists.

A handful of them were a bit starstruck, the majority didn’t know who he was. I explained that here was quite possibly the most important and influential music broadcaster there had ever been. And yet to hear him speak, you’d have been convinced that Peel was completely oblivious to his influence. He was self-effacing, understated, and apparently genuinely surprised that somebody might be interested in what he might have to say about music radio.

After the class, we attended a sort of music industry drinks thing, and somehow, my friend Mark managed to knock Peel’s glass of red wine all down the front of his shirt. The stain is cunningly cropped out of the photo above, but covers quite a large area, and accounts for Peel’s expression.

Commemorating Peel
Less than a year after that visit to my class, John Peel was dead.

Today is the 6th anniversary of his passing, and the strength of his legacy was made evident at the Radio Academy event I went to last week in Manchester.

Every single one of the people being inducted into the Hall of Fame mentioned Peel as an inspiration – from Tim Westwood to Whispering Bob Harris.

I said something to this effect on Twitter this morning, but it strikes me that the best way to commemorate John Peel would not be to indulge in nostalgia and look back at all of the incredible bands that he introduced us to, and all of the great music he championed – but instead to do what he did, and ask “what else is there?”

Peel’s lesson, I think, is to keep finding the new, the unusual and the unexplored corners of music. It’s an approach that rewards the curious, the independent and the brave – and reminds us that it pays to surprise ourselves once in a while, step outside our comfort zone and listen to sounds that we may not necessarily like… yet.

But perhaps it would be okay if we also listen to The Fall as well. Maybe Peel’s other lesson was that you can never go too far wrong with The Fall.