JOHN PEEL

     The sad news of John Peel's death reached us just after the deadline for submissions at Shindig!. The press generally have and will give overviews on Peel's career and musicians have and will testify to his importance as a music broadcaster and launch pad for so many bands who owe him their initial media exposure (not forgetting his earliest and greatest deed, discovering The Misunderstood). Here however, with our limited space and time, I want to focus on the man's humility and everydayness. No other DJ of Peel's vintage has or could sustain his commitment to the new and championing of the left-field. Other DJs have been important, but none for so very long. Peel looked a decade younger than his 65 years and at heart he was no doubt still a teenager in love with rock 'n' roll. Whether you first encountered Peel via a Perfumed Garden show on Radio Caroline or a Top Gear session in the early '70s or his late night shows (as I did) in the late '70s, he was the consummate understatement of what you expect a DJ to be like and possessed none of the self-congratulatory egocentricity of some of his contemporaries, no sir. Listening to a  John Peel show was like going round your mate's house and exploring his latest finds together. There was an essential dourness about Peel that almost disabled him from becoming overblown.
     In recent years of course, his unique vocal style got him much commercial voice-over work. On every interview I ever saw him give, he came across with a sincerity and urbanity which would place him in stark contrast to the self-obsessed celebrity cult of toady. For me, Peel's late night shows in the '70s were the only mainstream radio space I could hear new punk, new wave, or general out there sounds of any kind. Luxembourg was only partially audible in the UK (as it had always been) and along with perhaps Alan 'Fluff' Freeman's Saturday afternoon shows, Peel was my mentor as he was to so many others, be they music lovers in general or one-day will be musos. If ever the title "Mr. Music" deserved to be bestowed on an individual (a non-player as it were), then Peel deserved it. As the estimable Andy Kershaw noted, Peel was the single most important and influential music broadcaster this country has ever had, period. Thoughts turn also to the future of his renowned record collection. It might be hoped with his family's endorsement, that it should become a national archive of popular music. Lottery or other funding should be found to enshrine it as such, making it an international resource for music research; such is the arcane nature and sheer rarity of some of it. Anyway God rest you Mr Peel, and I know that somewhere out there, no doubt in tandem with your trusty producer John Walters, you are broadcasting to the hipper spirits in the sky.
Paul Martin

GREG SHAW

     To those of us on the other side of the pond (the UK), Greg Shaw was a name that cropped up a lot, but there was seldom a picture to put it to. Although Lenny Kaye is rightly acknowledged with reviving interest in obscure US '60s rock 'n' roll bands, it was Shaw who picked up that baton and never stopped running with it. His record labels Bomp and Voxx ensured that a wealth of US neo-garage and psychedelic groups that weltered upwards in the '80s were recorded for posterity where they may otherwise have remained vague memories only for those who saw them live. He ran '60s based clubs and reissued '60s recordings, published his own magazine and website. And for the '60s garage revival Shaw was THEE man. With the sheer quantity of output, it is not surprising that cock ups sometimes happened, and in the early days, accurate info was intuitive as much as factual. None of these barbs diminish one jot the material and aural legacy that Shaw leaves behind him.
     The Pebbles series was the way in or back to the hipper side of the '60s for myself and numerous others. I discovered two odd looking CDs in the otherwise ordinary racks of the local Virgin megastore back at the end of the '80s. It was the groovy Rudy Protrudi artwork that attracted me first. After humming and haring for a couple of weeks, I found that these two CDs were still in the racks and such was my curiosity by that point, I grabbed 'em. They were the Best of Pebbles Vols. 1 & 2 on the short-lived UK Ubick label (ran by Cannibal and SD friend Mike Spenser) that Shaw had tried to start in order to spread the Pebbles word amongst the Limies. I never looked back. Within a few weeks I had cleaned out all the vinyl volumes I had found at the local HMV and was religiously playing these gems on rotation at the expense of everything else. The musical universe has only expanded for me ever since and it is too Greg Shaw that I am indebted for it having done so. An everyday tale of course, but one that so many other '60s fans could have told in much the same way, such was the importance of the Pebbles series. If he's not in the R&R Hall of Fame, he bloody well ought to be. Farewell then Mr. Shaw and wherever you are keep on rockin' as I know you surely must.
     Like Paul I stumbled across the UBIK best ofs and then the rest of the Pebbles series, and for me they were life changing. But more importantly I will always remember my teenage garage band The Nuthins (a product of Pebbles inspiration) contacting Mr. Shaw by "old-fashioned" letter in 1990. We immediately received a reply and a wealth of helpful info. In hooking us up with Charlene Coleman and Joss Hutton's Merry-Go-Round records Greg landed us a deal for a single... and for young lads in Hicksville that was a BIG deal. Without Greg's guidance we'd have never rocked our way around Europe and released a slew of records... I wouldn't have attempted to start writing about garage and psych music... and I'd have most definitely not been the person I am today (who in the footsteps of Shaw busts a gut to publish a mag and site and regularly lose my mind... all for the love of rock 'n' roll). It takes a lot to truly inspire a young kid from Wiltshire... and for me and countless others, Greg Shaw was the inspiration that made us kick out the jams!
     His memory and philosophy will live forever.
Paul Martin & Jon 'Mojo' Mills