‘India Five 0’ was Radio One’s celebration of 50 years of Indian independence, which took place at the Custard Factory in Brum rather than anywhere in London. We went along and met a 55-year old white guy called John Peel. This interview just lets him talk - it’s his job, after all.
“To be honest with you, I’m not sure why this event is happening in Birmingham. They just asked me if I’d do it, probably because of the enormous amount of Indian food I’ve consumed over the years. I’ve obviously played a certain amount of the music too, but... anything they do outside London is a fairly good idea. It’s so easy to find yourself saying ‘Everything seems to be based on London’... when you’re giving out the names of venues, the tendency is to say ‘somethingorother in Birmingham, somethingorother in Coventry... and the Garage in Islington’. And you ought to say ‘...in London’. And we say ‘Up in Birmingham’, when for the majority of people Birmingham’s down. I don’t live in London, and it always pisses me off.
“I don’t know how important this event is, but how important is anything, really? Set against a universal scale, it’s not terribly important at all. But it’s a good thing. It’s the first time I think Radio 1’s undertaken something like this. I guess the thinking behind it is to celebrate Asian people making music. To me, I don’t mind where the music comes from, it’s either good or it isn’t. And it’s suddenly fashionable to be Asian, or so it seems. There’s a good line in one of the tracks on the Cornershop LP which says something like ‘We’re back in vogue again’. I think that album’s really good. I heard two thirds of it last night, getting ready to do the programme, so I didn’t have a chance to concentrate on it. The one I played last night, the one with the ‘in vogue’ reference [‘Funky Days Are Back Again’], there are no sitars or anything on it, it’s just a good pop song. But I’ve not seen Cornershop for years, Black Star Liner, I’ve never seen them live. And Talvin Singh... doesn’t he do thirteen tablas, or whatever the plural is? There’s supposed to be some kind of unique... tabla... demonstration, or something.
“I still get sent loads of stuff from independent labels, and you want to have a sympathetic response to people who try and do things their own way, but... you simply can’t like everything, and play everything. Particularly at the moment, with dance stuff, I could fill ten times the time I’ve got without repeating myself, because there are so many great records. I mean, honestly, I don’t even have time to listen to them all. I really do spend far too much time listening to records rather than doing other normal human things. It’s a bit odd, isn’t it, when I’m old enough to be your Dad. But it seems to me to be a normal and natural thing to do. Any other area of human activity that you’re interested in, whether it’s theatre, or cinema, or literature, nobody says to you, ‘well, sorry mate, you’re 55 now, you’ve got to just read books that you’ve already read, go to see films you’ve already seen’. Obviously, if I was into things like Boyzone, that would be a little more worrying. I’ve been doing this for thirty years now, Radio One’s been going for thirty years in September, and I’d quite like to have go at...what’s that burning smell?”
It’s food, so we give up on the interview and wander off to buy food, happy in the knowledge than the future of new radio is in the same sheepishly down-to-earth hands as it has been in for the past thirty years. Long live John Peel.
John Peel was talking to Dave, in September 1997.