agentblack

I didn't really have much of an opinion about John Peel when I was younger. A lot of what I heard him playing when I was still listening to Radio One went right over my head, at the time.

But he still had a fair effect on my musical landscape, indirectly, if only by championing Idlewild. Favourite band of the first Girl I had a proper 'teenage kicks'* style crush over. Yay john Peel. He gave me a vital 'in'.

Good work Fella.

I've had a scoot over at the bbc site, and read up all the tributes. All the people who knew him can come up with better things to say than me. The big one that stood out for me, was this one.

"People used to ask him how he kept going, but it never occurred to him to stop.

He made us realise that you did not have to mellow with age - music could continue to mean as much to us now as it always did. "

Mark Radcliffe said that.

I think that's a really cool example to set, that instead of stagnanting with age and settling down into lazy bigotry with a copy of the daily mail, you can still be ferreting out cool shit in grotty record stores.

Good Work Fella.

And whilst I was reading all of the stuff about him, and gaining more and more respect for him, I found out that he was incredibly important to not only Punk, a big thing for me when I was growing up, but also to Hip Hop as well, a really big thing to me now.

Good Work Fella.

*come on, you knew I had to fit that in somewhere.