John Peel Sessions on Strange Fruit (7-12)

Second in the series showcasing the original STRANGE FRUIT 12" Vinyl releases of single artist PEEL SESSIONS. The first pressings of these came in a leather feel embossed sleeve. The front of each release plastered with an extensive list of bands that had at one time or other recorded a session (or sessions) for John Peels BBC Radio 1 show. The rear of each sleeve giving information about the particular session (Band, Tracks, timing, recording date, transmission date and personnel)
The images here are the session specific rear sleeve faces. These images are SFPS007 to SFPS012.

For details of ALL the sessions recorded by BBC 1's John Peel show, follow the link below.

The Complete John Peel Sessions listings

SFPS007 Madness
The One-and-only session the nutty boys ever recorded for the Peel Show.
The origins of Madness lie in a ska group known as the Invaders, which was formed by Mike Barson, Chris Foreman, and Lee Thompson in 1976. By 1978, the band had changed their name to Morris and the Minors and had added Graham "Suggs" McPherson, Mark Bedford, Chas Smash, and Dan Woodgate to the group. Later in 1978, they changed their name to Madness, in homage to one of their favorite Prince Buster songs. The following year, Madness released their debut single, a tribute to Prince Buster entitled "The Prince," on Two-Tone. The song was a surprise success, reaching the British Top 20. Following its success, the band signed a record contract with Stiff Records and released another Prince Buster song, "One Step Beyond," which climbed to number seven.


SFPS008 Gang Of Four
The early musical adventures of Andy Gill and Jon King can be traced right back to their days at Sevenoaks School, where along with Tom Greenhalgh, Kevin Lycett and Mark White (later of the Mekons) they used to spend a lot of time in the art room (Mark's Dad was one of the art teachers). Towards the end of their time at Sevenoaks they began dabbling in music, including on one occasion playing reggae at the 'School Ball' - "somewhat to the horror of the deputy head". Paul Hubert (who I'm indebted to for this information) remembers them getting reggae played over the PA in their local pub, so it would seem that reggae was a big influence at that time. "Looking back," he says, "the combination of a certain '60s cultural and political openness, the events of the time, and a certain amount of pointless repression made the school experience quite a fertile one for left-leaning and oppositional types at the beginning of the 1970s".
Andy and Jon subsequently went to Leeds University where they met up with drummer Hugo Burnham. They formed Gang Of Four in Leeds in 1977, after recruiting Dave Allen who answered an advert for a 'bass player wanted'. After their first single in 1978, they were snapped up by EMI and released their debut album Entertainment! in 1979.

SFPS009 The Wedding Present
The Wedding Present eventually recorded a total of TWELVE sessions for John Peel! This one was the very first back in 1986.
On the 19th March 2007, Scopitones are releasing ALL of the Wedding Present sessions
http://www.scopitones.co.uk/news.htm
Sanctuary Records will be releasing all of The Wedding Present's sessions for the late John Peel on Monday 19 March 2007.
This box set effectively traces the history of The Wedding Present as much as it does their close relationship with the legendary radio presenter, who continually championed the band on his long running BBC Radio 1 show. Commencing with their first session from 1986, it introduces their trademark fast guitars and David Gedge's idiosyncratic song writing. That first session also begins a trend for the group of recording unlikely and compelling cover versions - in this case, Orange Juice's "Felicity". Elsewhere you'll hear renditions of Altered Images' "Happy Birthday" and the "White Horses" TV theme, amongst others. The Wedding Present went on to record twelve studio sessions for Peel, the last of which [in 2004] previewed songs from the then, forthcoming Take Fountain album.

SFPS010 TWA Toots
Their one and only session for the John Peel Show.
- Twa Toots was reportedly based out of Kent in the U.K.. They formed in the very early eighties.
- They were one of John Peel’s favorite bands. Twa Toots recorded a Peel Session and then seemingly disappeared into thin air for awhile.
- Sporadically they’d put out an odd single here, a tape there, break up and then repeat the process. But pretty much nobody can confirm what was on these releases… or that they really existed in the first place.
- There was one full length release by Twa Toots. Don’t Send Me Flowers was released on 1997 on Accident Records. It’s long out of print and no one can even seem to agree about what formats it might have been released on.
- Twa Toots was mostly Philippa Richmond, Sara Brown, Will Cassell and Frank Brown. Sara Brown did one EP with another twee band in the nineties under the moniker Sundress. The three songs I’ve tracked down of theirs are pretty amazing.
- They were fucking amazing.

SFPS011 The Ruts
The second of four sessions (The first being January of the same year, 1979)
The Ruts like so many were born out of a pub rock band. This one was called Hit & Run that Dave Ruffy & Paul Fox played in. Ruffy was on bass, Paul on Guitar and Paul Mattock was on drums. Malcolm Owen a friend went with them on August 1977 to a rehearsal in Rotherhithe as a singer without knowing if he could sing!! Something clicked and 4 songs came out of it. Rich Bitch, Lobotomy, I Ain't Sofisticated and Out Of Order.
In A Rut their first record was financed by Misty and had taken the band seven months to get out. With support from John Peel it sold 20,000 copies. They signed with Virgin and released Babylons Burning which rocketed them to a top 10 position. More hits followed till shockingly Malcolm Owen was discovered dead from a heroin overdose. The one thing you notice though is the vein of sadness and irony in the lyrics that runs through some of the songs most obviously 'Love In Vain','H-eyes', 'West One' and 'In a Rut'. Malcolm was a heroin user before The Ruts but turned back to it after his wife left him... Malcolm Owen died on July 14th 1980 aged 26 .

SFPS012 Siouxsie and the Banshees
The first of five sessions they recorded late 70's to early eighties, riding the first wave of UK punk. This session notable for the different version of Metal Postcard (Mittageisen). Siouxsie & the Banshees were still unsigned and, according to the U.K. music industry, unsignable, when they visited the BBC studios for the first time; an absurd state of affairs that so wholly belied the band's live and critical acclaim that, for a time, there was talk of the BBC itself releasing their first single, a straightforward rendering of their debut John Peel session. Ultimately, it never happened. The BBC hierarchy was no more enamored of the Banshees' brittle, and so controversial, approach than any other label out there. But the story still serves to remind just how powerful the band's maiden Peel session was, and the four tracks that open Voices on the Air: The Peel Sessions, recorded in December 1977 (and including a ferocious "Metal Postcard"), offer a fiery statement of intent from what became one of the key bands of the next two decades. A second session the following February wraps up the key elements of the group's early repertoire, a dry run (and in some places, superior blueprint) for what would become their debut album, The Scream. An indication of the speed at which the Banshees were developing, meanwhile, can be drawn from their next BBC offering: four songs previewing Join Hands in April 1979. "Playground Twist" is especially effective here. Two years elapsed before the band's next session (and over a decade before their final one) and the performances that conclude this disc are excellent. But they cannot be compared with what had gone before. Through the '80s and '90s, after all, the Banshees were merely making albums. At birth through the late '70s, they were making epochs. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide

Apologies for a little shaky photography in some of these images!