I know none of this is military related, but I do own several "Peel session" CDs of great bands who played on Peel's radio program...
During the early years of BBC Radio 1 (1967-), the broadcasting of music in the UK was governed by an arcane Musicians' Union rule, 'needletime', which prescribed the amount of recorded music that radio stations were allowed to transmit. Only able to play a limited number of records per day, the Corporation's new pop station was desperately in need of live music to fill its airtime, so many of its programmes, including Peel's, had to include some kind of 'live' performance recorded by the BBC.
'Needletime' has since been abolished, but the tradition of live sessions on Radio 1 is still going strong; most famous of these are the Peel sessions. Bands are invited to spend a day recording at the BBC's Maida Vale studios with a BBC producer/engineer. The resulting session is broadcast a few weeks later on John Peel's Radio 1 programme.
Many of the bands who have been invited to record sessions for Peel have gone on to become rich, bloated and famous, but a far greater number haven't. Peel's keen ear for originality coupled with the fact that as a public service broadcaster he is in a position to feature bands on the radio without regard to their popularity or prospects for commercial success mean that a Peel session often gives exposure to unique bands and musicians who otherwise would not get to be heard.
The enthusiasm and inclusiveness of Peel's programme represents the antithesis of playlist committee radio, and is glaringly at odds with the conservative music policy of daytime Radio 1. With the encroaching homogeneity of big-business music, radio playlist policy dominated by commercial interests, and in the absence of a truly adventurous music press, Peel's is one of the few programmes where you can discover music which sounds like nothing you have heard before.
Sorry to see him go, may he rest in rock & roll heaven...
Cheers! M2