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The celebrated late broadcaster John Peel's support of the band was instrumental in A Witness gaining appeal beyond the Manchester circuit.
Get the facts on the sessions and read bassist Vince Hunt's memories of recording for John Peel below.  It was, of course, a big thing to be asked to record a session for John Peel.
We'd been playing live as a three-piece for about a year and our sound had developed to the point where we were tight and punchy so we made our way to Maida Vale that Sunday in 1985 feeling very positive.
All four of the songs were in our live set and were well-rehearsed, so it was just things like tweaking the drum machine and getting the mix right that bothered us. Oh, and giving the fourth song a title - we made up "Smelt Like A Pedestrian" in the canteen during a break.
So we headed back home and early in the New Year Peel played the session on the show. I remember he rang me shortly afterwards to tell me a story about a meeting he had with the then-controller of Radio 1, Johnny Beerling. He'd met him in a lift the day after playing our session, and Beerling said to him, "Who was that you had on last night? They were terrible". Peel said he'd defended us, then said to me, "When Johnny Beerling said that to me, I knew I was doing something right."
There were just the three of us on that session, with the drum machine, a Drumatix TR 606. Alan Brown came in as drummer for the second session (with a number of noms des plumes, as he'd done Peel sessions with the Inca Babies and Big Flame already).
We'd spent 1986 making our first album I Am John's Pancreas then touring in Germany and Holland with Alan and Big Flame, so he knew the songs well. We'd met Peel out in Germany, when he visited Oberhausen to visit a friend of his, and we were the 'Ron Johnson pop-noise tour', so we met up with him at the gig and went for a meal afterwards, spending the night having a really good laugh with him. I wrote "Faglane Morris Wind" on the ferry over to France and we worked the song out at soundchecks, recording the football pools numbers on "Raw Patch" in my car on the way down to Maida Vale. By now I was getting used to being rung up by John Walters or Peel, even though it was still a bit surreal. There was a gap of a year before our third session, which coincided with me having to get a job after two years running the band off my giro and our gigs and the Ron Johnson label going to the wall, so the Peel session came at just the right time, to keep our heads above water and to get some new stuff out. We'd done some 'label nights' around the UK, and Peel compered one which featured us, Big Flame and I think Stump, in Nottingham. Again, very strange having a laugh with a legend of broadcasting who is introducing your band live and reviewing you for the Observer.
The session was good stuff too: only Zip Up had been released, and that on the 12" "One Foot In The Groove" as first Ron Johnson and then distribution network Red Rhino collapsed, so this was a shot in the arm and a switch away from Maida Vale to the Golders' Green Hippodrome. This time Alan was listed as 'Fred Harris' because of his likeness to a popular childrens' tv presenter of the time.
My memories of the fourth session are a bit hazy because of everything that happened subsequently, but there'd been a few developments and we were trying to work round them. Alan had his Great Leap Forward project up and running and wanted to concentrate on that, so this would be his last session for us. Keith was playing with John Robb's Membranes more and more but came over from Liverpool to rehearse the songs, while Rick, Alan and I, who still lived in Manchester, got together at the practice room at Courtyard studios in Stockport to work the songs out. Rick and I had always been impressed with the way Big Flame managed to fit irregular counts into their songs, so Alan shared the secret with us and we incorporated an off-count into "Disposable Razors". I was working towards a second album, and this session - as was most bands' experience - would be a way of demoing the songs. I wrote "Helicopter Tealeaf" walking down the river Mersey near the Stretford Arndale, thus the references to Stretford in that song, which was inspired by a Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan track "Ali Molle Ali Molle Ali Dum Dum". "Prince Microwave Bollard" was a strange almost jazz-like track we'd put together in the practice room and "Life The Final Frontier" was an abstract lyrical look at the lives of people who might have "My Way" played at their funeral.
All in all it was a good session, and came at the right time as we were planning to re-launch ourselves with a new album, a session, the double Peel sessions coming out as an album - a rare honour - and a tour in November 1989 supporting the Wedding Present.
Instead we found ourselves at a funeral, and gathering round radios as Peel announced the news of Rick's death and played "Zip Up" as a tribute. I have done many hard things in my life, but I won't forget having to ring Peel up and tell him that one of my best friends was dead. He was really nice about it. Thanks for that, Peel, and thanks for the sessions. They - and you - made a big difference. Vince Hunt For more information see the John Peel: Artist A-Z on the BBC's website. |