Mark Whitby - The Festive Fifty

The Festive Fifty

Mark Whitby

Revised Edition - Fully Updated

Mark Whitby 2015. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, in any form or in any means, without permission from the author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages for the purpose of a review.

First published in 2005

This edition published in 2015 by Unwashed Territories

This book is dedicated to all of those John Peel fans at Dandelion Radio and on the Peel Yahoo Group and elsewhere - whose tireless efforts to keep his musical legacy alive are a constant inspiration

CONTENTS

About the author

Mark Whitby was born in 1965 and lives in the north-west of England with his wife and two children. He first began listening to the John Peel show in 1978 and by 1983 had realised that his infatuation with the festive fifty was at a dangerously obsessive level. Following involvement with music in a variety of ways as a promoter of a venue, occasional DJ on community radio and some half-arsed attempts to be in a band he joined the team running Dandelion Radio in 2007 and now runs a blog devoted to new music and a small digital record label, both called Unwashed Territories. All of the above was fired by a fascination for the John Peel show and the music he was introduced to as a consequence, so it would leave a pretty big hole in his life if it had never been there, which might go some way towards explaining why he puts himself through, and even enjoys, the process of updating and revising the information in this book every so often.

Twitter - @markwdandelion

www.facebook.com/mark.whitby.923

Acknowledgements :

In updating this book, Im extremely grateful to members of the Peel Yahoo Group both for supplying a constantly fascinating and helpful archive of Peel-related information and past shows. Ken Garners work in rescuing the 1977 chart from historical oblivion has been invaluable, as has his book The Peel Sessions and the mine of information therein. Massive thanks go to Dandelion Radio and particularly those who put in so much work in to launch the station and who continue to strive to continue the true legacy of John Peel; also, of course, for continuing the great tradition of the festive fifty

Adapting a book like this for digital reading inevitably involves some formatting challenges and this is particularly evident in the Records & Statistics section of the book. After several days of working on this, I have to confess that I eventually got to the stage where I had to accept that the re-formatting from the original paperback presented difficulties that somebody with my limited IT skills couldnt address fully. Ive done my best, but Im aware that the formatting of this section remains a little wobbly in parts and I can only hope it doesnt spoil your enjoyment of the book.

Mark Whitby

Introduction

A lot of people I know seem slightly bewildered that Im prepared to put myself through the inevitably lengthy process that leads to putting these books out. Perhaps its odd that I dont find the ideal of listening to and reading about a lot of music that I love a particularly difficult ordeal, in fact if I had my way Id probably devote pretty much all my time to those pursuits, pausing only to watch the occasional game of football. Having this mentality, it was I suppose inevitable that the gap between the first edition of this book, which hit an either interested or indifferent public with not much in between in 2005, and now, would start to make me fidgety. It gnawed at me that so much from the original book had become out of date and that there were also some nagging omissions and errors that had left me with so many troubled nights sleep that I really couldnt go on without doing something about them. I suspect therell be similar obstacles to my sleep patterns after this book sees the light of day, though hopefully not as many, but in any case no doubt the process will have to begin before too long.

It seems to me, anyway, that the most important reason for putting together a book about the festive fifty is simply that there are so many fine bands that appeared in it that got, and continue to get, an unreasonably small amount of recognition. While I cant promise to remedy that injustice fully, I can at least hopefully bring as many of these bands as possible to the attention of more people. As the festive fifties broadcast from 2006 on Dandelion Radio have featured many more such bands or artists, the impulse to update the work became increasingly irresistible. Of course, the churlish (and perhaps even the not so churlish) may point out that there are loads of great bands that didn't make the festive fifty, which is of course true and I'd like to have the time to write a book about a lot of them too. We can, however, at least cover the music that, at a particular time, meant enough to enough people with the good taste to listen to an innovative and challenging radio show for them to go to the trouble to vote for it at the end of the year. Which for me seems a worthwhile thing to do.

The first edition of The Festive Fifty was published in 2005 and had a much greater impact on my life than Id anticipated. Not because it made money or brought any other material benefits - it sold moderately, to an audience of committed John Peel fans or affected the trajectory of what might be loosely termed any career ambitions I might once have had. The impact it had on my life was a much more important one in that it brought me into contact with a wide range of people for whom the John Peel show in general and the Festive Fifty in particular had been a central part of life.

At the time, a greater concern for me was not, anyway, the fate of my book but iabout what form the Festive Fifty might continue, and what form the John Peel legacy might take, if any at all. At the time the signs werent good, although, following John Peels untimely passing in October 2005, Radio One initially filled the slot with its One Music DJs, Huw Stephens, Rob Da Bank and Ras Kwarme, with a briefing to seek out and air new music in a style akin to that of the late, great Peel.

I was relieved when the three took up the mantle of the Festive Fifty at the end of 2006, but again their approach to that seemed somehow alien to the spirit of Peel and bereft of any genuine attempt to acquaint themselves with the legacy they were continuing. While Peel had often sounded, however unconvincingly, reluctant in his references to the voting period, restricting himself to announcements between the more important business of playing good music, there seemed something almost contrived about the approach that year and the somewhat giddy presentation of the results. The Radio One website at the time included a page with the DJs personal favourites on, as if it was considered necessary to provide listeners with prompts of the kind of things they ought to be voting for. Perhaps someone at the BBC thought such a policy necessary, but clearly its an approach that Peel would have baulked at, and quite rightly.

The countdown was broadcast with enthusiasm and evident respect for its origins by Stephens and Da Bank, but I strongly suspected that this was the last we would hear of it. Although the BBC accepted and used the amendments I suggested to what was then a horrendously accurate section on the festive fifty on their Keeping It Peel pages, they wished to have no connection with my book, sayings its content was not directly related to its programme content. Which suggested there was no clear attachment on behalfof the corporation to the idea of the festive fifty or, you suspectd, the legacy of Peel. Whatever the undoubted enthusiasm of Da Bank and Stephens for the task of picking up the Peel mantel, One Music in itself had always seemed a fairly half-hearted idea on the part of the BBC, a self-conscious and tokenistic nod in the direction of new music and I assumed its days were numbered.