Listening To The John Peel Sessions

Here is a very long list of YT links to John Peel sessions. Also this. Peel was a legendary and iconoclastic British disc jockey who introduced his listeners to dozens of unknown, unsigned and non-mainstream bands — many of whom became quite well-known.

Peel recalled discovering the Ramones’ first album in 1976:

At that time almost all the new bands [were] comprised of people who had previously been in successful bands who had broken up then reformed. . . . Well, I played the first Ramones LP — it was identical to the first time I had heard Little Richard — the intensity was frightening! So I played five or six tracks on the next show and immediately I received mail from people demanding that I never play stuff like that again. Whenever that happens I always go in the opposite direction, so I played more and it was great! It was a classic case of changing courses in mid-stream and in a month the average age of the audience dropped by 10 years and the whole social class changed — which I was very pleased about.