Douglas and the BBC

douglas p. regularly contributes entertaining bits & pieces to the death in june mailinglist about his musical experiences. like this one today, about the john peel session he did in 1978 with crisis, his first group together with tony wakeford:
“Before the days of the Strange Fruit label, who went on to issue tons of John Peel sessions by various groups and who oddly enough had a Woking P.O. Box number, I had spoken to the BBC and had worked out a brilliant deal with them that as they had repeated the session twice on the John Peel Show we could buy the recordings off of them for the bargain price of 100 British Pounds per track. Even in 1979 this was extremely cheap considering that these were recorded in the BBC studios in Maider Vale, London with an inhouse producer (Mick Robinson) and 2 studio engineers catering for our every need including helping to hump the equipment around! To a group that had only a few weeks previously been carrying our own guitars and amps over Waterloo Bridge to The Roxy Club in Covent Garden because we could only afford to get to that gig by train we had landed in Heaven! Plus there was great and super cheap BBC food – I jest not!! All very civilized and all very inspiring for a group of blokes aged between 18-22.”