So, some bright chap decided it would be a ripper wheeze to post 458 of John Peel’s shows on Soundcloud. For those of us of a certain age, this is manna from heaven. You pretty much have to resort to cliche when describing John Peel’s influence. He was the kindly uncle who took us under his wing and played us strange, wonderful, charming, ugly, quirky, alien, familiar, and most of all different music. And The Fall. I have no idea what my musical tastes would be without him. Sure, we grew apart in later years, after he got shoved around the schedules, my adult life taking me to places and situations where it was hard to catch up with him (and I am a lazy sod), but when he died, he left a hole in million’s of people’s lives.

And with the wondrous modern world of interconnectedness and sharing and whathaveyou, he’s back.

And with the less wondrous modern world of lawyers, Cease And Desist orders, the Web Sherriff, DMRA and DMCA and all those lovely acronyms hiding sharpsuited record label execs who have watched their easy money go sailing off into the distance on a sea of fibre-optic cable (note to self: this bit needs work), he’s gone again. In one day.

Which is all pretty sad. Wouldn’t it be nice if, just for once, the people with the lawyers disappeared for a while and just let us normal folk listen to music, reminisce, then go out and buy some of the marvellous records he played?

Cheerio, Peelie, it was fun having you around again, even if for just a day.

MP3: Teenage Kicks by The Undertones

Buy “Teenage Kicks – The Very Best Of The Undertones” (CD/MP3)