On 10 June 1980 the first Wah! Heat Peel session was broadcast for the first time. Where I actually was: my sisterās flat, recording it off the radio. In those days most people had no means of recording in good quality stereo off the radio; and when you recorded for the BBC you couldnāt have copies. You had to wait and hear it on the radio like everyone else.
John Peel always claimed not to listen to the sessions in advance, so that he heard them at the same time as the listeners did, and his unrehearsed reactions came out after each track. He absolutelyĀ loved this session and raved about each track in turn. After Otherboys [which starts at 13:54 in the YouTube video] he saidĀ āI canāt tell you, you know, how much pleasure it gives me to be able to play something like that on the radio for the first time.ā In my opinion itās the greatest thing Wylie has ever recorded and those 4 minutes 18 seconds are probably the thing in my whole life Iām second-proudest of, after my son.
He played Seven Minutes To Midnight a wee bit early, and at the end said the title and thenĀ āItās actually, uhm, four minutes to midnight.ā
Also on the show was the first play of the brilliantĀ Bankrobber by The Clash - next day the rest of us were raving about it and Wylie was moaning that the Clash shouldnāt be making records like that.
The photos are from the recording session at BBC Studios in Maida Vale, 19 May 1980 - the day after Ian Curtis died, although we didnāt know that then. The first one obviously shows Wylie pretending to do his lead vocals. Sorry Rob Jones (drummer) - youāre not in any of the pictures, but credit for taking the one of the rest of us, well after midnight, waiting for Wylie to finish tinkering. L to R: King Bluff (front), me, Tempo (road manager) and Washington.Ā
