Saturdays
11AM-2PM [Eastern US time]
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"The
Perfumed Garden" was originally the title of a sixteenth century Tunisian
sex manual that devoted an entire chapter to "The Sundry Names Given to the
Sexual Parts of Man," of which "the expectorant," "the
one-eyed," "the odd headed" and "the extinguisher of
passion" are a few of the more colorful ones. But that's not why I chose
the name.
For three months in the Spring of 1967 in Swinging London, a young disk jockey
by the name of John
Peel did an overnight radio show on a pirate radio station called Radio
London aboard a ship off the coast of Essex. He called his program "The
Perfumed Garden" and was among the first to champion adventurous,
underground, psychedelic music by the likes of Jefferson Airplane, Captain
Beefheart, Pink Floyd, T. Rex, Velvet Underground, Traffic, The Dead and
numerous other fledgling artists who have since become household names. After
the British government shut down the pirate stations, Peel joined the BBC, where
he continued to champion new, unusual, and independent artists until his
untimely death on October 25, 2004. One of my favorite Peel quotes: Somebody
was trying to tell me that CDs are better than vinyl because they don't have any
surface noise. I said, "Listen, mate, life has surface noise."
In my many years of jockeying disks, I have always yearned to be able to help
bring little or unknown artists to a wider audience; the premise being that
folks might like to step outside the MTV-fed fodder and journalistic
hyperventilations masquerading as best sellers. You know what I mean: the
Quantity (number of units sold) = Quality (so they must be great) mentality.
John Peel rose above that. So, in tribute to my favorite DJ and biggest
inspiration, I've decided to respectfully borrow the title of his show as my
own.
Each week, we'll dip into rock and roll's illustrious history and bring you some
of my favorite selections from the sixties to the "naught"ies. For
those of you who don't think that "classic rock" is all that bad,
we'll feature some recognizable names that you probably have buried in the
secret "guilty pleasure" section of your record collection down in the
basement. We'll listen to psychedelic treasures, prog monsters, lost AM-radio
faves and new stuff from artists you may never have heard of, but we'll check
them out together and maybe discover some new favorites.
We'll
even pay frequent visits to the Psychedelicatessen, where we'll wash down some
"head" cheese with a "Psychedelic Psyxpak" from my magic bag
of trips. And if we're really feeling adventurous, every once in a while,
I'll whip out my big 12 inches - some of those groaningly awful "extended
play" versions of white disco, new romantic, puffy-shirted music from my
"I Love the 80's" collection.
So drop by each Saturday and share my musical tastes and see how much we have in
common after all.
Playlists for The Perfumed Garden
2007
2006
2005