The Perfumed Garden
Saturdays, 11am-2pm EST on
OK, so why
the fu-fu name. Are you one of those girly-men DJs? Actually, 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.
In my half a dozen or so years 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. Each week at "High
Noon," we'll venture into the Psychedelicatessen, where we'll wash down
some "head" cheese with the "Psychedelic Six Pack." 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.