The first time I heard of David Peel was when I was 16 or 17 years old, still in high school, and I happened upon a copy of the “King Of Punk” LP at a record store. Even at that age I already assumed that if you find a record like that, with that kind of handmade cover, with that kind of shitty artwork, and those kinds of song titles AND it’s in perfect condition AND it’s only $5…it probably sucks. My idea of a “King of Punk” was not someone who hung out with John Lennon and he certainly wouldn’t pen a song called “Marijuana”. That was hippie shit. This guy was clearly no Darby Crash. The record sat in the bin and collected dust. I would see it all the time and the fact that no one else bought it just confirmed my suspicion that it probably sucked. So..imagine my shock one day as I was admiring a GG Allin 7″ in another shop when I realized the “Orange Records” logo on the GG 7″ was the same one on the back of that LP with the xerox cover I had passed over time and time again. So, I finally bought it, brought it home, put the needle on the record and thought, “WOW I really want my $5 back.” Was this guy making fun of the Ramones? Was this a joke I didn’t get? Will the guy at the store laugh in my face if I tell him I don’t like it? Is it actually awesome and I just don’t “get it”? I filed it away. Lesson learned: don’t buy something unless someone cooler than you tells you to do so. And if that person is Thurston Moore, check with a few more people before parting with your money.
Fast forward a few years and I had gone from pretending to like the MC5 and the Stooges and the Velvet Underground just to impress people that told me I was supposed to like them, to actually really liking them. Shortly after moving out on my own, around 1995, I moved in with a guy who was a little older than me, a lot more knowledgeable about music and just insane enough to keep things entertaining. He would wake me up at 3am to play me Fred Frith records and tell me he wanted to get a Skeleton Crew tattoo. He often mentioned the “NWW list” and I was too embarrassed to ask what it was. One day, out of the blue, he walked into my room and handed me his copy of “Pink Flag” by Wire and said, “Hey man, you play this alot more than I ever will. You can just have it.” Then, later that night, he woke me up at 1am, drunk, and begged me to drive him across town for a one night stand, promising I could use his car for a week if I did so. It was a small price to pay for a record I still cherish to this day. So, this guy, with this insane record collection and excellent taste, really took me by surprise one day when, while browsing my puny LP collection, he pulled out the David Peel LP and said, “Whoa! Where did you get this?” I (of course) played it cool and acted like it was an old favorite of mine. He began to tell me stories of meeting Peel at shows on the LES in New York when he had gone to visit a friend who had moved there to start a band in the early 90’s. He may have claimed to have shared drugs with him or someone close to him, I don’t remember the details, just that every tale he told of trips to New York involved him somehow being around heroin. Peel was like a god to my roommate, and the things that seemed to impress him most about Peel didn’t sound very “punk” to me at all. Peel sounded like someone who would have hung around Abbie Hoffman and bragged about being at Woodstock or lived at that weird frat house at Wesleyan. I still didn’t get it. My roommate assured me he’d connect the dots for me and eventually he did. I think it was his playing me the Electric Eels 7″ on Rough Trade for the first time that suddenly made things ‘click”, and before I knew it I wasn’t just playing that David Peel record to impress him..I actually loved it. I liked something “Weird” that didn’t fit into whatever I thought “punk” was. I think after that, his copies of “Metallic ‘KO”, “Contact High With the Godz”, “Loaded” and a few others opened my eyes even further to what “punk” could be. My brain was overloaded with all of this new information because years prior the older teenage ne’er-do-well that lived next door to my family had given me a cassette of GG Allin songs and told me to hide it from my parents because it was “illegal” to own.
The last time I remember thinking about Peel was one of the few times I took a walk down to Zuccotti Park in Manhattan during the Occupy Wall Street protests in the winter of 2011(?). Exactly as I suspected, it was by that time a sea of iPhones/iPads, lazy drumming and protest signs that were apparently clever to someone somewhere. That night, I had the good fortune to happen upon Peel and some friends playing music, talking to the media, and what seemed more like celebrating than protesting. I sort of wished I had said “Hi” and that I was a fan, but I didn’t think I had much more to say than that, and I didn’t do so when I had the chance. Years later I saw that Peel was taking part in the anniversary celebration of the Tompkins Square Park riots of 1988, which I had watched at home on the news as a 13 year old. I didn’t make it to the anniversary, and before I knew it, just a few years later in 2017, I saw a post on Facebook that said Peel had suffered a heart attack and had passed away at age 73. I had just finished reading the book “St. Marks Is Dead” by Ada Calhoun which brought back a lot of memories of what I imagined people like Peel’s lives had been in NYC years before I had moved there.
Every so often I still come across a record released on Orange that I’ve never seen before. Most recently it was a 45 single by The Squirrels called ‘Hey You’ from (I’m guessing) the late 70’s, produced by Peel himself using (I can only guess) a single microphone strategically placed very far from the drummer, or possibly INSIDE his snare drum. The band sports matching embroidered “Squirrels” varsity jackets on the sleeve which makes me wonder if they existed at a point in time when the Sex Pistols were still a popular curiosity but Van Halen had not yet divided the jocks and the punks, nerds and burnouts at their school. What is now known as “60’s garage” was probably a reference point for these guys and the recording quality straddles the line between 60’s or 70’s lo-fi “proto-punk” and DIY punk/hard rock productions. Too raw to appeal to the power pop crowd and too Beatles-appreciative to end up on the KBD mouth-breathers’ want lists.
Another Orange Records pick up not too long ago was an LP by a band called Mozarts People called “This Is Mozarts People”. I actually found two copies, both sealed, at a junk shop in Brooklyn, NY that nowadays always seems to be more frequented by junkies looking to sell stuff rather than record sniffers like myself. No idea who would have dropped these off there but I wasn’t surprised to find them. Peel was a very appreciated figure in the five boroughs for a long time and I can’t imagine not happening upon new relics of his legacy as long as I keep keeping an eye out for them. I’ve dug a bit online looking for info on this LP and there isn’t much out there aside from this astute review which references a few other artists I am not familiar with. Honestly, I like the music on this LP much more as a curiosity than anything. The history of this band, what their points of reference may have been at the time musically, and where they wanted to fit in as a NYC band in the age of CBGB’s, Max’s, Blondie, Suicide, disco, downtown jazz etc etc is a mystery to me. If I had to guess, I wouldn’t be surprised to find some Alice Cooper, NY Dolls or maybe even some Cars or Journey records in their closets. If I knew more about them I probably wouldn’t be as interested as I am. It’s another piece of a puzzle that I’ve spent years trying to put together in my head: What’s the difference between punk and glam? Glam and hard rock? Power-pop and pop punk? And where does psych fit in? Did anyone care about any of this back then as much as we seem to now? Judging by the Orange Records discography, David Peel sure didn’t.
