A new festival has been named in honour of the late DJ and new music champion, John Peel.
The first ever John Peel Festival of New Music is set to take place from October 11th-13th in Norwich and will be hosted by the Norwich Sound and Vision convention. The three day event will feature performances from around 50 bands at ten venues across the city.
Norwich Arts Centre director, Stuart Hobday has commented on the festival, saying:
"The festival is making a statement for new music. Nostalgia in music, particularly in live music, is all over the place with bands reforming. Each of these acts that we all liked from the past were a new band at some point trying to elbow their way in and that is what John Peel represented – getting that new music through to people."
John Peel's widow, Sheila Ravenscroft, has also expressed her pleasure at the Norwich Arts Centre keeping "the spirit and legacy of John's passion alive".
Meanwhile, John Peel's record collection is currently in the process of being released online. The names of 2,600 albums of the broadcaster's cherished record collection are being released as part of a project called 'The Space', run by The John Peel Centre in Stowmarket, which aims to recreate Peel's home studio and library online.
Peel, who died in 2004, had a collection of about 25,000 vinyl albums. Every week, the museum is expanding its virtual museum by adding the names of another 100 albums in alphabetical order. Although copyright prevents the website streaming the albums online, there will be links to listen elsewhere. There will also be detailed information about each record, taken from Peel's personal notes.