Looking back on it, maybe the Peel session was the best thing BDS ever did. It’s all subjective I suppose, but Cynical Smile and Life’s Demand sound great and it’s hands-down the best version of Never So Funny that we recorded. Also, Nick’s vocals sound wonderful. I never thought of him a singer per se, but there’s no question that he steps up on these songs and does a really great job.

What kind of freaks me out about the whole BDS thing is how little I remember about any of it. It’s just a blur. Shame really, but then it was long time ago. This lot were recorded on 24th Feb 1987. Hope you like ‘em:

• John Peel intro - 628kb
• Need To Love - 4.4MB
• Life’s Demand - 5.2MB
• Always Away - 4.5MB
• Cynical Smile - 5.6MB
• Never So Funny - 3.3MB

One thing I do remember clearly about this session was that I didn’t have a proper guitar amp at that point so I took along my 12W Marshal practice amp and essentially used it as a distortion pedal by plugging the guitar into it and then taking a line out of the back and sticking it into a 100W H&H bass combo that we’d scrounged from somewhere. The result was pretty good. Definitely more fizzy than any guitar sound I’ve had since, but the Beeb techies certainly did a good job in making it sound dense and powerful. Also, because the 12W is a tranny amp it has a bit of a Husker Du sound to it and it holds the individual notes really well.

BTW, while I have the floor, I’d like to thank John Hannon for giving me the “Grandfather of UK Emo” tag. Wasn’t sure how I felt about it the first time he said it, but listening back to these tracks the Embrace/One Last Wish influence is pretty obvious and I don’t think anyone else was doing that in 1986-87, so maybe he’s right. Interestingly enough I think Squirrelbait was at least as much (if not more) of an biggest influence on BDS than the DC lot, but you only have to compare Always Away with anything from Squirrelbait’s sublime Skag Heaven album to see just how far I was from the mark. It didn’t help that I could hardly play guitar, but even so, it is pretty basic. talking of which, that song and Need To Love are the two here that I can’t really listen to 20 years later. A bit basic, a bit embarassing. I was growing up in public as a songwriter that’s for sure. One minute you’re sitting in your room, writing a bunch of stupid songs about your ex-gurlfriend…next thing you know it, they’re being broadcast to a national radio audience by the best DJ in the world ever. And the funny thing is that I only just realised how weird that was. 20 years on and it finally strikes me as a bit strange.