Au Pairs - Peel Session 1980..

Au Pairs - Peel Session 1980..
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John Robert Parker Ravenscroft OBE (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), better known as John Peel, was an English radio presenter and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original disc jockeys on BBC Radio 1, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004.
Peel was one of the first broadcasters to play psychedelic rock and progressive rock records on British radio. He is widely acknowledged for promoting artists of many genres, including pop, dub reggae, punk rock and post-punk, electronic music and dance music, indie rock, extreme metal and British hip hop. Fellow DJ Paul Gambaccini described Peel as "the most important single person in popular music from approximately 1967 through 1978. He broke more important artists than any individual."[1]
Peel's Radio 1 shows were notable for the regular "Peel Sessions", which usually consisted of four songs recorded by an artist in the BBC's studios, often providing the first major national coverage to bands that later achieved fame. The annual Festive Fifty countdown of his listeners' favourite records of the year was a notable part of his promotion of new music.[2]
Peel appeared on television occasionally as one of the presenters of Top of the Pops in the 1980s, and provided voice-over commentary for a number of BBC programmes. He became popular with the audience of BBC Radio 4 for his Home Truths programme, which ran from the 1990s, featuring unusual stories from listeners' domestic lives.
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The Au Pairs were a British post-punk band that formed in Birmingham in 1978 and continued until 1983. They produced two studio albums and three singles. Their songs were said to have "contempt for the cliches of contemporary sexual politics"[2] and their music has been compared to that of the Gang of Four and the Young Marble Giants.[3] The band was led by Lesley Woods, who was once described as "one of the most striking women in British rock".[4]

Career
Au Pairs formed in Birmingham in 1978.[5] Their first album, Playing with a Different Sex, is considered a post-punk classic, with strong, sarcastic songs such as "It's Obvious" and "We're So Cool" taking a dry look at gender relations.[5] Other songs, such as "Armagh"—with its refrain, "we don't torture"—criticized the British government's treatment of Irish Republican prisoners during the troubles in Northern Ireland.[5]

In 1980 the band were filmed live for the concert film Urgh! A Music War.

The band's second album, Sense and Sensuality (1982), showed a greater influence of jazz, soul, funk and disco on the band's sound, but was less well received.[6]

Following the departure of bassist Jane Munro in 1983, the band recruited Nick O'Connor who also played piano and synthesizers. At this time the group were further augmented by Jayne Morris (percussion and backing vocals), Graeme Hamilton (trumpet) and Cara Tivey on additional keyboards. The band were scheduled to record a third album with producer Steve Lillywhite in 1983 but broke up. Woods has intimated that the hostility and violence she and other women faced playing music was a factor in the group's demise: "There comes a point where you can’t go on any more at that level," she told Nige Tassell of The Guardian.[7]

Woods formed an all-woman band called the Darlings in the late 1980s, but then left the music industry. Now, as Lesley Longhurst-Woods, she works as a lawyer in London.[8] Guitarist Paul Foad published a guitar technique book, co-written with Stuart Ritchie, titled The Caged Guitarist (2000). Bass player Jane Munro works as an alternative therapist (aromatherapy, reflexology and Indian head massage) in Birmingham. Pete Hammond also remains an active musician and teaches percussion in Birmingham.