I am happy to announce that this PeakeCast website is up and running again! It offers up ten unique radio shows that Thomas produced while at WREK, and as you might expect the music is as varied as WREK’s programming itself. Saccharine Trust, Television, Mecca Normal, Loren Mazzacane, Neon Christ, Rock*A*Teens … But most important is that you get to hear Thomas’s happy voice, and hear his love for the music.
Dave and I set this site up in September 2009, and then over the next few years mined the tape archive that Thomas had left behind to produce these new digital versions. The website went down several years ago, and today I have completed restoring it.
The site is still a bit rough around the edges, and I’ll improve it with time, but at least it’s back up.
In mid 1996, Thomas conducted telephone interviews with the members of The Rock*A*Teens, a band that had just electrified the Atlanta music scene with their debut album. This was for an article to be run in Chemical Imbalance, an indie/underground zine of the time published by Mike McGonigal in Tennessee.
In the order they appear on the tapes, you will hear Thomas interviewing band members Chris Lopez, Justin Hughes, Chris Verene and Kelly Hogan. Besides the usual band topics, the conversation careens between guitar tech, Vietnamese pop music, “magic bass”, and some reactionary nonsense that some 96 Rock DJs had apparently recently hurled towards the band and Cabbagetown. Be forewarned that there are some casual obscenities used.
You might also be interested in a feature article that Creative Loafing did this past summer, on the occasion of the first reunion shows, entitled “The Rock*A*Teens: An Oral History”. The Rock*A*Teens are playing another show on Saturday, December 13th at 529 in East Atlanta.
Welcome to Episode Nine of the PeakeCast, the Thomas Peake memorial podcast. This time, we have a mixtape from Thomas’s killer cassette collection, containing a variety of 7-inch singles. Pictured here is the cassette label, in Thomas’s handwriting:
As you can see, it contains a mix of music styles, from the weirdo rock of Mecca Normal, Daniel Johnston and Half Japanese on Side A, to the straight ahead punk rock of Neon Christ, the Didjits and Jawbreaker on Side B (full playlist is transcribed below). We don’t know if these were singles that Thomas owned, or if he was taking advantage of at WREK’s studios, but clearly by putting them on tape he was able to enjoy them more often, and now we can too! A complete listing of the artists and songs can be found below.
We’re posting this in early October, in recognition of Thomas’s birthday, and we have a couple more episodes on deck for later this month, including a 1996 interview with the members of the Rock-A-Teens. Enjoy!
Playlist: Mecca Normal – Strong White Male Mecca Normal – More More More Mecca Normal – Man Thinks Woman Mecca Normal – Forlorn Mecca Normal – He Didn’t Say Kevin Dunn – Nadine Kevin Dunn – Oktyabrina Half Japanese – Something New In The Ring Great Plains – Cave In Daniel Johnston – Casper The Friendly Ghost Mofungo – Voting Is For Suckers Galaxie 500 – Oblivious The Dave – Three Coins In A Fountain* The Dave – Fair Queen Cadence* The Jody Grind – Senor Don Gatos* Dairy Queen Empire – Untitled (Rubber Dolly)* (* from Lowlife #16 compilation) Sister Ray – Psychosis Sister Ray – Bathroom Blues Neon Christ – Draft Song Neon Christ – Winding / Bad Influence Neon Christ – Neon Christ Neon Christ – Parental Suppression Neon Christ – Doom Neon Christ – After Neon Christ – It’s Mine Neon Christ – The Knife That Cuts So Deep Neon Christ – Ashes To Ashes Neon Christ – Blind Patriot Neon Christ – The Death They’ll Give You Didjits – 1 Dead Hippy Didjits – Goodbye Mr. Policeman Mr. T Experience – So Long, Sucker Mr. T Experience – Zero Egg Hunt – We All Fall Down Jawbreaker – Busy Egg Hunt – Me And You Jawbreaker – Equalized
Steve Rhee with Thomas; photo by Thom Osburn via Facebook
This episode brings us a WREK Sunday Special that Thomas did in September 1996, featuring the duo Mecca Normal. One of Thomas’ most beloved bands ever, he had actually been graduated out of Georgia Tech and done with WREK for a couple years when this duo (Jean Smith on vocals and David Lester on guitar) made a rare tour appearance in Atlanta, compelling Thomas to come back to the studio just to do this show.
In fact, Thomas played host to the band on their Atlanta visit, and interviewed them for an article in Stomp and Stammer. Jean Smith has her tour diaries and notes online, and has several excerpts from the article that Thomas wrote:
Mecca Normal’s aesthetic body politic shares a rare ability, a la Czech novelist-in-self-imposed-exile Milan Kundera — to make the political personal. … Lester’s guitars are as inventive as ever. Gracefully attacking and lulling, he has captured Smith’s emotional range in strings.
We’re now one full year into this podcast, and loving it immensely.
By the way, if you haven’t already heard about the Beautify the Beltline project being conducted on the morning of Saturday October 9th, in memory of Thomas, please see the previous episode.
In this episode of the Thomas Peake Memorial Podcast, we offer up a “regular shift” — Thomas doing a 90-minute Atmospherics block on June 5th, 1992. Atmospherics is the name of a programming block on WREK that airs right after midnight every weeknight, offering up ambient and electronic sounds — in the parlance of Thomas, “mutant space blues, resonating stones, exotic foreign acoustic music”. It started as a weekly specialty show in the late 80s (hosted by Dan Leithauser) and then expanded to the nightly block. You can hear the care and enthusiasm that Thomas put into all of his on-air time, and also you can hear him stepping aside to let the trainees (“dummy ops”) run the board for bit.
This tape comes to us courtesy of Dena Peake; Thomas had recorded this show for some reason. It does have some of his favorites on it, including Neil B. Rolnick, to whom Thomas would dedicate an entire Sunday Special a year later.
As mentioned in the intro to this episode, there is a Beautify the Beltline project being conducted on October 9, 2010, in memory of Thomas. Coordinated by Dena, it will run from 9am to noon, and participants will meet up at The Depot at 904 Memorial Drive.
Playlist:
“Loopy” by Neil B. Rolnick from album “Solos”
“Among Icebergs” by Jay Greinke
“Rain” by The Judgment of Paris
“Evening Song” by The Guo Brothers and Shung Tian
— voice break
“Fortune” by Felt from album “Crumbling Antiseptic Beauty”
“Bydlo (Mussogorsky)” by Tomita
“Canopy” by Kit Watkins
— voice break (with dummy op, apparently)
“Voyager” by Jay Scott Perry (?)
“The Wind and All This Noise” by Lonely Universe
“Agua e Vinho” by Egberto Gismonti
— voice break (dummy op, still learning)
“Playing The Bridge For Heaven” by C. W. Vrtacek
“Rosindo El Post” (?) by Arawi, The Contemporary Orchestra of Native Instruments
“As the Bell Rings the Maypole Spins” by Dead Can Dance from album “Aion”
“Roots III” by Wagner Tiso
“Miss Noble” by Nicholas Blanton from album “Ways Upon Bells”
— voice break, with a different dummy op
“The Hole To Heaven” by Randy Greif from compilation Dry Lungs II
“Ballerinas of Manaus” by Monochrome Bleu from compilation Dry Lungs II
“More Dust” (Herbert Brun) by Cincinnati Percussion Group from a box set on Opus One Records
photo by Michael Russell / Lovette Russell via Facebook
Almost exactly 20 years ago, on July 22nd, 1990, Thomas did a WREK “Sunday Special” on Guitar Roberts, aka Loren Mazzacane Connors (see Wikipedia entry and his website). Thomas loved his sparse, atmospheric, bluesy meanderings, and listening to this makes for a serene and contemplative experience.
In a nice coincidence, old friends Andrew Burnes and Neel Murgai played with Connors just last month. Andrew and Neel also hosted specialty shows on WREK, and in fact one of our future PeakeCast episodes will be of Thomas substituting for Andrew on his Strung Out guitar show …
Thomas contributes a minimum of chatter to this one. Playlist is transcribed below. Enjoy!
“TB Blues” (Jimmie Rodgers) from album Blues Master 2
“Kath’s Blues” from the Pushin’ up Daisies 7″ EP (1982)
Prelude #1 from album In Pittsburgh (1996)
“Excerpt from Part 2” from album Solo Acoustic Guitar, Volume 6 (1980)
Wee Wee Hours (Chuck Berry)
“Little Tree” (feat. Kath Bloom) from the Pushin’ Up Daisies 7″ EP (1982)
“Blues #5, #6 and #7” from Blues: The Dark Paintings Of Mark Rothko (1990)
Dena and Thomas; photo by Karmen Nale Thornton (via Facebook)
This episode is a Sunday Special that Thomas Peake recorded at WREK on August 25, 1991. The show features the music of Television as a band and Tom Verlaine solo. This was another show digitized from the archives of Thomas, graciously lent to the project by Dena Peake. You can also download the PDF scan of the original playlist sheet for your informational pleasure. Co-host was Greg Edwards.
As always, we are the lookout for any recordings that can be discovered of the last great Brother Peake. If you find any of these recordings, please let us know at submit@peakecast.org. Also, please leave us any feedback or comments on the shows. This project exists to be of service to those who knew, loved, were fans of and miss Thomas Peake. Let us know how we’re doing and how we can be of service to you. And don’t forget the Peake Foundation!
This episode is a Sunday Special that Thomas Peake recorded at WREK on December 22, 1991. The show features the music of Joe Baiza – solo, in Saccharine Trust but focusing on Universal Congress Of. This was digitized from the archives of Thomas himself, graciously lent to the project by Dena Peake.
As always, we are the lookout for any recordings that can be discovered of the last great Brother Peake. If you find any of these recordings, please let us know at submit@peakecast.org. Also, please leave us any feedback or comments on the shows. This project exists to be of service to those who knew, loved, were fans of and miss Thomas Peake. Let us know how we’re doing and how we can be of service to you. And don’t forget the Peake Foundation!
Glenn Peake, Arthur Davis and Thomas Peake, 1996; photo by Elisabeth McKnight
This episode is one of Personality Crisis that Thomas Peake and Arthur Davis did at WREK on December 10, 1995. This was a fill-in episode with them covering for Jon Kincaid. Amusingly in the introduction they have no idea where Jon is or why they are filling in, but they cover nonetheless. This was digitized as the first of many shows to come from the archives of Thomas himself, lent to the project by Dena Peake.
As always, we are the lookout for any recordings that can be discovered of the last great Brother Peake. If you find any of these recordings, please let us know at submit@peakecast.org. Also, please leave us any feedback or comments on the shows. This project exists to be of service to those who knew, loved, were fans of and miss Thomas Peake. Let us know how we’re doing and how we can be of service to you. And don’t forget the Peake Foundation!
Update: Here are scans of the sheet that was included with the cassette, which is the playlist itself and a flyer for the 1995 Shaking Ray Levis Snake Oil Festival.
This episode is a Sunday Special that Thomas did at WREK on September 3, 2000 in honor of the life and music of Witt Mills, who had died in a kayaking accident not long before. Thomas was joined in the studio by Shane Pringle, Tony Gordon and Brendan Digel. This included a lot of music that would later end up on the compilation Dust Collection Agency (still in print and available at that link.)
We continue to scour the Peake-osphere for tapes, CDs and any other representation of the man in audio form. Dena Peake has graciously lent a treasure trove of cassettes to the project and we’ll be publishing those over the course of the coming year. If you find any of these recordings, please let us know at submit@peakecast.org. Also, please leave us any feedback or comments on the shows. This project exists to be of service to those who knew, loved, were fans of and miss Thomas Peake. Let us know how we’re doing and how we can be of service to you. And don’t forget the Peake Foundation!
This is an hour that Thomas did on the air for the WREK for the alumni weekend on July 18, 2004. This weekend was a celebration to commemorate the move from the old studios in the colosseum to the new space in the Georgia Tech student center. This show is notable in that it more or less contains Thomas’ mission statement about his approach to music. This was unearthed by Dave Slusher and Chris Campbell from an MP3 archive of the weekend.
Please help us share Thomas’ bright-eyed wonder at the world of music by sending us your recordings of his shows, his mixtapes, whatever you’ve got!
In the menu bar above, you’ll see three important links:
the Thomas shows: an inventory of the shows that we know Thomas did; look at the list and maybe it’ll jog your memory about a recording you’ve got!
how to submit: how to get your recordings to us, so we can digitize and send back out to the world via this podcast
how to listen: how to listen to this podcast; this is especially important info if you’re new to this whole podcast thing and just want simple instructions on how to hear a show. Subscribe to us, via email or RSS, so that you’ll know when we have new shows ready to hear. Just click on “how to listen” above for instructions.
Take a look, start digging, and send us your stuff!
And stay tuned for the first episode coming tomorrow!
We’re in the early days of setting up this blog/podcast so bear with us.
The memorial for Thomas Peake will be at the Trolley Barn in the Inman Park section of Atlanta Tuesday September 29th from 6 PM to 9 PM. If you are a friend of Thomas, have recordings of him on the air at WREK or any other project he was involved with and are coming to the memorial service, please bring them with you. There will be mailer envelopes and we’ll make sure we have all the information we need to return your items to you.
In the coming weeks, we’ll get this set up and return to the internet world some of what Thomas Peake gave to us. Keep watching this space.
