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| - The London Arts Laboratory opened, in Drury Lane, shortly after Peel had returned to onshore life following the closedown of Radio London. It was not primarily a music venue - its founders were interested in literature, theatre, film and the visual arts - but its openness to experimental work corresponded to his own wish of the time to encourage more self-expression and communication. In Margrave of the Marshes (pp. 273-4) Sheila Ravenscroft quotes from a diary entry by Peel, dated 20 October 1967, in which he describes a visit to the Arts Lab and his "usual pangs of inferiority....In the presence of so many talented, creative and constructive people on the underground scene I feel that I'm regarded as something of a hanger-on and bore...." .
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| abstract
| - The London Arts Laboratory opened, in Drury Lane, shortly after Peel had returned to onshore life following the closedown of Radio London. It was not primarily a music venue - its founders were interested in literature, theatre, film and the visual arts - but its openness to experimental work corresponded to his own wish of the time to encourage more self-expression and communication. In Margrave of the Marshes (pp. 273-4) Sheila Ravenscroft quotes from a diary entry by Peel, dated 20 October 1967, in which he describes a visit to the Arts Lab and his "usual pangs of inferiority....In the presence of so many talented, creative and constructive people on the underground scene I feel that I'm regarded as something of a hanger-on and bore...." . The Arts Lab did attract John Lennon and Yoko One, as well as David Bowie (who used it as a rehearsal space), but developed a reputation for events which were often condemned as either boring or off-puttingly confrontational. (It also became known as a place where people could stay overnight free of charge, attracting not only people who had missed the last bus or tube home, but the freeloaders, dossers and drug casualties who by 1969 were becoming a more visible element of London's hippy scene.) Peel's main connection with the Arts Lab was through Principal Edwards Magic Theatre, the "communal performance art collective" whom he championed and signed to Dandelion Records, before becoming disillusioned with them in his later years; they played a series of gigs there in late 1968. Peel had also tried to help the Birmingham Arts Lab by mentioning it on-air, as well as in his IT column, but found himself having to apologise on a November 1968 Top Gear to a group of students who had written him an angry letter, after he had accused the city's students of apathy due to their lack of support for the local Arts Lab. While bands such as Love Sculpture, The Nice and Family performed at the venue in 1968, rock music was regarded as a source of funds rather than an integral part of Arts Lab culture. More experimental or eccentric artists such as Ivor Cutler and Lol Coxhill were a better fit, but as the 1970s developed, Peel lost interest in the Arts Lab world of self-styled "freaks" - avant-garde theatre groups, performance artists, minor poets and the like. Much later, influenced perhaps by his own experiences with Principal Edwards Magic Theatre (as described by Sheila Ravenscroft in Margrave Of The Marshes [ref]) he condemned Arts Labs in strong terms. Nevertheless, some Arts Labs did contribute to a more open and less conventional approach to the arts in Britain's regional arts centres - an example of which is the John Peel Centre For The Creative Arts. tbc.....
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