Hiding Place in session for John Peel at BBC Radio 1 – recorded on December 19, 1977 and broadcast on January 5, 1978.
Not every band that appeared in session for John Peel was destined for greatness or was the proverbial diamond-in-the-rough. Some bands suffered from bad ideas, bad musicianship and just bad timing. In the case of Hiding Place it was bad timing.
Hiding Place came briefly out of the ashes of Lone Star, a band that achieved a modicum of success, largely eclipsed by the juggernaut of Punk. Hiding Place suffered pretty much the same fate as Lone Star did – the audience tastes changed – they were viewed as out of date and not a viable commodity for making hit records. They weren’t alone in that regard – even bands which were making hits only a year or two earlier were having a hard time connecting with the audience and were in danger of having contracts terminated.
In the case of Hiding Place – this session constitutes just about all of their recorded output – no album, no singles, no eps, no tours. The band literally called it quits before they got started. There was a rumor Epic Records expressed interest, but it never went beyond showing interest, not proving it.
Listening to this session, I will admit it’s pretty boring stuff – had it been five or six years earlier it would have fit right in – and it gives you an idea of the climate Pop Music was in just before the world changed.
Although to be fair, not everyone in the audience took to Punk like the proverbial duck to water – there was a lot of resistance, in fact a lot of hostility. And maybe a band like Hiding Place could have sustained enough of an audience to eek out some mainstream hits. It’s hard to tell – all I know is what I remember from the point of view of here in the States, which was very slow in adapting to Punk to any appreciable level at the time. The mainstream continued its stranglehold on American musical tastes until well into the 80s. But those of us (and there were a few at the time) who first heard The Damned’s New Rose had our brains promptly blown out and there was no turning back – we found what we were looking for and that was the end of the story.
So this Hiding Place session is an interesting curio, an echo of another time.
It’s here and it’s history – and everything deserves a hearing, at least once.
