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Eddy Says
Eddy Says: Staring into the mirror
By Eddy Temple-Morris | Published on Monday 11 January 2010
It’s Saturday as I write this and tomorrow I’m going to go for my first two weeks in the sun for over two years. Well, I say that. It might end up being a long camp at Gatwick Airport, given the recent weather conditions, but fingers crossed it’s going to be a long problem-free flight followed by warm weather. ‘Eddy Says’ wise, I think Andy may recycle some previous highlights of this column while I am away [yes, classic Eddy coming your way soon – Ed].
The next two radio shows are already in the can, and they were such fun to do: birthday co-hosts with some interesting people. This coming Friday, back by popular demand, Trip. For the whole show. The week after, I fly solo for the first hour, then each hour I have a different guest – Hadouken, Jagz Kooner and King Cannibal. Each time, it’s the soundclash format, which is lovely, as the show takes on a random, unpredictable spin, and our choices are informed and affected by each others.
Last Friday’s show was the first with guest presenters, with Example and DJ Wire, or Elliot and Sam, joining me in the studio. We’d planned to do it live, but El’s label cocked up and double booked him to go on ‘Big Brother’s Big Mouth’. Having decided it was better for him to be seen live by half a million brain-dead numpties than heard live by thousands of his core target audience, we ended up, at the last minute, pre-recording the show. Nevertheless, it was still a blast to do.
It also left me in an interesting position. Friday night, 8pm, no plans. My girlfriend had a girls’ night out on, so I decided to do a little, sort of social experiment. There’s no way of saying this without sounding really cunty and ego-centric, but please believe me that my motivations were not ego driven at all: I went home, cracked open a couple of beers and listened to the show.
It was a revelation. You know, I’ve been doing the show for ten years, but in all that time, and this sounds strange… I’ve never actually heard it. I mean I’ve never properly sat down and listened to the show. I’m always far too busy doing it, juggling plates for four hours, talking to guests, work experience people, engineers, dealing with the texts, emails, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, the phones… as it is I never get time to do any more than scratch the surface of any of them, and masses of messages go unanswered. Certainly there is little time for sitting back and listening.
So last night, with the show already recorded, I logged on, sorted the Xfm player (thank fuck they’ve managed to sort out the Mac issue they used to have) so I could actually tune in and hear the show.
It was a good one to listen to, Example made me laugh so much that my diaphragm hurt, my cheeks ached like I’d just come down off an old-skool acid trip. It was really entertaining and an education musically, for both of us. I love the soundclash format (we played one-on-one, for the whole four hours, the three of us just taking it in turns, playing each other tunes and talking about them). And listening back to it all made for a fascinating fly-on-the-wall experience. But more than that too. Much more than that.
Like I say, I’ve always been too busy to do anything but read out a few of the messages I get when doing the show live, but now I could properly concentrate on all my various social networking pages while the show was actually on air. I must have replied to more or less every post, message, tweet and email that came in while the show was on. As time passed, I felt myself really becoming part of something, and something really positive. In fact, by the end of it all I felt quite emotional.
The music was amazing. I’ve always taken it for granted a bit. But when you’re listening, I mean really listening, the brilliant tracks I get to play on The Remix take on much more magic, more import, and significance. And I felt I was enjoying it all with kindred spirits, nice people, listening, laughing, reacting. I know this all must sound so obvious to you but I feel like my eyes were opened for the first time last night, and I was smiling so broadly.
I talked to friends, fans, colleagues, listeners, random people listening for the first time ever, via Facebook, Twitter, text, Skype and telephone, and I got an overwhelming sense of belonging, and of community. Gawd, this must sound buttock-clenchingly cheesy, but I mean every word from the heart. I loved it. I wish I could do it more often (more often than once a fucking decade at least!).
I was blown away by the niceness of the messages I got. In amongst them, several people said, in several different ways: “now you know what it’s like, Eddy…”
And yes, now I do. Though only by doing something that will make me sound like a complete twat. I felt lovely, warm, empathic, and I felt these things because, through a bizarre twist of fate combined with the wonders of modern technology, I ended up listening to myself, and therein lies the cuntiness. But if you can forgive that, or at least believe that I wasn’t motivated by ego, then you can accept that I am, as I felt last night, ONE. OF. YOU.
Much love,
eddy X
Eddy Says from this edition of the CMU Remix Update.
