Eddy Says

Eddy Says: What does 2008 mean to me?

By | Published on Monday 15 December 2008

Eddy Temple Morris

Looking back on 2008, personally, in the world of dance music that rocks, this has been the year of ‘producers living dangerously’. By that I mean cutting the umbilical cord which ties them to their studios and braving the world of live music.

It was always the plan for Dan and James of Does It Offend You, Yeah? to become “the next Prodigy”. Going back a few years to ‘We Are Rockstars’ you can see that thought clearly, but then they grew up. Life usually takes us to places we never predicted, and DIOYY? became, in a sense, wider and deeper than The Prodigy – ie not one incredibly talented man with a band around him and brilliant MCs out front, but an actual bonafide cohesive band. And the original idea has come full circle, now that James has ended up working on a couple of tracks on ‘Invaders Must Die’.

Evil Nine were another pleasant surprise, really embracing the live show and adding the dimension of theatrics and visuals to aid and abet, and make sense of their schlock horror film concept album. The Losers began this journey too, at Secret Garden and elsewhere.

But this year will be logged in my memory as ‘the year Pendulum crossed over’. I get the sense it was always part of a master plan. Still, it was so brave after the phenomenal success of ‘Hold Your Colour’. It would have been too easy to just hold onto those legions of dnb fans and pedal out the same formula of ‘stadium drum n bass’. But in the long run, it would have led to their demise and their name would have stayed on the lips of the headz only.

I was lucky enough to become their first ever tour DJ this year, so I saw the transformation first hand. I saw the queue of kids stretching around the block of every major city by 4pm on the day of each gig. I witnessed how young the crowd were. I saw the dwindling, disillusioned, beany clad dnb heads there to pay homage, or to “see for themselves” how they’d “been abandoned”, shoulders hunched and heads down among the sea of smiling young rock kids who knew they were going to have the best night of their lives.

Over that period, I got – and I’m not kidding here – hundreds of friend requests a day on MySpace, from 11-16 year olds, all saying roughly the same thing: “Thank you, you’re the best DJ I’ve ever seen and Pendulum are the greatest band since My Chemical Romance…” Or “since Fallout Boy” …you get the picture.

Pendulum were by far the most exciting live band at Radio One’s Big Weekend, and that includes Madonna. Everyone was talking about them before, and especially after. Their live show has it all – the preciseness that comes from sequenced dance music production, combined with an actual, proper, blistering LIVE show. And I mean LIVE. This is played by an awesome band, with a fantastic light show and a sound honed by a brilliant crew.

My hat goes off to them and so should yours. Anyone who says “but they’re not as good as they were”, has missed the point. Here it is: they’re now A listed as a matter of course on Xfm, Radio One and K Rock in LA. Fucking K-Rock! I told Rob Pendulum at the last gig I did with them recently, that I remember listening to that station in LA and their saying proudly “we will never play dance music on this station”. Rob mused for one millisecond and encapsulated this whole story in one brilliant and perfectly insightful phrase: “That’s why we disguised it as rock music”.

Merry Christmas, and may the next year bring a fair and warm wind for our sails.

Oh, and the Boxing day show will largely be a chance to hear the All Time Top Tens and the Justice special, then the week after will be my traditional Bombs Of The Year show.

X eddy

Eddy Says from this edition of the CMU Remix Update.



READ MORE ABOUT: |