"retrosonic radio" presents underworld | 2000 - 2007

[DocJones]

more info here @ http://www.myspace.com/ohjay_de

the flyer for that special radio show can be found there too or here @ http://tinyurl.com/yof8ps

cheers ! :)

olaf - "the alien doc" :cool:

[DocJones]

if u are interested in that special radio show , which also incl. an extensive interview , please check my blog @ myspace for further details : http://blog.myspace.com/ohjay_de

cheers ! :)

olaf - "the alien doc" :cool:

[DocJones]

TODAY ( sunday ) that special radio show will be broadcasted live ! :)

here's some of the info that u can find in my blog @ myspace about it ...

it's jus' the 1st part of a rather big special in 3 parts ( the 2nd & 3rd part will follow early in 2008 ! ) about the electronic music legend called UNDERWORLD ( their myspace site (http://www.myspace.com/underworld) & their official website (http://www.underworldlive.com/home.html) ) from the u.k. - a band ( now a duo which consists of karl hyde & rick smith ) with a rather long history going back to the early 80s actually , when they were called FREUR ! ;)
btw : as something very special u'll also get an extensive interview right in the 1st part of this big special ! :cool:

further info @ http://blog.myspace.com/ohjay_de

cheers ! :)

olaf - "the alien doc" :cool:

[DocJones]

the JVR Network & the RSR Team presents the 20th Edition of "Retrosonic Radio"
with a big Special about Underworld | 2000 - 2007
Hosted by Oh Jay a.k.a. Doc Jones
Special Guest : Rüdiger Illg

Playlist - 25. 11. 2007 / 16:00 - 19:0X (4 - 7 p.m. CET) :

All Music by Underworld

00. "crocodile" ( outro of the original version )
01. "karl's ode to cardiff"
02. "holding the moth" ( jesse rose remix )
03. "boy , boy , boy"
04. "crocodile" ( pete heller remix )
05. "best mamgu ever"
06. "monkey two"
07. "silver boots - always loved a film - yard beats"
( medley / mix taken from a lemonworld live broadcast in may 2006 )
08. "counterpoint hang pulse" ( used only as background music )
interview with karl hyde - part 1
09. "like a swimmer"
10. "headset"
11. "counterpoint hang pulse" ( used only as background music )
interview with karl hyde - part 2
12. "jal to tokyo" ( paul woolford remix )
13. "born slippy 2003" ( london elektricity remix )
14. "sola sistim"
15. "dinosaur adventure 3d" ( funk d'void remix )
16. "luetin"
17. "moaner" ( peel session 2003 - live version )
18. "cups" ( "everything , everything" - live version )
19. "rez / cowgirl" ( "everything , everything" - live version )
20. "two months off" ( foghorn intro )
21. "peach tree"
( a short excerpt from "the misterons mix" of the riverrun project as outro )

:cool:

[lloyd]

thanks for the info :)

[stimpee]

Unfortunately I missed this show. is there anywhere to listen again?

[DocJones]

Unfortunately I missed this show. is there anywhere to listen again?

yep ... i'll soon post some links also here , where u can listen to
the whole show in 3 parts of about an hour each part again then ! ;)

cheers ! :)

olaf - "the alien doc" :cool:

[DocJones]

here are the links now ...

1st hour : http://download.yousendit.com/55A180FA084CFD93

2nd hour with the interview : http://download.yousendit.com/3042E4DF51B8568C

3rd hour + extension : http://download.yousendit.com/3DF417AE2D3F8FF9

cheers ! :)

olaf - "the alien doc" :cool:

[m.g.]

Thanks a lot DocJones... downloading now... & thanks again R&K & all@UW HQ (Oblivion Ball, Resident Advisor podcast & now this Retrosonic thing...). We're going to be spoiled a bit more (if that's still possible ;))

[DocJones]

only fyi : i forgot to rename the files properly & u'll see wrong "( wav )" tags in the filenames , sorry ! :o

i've jus' realized that i haven't renamed the converted wav files properly with an "( mp3 )" tag @ the end , as i've already uploaded the 1st hour / file , but the files are indeed in mp3 format & not wav !

btw : i've planned to do two more 3 hours long special shows in early 2008 : part 2 about uw in the 90s ( scheduled date so far is the 27th of jan. ) & part 3 about uw & freur ( ! ) in the 80s ( scheduled date so far is the 30th of march ) ! ;)

cheers ! :)

olaf - "the alien doc" :cool:

[BrotherLovesDub]

thanks doc!

[negative1]

excellent interview...if you haven't heard it yet..
go listen to it...

it addresses many of the issues people have
with the albums/concerts/singles etc...

very informative...

oh yeah, the music is excellent too!

later
-1

[negative1]

ok,

i'm going to have to transcribe this interview..

this is REQUIRED LISTENING FOR ALL UNDERWORLD FANS..
(unless of course, it has appeared in other places, and i
just haven't bothered to read it...)

honestly, yes, all this information has probably appeared
before....but i guess just hearing it all in one place is
especially timely..

later
-1

[DaddyAdv]

An awesome interview, from the usual press questions to some very insightful answers by Karl. Thanks Doc!

BTW, the questions sound quite like the ones from the interview I translated from the german Synthesizer-Magazin, but the answers are different !

P.S.: try to think english ;)

[negative1]

interviewer:
the first question is about the album title
'oblivion with bells' what does this strange
album title actually mean, because its not even
know to english speaking people, so there must
be a reason for this album title 'oblivion with
bells'

karl: i think it is actually, yeah, i think it
is, in England if somethings got bells on,
its always got that extra bit, you know, its
got that little bit over the top and, and so
i guess thats where the combination comes from,
its whatever it is with that extra little bit
and its a line from one of the songs on the album

i: on the album, there are not maybe, as many dancefloor
tracks, and some old underworld fans might be
surprised, why this change has come

k: well funnily enough, the first one crocodile
is doing really well in ibizia at the moment,
and getting really good recognition on the dancefloor
yeah, so we already knew there was a continuous
link to the dancefloor, it was very important to
us that it is more gentle than other records from
the past, and that for us is a good thing, cos
we don't want to carry on making this traditional
sound because thats what underworld has to do,
but also last year we collaborated with our friend
sven vath at the cocoon club and we very specifically
altered some of our music to fit in with his dj set
we were jamming you know, live four hours on the internet,
and uh we changed some of the beats, slowed some
of the tunes down, and made them a, a bit kind of
deeper, and things like crocodile were very, very
much kind of altered trying to fit in with sven

i: uh karl, you are about 50 years old, isn't it bit old to
make a dancefloor music, or music that underworld is producing
right now?

k:laughs, well that's what happens when you stick around,
laughs

i: um, you've worked on two different albums, uh, soundtrack
albums, uh , one for the film breaking and entering, and
the other one sunshine, with danny boyle, umm yeah, can
you tell us something about this, and uh yeah the influences
and everything else


k: the soundscapes have always been there, in our music,
you know the electronics the ambiencies the orchestral
pieces and the fusion with guitars, they've always been
there, but whats happened in this last period of three or
four years, is that we've come into contact with things
that reminded of us our roots, one of them would be the
two film scores that we've done, one of them would be
a passion, a renewed passion to German electronic music
because through the German club scene, and another one
would be the web radio show that we do on underworldlive.com
where we're playing out lots of independant music of all
musical genres, that have reminded us about our eclectic,
eclectic outlook on life so those three have really
invigorated a passion for being ourselves, i suppose really

i: you also have an interest in the German club scene, and
also in krautrock, invented in Germany, can you tell uh
something about this, uh, its the uh information behind it?

k: people were telling us about what was happening in the
club scene over here, and uh we were interested and were
doing the web radio shows, so we said lets go out and
buy some records and see whats happening, and we've really
got into it, its people like james holden , ricardo villalobos,
Dominic Eulberg, matthew johnson, pig and dan, and the
cocoon label, these these kind of things were really
fascinating us, and we were talking with sven, and saying
hey what are you playing and listening to what he was
doing,


i: of course there was a big success with one of your tracks,
maybe one of the biggest success, with the song born slippy.nuxx
for the film trainspotting and yeah were you anxious to do
this again, or is it something that you didn't want to
repeat uh, uh the same formula so to say, and do such a song
for a soundtrack, how would you uh say whats the best to do
the next time for a soundtrack?

k: it was funny really, i mean this is, this is our fifth
film with danny, and he asked us to do sunshine while we
were just finishing breaking and entering , and breaking
and entering had already put oblivion with bells back by
about a year, and we said to danny, look there's no way,
we could do this, we'd love to, we'd really love working
with you, but we can't, desperate to get back in the studio,
and then he showed us the rushes of the film, and we went,
we hate you, you know, we have to do this, and we we we
scored that movie, we wrote a lot of music for that film,
which meant a song like glam bucket was written for
sunshine, and actually because it didn't make it to the
film, and we love the music so much, we included it in
the album, but yes, you're right, there was this,
at the end, there's a film called, a track called,
peggy sussed, which comes on right at the end ,and
we went oh i hope this isn't going be a born slippy
you know, lets just let it go, you know..


i: talking about, uh the first single from oblivion with
bells album, crocodile, why did you choose this specific
song when there's more dancefloor like , or most of the
tracks or the majority of the tracks on oblivion with bells
are not


k: it was by choice, i mean we've been doing this for a long
time, rick and i, we've been doing this for 27 years now,
and we're still together, with steven hall, the head of
junior boys own , of course he's a part of this team,
and our connection with the dancefloor is really important
to us, really important to us, and its always been a way
of publishing our work without the necessity for it to be
a big pop hit record, and that energy that we get from a
a connection with the dancefloor, is is is paramount to
what underworld is about, like, its like the rails that a
train runs on for us, and so when we had that tune, and
there were a couple of other tunes that could have been
on this album, that were very dancefloor, but we just
didn't want to put them on the record, that was the one,
where we want to go back into the clubs, the first statement
that we make is that we want to go back into the clubs,

i: theres also a song called ring road, on the oblivion with
bells album, whats the story behind it, and what, tell us
something about, yeah, the song ring road

k: yeah, john cooper clark, i was going , i'm glad you
said that, oddly enough, you know people have made the
connection with the streets, and you go, well thats kind
of interesting, like the streets, but of course we were,
we were talking about the urban condition before that,
and john cooper clark was before us, and
Linton Kwesi Johnson , and uh, the great inspiration for me is the
last poets, and umm, and that day i was listening to a
last poets album and going on , and don't know what to do,
um, we've got this groove, i think i'll go for a walk,
and write about it, and come back and sing about
it, which is what happened

i: um, you've also had a little book, where you've um
put some note in it about your hometown romford, uh,
what is actually , uh, the uh, true about the, this
information about you, uh, can you tell us about this

k: yeah, yeah really well walk when i'm completely
stuck, i'll take my notebook, which travels with me
everywhere , and i'll go for a walk, and i'll write,
about everything that i see, in a very matter of fact
way, not poetic, not trying to be a , you know no
poetic license, going to write about everything i see,
thats normal in my town, and thats what i did, i walked
in a big circle, came back to the studio, and right,
i'm just going to sing that, it was like a , uh, an
uno card , uh take a walk and sing about the things
you see, do not deviate, sing exactly what you have seen

i: ah, you're living in romford, essex, and uh yeah, whats
the connection with the london club scene then?

k: no, no, we've lived in london a long time ago, but we
moved out to essex, gosh, in about the end of the eighties,
and uh, essex is pretty important to us, this is something
about east london people , the energy there, the generosity
the warmth of spirit, the , i haven't found anywhere else
in England that i've lived, i think in the north you get it very
much now, but there's something about east london that i really
like

i: what kind of interesting bands do you have discovered for
yourself, and like to listen to right now

k: you know, the whole kind of, new rave, and Shikari, and
the klaxons, and people like justice from france, and uh simian
mobile disco, and these people are doing some really interesting
things with representing us with sounds that are familiar but
in a different way, just a different way, but in a way that we
do,and we have , but they're doing in their own way, their own
signature and we're very excited by that, in fact bringing
simian mobile disco on tour with us when we come around Europe,
cos that's really exciting, cos i love that album, its a great
album




fixes by : bb, bld,
transcribed by : -1

[negative1]

i: another quite interesting song that also might be a single,
then is, boy boy boy, from the oblivion with bells album,
and i suppose there's also a special story about it, so tell
us about the song boy boy boy

k: interesting isn't it yeah, that larry mullen plays on that,
from u2, we wrote that, and um , rick programmed the drums to
sound like that, and its, its an autobiographical story, i sat
in a shopping mall, near romford, and i'm looking at all the
things going around me, and i'm just writing them down, and
its making me reflect upon when i was kid and stuff that used
to happen at home and then i sort of come back to whats happening
in the shopping mall again, and also about a kind of journey,
of you know, recovery and all of that thing that they , that one
goes through when you put drugs and drink down, and as you have
to, do to live to be an old person, and as you said
quite rightly earlier on, and we had this piece of music, and we
really really really really liked it, and rick suggested that we
give larry a call, cause he's been a supporter of the band since
the first album, and uh he was very enthusiastic about doing something
on the record, and i did some playing on this track, i think he
did a remix for it as well, larry's a really good bloke, a really
good bloke, but i think, like any drummer, probably doesn't get
to do the amount of things that the singer gets to do, you know,
so its really nice to be working with him,


i: um, you've recorded the album oblivion with bells, in the
legendary abbey road studio where also the beatles have
recorded and other bands, why uh did you go there, and
was it something special that you also wanted to record in there,
in abbey road studios then?

k: well most of it we recorded all over the place, on our
laptops, in our home studios, lemonworld, our main studio
in essex , some of it we recorded at abbey road, because
we had such a good time putting the soundtrack to breaking
and entering, with gabriel yared there, um we wanted to
go back to abbey road, our first group freur recorded
one track in abbey road, in the old beatles studio, in fact
i think we were one of the last groups to use the old desk,
and we hadn't been back since 82, when gabriel got us to
go back and record there, in that fantastic studio, we just
had to go back , um so we had a great time


i: you've also used a lot of live instrumentation on oblivion
with bells, thats also something thats not the usual way
uh so uh why that?


k: yeah, we always play a lot of live instruments , more than
people actually think, because we actually treat a lot of the
instruments , but yeah largely i would think that after our
experience with working with gabriel yared on the breaking
and entering sountrack, uh we three , gabriel rick and i
encouraged each other to play our traditional instruments,
gabriel was a very fine piano jazz player, very fine, and
um so we formed an improvising trio , i was playing a lot
of guitar, of all different sort, classical, flamenco,
whatever, rick was playing piano, and keyboards and gabriel
was playing piano and keyboards, that kind of inspired us
to carry on doing that, and of course, i love ricks keyboard
playing, i absolutely love his piano playing, and he kept
encouraging me to play guitar, so we just carried on doing
that


i: you've used a lot of vocoder stuff on the album, and uh
yeah the vocoder has become your best friend, so to say, karl,
um and vocoder is a very useful instrument or why so much vocoder
on the album?


k: we always used vocoders, always, we've got these very old
roland vocoders that we use, cos they have that very particular
sound, we've tried lots of different ones, but there were these
ones that we've got, we've got three of them, cos they're very
old and you know, once they break, its very hard to get them
fixed, they have to be sent off to a little old man (laughs)
i kid you not, its this little old man in London, who's the
only man in Britain that can fix them, and so the go off ,
and the two of them always travel on the road with us, one of
them stays in the studio so we vocode from the guitar, we use
them, its a sound we've always loved, maybe its from Kraftwerk
i don't know, we love Kraftwerk, so we've always loved that
in laurie anderson, and superman, what an legendary piece of
work that was amazing


i: you also use repetition as a kind of uh yeah, a musical idea
in your songs, yeah and there's a recurring theme of this

K: yeah, it comes from funk, it comes from funk, really loving funk,
and sly and family stone, james brown, parliament, funkadelic, you know
the great funk bands, where the guitarist plays a loop over and over
and over again, and it doesn't change, it keeps repeating so, the
energy keeps growing, the bass player and the drummer keep playing
in loops, and they're all playing in loops, and over the top of that,
other instrumentalists and singers freeform and they move around on
top of that, and then when Kraftwerk started to do that, where they've
got the machine doing the repetitive beats, and the humans moving
about over the top of it, we got so excited about that, there's
something about in the kinetic energy between the precision of the
machine and the human that plays over the top of it,i mean theres
a guitarist, its fantastic to play over the top of a machine,
because its bang on the beat, you can drift about, but keep coming
back to the beat, i did a lot of session work in the early eighties,
a very famous drummer was on one of those sessions, in california,
and i nearly got sacked from the session, i'm not going to, i'm not
going to say who it was but i i nearly got sacked from the session,
because the guy said to me, um you're playing out of time, and i'm
playing rhythm guitar since i've been ten years old, you know, thats
what i grew up playing rhythm and funk, you're playing out of time
and i'm like, i don't think so, i don't think so, and they were
discussing in the control room , sacking me from the session,
and i said, look i'm bored, give me a drum machine and i'll just
jam out in the studio, and they listened to me jamming to the drum
machine, and it was smack on, cos i had grown up playing to drum
machines, and they got me back in the studio and said its the drummer,
and i went, i know its the drummer, i know its the drummer you know,
its hard to work with drummers for me now, drummers have a natural
ebb and flow, which a lot of people find beautiful, i find it really
hard because i love to work to a machine, cos i'm not very good at
timing sometimes, and it makes me sound good.


transcribed by : -1

[the mongoose]

YAAAA, UUUNDEHRWURRLD IST UN BESTEST ACT OF ELECTROONIKS UN THE WORLD ALL AROUND.:p

[gaborez]

thanks for that, -1 :)

[BrotherLovesDub]

Linton Kwesi Johnson :: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linton_Kwesi_Johnson

[negative1]

Linton Kwesi Johnson :: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linton_Kwesi_Johnson

changed reference, thanx, if you see anything
else that needs changing let me know..

later
-1

[BrotherLovesDub]

Dominic Eulberg instead of dominique hillberg

[crazysugarboy]

Many many thanks doc for this link/download - it is just brill!:)

[negative1]

Dominic Eulberg instead of dominique hillberg

fixed too..
later
-1

[BeautifulBurnout]

Thanks for all your hard work transcribing this, -1. Quite a task. :)

I think the "Chicari" you queried might in fact be Enter Shikari - I know Karl has posted a link to them on UW live in the past (also one of my son's fave bands, otherwise I would never have heard of em ;) )

[negative1]

Thanks for all your hard work transcribing this, -1. Quite a task. :)

I think the "Chicari" you queried might in fact be Enter Shikari - I know Karl has posted a link to them on UW live in the past (also one of my son's fave bands, otherwise I would never have heard of em ;) )

fixed, and i've creditted both of you..
thanks again, yeah, i would post links,
but it's hard enough stopping every 3 seconds
to type for 20 minutes straight!

and i still have to do the second, and longer
part tonight!

later
-1

[m.g.]

Many many thanks for transcribing, -1

[negative1]

iinterviewer :
ok, now we've come to the other part of the
interview with karl of underworld,
the song we've just heard was headset, one
of the two songs, the other one was tiny clicks,
a bonus song, or bonus track on the two months
off single release and before that, like a swimmer,
the bonus track from the single, from one of the
singles dinosaur adventure 3d, which was also
released in several formats , but i think these
two songs, fit quite well into this relaxing mood,
the music, and also of the interview, so next up
is the second part of the interview with karl hyde
of underworld

karl the lyrics that you write, are sometimes yeah,
not really easy to understand , so to say for the,
non-english speaking people or even for the english
speaking people as they have a certain kind of flow,
that fits quite well to the rhythm but, doesn't always
make quite natural sense, so to say, so whats the
mystery behind the underworld lyrics, mostly then


karl : they are , but in the beginning of this, underworld made
a very clear decision that the group, we would change
the shape of the group, we'd put the drummer at the front
and the singer at the back, so that the singer would
be dicatated to by the drums rather than the other way
around, which is what normally happens, the drummer sits
behind the singer, and doesn't intefere, in this group,
the singer sits behind the drums, and doesn't intefere,
and sometimes you decide that you don't want to spoil
a little piece of music by using your voice on it, and
another time you think that i can find ways of enhancing
the rhythm by using the human voice, so you think ok,
what if i go off and sing, are you just going to sing
something repetitive or just sing any old thing that you
can just find in a magazine, or a word that you can sing,
no, what are you going to sing, well i dunno, what am i
gonna sing, and very early on , they were inspired by
two things, one was the playwright sam shepard, he wrote
a book called motel chronicles, which was a series of
small vignettes of just a description of a room, or of
a of a man driving down a road you know, there's no beginning
and no end, but there was a middle, i thought, i can do that,
and then there was a, there was a lou reeds 'new york' album,
at that was astonishing for me, i thought, how does this man
write conversational american, and i thought that well maybe
he sits in a cafe or bar, and he writes thing stuff that he
hears people speak, and then he goes and sings it, i could
do that, so i kinda combined the two and thats what i've
been doing for the last eighteen years, and then we've got
a piece of music inspires us to use the human voice,
i open one of my notebooks and you know, i see a , some
writing here that seems to feel right to the mood of the
music, and i start to improvise on the words, the words
on the page



i: the song hold the moth, holding the moth contains uh uh the
lyrics keep it simple, also um the , the most prominent part
of the remix by jesse rose , this is the concept and the motto
of underworld maybe

k: yeah, keep it simple, one foot goes down in front of the
other, yeah it kind of helps, you keep it simple, we can get
a bit complicated sometimes but we're trying


i: karl are you and rick going into clubs, and checking out
the dancefloor scene, so to say, in london or wherever you are
these days

k:we haven't been clubgoers for a long time, largely because
it all became all consuming really, its time that it takes
from us, it requires, and especially now, the internet radio
show, the internet tvs that we're working our way up to,
listening to other peoples music, and then the artworks,
and hundreds of photographs we produce and everyday and
we jam by the internet with our friends and tomato to
produce new books and art installations that are coming
up this year , there's a lot of work to do , in in preparation
for every year , so we're we're reliant on friends to keep us
in touch with whats happening, occasionally though we do
get to go out to a club , like you know we'll go to
the cocoon and see what's happening there, and if we're
on the road, we've got a day off in the city, and if
its got a good club , we'll go along to that club and
its important to hear dance music where its supposed to
be heard, otherwise you can get just a bit too far away
from it, and you start making things that don't relate
to the dancefloor anymore , yeah man i get embarassed,
too embarassed to dance on the dancefloor, yeah really,
did you find that weird, everybody i know finds that
really weird you know, and this is even weirder , that i
find that dancing on the dancefloor i'm embarassed because
i think that people are looking at me , i can do it on
a stage in front of a few thousand people , thats not
a problem , no thats really weird, thats what happens
when you're a farm boy that comes to the city (laughs) dear me



i: umm you usually talk about that the music of underworld
is a big mix of everything thrown, thrown in a pot and then
having it mixed up, so to say , is that the same with
oblivion with bells, or is there ah yeah, specific differences
then in the mix?

k: nothing more than any other album for us, really, this
is just a part of the journey, you know three download
only albums, the five twelve inches, the two film scores,
the triple live album that we released from a japanese show,
they've all contributed to, along with our love of german
club music and, and the web radio show, and all of that,
makes for a very eclectic album, but we've always made
very eclectic albums



i: some songs on the album maybe sound like they could also fit
on the cafe del mar sampler compilation, would you say yes to
it, and yeah um, if somebody would ask you for uh your song
to fit on this compilation or similar compilation is that ok?
or would you say no?

k: sure, but yeah in the early days , back in the early nineties
when the first tune from , can't remember what it was [note : an edit of 'thing
in a book' called 'second hand'] , got put on a cafe del mar,
that was big for us , really really big for us, and i remember
sitting on, on the beach in ibizia, you know listening to one of our
tunes coming, watching the sun go down , going yeah i get it ,
i get it, this is cool , yeah things become institutionalized dont they,
but that's why we have to keep moving on , and when things become an
institution , uh the last thing we want to do , is to be part of that
instituionn, its important to pack our bags and move out in the night



i: when you look at the actual music scene right now these
days uh, what uh can be the best uh or the most best possible
uh contribution of underworld right now then

k: trouble, laughs, in the sense that what is it, you know rick
and i have always been awkward, what is it, what are we trying
to do, we've never been purists never been simple to pigeon-hole
with what we do, even with freur doing their thing, it wasn't
really a pop group, it was trying to be a pop group, it wasn't
really an electronic group, it had a lot of electronics but it wasn't
a fashion group, there certainly were a lot of clothes, and you know,
what we often are is uncategorizable because there's always a little
bit of us that doesn't fit the pigeon hole and we've become even
more like that really , um where do we put them, well they fit
in underworld , but we're not quite sure where else to put them,
and we're making physical records , and we're making downloads,
and we're also giving away things for free, and its just like
oh my God, that's a bit of a nightmare isn't it, well no, not
really because its been working for the last few years for us,
and what we've wanted to do was to work with a label that could
together, we could embrace that idea, and bring it to more
people, that's really what we're about now, i think we're just
a bit more of a headache because there's so much more stuff for
people to get their head around, the people that work with us
i mean,



i: umm, when you're touring your live shows come together and
what is included in the live shows and how do you arrange it
and everything else then?


k: we're always improvised, um there's no setlist, we're improvising,
there are three of us on stage, just rick and me and darren price
who's been with us for a long long time, we walk out on stage ,
make the decision about the first tune as we're walking onto the
stage, and let the crowd tell us , lead us and what should happen
next , just as dj's taught us to do really, and then we improvise,
just as jazz musicians taught us how to do and be live, you know
those are live instruments, just because the gibson les paul, and
there's a mixing desk, and a macintosh, and a microphone, and a
these are, they're all instruments , they're all live instruments,
and we use them to improvise, and to go, to go into wherever the
crowd takes us, lots of visuals , and improvised live cameras, on stage,
and films generated from our company tomato, the lights the sound,
everything is improvised, we just go out on tour with a crew that
we've been with some of them for twenty years, and say its great
to be on tour with you, have a good show, you know, and they do
whatever they want to really,

transcript by : -1

[negative1]

i: talking about the bit that tomato, the design project, and
the company that you've started , is it uh still important for
you to uh and carry on with it or um do you think that other people
can take over this project and you are going another way
with underworld or with projects then?

k: in the beginning it was important for lots of different
reasons, one it was important to be in conversation with
other artists that didn't do music , that didn't care about
a career in music so they were free to say what they wanted
its wonderful to get their opinions , and then of course
it was um, very good that the guys who were making, started
to make tv commercials asked us to make music for those
commercials because on a creative level that's something
that we always wanted to do , that might seem very odd,
but we actually had wanted to always do it, because we
wanted to bring some good positives sounds into peoples
home and that might sound arrogant , you know its a
naive ideal of ours , also it gave us money to eat and
pay the rent and not have to compromise our music
and that was paramount to in the development of underworld,
so then we could just do the music that we wanted to do,
and not think about as a career, and the fact that it
became a career, a mistake really (laughs)

i: back in the beginning of the days, of the acid house scene in the uk,
how was the scene back then, compared to now , what were the basics,
uh as they've started and as you've started making music and how did it
influence you then,

k:the ones that i've went to, and the ones that've started hearing acid house
on pirate radio and that was really exciting because it was outsider stuff
it was exciting because people were making records they were putting on
parties, they were illegal, they were doing what when they felt like it,
and as long as nobody was getting hurt , they were doing things outside of
the, the acceptable structure, well thats music, thats art to me , its like well
push the boundary, and pirate radio was putting out acid house , people
were saying you can make a record and you can put it out, and if people dance to
it , you can sell it from the back of a car, and thats what we're doing
[note : 'mother earth' was sold from out of the back of a car] and that's
how our career was kind of growing, and then these parties were, they were
really exciting, they were like the best pink floyd gig that we, that i'd
never been to a pink floyd gig , but i've heard about them, from the
older kids, that's what like to me a fantastic gig should be like, great
lights, you know there were these rooms dressed in amazing ways, there
were ,some of them had fun fairs in them, and the sound system was
fantastic, and it was real value for money. and they went on for hours,
hours and hours, and it was like what an amazing gig that was, should't
gigs be like this, and that became an inspiration to us, thats how we
felt we wanted to be, and we wanted to be the band to could do that, and we
wanted to be a part, the fact that it got large meant of course, that we had great
opportunities , and we got to travel the world, we got to play in
castles, and on mountains, and on beaches, and on roman amphitheaters, the
kind of places that rock bands never got to play normally, so it was just,
just amazing , and we felt that hey, lets have a mad idea and do it, and
that was really felt like being kids, and something we always wanted to do,

i: was it actually a kind of strange feeling, or weird feeling that you
have became a , yeah a part of the generation ecstasy , and uh maybe the
uh and also the drug problem and everything ,going raving

k: i don't know, i never did drugs, and honestly, isn't that hard to
believe, i mean, even today, people say to me, oh my gosh, to be completely
out of on stage, umm, i never was out of it on stage, uh my drug of choice
was alcohol, for many many many years, and that stopped ten years ago,
but right now it wasnt hard to be , it wasn't hard to be around people
that were doing things like that, because they all got loved up ,
you know there was no violence, you could go to these events and that
was a shocker going to the first raves in the eighties, and and and it
was like wow, you could instantly feel it was a very non violent environment
and i'd grown up as a kid, going to gigs, where people ended up getting
beating each other to a pulp cause they were drunk and violent,
and so this was an amazing thing really

i: was the movie trainspotting reflecting the scene back then with the
born slippy success and everything else

k: yeah, i think it did, i really think it did, i think its extraordinary
people talk about the summer of love, in the sixties , and i think its
trainspotting and born slippy together, hit a moment, that
still remains really deep for a lot of people,


i: you've already started very early, yeah to uh include the internet
and new digital medias so to say in your activities like, um a home
page and a radio show live transmissions from your studio and everything
else, um was it actually more something you've benefitted from or was
it something that you regret after all these years and would you see
just this thing continuing in the future from now on?

k: the internets a fact, and we can, we can fight it, an be consigned
to the history, or we can explore it and find out what happens,
and in about 2002 rick and i were very bored, with only being
able to release records in a traditional way and only to be able
to tour in a traditional way , so we also felt very comfortable ,
and comfort is really not good, for the creative process, its really
not good, so how do you feed your kids, and still not get into a
place where you're really not comfortable , that was, that was
the dilemma , so we, we started to explore ways of publishing our
work, and so we, we started to release things on the internet,
underworldlive.com has been a place where we published work,
everyday since the beginning of 2000, and we started to put
together albums, that were quite raw , uh not polished,
very instant, and the fans started to respond to them,
we started this thing, the riverrun project , which actually
started with a book, called 'in the belly of saint paul', and
then went to these three download albums, also we felt like why
has an album got to be 70 minutes long, with a dvd extra and all
the other things, that, that seemed to me , it seemed to us to make, sort of less
of the music that was in there, and make all these demands on bands,
to be something to fit somebodys else's idea , the industries idea,
they should be making , whereas what happens to a 20 minute album,
or a 3 hour album, or a 5 day album, well you can't do that, in the
old model, so there was that, with the ability to put things out, whenever
we wanted to and that was really important, and when the three albums
downloaded, done , were done very well, we thought well we want to do
5 twelve inches, so we put 5 twelve inches out , and then we did the
triple live album, from the tokyo show, a couple of years ago, because
we wanted to explore what it was like to release records of the live
shows, just for the audience that come, just as a kind of thank you,
you've turned up, you've paid all this money, here's, we make a
very affordable record of this event, and we're exploring that
and web radio shows became very important, thats part of the
riverrun project, you know all of these things, they were to do with,
breaking out of the , uh, the constraints of the traditional record making

i: how does your own internet radio, or web radio started then, and
what was the general idea behind it?

k: web radio, on underworldlive.com came out because, john peel , our
great teacher from the bbc, asked us to look after one of his shows,
when he want on holiday , um he said do whatever you want , here, here
we said can we have a couple of records for you, (?) first album which
since has become quite close with (?) um and of course john never came back,
and we were destroyed, one because like our teacher, and one of musics best friends,
had died, and two because we had intended to take 200 pieces of
music, and give them to him, and say, help us make records
john, and together john peel , rick and me would make records,
and he went and died, and we had no plan, that was our plan, our big plan, you know,
and um, so what do we do, and we kinda had to think about what
we were going to do next, the sort of thing, and one of them was in
talking to the young guys at the bbc, that were in his team, and we have to
carry on , just have to carry on, you guys carry on producing,
specially shows the bbc, and we will carry on, johns taught us,
and make a web radio show, which is what we've done



transcript : -1

[negative1]

i: are you are actually getting a lot of, yes you are getting a lot of cds,
and mp3s or whatever format of the music , and productions are in to play
and to listen to and todecide uh whats good or bad

k: it would be so fantastic, every week in the post, we get stuff
which is so amazing, and so exciting and its had again, a big,
effect on this album, big effect, me and rick get together in
a room, alright we're going to do a show, and we spend all day
just listening to stuff, i do what johns sort of taught us to do, like put
a star , two stars, three stars, against tracks, so when we
come together to play rick, we have a listening day , and put
together a setlist , and then you know we play peoples music, and then
we jam our music, and we give away unreleased material,
then we have a chat room, and a webcam and we do, we do
what john used to do really , sometimes we do a specialty
show and sometimes we do an very eclectic show

I: you do it every week?

k: it hasn't been possible to do it every week,
and sometimes we get kind of a big chunk
where we're touring, and you, you just cant do it, the whole
idea is that we can do it, once a month would be
great, that really would be great, when we're
not doing the web radio show, um, i link to one
of those artists, every day so that if someone
was sent our record, we do a link direct to their
myspace, or their website, so that you can buy
their music direct

i: yeah, that was actually the interview, of karl
hyde from underworld , a very long interview

transcript : -1

[lloyd]

thnx!

[negative1]

thnx!

no problem, you don't need to be member to
download the podcast, the link was posted earlier..

later
-1

[DocJones]

thank u all for the nice comments & general interest in that special show , fellows ! :)
thanx also to -1 for the interesting transcription of the interview ! ;)
so many "uh"'s & "ah"'s ! :D

anyway ... here are the links to grab the complete special again ...

1st hour : http://download.yousendit.com/55A180FA084CFD93

2nd hour with the interview : http://download.yousendit.com/3042E4DF51B8568C

3rd hour + extension : http://download.yousendit.com/3DF417AE2D3F8FF9

fyi : they will expire next monday , the 03rd of dec. , so grab it now , if u haven't already ! ;)

btw : this sunday i'll do my next radio show , which is called "alien disco ( extended version )" ( a 2 hours show ) & i might play one more song by underworld in it too ... besides a lot of other quite interesting stuff , as i hope ! ;)
check it out , if u like , fellows ! :)
all info can be found in my blog over @ myspace again : http://blog.myspace.com/ohjay_de

cheers ! :)

olaf - "the alien doc" :cool:

[macloe]

@DocJones: when I click the first hour show, I get this message "The download limit has been reached for this file.".
Hour 2+3 are still available.
Any chance you (or anybody else) could upload it once more please? Thanx!

[negative1]

@DocJones: when I click the first hour show, I get this message "The download limit has been reached for this file.".
Hour 2+3 are still available.
Any chance you (or anybody else) could upload it once more please? Thanx!

part 1 : http://www.future-dld.com/download.php?dl=e924b0a242a6b6b8488a82ee95aea1f6

later
-1

[darktrain]

btw : i've planned to do two more 3 hours long special shows in early 2008 : part 2 about uw in the 90s ( scheduled date so far is the 27th of jan. ) & part 3 about uw & freur ( ! ) in the 80s ( scheduled date so far is the 30th of march ) ! ;)

Sorting through stuff on the iPod today and came across the first set of this show from late 07. Anyone know if the 2nd and 3rd parts ever materialized?

[TheBang]

They were posted a few posts above yours. But those links are expired, of course. The whole series, however, is still available on RTSR.

[darktrain]

Hmm OK maybe I'm confused then. It read to me like there was one show of 3 hours covering 2000-2007 (the links above) and then 2 more shows scheduled to cover the 90's and before.
Either I'm dim, they got scrapped, lost, or a combination:p

[TheBang]

Oh yeah, you're right. It looks like there was supposed to be a 2nd and 3rd show. I just ran through their archives, and it looks like they were never posted.

[negative1]

wow, that was a really good interview...

thanks for the person that transcribed it, i forget about it...

oh wait.............................................. ........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


be seeing you
+1

[darktrain]

Well I sent Doc Jones a PM on Myspace inquiring about the non-shows. Will let y'all know.

[darktrain]

In case anyone's curious, DocJones reply via myspace:

"thanx for listening to my ol' uw special ! :-)
it always surprises me , when i get such a late feedback like yours , but in a positive way ! ;-)
part 2 ( uw in the 90s ) & 3 ( uw & freur in the 80s ) of the uw trilogy special should've happened in early 2008 , but for many reasons none of it happened , also because the 2 colleagues with whom i wanted to do these shows no longer had time or were really interested in it & i jus' don't like to do 3 or even 4 hours long specials all alone , as it might become boring then ! *sigh*
maybe i'll one day feel the need or urge to do these specials , but it doesn't seem likely these days , as the rsr format is actually dead by now , because i've no interest to do it all alone , sorry ! :-/
if there will be anything , i'll make sure to let u know long enough in advance , of course ! ;-)
anyway ... thanx a lot for your message & interest , which made me realize that there might indeed be an interest in doing some more rsr specials sooner or later ! :-)"