Homer s Odyssey

THERE ARE two words uttered in the same sentence that are guaranteed to strike terror into even the stoutest of journalistic hearts. One is album and the other I can hardly bear to wrap my mouth around the syllables concept . You Britpop youngsters may scoff, but as a colon-drooping 34-year-old I can remember the days when loon-panted gentlemen spouting off at considerable length about magick kingdoms and topographic oceans was considered the height of fashion. Many s the night I woke up in a cold sweat screaming for my mother to protect me from Rick Wakeman and his Six Wives Of Henry XIII. On ice.
Worse still is that having been thought to have been wiped out during the punk wars, those arch-exponents of the concept album, the prog-rockers, are now back in our midst. I hate to be the bearer of such sad tidings but as I hammer away at my trusty Macintosh, ELP are preparing to Persian carpet-ride their way round the States and the dark princes of widdly-diddlyness, Supertramp, are just days away from bringing their impossibly high falsetto harmonies to the Point.
Wrinkly 70s has-beens we can cope with, but when hip young things like David Holmes start making hour-long opuses about a New York taxi the alarm bells start ringing. And then stop when you realise that theme-related or not, the cheerily-titled Let s Get Killed is the most essential Irish album of the year.
I wanted to release it in a Roger Dean triple-gatefold sleeve but the record company wouldn t let me, deadpans the Belfast w|nderkind. The idea came from this documentary I saw where they stuck 100 secret video cameras in the back of Yellow Cabs and filmed these fucking freaks as they went round Manhattan after dark. I use the word freak as a compliment these are individuals who have loads to say and don t mind who they offend saying it which is so typical of the place. Every time I go to New York, I get this intense rush which for once has nothing to do with drugs. Well, it doesn t until you get stuck into the local acid, which is like the best microdots you ve ever had x 2.
Actually, I nearly got killed because of that stuff, he continues. When I arrived there, I had nothing planned for the album other than taking to the streets with my DAT machine and recording bits of dialogue that would hopefully inspire the music. It wasn t big and it certainly wasn t clever but there was this one occasion, tripping our bollocks off at three in the morning, when we wandered into the South Bronx and got chased by these gangbangers who objected to having spiky-haired Irish kids on their turf. You know what it s like when you re so spanked you don t feel any fear? Well, I dropped the DAT and rather than abandoning it, ran back towards these guys who wouldn t have thought twice about sticking a knife in me.
Thankfully, Homer emerged from the encounter with all major arteries intact and spent a month sampling and, indeed, sequencing the delights of the Big Apple.
To me, New York is the centre of the world, he enthuses. Walk down a street and you ll pass every race, creed and colour in a matter of two blocks. Forget going to clubs, all the culture and music you want is out there on the streets. My favourite way of spending an afternoon there is to go to some park, smoke a few joints and see who you get talking to. Everybody s in their own little world quite literally because the neighbourhoods are so distinct. Harlem, for instance, is like nowhere else on the planet. I ve been a jazz and R n B nut since I was 15 and to go to a place where so much of that music comes from well, let s just say I felt very humbled.
Humbled, or chuffed that one trans-Atlantic flight had yielded the inspiration for an entire album? Jonathan O Brien neatly summed up the case for Holmes being charged with grand theft audio when he proffered in his 9-on-the-dice Hot Press review that his idea of transporting these pieces of music into a NYC urban setting is to merely slap a few snippets of Scorsese-type dialogue on top instead of putting in some real effort. Fair comment?
No way, he insists. For me, going to New York was the chance to put all the music I ve loved since childhood into context. The roots of pretty much everything you hear on the album were already in my head or, to be more precise, my record collection. The drum-loop I lifted for My Mate Paul , for example, comes from this 7 called Smoky Joe s La La which cost me #40.
Basically, Let s Get Killed is a trip through 30 years of New York street music, starting with the early 60s R n B vibe of My Mate Paul , detouring via-the 70s dub of Slasher s Revenge and then getting more and more fucked up and psychedelic with Freaknik and Don t Die Just Yet which has a 30-piece string section on it.
As breathlessly delivered as it is, Holmes potted travelogue only hints at Let s Get Killed s multi-faceted delights. You ll have to go a long way D|sseldorf, to be precise to find a slab of electro that out-stomps the title-track, Head Rush On Lafayette lives up to its name and then some, while Rodney Yates takes the silkiest melody this side of The Isleys Summer Breeze and smothers it in some of that industrial strength acid yer man was talking about.
Then there are his beloved freaks who, with a microphone stuck under their coke-hoovering equipment, are only too happy to come storming out of the woodwork. The star turn is the public astrologer on Gritty Shaker who informs Homer that: Sex is your business, you re supposed to get paid. Now, if these women want something for free, you send them to welfare. You ain t giving out no cheese, butter and food stamps at yo house.
As he said it, I was thinking to myself fucking result! That guy telling me my future cost $4 and was worth $40,000 because it was so perfect. The important thing about him and the other people on the album is that they re real they re not sampled from Pulp Fiction or some blaxploitation movie. No matter what anybody thinks of the music, I ll be there in 20 years time to tell the fucking tale.
My version of the James Bond theme, Radio 7 , wouldn t have made it onto the record without the dialogue I got, he reveals. It needed some sort of New York tie-in, so I asked these Hispanic kids what they thought of 007 and one said: James Bond is the man to meet because, I don t care what nobody says, you can get a gun, shoot 30 people, walk down the street, blow it up, not get a piece of dirt on you . . . you re with this shit! Then I met this black guy in Harlem who came up with the line: John Shaft is the man. I think if James Bond met John Shaft he d get a bullet in his ass. I mean, how can you fail when you ve got poetry like that to work with?
David Holmes mightn t be in it for the money I do what I do because I love music, he insists but when you get invited to give John Barry a techno kicking you re entering the super-earners league. Bearing in mind that Orbital confessed in these very pages to getting #30,000 for ruining The Saint theme, how much of his mortgage is Homer paying off with his Bond work?
So far, he rues, I ve been paid fuck all. It s such a sought after gig that they re able to ask loads of different people to do versions and then decide which ones they re going to use. I think they re going to accept it but if they don t, no sweat, because I ve got it on the album and it s kicking! Nobody summonsed me to the boardroom and said We need singles but the fact of the matter is that there are tracks like My Mate Paul and Radio 7 which the record company can use to suck people in.
And, boy, how they ve sucked. After flogging a rather measly 19,000 copies of its predecessor, This Film s Crap Let s Slash The Seats, Go! Beat s expertly administered media fellatio has seen Let s Get Killed debut this week at number 24 on the grown-up s album chart. A small step for man but a huge step for Irish dance which up till now has been on a par with Icelandic ska and Azerbaijani thrash in terms of international unit-shifting.
I m so pleased with the album that all the reviews could call it a rancid piece of shite and I wouldn t mind, he lies, but as it is, everybody s going fucking mad for it. Jockey Slut gave it 10 out of 10 and DJ went on about it being the most genius record you re going to hear all year which is almost embarrassing.
I m sure, though, that with the help of friends and family Homer will be able to come to terms with those superlatives. As the Jeanne Bekers among you may have noticed, the North s number six most eligible bachelor () IT magazine) has undergone something of an image overhaul of late. Gone is the low-maintenance crop to be replaced by a luxuriant Billy Idol peroxide job while the lower Holmesian torso appears to be permanently encased in a pair of leather strides. That s what happens, I suppose, when you start hanging out with Therapy?
Yeah, Andy Cairns is my fashion guru, he laughs. I can t understand why some dance people adopt a year zero mentality and pretend that rock n roll never existed. There s a great club in Belfast called Black where I get to play everything from Led Zeppelin and Spiritualized to Aphex Twin and DJ Shadow. It all depends how it s put together. If I went down and didn t do it properly, fuck how big a name I am, the punters would think it sounded like shit.
I grew up with nine brothers and sisters, right? When I was eight years old, I put on my first platter which was Pretty Vacant by the Sex Pistols. I had such a serious education before I even went to secondary school and no cunt s going to tell me what I should or shouldn t be listening to.
This extends to not jumping on the anti-U2 bandwagon, even when it was passing by his front-door.
The PopMart thing at the Botanic Gardens blew me away, it was totally outrageous, he gushes. Respect to anyone who can climb out of a giant lemon which then turns into a fucking mirrorball. Not only that but it was a band from my country playing in my hometown. When I think of all the brilliant records they ve made down through the years and how this is possibly the greatest rock n roll show ever, it makes me feel really proud. I know the scale of the thing means it s there to be analysed but at the end of the day it should be judged for what it is a night of pure fucking entertainment.
As spine-tinglingly impressive as it was, I felt that the gusto with which the old faves were delivered only highlighted how much of a dud Pop is.
Two-thirds of it is brilliant and the rest, well, at least they weren t recycling The Joshua Tree, Holmes reflects. When you think back to the other bands that were big when U2 were taking off in the 80s, where the fuck are they now? Simple Minds if they still exist can t even make the top 10. Sisters Of Mercy have turned into a cabaret act. None of them were able to keep developing the way U2 have done.
That said, Bono and the lads would be the first to acknowledge the huge creative debt that Pop owes to its team of vibemasters. If the call was to come, would Homer be prepared to put everything else on hold and do a Howie B?
I wouldn t be able to as you put it do a Howie B because we re different sorts of producers. He s able to totally focus on the one thing whereas I have to have my finger in loads of different pies. I don t want to sound big-headed but I think the Discothhque remix that I did worked really well and, yeah, if they wanted me to get involved in the creative process I d definitely talk to them about it.
The thing is, he confides, all the people I respect and am really, really into don t need anyone. For me, the best band on the planet at the minute are Radiohead. That last album, OK Computer, is absolutely superb and will be remembered 20 or 30 years down the line in the same way that Sgt. Pepper s and Pet Sounds are now. I mean, phwoaar, I d love to do a remix but I have absolutely no idea how I d treat it. Climbing Up The Walls , Karma Police . . . they re all great fucking songs but I don t know if I d be able to add to them.
Unfortunately, he may never get the chance with Massive Attack telling Hot Press in July that they d been invited to give OK Computer a thorough going-over.
I don t like the idea of them doing the whole album, he retorts with what our Forensics Lab has identified as a touch of petulance. I think they should get a load of different people in like me!
The threat of being beaten to a bloody pulp with a neon stickman prevents me from revealing their identity but only the other day I witnessed a leading bunch of UK technocrats spitting nails because they d been asked to overhaul a Bryan Ferry track. Not quite as credibility-haemorrhaging as perpetrating the extended club mix of the new Barry Manilow single Tony Morales, hang your head in shame but still guaranteed to get you roughed up by the Ministry of Sound bouncers.
Believe me, I ve been asked to do worse, he reveals.
What, like Siniad Lohan?
My policy is that when I turn down a mix, I do it politely. After all, you never know when you re going to have to get back onto the record company to blag that 4-CD box set you re after!
While Holmes has few peers behind the decks, he s yet to complete the transition from DJ to fully-fledged artiste. In other words, when s he going to justify those leather kecks and indulge in some foot-on-the-monitor shenanigans at the Drumshambo Astrodome?
The thing is, if I do play live I m going to have to be centre-stage going fucking mental and, at the moment, I haven t got enough time to brush me teeth yet alone rehearse. Don t Die Just Yet is going to be the third single off the album and we re in the process of lining up a seriously surprise guest vocalist. If that comes off, I might consider going on stage with him, her or it.
As for the identity of this mystery crooner, the current betting at H.P. Central is 5/2 Bono, 18/1 Shirley Bassey, 30/1 Neil Hannon and 500/1 outsider Po Teletubbie. Forget laziness, the reason Holmes dental hygiene regime isn t what it should be is down to the extracurricular activities he s engaged in.
We ve recorded seven or eight dub reggae tracks for the new Linda La Plante series, Supply & Demand, which is about the Drug Squad in Manchester. It s like a 90s Sweeney with loads of sex and mad car chases. We ve also done a score for Resurrection Man, this movie about a group of Loyalist paramilitaries in Belfast during the 70s who believe the ultimate way to kill a man is by the knife. I can see a lot of people getting up and walking out of the cinema because it s so disturbing. The violence itself isn t that graphic but the sound effects . . . eurrrgh! It s been made by two guys from Northern Ireland who go under the name of Revolution Films and goes out in America, France, Germany and the UK in January.
Obviously one to take the kids to during the Christmas holliers. Despite his protestations that talking about politics brings me out in a rash , this seems like an opportune moment to ask Homer whether there s any truth to those tabloid reports about the paramilitaries muscling in on the club scene.
Nah, he says dismissively, I never got any hassle from those guys. I was left alone, the same as all the other DJs I know.
Pah, how am I expected to land my first Sunday Worst cover story with that? Talking to people like Andrew Weatherall and Darren Emerson, it seems that Belfast has earned itself something of a reputation for being party spot central.
There s a ceasefire. The licensing laws have changed with clubs staying open till three or four in the morning. U2 played in the Botanic Gardens. Radiohead and Primal Scream have done secret gigs here. The place is buzzing.
So how come Let s Get Killed isn t set in the back of a Belfast taxi?
You couldn t do it, he laughs. It d just sound silly. It d probably work in Paris but the whole thing d have to be in French and I m not sure Parisians are that approachable. This reputation New Yorkers have for being stand-offish is complete bollocks. Stick a microphone and a joint, maybe in their face and they ll rattle on all fucking night.
While you re going to have to wait for the all-singing, all-dancing David Holmes soul revue, Dublin clubbers can examine his slipmat technique in close-up on October 11th when he joins Pete Tong, Carl Cox, Laurent Garnier, Billy Scurry and Glen Brady for the Eurodance 97 extravaganza at the Temple Theatre. Will he perchance be bringing the new Uriah Heep retrospective with him?
Nah, but I ve got a couple of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion records that ll blow your balls off! n