The Ideal Holmes Exhibition

David Holmes leaving Belfast is like the ravens quitting the Tower Of London. It's not a lucky omen. He's been a key presence for ten years now, holder of the most victorious, can-do spirit in town. He's brought us cool art, humour, tremendous clubs, even a vision of Belfast as a funky cafe society. You always felt that there was hope and progress for the place as long as he was pushing the defeatists aside, batting out so much royally mad music from his house-cum-studio.

Only last year, he was buzzing Hollywood and remixing the Manic Street Preachers. He was carrying off the Hot Press Award for Best Album (Don*'*t Die Just Yet) and bonding with everyone from Danny DeVito to Joe Strummer. He never seemed disappointed, and rarely failed to miss the potential for adventure. Remember, this is the guy who went to New York and watched the Manhattan skyline from the top of the Twin Towers, ripped on acid, copping a vision that was the equal of his own enormous capacity for wonder.

By the start of February, he'll be off to New York again, ready to make his third album. He's allowing himself the option of returning, but all the signs are that he's taking the artist's prerogative and deciding not to look back. Of course, we should be glad for the guy, that he's once more pushing his creative limits. But he'll no longer be local, our most celebrated homeboy. And even though his trade has been international for so long, taking him away for extended periods to areas like Japan, Brazil and Eastern Europe, he'll leave a vacant spot that may never be filled by anyone else.

So that's one of the reasons why we're talking to him just now. We'd like to profile the artist, to document his ideas before he moves on. Also, we might cut through some of the misinformation that surrounds the Homer myth. Has he really taken to brawling in public and behaving in a difficult fashion? What's this about a home in Los Angeles? And crucially, is he leaving Belfast under a black cloud, finally giving in to the killjoys and the mean-minded?

Me, I'm a fan. I like his company. I get a vicarious bang out of his lifestyle — all that speed and spontaneity. An hour with David is better than any therapist. He doesn't recognise the mental checks that we unconsciously use to limit our style — what old William Blake called the "mind-forged manacles". He focusses on the achievement and then worries about the incidentals later. Remember, here's a guy who doesn't play any instruments (aside from the turntables and the mixer), never mind reading music. He's a producer who doesn't care so much for the technical side of the job. He just hires a good engineer and a bunch of players, delegating the roles, allowing himself to concentrate on the grand idea, using his record collection as an infinite sample source, his very own church of noise.

Andy Cairns tells a good story about working with David. The Therapy? frontman turned up at Homer's Exploding Plastic Inevitable studio with his guitar, as requested. There were a couple of geezers bouncing around in there who looked the worse for wear. Maybe David was a little touched also. Andy asked the boss what kind of sound he'd like. "Make it really distorted," David suggested. Andy asked if anyone had a distortion box, so that he could achieve the necessary effect. "We don't have anything like that," Homer said. "Just play the guitar really distorted." Easy as.

David is an ace story-spinner, impersonating accents, acting out the lines, taking you back to some almighty scene. He uses his big physical presence to good effect. He's forever twitching, stroking his stubble, muzzing up his spiky hair, pulling at his clothes. And when he catches a drift that excites him, his voice will jump an octave or two. I'd keep away from poker games if I was him!

He's only smoking 15 cigarettes a day now, as opposed to the 50 a day average over Christmas. That nasty habit peaked around New Year's Eve, which involved an early DJ set at the Shine club in Belfast's Mandela Hall. When this was done, he jumped into a pre-booked limo with some mates and hard-nosed it down to Dublin in just over two hours, ready for another job behind the decks at a Johnny Moy party. Then onwards to a few private bashes, ending up, 48 hours later, lying damp and exhausted, realising too late that he'd barely eaten in three days.

So now he's recuperating briefly at his bungalow in Galwally, near the top of the Ormeau Road. Outside, it looks like a pretty, middle-class abode. Open up the doors and you're straight into techno-trash heaven. You always expect to see a lot of records at his manor, but a cursory look over the lounge reveals that this is where the rarest, most eccentric and beautiful pieces of old vinyl come to stay. On a good night, David will be zipping between Serge Gainsbourg, Make-Up, Royal Trux, Michael Brook, Skylab, the beat-fried poetry of Steven Jesse Bernstein, plus a shedload of vintage soul and psychedelia.

"And the boys from Belfast," he concludes with a grin.

A monochrome shot of producer Phil Spector (who famously ruled over his studio with a loaded revolver) stands by the far wall of David's living room. He gazes over the art pieces that rest on the floor and the collection of Only Fools And Horses videos, testimony to an owner who is mid-way between laddishness and enlightenment. Above the crackling coal fire is a photo of David's smiling mother, Sarah, who died in 1996, still his guiding spirit. If you're lucky, Homer may bring you into the spare room that's now a customised studio, and play some new creation.

Like his remix of the Manics' new single, "You Stole The Sun From My Heart", which has floating, Fender Rhodes effects, rich and strange. He developed that idea after a recent Brian Eno lecture in Belfast, when the producer remarked that joy was the hardest mood to achieve in music. Also, there's an ongoing experiment between David and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Our man has just remixed a JSBE track, combining much guitar fuzz with the voice of a Gospel preacher from Texas, who roars and proselytises over this new creation. In return, Jon Spencer has promised to sing on a track on David's new LP.

Ah yes, the follow-up to Let*'s Get Killed. Even though 1998 brought us the Out Of Sight soundtrack and an Essential Mix double album, a fully-formed record is the big priority this year. After a few beers, David unwraps the following plan. First, his mates in New York have stocked a studio with old-school instruments: Moogs, a 1957 Gretsch kit, vintage guitars and Fairchild compressors like The Beatles once used. The engineer will be James Murphy, a longstanding associate of Steve Albini. Story-wise, the LP is going to involve a series of fictional themes, which have been worked up by Lisa Barros D*'Sa, the girlfriend of his artist mate, Glenn Leyburn.

"Lisa is writing a script," David explains, already enthralled, "and the whole idea is that this album will come with a series of short stories that are all completely connected to this script. Within the music, you're gonna have actors acting out certain scenes. Everything's gonna be connected, but it will seem unconnected — it will just be fucking weird."

"And Wiz (the video director who birthed Flowered Up's Weekender classic) is coming over here on Tuesday for a meeting. All three videos he'll make are gonna connect to each other, and that's also gonna be part of the whole story. And then the final piece of the jigsaw is to release the soundtrack album — remixed tracks from the album, an underlining score plus mental tracks that appear on the movie that we're gonna licence in as source music."

He stops for a suck of air, for maybe half a second. Your mind is still trying to rationalise the last concept, but then he's raging ahead once more.

"That's the whole picture. To tell you the truth, it sounds really ambitious but there are so many different levels to take it to, you never actually have to get to the top level. That will be enough. We don't even have to make the movie. When the whole thing is finished, I'm gonna launch it. We're gonna have a club with characters acting in it — a psychedelic dance party. That's where I'm going."

So does David Holmes ever have doubts about his own abilities? "Yeah, I have self-doubts at the minute. Sort of. It's different. This Film's Crap Let's Slash The Seats was an easy album to make. Let's Get Killed wasn't too bad. There was a stage when I couldn't make any music at all because I'd lost my mum, and there was a huge hole there that needed to be filled. You could only let the whole thing unfold naturally before you could find your way."

"The last record was the first time that I'd worked with a 30-piece orchestra, so that was quite an educational experience. But with this album, what I actually want to create... (pause) and I'm thinking, can I do this? Deep down, I know I can, because I work with a great bunch of people. When you ask them to do something, you know that you're gonna get it done better than you asked for."

Wouldn't it be easier to make a few movie soundtracks and bank the money?

"I've turned down over 30 movies now. With a lot of those, I was getting offered megabucks to do. I'm not gonna say how much, but it's like ridiculous amounts. Silly money."

About half a million?

"Not that much. But I just wanna pick. When I started off making music, I was this young, enthusiastic kid who was just totally obsessed and had to get into the studio and make records. When I look back, I didn't really pay attention to how great and how shit they were. But now, I have a serious quality control stamp. It doesn't have to sell shitloads of copies; it can be twisted and fucked up and a lot of people mightn't understand it, but it's quality to me."

"So I wanna pick my movies like I pick my remixes. You've gotta read the screenplay and see who's written it. You see who's acting in it, who's directing it, what the film company is. I'm talking about big-budget films, because on low-budget stuff, you can be completely swung on someone's enthusiasm and their vibe. So I've gotta be really careful for me and what I wanna do in my career. Because there's no fucking way at this time that it's ever gonna be a job."

And what if you got offered a De Niro film that wasn't much cop?

"Well, Bobby has done a few duds in the last few years. I've been offered some really good stuff, but it's just the usual movie business. Like, the director isn't gonna be working around me, and I can't work around a director. So it's all about timing as well. But I'll wait until I finish my next record, do a few gigs and then take another movie on."

He was born in the year of the rooster, February 14, 1969. His father, Jackie, was a bookie who sometimes worked with cattle. Sarah, his mother, was a nurse who almost named the youngest of her ten children Valentino. She settled for the name David and raised the kids — six of them girls — in a series of terraced homes (Blackwood Street, Haypark Avenue) by the Ormeau Road. David, passionate for vinyl, always got records for birthdays and Christmas, allowing him to DJ with style at the age of 15, revving up the atmos in mod sessions at the Abercorn in Belfast. While his mates would mainly settle for the parkas and the scooters, the superficial stuff, David was archiving the sounds, delving into Latin, jazz, R&B.

"I think the mod scene of the early 80s was more detailed and more intense than the original clubs of the 60s," he reckons. "It was taken to another level of obsession. I see what I'm doing now as an extension of that, really. The great thing for me about the 90s is that you've had the death of the cult. There is no more of that, it's not split up. There is no real uniform. To me, you're into fucking everything."

By 1986 he was playing hip hop and rare groove at Tatters in Ann Street with Iain McCready and Gavin Bloomer. Early house tunes gradually made their way into David's sets, but it was the '88 summer of love that changed the agenda entirely. He had been working as a hairdresser, first in Zakks and later at a breakaway salon called Star, which also featured Paul Caddell, who'd be immortalised in the tune "My Mate Paul". But acid house was the new style and in '89 David helped to set up Base at the Thrupenny Bit, by the King's Hall. The first night brought in 600 people. On the second night, they attracted 1,000 true believers.

"It was so exciting," he muses. "Not just the music, but the whole lifestyle, the mentality. Even the speak at the time. Running around in a pair of dungarees, a floppy hat and a poncho. You were part of something, and you didn't really want everybody to know about it."

Base 3 was established at the Art College in 1990. People were weeping openly to "Chime", a hard-to-find 12" by an act called Orbital. Legendary times. Soon, Homer and McCready had founded Sugarsweet, considered by many to be Belfast's best ever club. People began jetting in from Manchester, London and Glasgow, eager to witness the thrills. This writer recalls an amazing conclusion to one such night, when Homer signed off with his 14-minute remix of "Smokebelch II" by The Sabres Of Paradise. The house lights were up, the stage was utterly invaded and the bouncers were dancing with enormous, shit-eating grins. And that remix seemed to last forever, turning back on itself, raising the euphoria with every new lap, eternally 3am.

"Sugarsweet was probably the best acid house club ever to come out of this whole country," he gushes. "There were queues to get in, people were swinging from the balconies, the stage was mobbed with people. McCready and I, we had a really great partnership because we were playing different music. All we wanted to do was party, make a few quid, buy more records."

"I learnt a lot from Iain. He was ahead of his time in a lot of ways. We ended up going off and doing our own things. But they were definitely the best days of my life, without a doubt. Without all those mental nights, I would never have what I have now."

"It's just not what I'm looking for in a night out. I want to go out and hear a lot of different types of music now. I don't want to go out and get off my head and listen to house and techno all night. I'm not really passionate about it. But full respect to anybody who's doing what they're doing. I enjoy going to places like Ski Bunny. It's a really good club and Mark and Tanya (former members of the band Tunic) are really cool people and on the ball. You'll hear every kind of music in there — Stereolab to Tortoise to Diana Ross — and then you have a band like The Desert Hearts who come down to play. As far as acid house and techno go, I personally think it's more or less all been done."

Holmes spent two months in Los Angeles last year, working on the Out Of Sight soundtrack.

Danny DeVito, the film's co-producer, was a sympatico guy, taking our man by private jet to his home, where David soaked up plenty of whiskey and watched South Park. Danny's wife, Rhea Perlman was there too — the actress who used to play Carla in Cheers. Both of them were good listeners, paying full attention to the Irish boy when he spoke, making him feel valued in a deeply superficial place.

The studio was at the Sunset Marquis, a hotel within staggering distance of the famous Strip and Johnny Depp's Viper Room. This was not an especially peaceful location.

"You'd go in there on a Friday night," he remembers, "and it would be quite bizarre. Marilyn Manson would be in one corner, The Red Hot Chili Peppers in the other corner. Drew Barrymore would walk in, followed by Hugh Hefner with a few bimbos."

"You're having a conversation with Gabriel Byrne and Robbie Coltrane is down in the studio, smoking cigars, hearing the music. We were just chatting to all these people who didn't really want to know us because we weren't actors and we weren't directors, and you couldn't do anything for them. It was full of stars, starfuckers, wannabe stars, wannabe starfuckers, and fuckers."

"And the boys from Belfast," he concludes with a grin.

Top 10 David Holmes Tracks/Remixes
THE DISCO EVANGELISTS: "De Niro" (Positiva, 1992)

A collaboration between Holmes and Ashley Beedle. David was in the habit of dropping the melody from Morricone's Once Upon A Time In America into his live club mixes. He transferred this onto record and promptly shifted 30,000 copies. Not a bad debut.

FORTRAN 5: "Persian Blues" / "Time to Dream" (remixes) (Mute, 1993)

His early remixes showed much promise. Soon he was throwing tricks for Saint Etienne, The Sandals, Therapy? and a host of others.

THE SABRES OF PARADISE: "Smokebelch II" (remix) (Sabres Of Paradise, 1993)

Arguably his best remix ever. Around 14 minutes of sustained peaks and the sound of kettle drums giving it plenty. Pure, individual talent.

DAVID HOLMES: "No Man's Land" (Go! Discs, 1995)

Prison doors clang and the paranoia kicks in hard. A personal and evocative response to the film In The Name Of The Father. The outstanding track on David'*s debut LP, This Film's Crap Let'*s Slash The Seats. This prefigured his work on the Resurrection Man soundtrack.

DAVID HOLMES: "My Mate Paul" (Go! Discs, 1996)

A vintage shuffle, based on "Smokey Joe's La La" by the Googie Rene Combo. The way David retuned the style to a modern age was way ahead of its time. Lionrock and All Seeing I caught up with the plan an awful lot later.

U2: "Discothèque" (remix) (Island, 1997)

David stripped the song down to the very basics, making the pill-eating routine alluded to in Bono's lyric all the more blatant.

DAVID HOLMES: Let's Get Killed (Go! Discs, 1997)

Album of the year in The Hot Press Awards. Our hero running amok in Harlem, South Bronx and East Village with a DAT machine, unspooling tales from the city. Visionary in every sense.

DAVID HOLMES: Stop Arresting Artists (Go! Discs, 1998)

A set of 12-inch records, featuring remixes of Holmes songs by the likes of the Stereo MCs, Arab Strap, Red Snapper and Two Lone Swordsmen. A fun operation.

DAVID HOLMES: Out Of Sight (Jersey/Universal, 1998)

In which Homer went to Hollywood and scored a major result. Simultaneously retro and on the case. "The Trunk Scene" is already taking over TV incidental scenes like a rash.

DAVID HOLMES: Essential Mix 98/01 (FFRR, 1998)

One man, a mixer and a mighty record collection, in full flight. Worth hearing simply for the Rare Earth drum solo, which is fantastically mad.