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Eddy Says
Eddy Says: Four days in April
By Eddy Temple-Morris | Published on Monday 18 April 2011
Starting tonight, I’ll be covering Xfm’s oldest specialist show, John Kennedy’s brilliant X-posure. In eleven years, I’ve never been asked to do this and it’s with a huge sense of honour that I pick up this baton and run with it for a week.
One thing I really don’t want to do is take it over totally and make it ‘Remix In The Week’. It’s X-posure, it has its own life and its own sense of identity, which I don’t want to lose. It’s the most eclectic show on Xfm, that plays rock, without stepping on Ian Camfield’s toes, that plays dance, without stepping on mine, and which above all else, champions new music of any genre.
I’m going to keep John’s features; The X-posure Hot One, X-posure Big One, X-posure The Long One, Sessions, guests, mixes, you’ll find them all there. Inevitably it’ll be slightly Remix-flavoured, because my contacts are mostly from the world of dance/crossover, but I’m really going to try to reflect the wonderful no-holds-barred policy that makes X-posure such a brilliant and important radio show.
It’s a hell of a task putting it all together. While Annie Mac, Zane and co have a posse of able producers and broadcast assistants to help them put their shows together, here outside the warm bosom of auntie Beeb, we have ourselves, and that’s it. We have to produce, research, compile, report, write, arrange, liaise, whatever it takes to get each show on the road. But that is, the way I see it, yet another strength. There is a supreme connection between the show and the host. The Remix and Rock Show on Xfm are exactly the same, there is none of that detachment you get with some shows where there is a clear sense of spoon-feeding, of someone being a mouthpiece for someone else’s taste or agenda, what you see and hear on Xfm is what you get.
But it’s the eclecticism that’s the most important factor with X-posure. It’s the only show on Xfm where ANYTHING goes. The Remix is a famously eclectic radio programme, but it has definite parameters, X-posure has no boundaries at all.
My own eclecticism has been a long time in the making… When dance music, as we know it, started – back when many of you reading this were about to negotiate solid food for the first time – I remember hating it. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to be in a gang who only listened to four/four kickdrums while off their tits on drugs. Well, I could understand the drugs part, but what flummoxed me was why anyone would listen exclusively to a type of music for which the main requirement to its enjoyment was that you had to be high on a Class A controlled substance.
I’m not getting all high horsey about drug taking – god knows I’ve experimented vigorously in that area in the past and had some wonderful as well as horrible experiences – the point I’m trying to make is that we were in music ‘gangs’ then. The people who loved and listened to dance music, for the most part, ONLY listened to dance music. Conversely the rockers hated dance and listened to stuff with guitars. Of course, there were crossovers and double standards, some of the dance mob liked AC/DC and plenty of rockers, like me, were ex goths and New Romantics who’d been raised on a diet of analogue synths, but generally speaking, rockers were rockers, ravers were ravers, and a show and clubnight like The Remix was unthinkable. There was only John Peel in the middle, ploughing his lonely furrow.
But now John Peel’s gone, bless him, I see John Kennedy as the one who keeps his flame alive more than anyone else. Of course you can find ‘eclectricians’ elsewhere, and they are all in their own way brilliant, but our John has been doing this longer than all the ones you’re thinking of right now, and he’s been going deeper than anyone else, unearthing demos from acts you now take for granted: Adele, The xx, Razorlight, Futureheads, even Mumfords all had their first ever play, anywhere, not on Radio 1 but on John’s show. And it was he, not I, who gave Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip their first ever support on radio.
I’ll be celebrating all these discoveries with a new feature called DBJK (Discovered By John Kennedy) where I’ll play a record by a band who got their first ever support on radio from John. This will be an interesting litmus test of the fickleness of people. When I play The Ting Tings or Mumford & Sons there will be more hate than love on the message platforms, I’m sure. But I’d urge you now to cast aside the baggage that comes with success and just judge these records like you’re hearing them for the first time ever, and admit, albeit perhaps grudgingly, that they are incredibly catchy tunes.
When John played The Ting Tings for the first time, he says he had more positive feedback than pretty much anything he’s ever played. He added that within a year people were saying: “What are you playing this shit for?!” Knocking success is a very British thing, and these tunes I’m going to play will really shine a spotlight on that very negative side of a culture and nation that I love and call home. I appeal to you now, to remember that these tunes are a positive celebration of a vital broadcaster and even if you hate them, try to put them in proper context.
It’s with an enormous sense of responsibility, respect and pride that I take this opportunity. I feel a mutual deep sense of love for music and for radio, so in that respect I feel OK about doing such an important show, and I sincerely hope I can do it and John justice. As I said, I’m not going to mess with the formula very much – there may be a few more exclusive guest mixes than normal, for obvious reasons. I’ve got some some amazing guests, from Paul Epworth (tomorrow), Ben from Fenech-Soler (tonight) and Hervé (Wednesday), to brand new south London band, Auction (Thursday). I’ve got some pretty amazing demos too, and I’ve asked a couple of people to do some special mixes for us. It really will be an unmissable week of radio if you’re into new music and emerging talent of all genres.
You’ll hear meat and two veg indie, singer-songwriters with acoustic guitars, Eddie Vedder on the ukelele, Ben Fench-Soler on the piano, minimal house, chillbeat, brithop, rock n roll, loungecore, and unclassifiable electronica made by mentalists, for mentalists. No holds barred and no punches pulled. I’m even playing a demo that John liked but felt he couldn’t play because it was too provocative. It’s called ‘If You Had AIDS, I’d Want It’. If you find that offensive, I apologise, with hand on heart, but with that hand remaining on my heart I believe its people like John, Ian C, and my responsibility to take risks and to show support for artists who don’t get love from the mainstream. This is what makes X-posure such a great radio show and why I’m working every spare minute, even while I’m on tour with Losers in France as I write this, to make this week something memorable and special, most of all a tribute to an ongoing radio legend and one of those unsung heroes of music. John, I salute you. We salute you. Happy holiday.
Eddy X
