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Eddy Says
Eddy Says: The best defence is a good offence
By Eddy Temple-Morris | Published on Monday 17 August 2009
Right now I’m thinking about offending people. It’s so awfully easy to do in my game. Slag a tune and you’ll offend people. Say you like it, and you’ll offend people who hate it.
I normally don’t waste time slagging records on the show. I think it’s pointless, when there’s so little time every week, to play something I don’t like and slate it, when I could play something I love, or at least like a lot. And guess what? Even THAT offends people. I still get the odd bit of hate-mail that says “You’re shit cos you never slag anything off on your show, you just love everything…”
I can understand that point of view, Britain has more than its fair share of cynics and negative thinkers (I think it’s to do with the shit weather, I really do). But why abandon a good record for a bad one? The exception would be something like my playing that last Fatboy Slim record (The BPA), which, let’s face it, was weak. Disappointing, because he’s capable of so much better. And I said so. But because he’s made some of the best dance records ever, I had to let you know it was out there, despite it being a bit crap.
I’m no stranger to official complaint and serious offence. Blimey, I managed to get the biggest ‘regulator fine’ ever threatened to MTV, and narrowly avoided it with an on air apology.
On Xfm I’ve had two complaints ‘upheld’ by the regulator of the day – Ofcom. The first involved one of my best mates, Barry ‘Dub Pistols’ Ashworth. To this day he still doesn’t know this – I didn’t want to tell him because I love him so much and I knew he’d be mortified to think he almost had me taken off air (I think enough time has passed now for the slate to be clean so I’m cool about writing this and him possibly finding out).
Dear Baz used an unfortunate word to describe the crowd at one of the best gigs ever – it really was properly mental. Now, that word could cause offence, although in that context it’s accepted as popular parlance. But he used the word ‘spastic’ – as in, ‘the crowd went completely spastic, Eddy’, in his lovable way. It was, descriptively, a perfect choice of words and painted a picture of what it was like in there. Unfortunately, somebody didn’t see it that way. Offence was caused and a complaint upheld.
It’s interesting that in broadcasting it’s not deemed to be offensive unless somebody complains, then it only has to be ONE person, and if you’re judged not to be apologetic enough, then a fine can be levied and you can get fired.
A fascinating example was the last but one US election. Anybody remember the Superchunk mix I did? It was a fantastic seaming of anti-Bush tracks (Bush senior and junior) by Coldcut, Double D and Steinski, The The, Not In My Name etc. I had about 80 emails from all over the world, congratulating me on a brilliant choice of topical tunes, aimed at my handful of listeners in Ohio (an important ‘swing state’). But there was ONE listener in the US, a Republican, who was offended, complained, and got me in a shitload of trouble for non-impartiality.
The tone of my letter to the authorities probably didn’t help. “I would have loved to have shown impartiality and played some records which represent the opposite view but sadly could not find any songs which encourage invasion, murder and the massacring of innocent men, women and children in the Middle East”. Hmmm. The interesting thing was, I had 80 emails of support, and one complaint. ONE fucking complaint. And the complainer WON. What kind of country are we living in here? What happened to ‘the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?’. It sickens me to this day.
Like I said, whichever way you turn, whatever you say, you will offend someone: The other day I had an email, saying “I find it offensive when you have to apologise so profusely when playing stuff like the album version of Trip’s ‘Who’s That?’, there’s far worse things happening every night on the news etc”.
I was really feeling this person. I find it offensive myself, having to harp on before, during and after a record – remember Steel Panther’s ‘Death Io All But Metal’? A brilliant, hilarious record. Turns out I was the ONLY person in the UK to play that track unedited. I took a massive risk. I had to almost rupture myself apologising all around it. Even the mighty Ian Camfield didn’t have the cohones to play it on his marvellous Rock Show, despite my egging him on every time I saw him.
My latest line is “We’re talking about ART here… somebody’s art. And we’re talking about censorship of art”. And this raises a really crucial point – there must surely be a few bastions of freedom in broadcasting, where people like me, Ian and the two Johns can play music uncensored, without fear of being fired in these namby-pamby-politically-correct-limp-wristed-post Wossy and Russell Brand furore times.
This all came up in my mind because last night I had some hate-mail, for the first time in ages, my first on Twitter. Some guy had taken offense at my slagging a bunch of new LCD Soundsystem remixes and – get this – that I called myself, in the context of humorous self deprecation, “the Rick Stein of dance music (that rocks)”.
OK, one of those LCD mixes, the Richard Sen (Padded Cell) one, was quite good, but they were all so samey, and my ‘opinion’ caused offense. This guy clearly wants the whole world to have the same opinion as him. What a shit world that would be. I LOVE the fact that he liked those mixes, and held a different opinion to me, that’s one of the greatest things about life/the world. Vive la difference, that’s what I always say. We must celebrate people’s differences, not squash them. That’s tantamount to Nazism.
I’m very happy that this misguided tool had a go at me, it reminded me of a welcome and valuable lesson I learned in my days at MTV, when I was foisted into people’s living rooms for two hours every day. It’s something that is magnified when you’re on telly, and slightly less on radio. It’s something that helps thin skinned people like me to deal with this stuff. It’s sobering, grounding and soothing.
I remember my old pal Zane, bless him, in the old days, suffered terribly because he found it so hard coming to terms with being hated as well as adored. I used to repeat this to myself, like a mantra, and I’ve been doing it all day today: “For every person that loves you, there is another person that hates you”.
Long may this continue, because it makes the world a far richer and more interesting place to be. Vive La Difference my friends. Vive La difference.
Eddy Says from this edition of the CMU Remix Update.
