Emerson DJ Review from RA

[BrotherLovesDub]

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[BeautifulBurnout]

I have to confess that the last time I saw him, about 3 yrs ago if I remember rightly, we left before the end of his set. Boring and predictable. Shame, but it's true.

[joethelion]

hey - remember that album of his that was "coming out this fall with a single due by the end of the summer"

...back like...

SIX YEARS AGO??????

[holden]

Darren Emerson was the young hot-shot DJ in like 1992-94. I'd give him credit for helping R&K develop their electronic dance sound (although they were well on their way on their own), and for being a road-tester of tracks in his DJ sets and and extra set of hands at the mixing desk.

I admit to not knowing too much about him solo, but what i've heard hasn't been too impressive.

I also recall two DJ sets he did while with UW - the second disc in the Beaucoup Fish interview set, where his mixing is terrible,
and a 1996 essential selection (includes Air Towel, Pearls Girl, telematic among others) that is also pretty bland and a little less than perfect in the transitions department.
Further, a while back, a circa 1996 interview appeared on these boards
http://www.darktrain.org/dirty/forum...rson+interview
where Daz came off as sounding like he was responsible for UW's success and was the major creative control. Maybe his ego was just inflated by NUXX taking off (and certainly he's more gracious in the BF interviews, etc), but still...

Maybe i'm just picking out the low moments, and there are probably plenty of highs (i used to quite like his remix of Fatboy Slim's "bird of prey" amnd Sven Vath's "Harlequin").

[phaseblue]

I was in a bookstore back in 2000 and I saw Darren Emerson on the cover of (I believe it was) DJ Magazine, so of course being a big Underworld fan, I picked it up! It was an interview with Emerson, and to my utter and complete surprise, it was basically a total hit piece on Underworld! Now, I don`t remember Darren saying too much negative stuff about them, but the magazine interviewers sure had a field day, and Darren seemed to play right into it. The most memorable quote was something like "Back in the 80`s [in the Freur] they had long, pink hair and now they are trying to be a dance act!"

Needless to say, I was so angry that I just threw the magazine down and walked out of the store! I mean did these jack asses actually believe the crap they were saying, or did they just not know any better?

That article, and the whole DJ "scene" in general, really started to piss me off at that time! Keep in mind that this was the period when everybody and their mother`s brother had a story about how they supposedly "spun" records at this or that club at this time or that time in the supposed past. I`m not trying to attack DJs (there are some very talented ones who are part of this community), but it was really hard during that period with all these young people worshipping DJs like gods and forgetting that someone had to actually write the music that was on the f#$king records! The interviewers/writers for that magazine, or the most of the young dumb asses who bought it, probably couldn`t tell real art if it hit them in the face!

As for Emerson, I was done with him then!!!

[potatobroth]

Originally Posted by BrotherLovesDub

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am I missing something here?

[dubman]

Originally Posted by potatobroth

am I missing something here?

said he was still laughing about the shitty review RA gave him, and that he was boring and predictable. dunno why he'd edit all that out tho. edit: he's editing most of his thread posts. wtf BLD.

i also dont know how i feel about this whole thing tho. this airing of emerson derision doesnt happen often, but it's like a rug that gets the dust beaten off of it, and each time it looks more and more like a crappy way to find closure on it. sure R+K wrote most of dubnobass and were making headway on their own, but in the same way that darren price remains uncredited in OWB, emerson must have given at least useful advice on where to guide them so that they made a stormer like cowgirl. and over the last few years the dirty community has been slowly trying to convince itself of emerson's reduced role in the band, to the point where he's suddenly a bit player instead of being as valuable as the rest of them when he was there.

[holden]

Originally Posted by dubman

i also dont know how i feel about this whole thing tho. this airing of emerson derision doesnt happen often, but it's like a rug that gets the dust beaten off of it, and each time it looks more and more like a crappy way to find closure on it. sure R+K wrote most of dubnobass and were making headway on their own, but in the same way that darren price remains uncredited in OWB, emerson must have given at least useful advice on where to guide them so that they made a stormer like cowgirl. and over the last few years the dirty community has been slowly trying to convince itself of emerson's reduced role in the band, to the point where he's suddenly a bit player instead of being as valuable as the rest of them when he was there.

i hear what you're saying, and as i posted, i think that the interviews around "Beaucoup Fish" era are mostly good-humored (the hilarious one with the acoustic Born Slippy has a lot of joking between Rick and Darren, for example, and it also stresses that "Bruce Lee" was a Daz contribution at heart). After the split, Karl mentioned that it was amiable. But what of the often-talked-about-in-the-press bit that BF was recorded distantly, with sound files emailed back and forth? Was the mood really that tense or is this just typical journalistic sensationalizing?

[darktrain]

After the Chicago 99 show a group of dirts waited out back for the guys to come out. R&K graciously signed autographs/took pics/chatted with us, but Darren flew into the awaiting cab.
Now maybe he wasn't feeling well or was sick of chatting with folks but personally it seemed like he just couldn't be arsed.

Still, his GU Uruguay box wasn't half bad for its time.

[phaseblue]

Originally Posted by BeautifulBurnout

I have to confess that the last time I saw him, about 3 yrs ago if I remember rightly, we left before the end of his set. Boring and predictable. Shame, but it's true.

I saw him once at Nocturnal Wonderland back around the time of the aforementioned article! During his set, I noticed that he was getting fat, smoked like a chimney, chugalugged wine from bottle every 3 minutes, pointed his finger rudely at staff (several times) to get dancers off the stage if he was afraid they would cause his records to skip, and had this "Look at me! I`m a famous DJ" grin on his face the whole time! Quite unbecoming for a former Underworld member!!!

On a positive note; his set was decent and half the the crowd went crazy when he played Cowgirl!