The Godfather of Tech-House: Eddie Richards interview

The Godfather of Tech-House: Eddie Richards interview

3 September, 2008 | 9.37AM

• Written by: Lee Smith
• Filed under: Music News: acid house, eddie richards

Dance music is littered with unsung heroes and underground legends, but few DJs have been as instrumental in shaping the sound of tech-house as ‘Evil’ Eddie Richards.

From his residency at London’s Camden Palace in the ‘80s, through to his involvement with esteemed parties and clubs like Clink Street, Wiggle, and latterly, Fabric, Eddie has consistently been revered by house and techno connoisseurs for his influence on today’s scene.

We caught up with Eddie after his closing set at The End last weekend, where he was playing at the club’s Summer Of Love party with DJs including Mr C, Danny Rampling, Kid Batchelor, and many more heroes of acid house.

So, Eddie, how have you enjoyed the Summer of love party tonight?

It’s been great.

People seemed really up for it, screaming and waving their hands in the air and stuff.

Did you feel it was mainly an old-school crowd here tonight, or did you spot the younger clubbers as well?

Mainly old faces, I would say!

I did see some younger kids, but that was maybe about a quarter of the crowd.

Being part of the original Clink Street crew [pioneering late ‘80s acid house party], do you often get asked to do these kind of retrospective gigs?

I do get asked from time to time - I wouldn’t say a lot, but maybe three or four times a year.

I normally turn them all down, and the only reason I did this one was because it was with Mr C, so I knew it would be done properly, you know.

A lot of these things, they don’t get the right crowd, they just want the commercial end of what was going on in ‘88 or ‘89, and I didn’t really play anything like that.

So were there any standout tracks you played that went down notably well?

Yeah, for me the best track was right at the end, when I played ‘Your Love’ by Jamie Principle, and as I finished playing it, I heard the next room playing that track as well!

It was a bit weird.

And while I was playing it, I saw Danny Rampling in the crowd, and he came over and kissed my hand!

Wow. Maybe he wanted to “share the secrets of his success”...anyway, for readers who may not be aware of what you play these days, how would you describe your sound?

Well, I’ve always played new stuff.

In ‘88 it was really new, and I’ve tried to keep to that.

Anything that’s new and exciting, I’ll play - I really don’t like playing those gigs for old stuff, I don’t get excited so much by those tracks.

I’ve heard them quite a lot…

Do you think, old or new, the spirit of acid house lives on now?

Yeah, I would say so.

I still see a lot of the same people out that I used to see years ago, and they’re still into the new stuff, as well.

Just maybe a little bit older!

Besides your Fabric residency and international schedule, do you have any other interesting projects in the pipeline?

Actually, yeah - next week I’m playing at a Sex Pistols gig in London, believe it or not.

I think the promoter maybe knew me from the Camden Palace days, or maybe the band used to go there.

That should be interesting - what are you going to play?

Well, I’ve been trying to find out exactly what they want, but it’s been difficult.

The one guy I know who’s involved told me years and years ago that he liked my sound because it was trippy - “like being in a spaceship”, I think he said.

He hasn’t given me any clues - he just said “don’t play The Clash”, because apparently Johnny Rotten hates the Clash!

Brilliant. So are you going to play house music, or something entirely different?

I think I’m gonna play dub earlier on - modern dub, too - and then a whole punk trip thing, I don’t know, from Iggy Pop and New York Dolls, onwards.

A history of punk in records, basically.

That sounds really interesting. I wish I was going...

I just hope they don’t throw cans and shit at me, you know.

Apparently they had Goldie for one of the dates and they went nuts, saying he was “fucking terrible"…

You’ll have to demand a cage around the booth or something...

I don’t know what it’s gonna be like, there’s gonna be old timers, new fans, football hooligans…

I think it’s interesting to do different stuff like that, though, something different.

I’ve built up a good collection of all the other stuff - I have tons of it on vinyl, but I play Serato, so it’s a case of going through the old 12s and then finding the tracks online.

It means that my collection gets better, and I get the cream of every style.

In the last couple of years, you’ve stopped playing vinyl entirely - so you’re obviously an advocate of digital DJing...

It’s great, innit.

In fact, tonight, it came in really useful, because a lot of those breaks on the old records are really short, and obviously with Serato or Traktor you can just loop it for 8 bars.

A lot of those old tempos go all over the place, so it’s helpful to be able to use the loop function - you can take your time and mix properly.

Mr C is a massive vinyl supporter - did he give you any grief for playing digital?

Well, both him and Colin Faver [veteran Kiss FM DJ] still use vinyl - I had a feeling they still would be, and I was right.

I mailed C to ask him if he was OK with me using digital tonight, and he said “whatever you want”, I don’t think he has a problem with it.

He doesn’t really care.

Even for tonight, when he was trying to recreate the original vibe, he didn’t mind.

He was charging a tenner to get in, like the old days, and the decorations were just like they were back then.

It was like just stepping back to ‘88, except with a modern sound system.

And a few of the faces looked a bit older, you know!

****

You can check out Eddie’s DJ schedule at www.eddierichards.net, and look out for a very special gig in the new year at Weekend, Berlin, featuring Eddie Richards, Dumb-Unit’s Jeremy P. Caulfield, and your faithful Beatport scribe, Lee Smith.

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