Apart from shopping, what was happening at Harrods that day?

If I remember right, Paul Kendall *was* already present at this session for the first time, as we had just met and he wanted to get acquainted to us in the studio, but Colin was still v much working it all out on this one, cause he liked to feel at the helm of the engineering side of it - as he had previously done on Heroes, Low, Passenger, Duran's first and Rio, Talk Talk's first album too, Landscape (Richard Burgess), back in 79...

However -and ironically I think- Gage *never again* used Colin's pedal when playing Creature live, cause she thought it, well, it did what it does here, which is turn the bass sound into Rio. And Gage was plenty cleverer and a hell of a better artist than to be allowing things such as that, so she *specifically took this pedal out of the pedal chain* whenever playing this song, cause *bypass wouldn't do*.  And this bass, by Gage, live, without Colin's chorus pedal, more or less condensed to a JT everything John Taylor ever even dreamed of playing. If you never heard Gage play this, live, slapping the f*** out of it, as she had mastered some weird, dry, dense, extra thick, snappy-fretless mix transient sound, that she incorporated into the playing of, specifically, this one... well, there's always Ultrasound.  ..Ultrasound are/were absolutely brilliant.  ..But there's only one Gage. ..Quite simply, cause there's always only ever one of the original article. Good day, folks.

Well hello, journalists and wikipedia entriers alike - I hear a lot of rumours, Ian Brown once sang.
Help yourselves to the dexdexter story, since the wikip*rn entry seems a most deliciously corporate & glossy narrative generateur, whose absolutely upside-down relation of events is only missing that Orlando invented prerecorded live gigs and Xav founded dex, instead of describing weasels for what they always were - which would also traditionally be known as actual journalism.
..Chrissie Hynde was never a dex fan, but she could not have liked The Sparking Toys more - specifically the singer-less period, though she liked both formats. 
Same with Supergrass. Tells me something.

Whoever redacted the current Discogs bio - well done getting most everything wrong, whilst attempting to sound authoritative and knowledgeable. 
..Zilch about zilch, either way.

"..Evan, dexdexter's plumpy keyboardist."
..Said Nadia Mediocre Comaneci.
..Was there, never, anything else, pertinent to and susceptible of highlighting, other than that, regarding my musical activities, Mr Slimeone Humpty WiFi* Dumpty Gooardian Prickrice.
The Fable Of Slimeone Prickle Und Humpty Dumpty.
..Equally evil, equally conniving, equally half-boiled.

*WiFi - the hairantennae worn by Slimone Prickrice, the Nadia Comaneci of Gooardian dorknalism, eternal chair-bearer of the mystical flame for standards of artifice und talentless mediocrity.

Ex Dex Demos. ..Sponsored by Gato Malo Blanco and his keyboard naps.
Where one can mostly delect in G's and Gage's work. And I'm not saying this for free.
Though I never quite understood why that Trace Elliot bass amp had to half-blow up my shitty Boss mixer, and itself fully, twice. And I had it explained - I did match impedance/s, ohm lol.

These should all be band masters but for Creature - as per G's handwriting.

DexDexTer - 1994-6 + Sparking Toys 1997-09, cassette + studio demos + singles

Left to right: Evan, Paul 'PK' Kendall, Xav.
Roundhouse Studios, London Bridge, mid 1996. 
Paul McCartney's studios back then, "yaknow".

Recording G's guitars / backing vocals / harmonies.
Amidst our travels from Chipping Norton residential studios, to Protocol studios, to TownHouse studios, to Blackwing studios, through London Bridge studios, to Mute records studios.
..What an easy going band lol.

Picture by Gage S.

Gage's bassline on this one ain't human either.

I'd gladly say these are possibly G's best ever *recorded* guitars out of the final Mute sessions, or maybe ever. As in, up there with any guitarwork ever executed down-to-tape, by anyone, cause that's how good the guitars here are - subtly assertive, choppily pungent, self-dialogant, sophisticatedly aggressive, and imprinting as much rhythm as the percussive elements, in ways only Graham Coxon or Billy Duffy can, afaik. 
Not only are they amongst the v best guitars ever, they're for free. And all of these other tracks are for free now too, and there's a lot of gossipy info also narrated for free, in here, so how about just shutting the f*** up with *stardom narratives* and being thankful for it all - we sweated these tracks out like milking a feckin stone. 

Had Xav stopped telling G how to play his own choppy interventions, there'd have been an even better and more thorough guitar orchestration thing going on. 
..If that's even possible.

My hands look Frankenstein massive as I was spending rather a lot of time drumming, at all of these studios, because my drumming to a click was at best awful / creative / tight but loose / rattle and hum-ish, so there were a lot of repeats during the (last) days of 2" tape, and cause one of our favorite studio pastime hobbies was complicating song structures to the point of changing studios til we finally thought only the Star Trek Enterprise would be fully suitable and sufficiently equipped to properly register our sound musings.
So we ended up at Mute's fabulous old studios, where I no longer recorded drums, and my fingers finally went back down to their original size, about a decade later. 
Not kidding. 
I had no real drumming technique, other than 'don't die and keep the tempo, while trying to do all / some of the crazy syncopated stuff you seem to get away with live', and taping my fingers all over with protective cushioned strips, all the way up to my chin or so - I have keyboard player fingers, I'm a delicate beast... Colin Thurston was once, at Chippin Norton studios, v impressed with my speed dialing, while calling the US from Oxfordshire, skipping through British Telecom's ability to pick -and charge for- the analogue call. As in, actual speed dialing, using fingers. Cause these fingers ain't made for drumming lol.

Evan : drum programming, keyboards, sequencers
Gage : bass, backing vocals
G : guitars, backing vocals
Xav : vocals, backing vocals

Cartrek - produced by Paul Kendall at Mute studios

Produced by Colin Thurston.
Recorded for free, live in one day, for a Melody Maker promo,  at Protocol studios, London, early '96.

..We seemingly did a duran studio number on this one, in that we still didn't have it quite quite finished by the time we went in the studio. I remember it being a bit loose-ends in places, kinda like fashion show garments not quite sown solidly as of yet. But when we got to Protocol studios, somehow it all gelled and we more or less recorded the song live, including designing its outro ending, which I distinctly remember not being worked out, with everyone chipping in ideas on the go, including Colin. He was *quite* shocked and impressed we dared finish with a punky 3rd harmonic riff thing lol.

The song Gage recorded with Colin Thurston's bass chorus pedal, as used by him on the Rio album, and which, when we finished recording, Colin gave to Gage cause that's how impressed he was.
It don't get more romo than that.
Didn't use it that much, cause it instantly turned ANY bassline into save a prayer. Big massive old blue thing it was, classic gear. I think Gage used it on songs like Winter Again and April from then on.

The telephone dial upfront was a sample of my London number at the time, made with an early 'digi-dialler', which we thought hilarious at first, til I had to go ex-directories cause people figured out the tone/s and it had all gone fairly Smash Hits pretty quickly.

..This particular song happens to be the only one which is not the master / band master recording - of all tracks uploaded onto this dexdexter playlist. 

This was somewhat styled into a proper romo number, production wise, by Colin Thurston, as he was aware of the label frenzy at the time, and probably thought making us sound like duran duran would report benefits I guess.
..Whenever I pointed out this song was getting fairly 80s production-wise, down to the choice of snares to be simultaneously triggered with Laura's real drums (recorded in Protocol's stone wall booth, a bit bright and a bit too stony reverby sounding), Colin always answered 'don't worry Evan, I know what record companies are after'. 
I'm almost certain he was after a cross between Talk Talk and Duran Duran, two of his old time productions. Whereas this song always reminded me of Feeling Called Love or most anything else by Pulp.
Horses for causes lol.
..We were never [gonna be] as good as Talk Talk, so that wasn't gonna be painted on by a second extra thick coat of a day's worth of production, but we sounded plenty better live, than Duran Duran any Wednesday afternoon lol. I've seen Duran live enough times, not saying this for free. And I think this was finished, recorded / engineered, mixed, and produced on a Wednesday, so the circle is now complete.

'You can play keys using more than two fingers simultaneously, so stop asking me about Nick Rhodes', Colin said to me during this very session.
I still personally prefer Tiger Tiger by Duran to India by Roxy.
Duran are/were [albeit perhaps once upon a time], an awesome, rocking and truly innovative & truly sophisticated band, whose studio catalogue is probably 3/4 genius level output.
..Not saying anything less than - I moved to Britain cause of, and Depeche, Genesis, the ELO, Ultravox, Tears for Fears, Orbital, Bowie, Eno. The Beatles. I absolutely love distinctly British music.
I criticize it, cause I'm now familiar with it, so the grass is always greener.
But I absolutely loved Britain, it was my welcoming, nurturing, beautiful home for 23 years - or perhaps rather London, as Jel P. says. Lol.
And I never heard harmonies like Simon Le Bon can cut them either, ever.

Laura Elle : drums
Evan : keyboards, sequencers
Gage : bass, backing vocals
G : guitars, backing vocals
Xav : vocals, backing vocals

That's no cutout - that's Joan Collins with us at Harrods don't you know. Creatures Featured. 
She kinda behaved like a life-size cutout, anyway. 
First thing she asked us: '..So, who's Dex?'
Mmmyeah.

Creature Feature - Produced by Colin Thurston

G's track from start to finish.
Produced by Paul 'PK' Kendall at Mute studios, mid/late '96.

G's first demo rendition of this track, featuring Star Wars sampled-onto-cassette-then-meticulously-placed-dialogue, sprinkled as 'lyrics' throughout the song, was the s***. Cassette sampling. Get with it.

That bassline, throughout, is the most exquisite prog-metal-flamenco-disco-folk-pop bass I've ever heard. Jaisus.

Evan : drum programming, keyboards, sequencers
Gage : bass, backing vocals
G : guitars, backing vocals
Xav : vocals, backing vocals

Headlines Headlites - Produced by Paul Kendall at Mute studios

The song Gage composed on bass from start to finish, which prompted the switching single from COY to ACACC.
Bridges and choruses are basically JUST bass guitar, with everyone else more or less replicating the bass riff / allowing the bass riff to come through.  That's what I was doing with my moog anyway. 
Evsplaining - lol. 
G was instrumental with its modal and structural arranging. cause we quite cleverly recycled rather a lot of differing material in dexdexter, as only we could. ..More than the sum of its parts n all that.

This track was very much finalized by Paul Kendall's lone production, who for starters was awesomely patient with my drumming to a click track.

Featuring sampled 'rhythm-gonna-get-ya tween-screen-wipers' from our then manager's car. Raf had an awesome car, 'his office' -his actual office was located in central London in the same building George Michael had his town flat, and next to his publisher's office too, who got a politely uttered f*** off from us upon invitation to accept his publishing offer, but that's another story-, Raf loved feeling his car was good enough as an actual office so his cars had gadgets aplenty, and so we sampled the F out of it, right outside Blackwing recording studios. Indicators, every tiny little sound, the lot. And I mean SAMPLE - using Neumann & yesteryear Earthworks weird semi-mounted proper condenser-valve-hendrix stereo mics, as per Paul Kendall's suggestion. 
"..Well if you're gonna start running cable outside to sample Raf's car, you might as well go proper stereo mate."
Paul Kendall, The Cockney Eno.
I didn't even know my -then sota new- sampler had actual proper stereo sampling mode.
Probably looked like a car advert to passers by. Maybe it was. 
Those were the Monday mornings those were lol.

Xav can be heard 'squishing out a laugh' during the m8's 'window up' sample, cause the noises were getting hilarious as the window glass was drying up after many sampling attempts, and cause that's how good of a time we used to have in dexdexter, back when everyone seemed to remember that we are always, firstly, human, and then, perhaps, and only ever temporarily, popstars.

If I remember right, Blackwing studios somehow had walkie-talkies we used to communicate outdoors and sample accordingly.
We were scientists, we were.
Making our own beats out of window wipers and indicators.
Eat yer hart ut, Kanye.

The 'weird' bubbly sound that starts up the song was a sample taken from Xav's DX11 keyboard, cause he had one, and was really competent with it - it being FM synthesis, which ain't no joke. His sounds and sound experiments on his DX11 were second to none, aside from Xav being a proper piano player anyway - so we decided to sample this one as a 'front joke', basically. 
It was a way of saying 'here, this is the first sound you get, let's see how romo this one is'.
Xav and I were both really fond of a certain documentary featuring Phil Oakey talking about 'irreverence through sound', while sounding rather a lot like Sean Connery. I think this was a/n homage to that. 

Evan : drums, tambourine, keyboards, sequencers
Gage : bass, backing vocals
G : guitars, backing vocals, arrangements - moog related, bridges, choruses
Xav : vocals, backing vocals
Paul Kendall : who remodeled in real time the way I executed all my moog lines, for starters, giving me directing advice on the spot as I recorded

...Had you played the tambourine through this track, you'd have also listed it. We more or less all had a go at the tambourine at some point, cause it was the most tiring thing ever recorded lol. It may not even be all of / only my tambourine that made it to the last printout of the track, so we should perhaps get a lol-yer.

Artwork & cartoons by Mike Vegas, known for Adam & Ants and Tears For Fears album artwork. 
If only people knew just how much every detail on such cartoon depiction metaphorically pre-encapsulated all actual band dynamics - down to a t, actually. Synecdoche much.

Another Car Another Car Crash - Produced by Colin Thurston and Paul Kendall

Classics Chapter 3

12" Vinyl

A1 - Eddy Mendez - Oriental Connection (Extended Mix)

Produced by Colin Thurston.
Recorded for free, live in one day, for a Melody Maker promo, at Protocol studios, London, early '96.

My cassette master version, pre-polish session.
Plenty of sonic issues with this old cassette recording but just cleaned it up a bit, cause I like this version, cause I can sort of hear the guitars, throughout.
Oh le musique industrie du le british disque and the phenomena commonly and gingerly known as 'someone else always making decisions on one's behalf'.

Laura Elle : drums
Evan : keyboards, sequencers
Gage : bass
G : guitars, backing vocals
Xav : vocals, backing vocals

Creature Feature - raw prepolish mix 1996

- 𝟏𝟐" 𝐕𝐢𝐧𝐲𝐥: https://www.13monkeysrecords.com/producto/13mrlp005-eddy-mendez-bota-tenerife-25th-anniversary/
- 𝐃𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥: https://www.beatport.com/release/bota-tenerife-25th-anniversary/4502355

Bota Tenerife (25Th Anniversary)

Get your copy

Eddy Mendez - Bota Tenerife (Suppa Hard Dope Extended Version)

Eddy Mendez - Bota Tenerife (Sekret Chadow Remix)

Eddy Mendez - Bota Tenerife (Adam Vyt Remix)

There's Only You



<a href='https://theartistunion.com/tracks/94b7cc'>Download for free on The Artist Union</a>

Download

WE R TRASH - SHOW ME THE BREAK (EDDY MENDEZ CLASSIC BREAK REMIX) FINAL MASTER

Really Slow Motion  - Edge Of Eternity

So back in 2011, one day i woke up and thought let me make a straight Disco House joint... and i wanted to sample my old piano since forever! so i went for it... and International Style was born! Did it in one day, passed it on to Eddy for mix & mastering & the rest its history.

credits: 
Produced by Real El Canario & Eddy Mendez 
Mixed & Mastered by by Eddy Mendez

REAL EL CANARIO - INTERNATIONAL STYLE

I did this remix of the queen of latin music back in 2007 when i headlined main stage of Santa Cruz Carnaval... it never got released but i gave it away on my website and it did quiet some damage. It’s been played by quiet a few big guys.

I just updated the break part. Always felt like that part didn’t need that EQ so I just took it off (June 25th 2017)

Remix Produced by Real El Canario & Eddy Mendez
Engineered by Eddy Mendez

CELIA CRUZ - QUIMBARA (REAL EL CANARIO CARNAVAL 2007 MIX)

ArtEfficient Intelligenz is a composer multi instrumentalist whose trajectory includes work with producers Colin Thurston (Human League, Bowie, Iggy Pop, Eno, Tony Visconti, Talk Talk, Duran Duran), and Paul Kendall (Wire, Piquet, Depeche Mode, Erasure, Recoil, Goldfrapp). 
His work has also been personally praised by producers Dave Allen (Human League, Wire, The Cure, Neneh Cherry), Ian Little (Roxy Music's Avalon, OMD's Dazzle Ships, Duran Duran), Stephen Lipson (GJ's Slave To The Rhythm, Propaganda, McCartney, A.Lennox, S.Minds), Chrissie Hynde, or Supergrass. ..Where the strange ones go.
 
Evan has played live at legendary venues like London’s Shepherds Bush Empire -supporting Pulp during the Common People tour at their request-, or the old London Astoria. He has studied sound production, synthesis, programming, composition and audiovisuals his whole life, having charted with a few hard-tech productions, while also long-time studio collaborating, at his request, with J. Parsons, who engineered and produced some of Alan Parsons' projects.

Master Of Nothing. Cue Metallica.

Creature Feature - Produced by Colin Thurston

ArtEfficient Intelligenz

Recent comments

ArtEfficient Intelligenz

ArtEfficient Intelligenz

ChemistryOfYouth72

Related tracks