Sometimes, it's all about getting back to the basics. For Darren Emerson, formerly of the band Underworld, the basics mean getting back behind the turntables as a club DJ. The attraction to DJing is almost like an addiction, something that Emerson could not put behind him, even with the fame and fortune of Underworld as the omnipresent dangling carrot.
Emerson was something of a child prodigy, beginning his DJ career as a 16-year-old in his native Romford, Essex. From there, his talent overcame the novelty, and he gained notoriety thanks to a bit of press from a hip electro-music mag, enabling him to play gigs not only in his hometown but in London, the rest of the U.K., and then all around the world. As Emerson was rising to the top of the British dance scene, a friend introduced him to a pair of guys named Rick Smith and Karl Hyde. The duo, under the name Underworld, had experienced some pop success--even playing to more than 96,000 people at Toronto's Skydome, opening for The Eurythmics--but had packed it in after one album due to disillusionment with the music industry.
Emerson began collaborating with Smith and Hyde in 1991, and the time spent in Underworld--basically an entire new band with only the name to connect it to the earlier incarnation--made him and the group internationally known. Well before electronic music had caught on with the mainstream, Underworld helped it out by setting up what it called "The Experimental Sound Field" at the Glastonbury Music Festival in 1992, performing on scaffolding in the middle of a field, flanked on each side by huge projection screens. It was an unexpected success and was the first hint that the band's 1994 debut album Dubnobasswithmyheadman would have not just dance-floor acclaim but crossover success into the indie-rock world.
Underworld then produced two albums (Second Toughest in the Infants and 1999's amazing Beaucoup Fish) that threw all sorts of dance and rock styles into the mix, experimenting with experiments. However, in between the two discs came the rerelease of "Born Slippy," which eventually became the band's biggest song and the track that everyone who has watched the film Trainspotting will instantly recognize. (Here's a hint: It's the epic tune that goes "lager, lager, lager" before breaking down into breath-shortening junglist rhythms.) That song and others were captured live in the DVD Everything, Everything, easily one of the most exciting live concert albums in recent memory (or ever, depending on whom you ask), thanks to its wonderful use of DVD technology. Of course, it makes sense that electronic music sounds best when the band playing it uses electronics to their fullest capabilities.
However, moving with Underworld was not the direction Emerson wanted, and he left the group last year. Emerson promptly went to Uruguay to become the latest DJ to participate in the Global Underground series, where different DJs go to every corner of the earth to record a live double-disc set. It mixes and matches dance genres, moods, and energy levels to the point that it leaves even those listening in their bedrooms on a pair of headphones exhausted. Folks attending Emerson's Dallas date (one of only five in North America) should take a nap and drink plenty of fluids to prepare for a party they won't soon forget.
