Born Fishy
Photo Caption: What have you been feeding the goldfish? Darren, Karl and Rick take cover
mixmag | March 1999
HAVE UNDERWORLD FINALLY GONE MENTAL? AFTER THREE YEARS OF FILM SCORES, FIGHTING AND BIZARRE ART PROJECTS THEY’VE NOW COME UP WITH AN ALBUM CALLED 'BEAUCOUP FISH'
IT'S BARELY ONE hour into 1999 when Underworld hit the stage at Alexander Place in an explosion of light and energy. Rick Smith and Darren Emerson are hunched over machines and cracking broad grins. There’s “mad bloke” Karl Hyde perched on the rim of the stage punching the sky. And there’s the crowd, spontaneously erupting when Underworld slide into a see-sawing ‘Cowgirl’.
‘Fucking amazing!’ screams a shirtless wonder who looks like he’s about to explode. The nutter in the pink poodle outfit is up on his feet, and a high speed Donna Summer bassline jerks through the crowd like 900 volts of electricity, fades away, then comes back twice as venomous. it's 'King Of Snake the new track Pete Tong has been caning on Radio 1.
And then it's time for thats pine-tingling chord sequence. White light floods the room and a couple of thousand pairs of hands shoot Into the air "Drab boy, dog boy" A blonde girl standing by the fairground mouths the words, then grins satanically as the kick drum pounces once more and she spirals out of control. Chances are, this is a moment she will remember for years. Once of those priceless clubbing experiences where the music, the people, and the drugs collide into a glorious rush.
A defining moment, if you like.
FOR MOST PEOPLE, Underworld means 'Bom Slippy'. It was the hit that began life as a B-side -the ‘Nuxx' mix that Underworld did “for a joke”.
It's also a tune that, hitched to 1996's Trainspotting fever, took Underworld to number two in the charts, shifted a million copies and put them on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show. “Born Slippy” was the record that soundtracked a summer of insanity and had builders, students and office workers shouting "Lager lager lager". On one level, it is possibly techno's unifying anthem - dance music's “Wonderwall” - and it means a hell of a lot to a Hell of a lot of people, even if Underworld do look back on their sudden rise to mini-celebrity as “an unpleasant shock”.
So are they still happy to play “Born Slippy”?
"Why?"demands Rick. "Why do you have to ask that?"
"Don't, don't do that." jokes Karl.
"Come on, let's go," says Darren, Underworld's professional Essex Man, pretending to get up.
Do you really hate it that much?
"Of course we don't hate it” says Rick, the band's affable Welshman, nonetheless taiking through gritted teeth.
Born Lippy, Born Dippy. Born Skippy, I like that. Shaved kangaroo" says Karl, his eyes rolling like a fruit machine, and sounding for all the world like Vic Reeves.
Finally, after a pause that seems to last several days, we get something approaching a straight answer.
“It's still fun," says Darren, "You've got to play it out, haven't you? You can't justt play for yourself. Everyone expects it, don't they?"
"We never want to play it”, Rick says, with a straight face. "But Jason, our camerman insists every time. He shakes the camera, makes it go all blurry until we play it. 'Play ‘Born Slippy', play ‘Born Slippy'. I like that one, especially the bit where It goes Lager Lager Lager.’"
It's a normal weekday afternoon in the super-sleek offices of Underworld-affiliated designers Tomato - the people who've provided countless corporate clients with seriously cool TV adverts (often soundtracked by Underworld). Along one wall, Karl's desk is a blot on the minimalist landscape. An avalanche of paper has spilled out of the in-tray, covering the surface and lying in heavy drifts on the floor. Underworld's success means they rarely get to catch up with Tomato's combat clad designers, who huddle
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