How and when did you hear about Aphex?

I bought SAW II when it came out after reading positive reviews, didn't like it much, and put it in the back of my cd collection. When ICBYD came out, and I saw Richard's leering face on the cover in the record shop, it piqued my curiosity again. I gave the album a brief listen - the shop was the sort where you can listen before you buy - and the only tune that impressed was Alberto Balsam. So again I gave Aphex a pass. Fast forward a year or two and I had a major drug overdose that totally shifted my musical tastes. Before I was heavily into jazz, motown and soul, but after the overdose I discovered I couldn't stand music that was overly "emotional", and the sound of singing annoyed the hell out of me. Don't know how the drugs rewired my brain, but they did. On impulse, I dusted off the SAW II album, and found that this time I loved it. I've been heavily into electronic music since that day, and have purchased most of RDJ's albums. Though I'm still not a huge fan, I quite like the RDJ album, Come to Daddy EP, SAW II, and certain tracks from the others.

windowlicker on mtv

"Come to daddy" on MTV and love from first sight

"Milkman" on www.fat-pie.com was, technically, my first listen. I bought SAW2 a couple of years later, after seeing this: http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/m.../jam/music.html

(note: bastards sold the jamcredits.com domain name)

Even though my favourite RDJ is, at present, his mainstream stuff, it always perplexes me how SAW2 manages to get people hooked in, despite totally contrasting the best of his work...

SAW and SAWII, at least as I remember it, were the most readily available AFX downloads in the infancy of MP3s and FTP sharing which would explain it being a common starting point for a lot of people. I have an old CD backup of music back before we had anything resembling a record store in my area and aside from the popular hits he had prior to 98' its all SAW and SAWII, many of them mislabeled.

I'm guessing that there were a lot of like minds out there with limited access to his music, but intrigued by a friend owning an album, and naturally ended up first hearing what was available online at the time.

  heroworship said:

How many of you were actually born before Digeridoo came out?!

i was 3 at the time

My first song was 4 I think. I had been hearing about aphex twin around so I searched it and it was the first song I heard. After that I got the Windowlicker EP and then just went on a spree of buying/downloading his stuff.

Ah, just remembered Firth's Music Video for 4:

http://www.fat-pie.com/4.htm

Also watch this:

http://www.fat-pie.com/hell.htm

  lumpenprol said:

I bought SAW II when it came out after reading positive reviews, didn't like it much, and put it in the back of my cd collection. When ICBYD came out, and I saw Richard's leering face on the cover in the record shop, it piqued my curiosity again. I gave the album a brief listen - the shop was the sort where you can listen before you buy - and the only tune that impressed was Alberto Balsam. So again I gave Aphex a pass. Fast forward a year or two and I had a major drug overdose that totally shifted my musical tastes. Before I was heavily into jazz, motown and soul, but after the overdose I discovered I couldn't stand music that was overly "emotional", and the sound of singing annoyed the hell out of me. Don't know how the drugs rewired my brain, but they did. On impulse, I dusted off the SAW II album, and found that this time I loved it. I've been heavily into electronic music since that day, and have purchased most of RDJ's albums. Though I'm still not a huge fan, I quite like the RDJ album, Come to Daddy EP, SAW II, and certain tracks from the others.

Awesome.

  Dragon said:

Ah, just remembered Firth's Music Video for 4:

http://www.fat-pie.com/4.htm

 

Also watch this:

http://www.fat-pie.com/hell.htm

That hell video is creepy, especially the meting baby part.

I heard Aphex for first time in 1992, on "Mayday - A New Chapter Of House And Techno" compilation, with the "Metapharstic" track. It didn`t impressed me more than the other tunes on the tape, but In those years in the country where I live - there were only few pirate copied cassetes with TECHNO on the market, it was the only music that I used to listen at that time, so I memorized very carefully every artist name on those compilations. in 1994 I saw "Aphex Twin - On" on our Bulgarian national television (haha!) it was exiting:) also I started to meet that name more often on techno compilations. I realized that he is my all time favourite producer later, with "I Care Because You Do" and then "Richard D. James Album" when I got those albums on `95 and `96 I was shoked! Nothing impressed me that much as the RDJ album in 1996! (my all time favourite track is windowlicker, but it`s for another topic) I hope RDJ will impress me again soon:)

don't know where i've watched the first tim the clip On... but it's the first track i've listened firstly...

Yes, it's a really really boring, slow day at work today, I'm just ambling through the archives and reviving AFX threads like a sorcerer sprinkling magic potion on skeletons and watching them come to life and dance...

Crikey this thread made me feel old and what I'm about to post makes me feel older still.

First heard about him - reading one of those "Coolest People On The Planet" lists in Select Magazine (R.I.P. - they used to give their coolest person in the world awards to people like RDJ and Bill Drummond !!!!!!!) in.... ooh it was before I moved to NYC so it would have been 91/92/93 or so.

They tried to interview him about it, and rang round and got his housemate on the phone going "Nah, mate, Richard's playing videogames, you haven't got a chance in hell of getting through to him. He's well into it, not even his mum could get him on the phone now!" and I just thought that was the most brilliant and hillarious "couldn't give a fuck" attitude.

Must have been around 94/95, a friend told me about AFX, that he had made lots of his synths himself, that he concealed what equipment he was using when playing live, etc.

I once saw the video to "On" late night at MTV. ca. 1994.

Then I did some research on that guy and found out he builds his own gear.

I was totally blown away...

PEEK at my friend's house in 9th or 10th grade. so a few years ago

he added me on icq

MTV, Donkey Rhubarb video.

I wanna say internet, that's where I heard about Come To Daddy

a cd compilation / magazine series called volume, I think he was on volume three or four, back in the early 90s.

  On 11/13/2007 at 2:20 PM, dese manz hatin said:

The first track I heard was At The Heart Of It All on Further Down the Spiral. It was also on a NIN forum that someone gave the recommendation of SAW Vol.1 in a drawing/art related topic.

 

Fuck yeah!

^^ Pretty much this except with The Beauty Of Being Numb instead of The Heart Of It All, and I didn't hear about it on a forum, I'm sure I read that it was made by afx in the sleeve.

well thank god for NIN

  On 1/21/2010 at 5:44 PM, Masonic Boom said:

Yes, it's a really really boring, slow day at work today, I'm just ambling through the archives and reviving AFX threads like a sorcerer sprinkling magic potion on skeletons and watching them come to life and dance...

 

Crikey this thread made me feel old and what I'm about to post makes me feel older still.

 

First heard about him - reading one of those "Coolest People On The Planet" lists in Select Magazine (R.I.P. - they used to give their coolest person in the world awards to people like RDJ and Bill Drummond !!!!!!!) in.... ooh it was before I moved to NYC so it would have been 91/92/93 or so.

 

They tried to interview him about it, and rang round and got his housemate on the phone going "Nah, mate, Richard's playing videogames, you haven't got a chance in hell of getting through to him. He's well into it, not even his mum could get him on the phone now!" and I just thought that was the most brilliant and hillarious "couldn't give a fuck" attitude.

That's awesome. loi.

a few years back when i was in high school a friend of mine had a screen name that revolved around the song avril 14th, and i was always thinking wtf does that even mean? haha I used to think it had to do with maybe his anniversary with his girlfriend or some shit like that. then a friend of mine showed me the rubber johnny video, and I remember thinking 'jesus this song fucking sucks, how can anyone listen to this shit.' I finally got a hold of SAW 1 at a LAN party, and that really got me into Aphex.

One of my friends sent me the Donkey Rhubarb music video when I was about 13 and I thought it was funny but boring. I looked up Richard on the iTunes store and got bored. Months past and I came across Come To Daddy, Windowlicker, and the Monkey Drummer video on Youtube.

When I was at a music shop, I bought Drukqs and liked enough tracks on it to say I liked it. From there I got Analogue Bubblebath, Hangable Auto Bulb, Windowlicker, and Richard D. James album and haven't looked back. This was around 2006 and I was born in 1992.