Eddie Piller | |
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| Background information | |
| Origin | East London |
| Genres | Acid jazz |
| Occupation(s) | DJ, producer, managing director |
| Labels | Acid Jazz Records |
| Website | www.acidjazz.co.uk |
Eddie Piller is a British DJ, radio show host, and founder/managing director of Acid Jazz Records.
Piller was born in 1963 and grew up in Essex. His father ran a firm of bookmakers and his mother ran the Small Faces' fan club during their early years. [1] As a teenager in the 1970s, Piller became interested in the punk scene, and was a fan of the Buzzcocks before following the mod-revival of the late '70s and early '80s. He credits bands such as the Chords, the Jam and Secret Affair for sparking his love of all things mod, indirectly beginning his career in music. [2]
During the early '80s, Piller began DJing at mod club nights with great success and decided to set up his first record label aged just 21, releasing a single by R&B band Fast Eddie, [3] whilst a couple of years prior, in late 1979, he had already launched the popular mod revival fanzine Extraordinary Sensations, along with Terry Rawlings. [4] He ran a second-hand record market stall, Marvel's Records, at Kensington Market in the early '80s. He appeared in the Style Council's "A Solid Bond in Your Heart" video in 1983. By 1985, Piller was scouted by Stiff Records as a label manager and A&R man for the Countdown Records label, where he gave fresh momentum to the underground mod scene by signing bands such as the Prisoners and Makin' Time, and by issuing the mod revival compilation album 5-4-3-2-1 Go!. [5] As well as working for Stiff, he set up another label named Re-Elect The President which launched the careers of the James Taylor Quartet and the Jazz Renegades (a band featuring Style Council drummer Steve White).
In 1987, along with fellow DJ Gilles Peterson, he started a new record label, Acid Jazz Records. [6] This soon gave rise to Britain's newest musical movement, the acid jazz scene, which included bands such as the James Taylor Quartet, Corduroy, Brand New Heavies, Mother Earth, Galliano and Jamiroquai, most of whom Piller signed in 1992 after Peterson's departure from the label. [7] As well as managing the bands, Piller produced some of the records, most notably Mother Earth's album The People Tree .
Currently, actor Matt Berry is signed to Acid Jazz Records and has released four albums on the label. Piller featured in the music video for Berry's 2013 single "Medicine", as well as in two episodes of his popular television show Toast of London. [8]
In the mid-nineties Piller purchased a derelict jazz club which he turned into a nightclub named the Blue Note. Whilst initially used as a way of promoting the record label's music, the club soon built up a large reputation and was open seven nights a week hosting various different club nights including that of musician Goldie's Metaheadz label. [9] The club closed when Hackney Council took the license away. [10]
Piller has also had a number of radio shows throughout the years on stations such as Jazz FM, BBC Radio 2, and Q Radio. [11] Between 2014 and 2018, Eddie hosted Eddie Piller's Eclectic Soul Show, broadcast Thursday afternoons on the Internet station Soho Radio. [12]
Piller continues to be influential in the music scene due to his many live DJing appearances. He is a regular at most British festivals and usually appears at the Isle of Wight, Glastonbury, and Bestival, as well as hosting a regular soul-themed club night "Soul Box" at Old Street Records.
In late 2010, Piller began to host a regular podcast called "The Modcast". The monthly podcast was co-hosted with Acid Jazz Records A&R man Dean Rudland, and features discussions about "all things mod and beyond" including the influence of mod subculture on fashion, television and sport with guests such as musicians Steve Cradock, P.P. Arnold and Rhoda Dakar, the actor Martin Freeman and Olympic medal-winning cyclist Sir Bradley Wiggins. [13]
Throughout his career, Piller has served as a consultant writer for documentaries on youth culture, mod subculture, soul music, and the film The Who, the Mods and the Quadrophenia Connection. [14]
In 2018, Piller was co-writer of Mod Zines, a book on mod fanzines of the late 1970s and early 1980s. [15]
In 2023, Piller curated a touring exhibition dedicated to Acid Jazz and published a memoir of his early life entitled Clean living under difficult circumstances. [16] [17]
Acid jazz is a music genre that combines elements of funk, soul, and hip hop, as well as jazz and disco. Acid jazz originated in clubs in London during the 1980s with the rare groove movement and spread to the United States, Western Europe, Latin America and Japan. Acts included The Brand New Heavies, Incognito, James Taylor Quartet, Us3, and Jamiroquai from the UK, and Guru, Buckshot LeFonque and Digable Planets from the U.S. The rise of electronic club music in the middle to late 1990s led to a decline in interest, and in the twenty-first century, acid jazz became indistinct as a genre. Many acts that might have been defined as acid jazz are seen as jazz-funk, or nu jazz.
Popular music of the United Kingdom in the 1980s built on the post-punk and new wave movements, incorporating different sources of inspiration from subgenres and what is now classed as world music in the shape of Jamaican and Indian music. It also explored the consequences of new technology and social change in the electronic music of synthpop. In the early years of the decade, while subgenres like heavy metal music continued to develop separately, there was a considerable crossover between rock and more commercial popular music, with a large number of more "serious" bands, like The Police and UB40, enjoying considerable single chart success.
Martin John Christopher Freeman is an English actor. Among other accolades, he has won two Emmy Awards, a BAFTA Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
Gilles Jérôme Moehrle MBE, better known as Gilles Peterson, is a French broadcaster, DJ, and record label owner. He founded the influential labels Acid Jazz and Talkin' Loud, and started his current label Brownswood Recordings in 2006. He was awarded an honorary MBE in 2004, the AIM Award for Indie Champion and the Mixmag Award for Outstanding Contribution To Dance Music in 2013, the PRS for Music Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music Radio in 2014, and The A&R Award from the Music Producers Guild in 2019.
The Prisoners were a British garage rock band formed in 1980 in Rochester, Kent, England. Their 1960s garage sound made them a regular live fixture in London's underground "psychedelic revival" and "mod revival" scene of the early 1980s, as well as a linchpin of the Medway scene.
Galliano are a London-based acid jazz group that were originally active between 1988 and 1997. The group was the first signing to Eddie Piller and Gilles Peterson's Acid Jazz record label. The original members were Rob Gallagher, Constantine Weir (vocals), Michael Snaith and Crispin Robinson (percussion).
Purple Hearts are an English mod revival band, formed in 1977 in Romford, eastern Greater London. They were often considered one of the best English mod revival groups, the NME calling them "one of the few mod bands to actually cut it on rock 'n' roll terms".
The mod revival was a subculture that started in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s and later spread to other countries. The mod revival's mainstream popularity was relatively short, although its influence lasted for decades. The mod revival post-dated a Teddy Boy revival, and mod revivalists sometimes clashed with Teddy Boy revivalists, skinhead revivalists, casuals, punks and rival gang members.
Jazz-funk is a subgenre of jazz music characterized by a strong back beat (groove), electrified sounds, and an early prevalence of analog synthesizers. The integration of funk, soul, and R&B music and styles into jazz resulted in the creation of a genre whose spectrum is quite wide and ranges from strong jazz improvisation to soul, funk or disco with jazz arrangements, jazz riffs, jazz solos, and sometimes soul vocals.
Norman Jay MBE is a British club, radio and sound system DJ. He first came to prominence playing unlicensed "warehouse" parties in the early 1980s, and through his involvement with the then-pirate radio station Kiss FM. He is commonly attributed as having coined the phrase "rare groove".
Acid Jazz Records is a record label based in East London formed by Gilles Peterson and Eddie Piller in 1987. The label is the namesake of the acid-jazz subgenre of jazz music for which it is most famously known for producing.
Corduroy are an English four-piece acid jazz outfit based in London, formed around twins Ben Addison (drums/vocals) and Scott Addison (keyboards/vocals), who were previously in Sire Records act Boys Wonder. Joining the twins in the band are Richard Searle and guitarist Simon Nelson-Smith. Searle had been bass player with Doctor and the Medics, who topped the UK Singles Chart in 1986 with a cover version of "Spirit in the Sky". Searle had joined the Addison twins in the final incarnation of Boys Wonder, before the band gradually evolved into Corduroy in 1991, initially forming for a one-off New Year's Eve party.
Leroy Hutson is an American soul and R&B singer, songwriter, arranger, producer and instrumentalist, best known as former lead singer of R&B vocal group The Impressions.
Chicago, Illinois is a major center for music in the midwestern United States where distinctive forms of blues, and house music, a genre of electronic dance music, were developed.
Richard Searle is a 1960s-influenced bass guitarist, who was a member of Doctor and the Medics in 1986, when they were reaching number one in the pop charts.
Long Tall Shorty were a mod revival band that formed in 1978 in London. They recorded several singles before splitting up in 1982, when lead singer Tony Perfect left to join Angelic Upstarts. Reforming in 2000, they have recorded and released several albums.
The Broken Vinyl Club were a Welsh 1960s-influenced indie rock band based in Aberdare in South Wales and signed to Acid Jazz Records.
Colin Curtis is a British DJ whose career spans several decades and musical developments.
New Street Adventure were an English band led by Nick Corbin, with many classic soul influences. Corbin first started the band as a college venture in early 2007, maturing over time to a professional unit. In January 2013, the band was signed to Acid Jazz.
Dean Rudland is a British DJ, compiler, and general manager of record company Acid Jazz Records.
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