Bassheads

'Bassheads was a British house duo from Wirral . This consisted of Nick Murphy and Eamonn Anthony Deery (Desa). The group had a big European hit with Is There Anybody Out There?

History

Murphy and Deery started to produce house music in Nick Murphy,s home studio in 1989. Their first recording was the white label "The Defhouse Vol. 1"^[1] and their third release, "Is There Anybody Out There?", was picked up by Deconstruction Records for national distribution. In November 1991 it got to number 5 in the UK singles charts^[2] and charted in other European countries. The original white label resulted in threats of legal proceedings for illegal use of samples from Afrika Bambaataa, Talking Heads and Pink Floyd^[3]. Therefore the Deconstruction version contained re-recorded versions of the sampled tracks, other than the Pink Floyd sample from their song of the same name.

The use of samples for Africka Bambaata where cleared by giving 25% of the publishing.Pink Floyd allowed Bassheads to use their sample on the promo but not for full release,so Nick Murphy (Bassheads) Rewrote that opening section also replaying the talking heads sample.(So the above is not really accurate but let the myth continue?)

The Osmond's guitar Riff was Replace by a session Player who was really just a bass player.

Nick murphy was the engineer and main programmer on most of,or all of the Bassheads Material commercially released / white labels, apart from a major contribution on "Is there anybody out there" from Shaun Imre, as it was recorded mixed and mastered by Nick Murphy at his home studio with the exception of a handful of tracks on the Bassheads Album "Codes" which where co produced and mixed by Dave Eringa at Konk Studios in London (Owned by the kinks)..These tracks also originated from the Nick Murphy,s new studio Called the Lodge in Neston.

Over the next three years Bassheads had three more hit singles^[4], and remixed tracks for the likes of Oceanic, Björk and Visage. In 1993 Deconstruction released the album C.O.D.E.S. which contained ambient influences but did not chart. This proved to be Bassheads' last release.

After being dropped by EMI for failing to pay the Mixing/production costs at Konk studios, which their management had booked thus not implicating the Basshead directly!

Deconstruction then offered a new deal to Bassheads thru mother label BMG...But the effort put in by Nick Murphy was not matched by his partner who had lost the Passion for running a professional Band....and Nick Murphy felt it better to call it a day,even though there was a deal on the table for Bassheads to continue!

Nick murphy has released recordings under the name "Angel" and more recently been involved in Film Score/Ambient work, also some live Bassheads gigs recreating the original recordings from Baked tape,s from the original recordings (done on an old Fostex E16 multi track Tape Machine) to play live with Ableton etc.

Discography

References