You remember the idea of Six Degrees of Separation, which turned into the joke/party game that everyone had six degrees of separation from actor Kevin Bacon? After our trip to London, I'm beginning to think that every musician has less than three degrees of separation from producer, composer and ambient artist Brian Eno.
ONE DEGREE OF SEPARATION
LEO ABRAHAMS
Leo Abrahams plays with Brian Eno. In a story that's becoming as apocryphal as Lana Turner being discovered at the soda fountain of Schwabb's Drugstore in Hollywood, Eno discovered Abrahams while he was testing out a guitar in a music shop. Eno was impressed that he wasn't playing "Stairway to Heaven." Listen to Leo give a guitar demo.
Steve Hillage &
Miquette Giraudy
STEVE HILLAGE
Steve Hillage probably has many Eno connections, but off the top of my head, they have both worked on recent records by Rachid Taha, Hillage as producer, Eno as synthesist and singer. And they both toured together with Taha last summer.
JOHN FOXX
John Foxx's old band, Ultravox, had their debut album produced by Eno.
TWO DEGREES OF SEPARATION
MARCONI UNION
Marconi Union's press touts their Eno connection, but the boys pooh-pooh that idea as an internet hoax. But they did perform engineering work on the recent Eno re-issues and are signed to his ex-brother in-law's label, All Saints.
AJANTA MUSIC
Ajanta Music's guitarist Robin Simon was in Ultravox, post Brian Eno. His brother, Paul Simon, was just produced by Eno. (Okay, that was a different Paul Simon.)
DON PERIS
Don Peris is the guitarist in the group The Innocence Mission and has a new solo CD, Go When the Morning Shineth. In 1989, Eno collaborator Daniel Lanois was considering producing their next CD at the time. He passed, but put Don Peris two degrees of separation from Brian Eno.
Daniel Lanois
EUPHORIA
Another Eno-Lanois connection comes through Ken Ramm of Euphoria. He worked in Daniel Lanois's Canadian studio.
BOMBAY DUB ORCHESTRA
Bombay Dub Orchestra's Andrew T. MacKay once mistakenly got a royalty check for Roxy Music's Andy MacKay. Eno was in Roxy Music. (Andrew T. returned the check btw.)
THREE DEGREES OF SEPARATION
RADIO MASSACRE INTERNATIONAL
Steve Dinsdale &
Duncan Goddard
Listen to Radio Massacre International play live on Echoes
Radio Massacre International's Steve Dinsdale goes around the block to make a connection, but as he writes below, he does, three times:
"1. Mark Spybey was in mine, Duncan and Gary's very first band Age of Berlin. He much later went on to play with Roedelius from Cluster who of course made two albums with Eno.
2. We played with Damo Suzuki from Can. Their guitarist Michael Karoli's sister is one of the scantily clad ladies on Roxy Music's Country Life album, although of course Eno had departed
by this time. (Four degrees)
3. By coincidence I was at a wedding two days before our Echoes session where I was talking to a lady from Redcar (where we are also from) who met Roxy Music on Redcar beach one day in 1972 when they were on their first tour. They didn't know who Roxy were at this point, and were later shocked when they suddenly started appearing all over the press and TV on the back of “Virginia Plain” which got them into the teen mags overnight. The lady in question was about 14-15 at the time. She said that Eno threw her friend into the sea! They all got given tickets for the gig, but her Mum wouldn't let her go, although all of her friends did!" (note this is two degrees!)
RMI's Duncan Goddard also has connections. Since he has worked for MTV in England, it makes sense he'd have more opportunities like this one:
"In 1993, I recorded a solo performance by Daniel Lanois for MTV Europe. We went on a trawl through the scenery store at the back of the studio looking for a bit of wood for him to tap his foot on. He bade me mic it up too."
ABSOLUTE AMBIENT
(L-R) Helleanor Webb,
Matt Coldrick, Matt Hillier
And finally, Matt Coldrick of Absolute Ambient. He would seem to be a lock for an Eno connection. He tried:
"1- 3 degrees......When I moved to Brighton one of the first people I met was a girl called Kate Chapman Ket who seemed to know everybody in Brighton, - she worked for Tim Booth for a while (singer with James) who lives in Brighton - he's a mate of Brian Eno who was at his wedding that Kate went to last year ...
bit of a weak link .......so how about ..
2-I played guitar with a band called Fragile State - we played at the Big Chill in Prague 2 years ago,, I shared the flight with Laura B (French Electronica artist and friend) and Lol Hammond ...who did a set ....and an album with Roger Eno .....who is brother etc etc etc
Ok I give in .. I just like what he does!"
So do we. Do you have a Brian Eno connection? You must have touched somebody, who touched somebody who touched Brian Eno, or at least shared the same airspace with him. Let us know. If we get enough, we'll publish them later.
Daniel Lanois
