INFO:
You can hear James on Xfm every Saturday at 3pm
and every Sunday on The Remix at 7pm. More info on his DJ work
at http://www.jameshyman.com/

from the 6 Oct
2003 edition of CMU
Weekly here

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rinsing and
remixing

cmu speaks to xfm’s james
hyman on finding a place for cutting edge music in the
mainstream media

If you live in London and you’re
serious about your dance music, the chances are that you’re
more than familiar with James Hyman’s shows on Xfm. Despite
being housed on a rock station his dance music shows, and The
Remix (which he co-produces with Eddy Temple Morris),
frequently put the so called ‘dance stations’ to shame, with
his faultless anti-playlist approach and guest mixes from the
likes of Jazzanova, Tom Middleton (ex-Jedi Knights) and DJ
Shadow. We shouldn’t be surprised that James Hyman has stolen
airtime from a rock station to champion grass roots dance
music, he has a knack of getting credible beats into unlikely
places. He produced dance shows on MTV before they even knew
what dance music was, and persuaded T Mobile et al to
[indirectly] use their advertising millions to take the likes
of Royksopp to the masses. CMU successfully avoided Foxy and
Tarrant and found the Xfm floor of the Capital Radio tower,
where we threw some obvious questions James’ way…

How did you get into DJing /
producing / presenting?
It was all about being in the
right place at the right time. The time was summer 88, the
place Mandela St, London where MTV Europe had just been born.
Music had always been at the heart of what I wanted to be
involved in - so when MTV came along I jumped on board, albeit
as head tea boy. From menial tasks I moved on to the press
office, and from there to the more exciting realm of producing
and directing all of MTV’s ‘dance music’ programming. And
that’s what I did for much of the nineties, whilst somehow
managing to get a degree in media and film at [London]
Guildhall University. The presenting break came courtesy of
Eddy Temple Morris. He asked me to do a short daily segment
about weird and wacky websites on his show 'Up For It'.
Despite being really nervous at the beginning, I soon got used
to it. After that I got some other presenting gigs. Firstly,
having seen the ‘net minute’ on MTV, Channel 5 asked me to
present a show as part of an ‘internet night’. After that I
did a stint on the Channel 4 show 'Frontal', and some
presenting for the Sci-Fi Channel. As for DJing – I fell in
love with decks when I was about 16. I started off DJing at
loads of MTV parties, warehouse one-offs and mates’ parties.
All that led to me setting up my company 'Green Bandana
Productions', through which I do a load of producing,
directing and editing - especially pop videos, we’ve done over
300 in 5 years.

You tend to do programmes that
champion new music - is it a challenge establishing those
kinds of shows in the commercial arena?
Absolutely. The
commercial media feel they need to preserve a ‘safe’ status
quo. They’re afraid to change, immediately assuming change to
be ‘radical’. People need to have faith, like Christine Boar
at MTV. She was very receptive when I approached her with my
‘Megamix’ show idea [a 30-minute dance mix where the videos
were mixed as well as the tracks] – so much so that it was on
air two weeks later. Similarly, the Sci-Fi Channel gave me
free reign on 'Headfuck', an eight week run of four hour
programmes where plenty of new and alternative music was
championed.

What does your film work involve
and how did you get into it?
I've ‘music supervised' several films. Music
supervision can involve anything from suggesting existing
tracks for scenes to finding and working with a composer on an
original score. The job also normally involves the
nitty-gritty of clearing, licensing and negotiating rights to
use tracks in the film and on the soundtrack. I got into it
from similar work I'd done for advertising agencies. People
knew my track record; things like putting music to ads for
T-Mobile [Royksopp & Pilote], Gordon's gin [A Man Called
Adam] and the Lynx ad [Royksopp]. I Recently supervised the
music on 'Mean Machine' [that Vinnie Jones film], and I’ve
just finished 'Suzie Gold' [Summer Phoenix] which is released
this September.

What music is getting you
excited just now?
Zongamin, Audio Bullys, Paul
Jackson's 'the Push', White Stripes, the Four Tet album, !!!
(chk chk chk) on Warp and Dizee Rascal for being so fucking
raw. And of course my 'Covered' Compilations – I’m working on
the second now… shameless plug I
know…

cmuonline from the unlimited
music team

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