Steve Haw
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Steve Haw is a musician, songwriter and artist. He was born in Birmingham, England in 1972 and currently lives in Germany. He is mostly well known under the pseudonyms "Samplesonic", "DJ Spaceboy" and "X-Y-Z-Cosmonaut". His main hero is David Bowie.
His first recorded release was the guitar-driven novelty rock record "Ken Barlow (And Deirdre)" in 1990. A techno/dance version surfaced in 2001 and released as "The Ken Barlow EP". The song was based on the character played by William Roache in the UK's longest running soap Coronation Street.
Steve's most famous works are his various toytown techno tunes (recorded under the name "Samplesonic") of the early-mid 90's such as "Playskool", "Doctor Who Enters The Jungle", "The Roswell Rave", "Porridge" and "Corkhill's Last Dance". He infamously appeared on Jeremy Beadle's Talk Radio show in 1995 where he played a track called "Beadle's A Lout" - the title of which was taken from a previous tabloid front page headline concerning Jeremy Beadle and was a pun on the title of Jeremy's prank tv show "Beadle's About".
[edit] DJ Spaceboy
In late 1999, Steve started his second major musical phase as "DJ Spaceboy" (later to change just "Spaceboy") and remixed the likes of David Bowie (his idol), Blur, Suede and Gary Numan. In 2000, he set up a website to promote his music and would eventually ditch the Spaceboy title (as more people started using that name) and work under his own name and the moniker "X-Y-Z-Cosmonaut". From late 2000 onwards, Steve would record his own compositions and focused less on remix work which would culminate in his first album of original music "Kidney Bean Skin" which featured special guests William Shatner and Jimmy Tarbuck. The album was only released in Germany through independent record stores and sold through the internet. A 2-disc "special edition" which featured bonus material was released in 2004. In 2001, Steve set up the "Spaceboy Intergalaktic Muzik Limited" record label.
Between mid-2003 and 2004, a new Samplesonic album was planned and a few tracks were for what was to be called "Samplesonic - The Trip". One track, "It's The Mind" featured samples of Michael Palin and Terry Jones from a comedy sketch from the classic Monty Python's Flying Circus comedy series. Another track featured dialogue taken from the Nicolas Roeg sci-fi classic The Man Who Fell to Earth. "The Trip" was to be Samplesonic's masterpiece - a mix of spoken word, sound effects, instrumental music of a trance and ambient nature very much inspired by The KLF's "Chill Out". Unfortunately, too many things were hindering Steve's creative thought and so "The Trip" was left unfinished. Some of the tracks from the aborted album were featured as bonus tracks on the second disc of the limited edition 2-disc "Kidney Bean Skin" 2004 release and is worth hunting down if you can find it.
[edit] Samplesonic
Throughout the 90's, Steve (under various names but mainly under the "Samplesonic" banner) recorded and released around a hundred tracks on singles and albums. He only ever achieved cult, underground success.
Along with The Prodigy and Smart E's, Samplesonic was one of the originators of the early 90's "toytown techno" rave music scene which itself was spawned from the ashes of the "acid house" music scene. Toytown techno, as it was known, was so-called because it sampled music and sounds from old British children's television shows. Samplesonic Anthology box set and two "Greatest Hits" collections released between 2002 and 2003.
In 2003, after over a decade of non-stop music making, Steve announced he was quitting from recording music for personal reasons. His music lived on with 10+ years worth of tracks available to download, until recently, at his website with IUMA. Since IUMA has come sadly to an end, a new site has recently been set up with Soundclick.[1] This site will only feature Steve's original electronica and not his remix work due to copyright reasons.
One of the last notable recordings was on a privately distributed Billy Mackenzie fan tribute album - a cover of the rarely known Associates track "Saline Drips".
Samplesonic has often been compared to The KLF - most probably due to the similarity in music genres and the illegality of a lot of their music as samples were often not cleared and tracks were released without consent of copyright owners. At the end of the day though, The KLF became world famous at some point and scored massive chart topping hits whilst Samplesonic never made it beyond a few appearances on "Talk Radio" and plays on independent and pirate radio stations. Steve would go on to wider success as the internet age began to kick in but that's another story.
