Richie Thomas of Dif Juz: Full Interview

Here is the full conversation I had with Richie Thomas of Dif Juz on June 26, 2013. This was a very spur-of-the-moment interview about 5 hours before the show was to air, and I recorded it directly from Skype using the "recommended" Amolto software download. Portions of the conversation were aired in the Dif Juz special later that night.

While the recording software worked "fine" in testing, the actual sound levels during the conversation were crazily different, so I have basically compressed the hell out of this and made it "dynamic-free." We do lose the nuances of vocal intensity, but this has turned into an interview you can enjoy while mowing the lawn, making a smoothie, or launching a missile.

I was strangely less anxious during this conversation than the one I had with Gary Bromley a couple of weeks prior--I think it was because that other conversation was planned and I had a lot of time to get nervous about it. This interview was something I didn't think was going to happen at all, until Richie got in touch with me a couple of hours beforehand. I had to scramble to figure out Skype, which I'd used maybe 4 or 5 times in my life, and the recording software.

Anyway, I have annotated this conversation as I did the other one. Hope you find this amusing, or at least helpful.

0:02:56 - I "knew" about this from Wikipedia but hadn't planned to ask about it; just another piece of trivia, or so I thought.

0:03:05 - Remember that this is a Skype conversation and a lot of reactions, chuckles, etc. are based on facial expressions. Wish you could have seen this one!

0:10:40 - !!!

0:17:00 - Here I go, banging on abt. the "4AD sound" again.

0:18:30 - He brought it up, not me! [But I have kind of come to feel this way about Extractions, love those songs though I do.]

0:20:30 - would have played "MI" if I'd had time; if you've never heard it, it's here.

0:21:30 - I did play it; it's at about the 1:46:00 mark in the program.

0:27:00 - I learn something about Skype--I feel about 80 years old at this moment.

0:31:20 - The Murphy Federation record can be yours, if you have 5000 Euros. [to be fair, the seller does have a 100% rating, so "buy with confidence!"]

0:35:00 - "Crosswinds", from Extractions--another song I really should have played on the program, esp. as it's one of the less "treacly" numbers on that record.

0:35:25 - Haven't had time to listen to the entire YouTube playlist, but could this be the film score?

0:39:20 - Dif Juz & Mad Professor - another lost recording to track down!

0:53:00 - Since there's really no existing press on Dif Juz, the Television references aren't there, although they make sense. There is sort of a "twin lead" guitar thing going in a lot of Dif Juz tracks.

0:58:55 - this track appears at the 1:55:00 mark of the program.

0:59:00 - I'm so star-struck, and so panicked about how I'm going to edit this down for the program, that I've forgotten how Skype works and that Richie just did this same thing half an hour ago.

Many thanks, again, to Richie and Gary for their time and their stories.