Jimmy The Hideous Penguin

Jimmy The Hideous Penguin is one of Ireland’s hidden electronic diamonds. Hailing from Galway in the blustery west of Ireland, Jimmy makes music that varies between sultry bass heavy electronica, progressive scratch and slow burning ambient tracks richly orchestrated with organic instrumentation. Yep this guy is a jack of all trades.

My name is Jimmy,
But my friends just call me
‘The hideous penguin boy.’

- Tim Burton

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How long have you been making music as Jimmy the Hideous Penguin?

I started dj’ing around 2000/2001 although not as jimmy penguin, then in my first dj competition (DMC Dublin 05 I think) I needed a name that would stand out, Jimmy The Hideous Penguin is what I settled on. When I started producing soon after, I decided to release my music as Jimmy Penguin and do dj sets as Hideous Penguin.

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I didn’t realise that it was actually the title of a Tim Burton poem, can you empathise with Jimmy from the poem at all?

My mate had some of the poems from the book on his wall, and I happened to be looking around saying to myself ‘what am I going to use as a name’ when the poem caught my eye. His name was Jimmy, my name was Jimmy, it was just meant to be.

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Was there a particular artist or album that inspired you to start making your own music?

Dave Clarke live at Fuse is the reason I started dj’ing. D-styles Phantazmagorea was the album that gave me a serious push, it made me want to go get a 4 track straight away. I got a computer instead, my original idea was to get all the musicians I knew and combine our efforts to make some music. It never happened. After that I had to start making beats for Sebi C and Mupeid, so I suppose that’s what got me properly motivated.

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What’s your recording process like? What equipment do you use?

I tend to make quite a bit of sample-based stuff but I write most of the music myself. My live setup and my studio setup is usually pretty similar, I use a turntable, a Rane mixer and a Jamman loop pedal. I run that into my computer for basic effects e.g. reverb. I also use Serato, guitar rig and a Microkorg synthesiser.

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On your Myspace page, you state that you believe in the free distribution of digital media. Why is this so important to you?

Most of the music that I’ve been inspired by I heard when I was younger, I didn’t pay for it. The music I’m talking about is what made me who I am, the stuff that I really love, I now own on vinyl, but I never would have heard it in the first place had I been brought up in a situation where top 30 hits was my only musical influence.

You downloading my six albums that are available on the internet costs me nothing, and the usual argument is that musicians need to make a living, a good friend of mine made the very valid point that methods of recording have only been around for the last hundred or so years, every musician before that didn’t starve. Harden the fuck up and go do some bloody gigs!

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Would you ever consider a cd or vinyl release?

I give out free cd’s at gigs as often as I can. Our vinyl will be out on ‘Nause Corps‘ in April and will be available at the Community Skratch Games in Galway and in various independent record stores around the country too. It’s our debut album, titled ‘Vince Mack Mahon‘ and is a collection of our music both solo tracks and group efforts, the most exciting thing about the album is we’re releasing it alongside the new ‘Grandeurs of Delusion’ album ‘Night of the Flavigator’.

‘Night of the Flavigator’ is a follow up album to ‘A Stale Breath of Fresh Ahhh’ which came out last year and is available at nausecorps.com. The Galway label Cobwebs & Gossamer Records are due a Penguin release at some stage too. I also hope to release a series of records myself this year but I won’t give too much away just yet.

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Previously you’ve released music through the Jamendo webspace but recently you joined the Open Music Net Label, do you hope to gain a little more exposure from working with them?

Net-labels are good for hearing great music you never would have heard before, for free. If you listen to the open music compilation ‘Primer Vol.1’, you will hear a wide variety of quality music by people who probably would have never appeared on a compilation together otherwise. Discovering new people who are on a similar wavelength, that’s the idea I like most about being involved with Open Music I suppose.

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You’ve had a lot or releases over the last year and a bit, the earlier tracks are based completely around scratching whereas on your later releases not so much so, are your albums ‘Spilt Decision’ and ‘Electro’ more indicative of the direction you want to take your music in? Or are they a separate projects?

I lost my mixer plug at a gig in the Village with Mupeid and soon after I got a set of monitors, I wanted to test them out so I started bangin’ out the aul electro ya know! Expect a mix of the two styles for my open music release.

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You’ve got a pretty interesting side project with MC Muipeid,who raps in Irish. The Na Bac song is excellent. I never considered that Hip Hop and the Irish Language would sit well and any time I’ve heard anything of the sort, it’s been taking the piss. From how well crafted and produced the songs are, it’s clear that this is something that you take seriously. Is the primary aim of this collaboration to promote Irish or does it go beyond that?

Myself and Mupeid’s main goals are to have fun, make good music and to give the young people in the Irish speaking community something to relate to other than what they’re used to hearing in the more mainstream scenes. We’ve known each other most of our lives which makes the music we make together a very personal experience for me.

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You’re involved in the Community Skratch Games in Galway, how did that start up and what’s it all about?

‘D’ya know what we should do?’ ‘Wha?’ ‘We should get everyone round and have a laugh with a load of turntables’.

So we realised we needed a venue, and that’s where it all started. We are lucky to have support from the guys at the Bierhaus (where the main event takes place), they let us do fundraisers for the festival and various gigs and events. After the last two scratch bonanza’s its hard for us to believe they’re having us back for more of the same, thanks lads!

Huge respect to Deviant who took it upon himself to make the festival run as smoothly as possible the previous two years. The whole point is to promote scratching, scratch music and the people involved, other than that its about getting together to do what we do best, under the same roof in a friendly environment. Co-operation not competition…

This year I’m gathering scratch music from all over the world and releasing a free compilation ‘Community Skratch Music’. I hope that this compilation will make more people aware of the festival and modern turntable culture.

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Finally, you’ve had a pretty prolific output between your own music and collaborations thus far, what are your plans for 2009?

*Vince Mack debut album, *my own series of 12′inches (various artists), Community Skratch games 09,*Community Skratch BBQ in London, *Community Skratch @ Glastonbury, *Commuinty Skratch music.

If I get all that done I’ll be doing well and if I plan anything more I think I’ll probably collapse from the thought of it! Thanks very much for listening to my music, that’s what its there for, Jimmy Penguin, wooooord!!!

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You can download six albums by Jimmy on Jamendo, ‘Split Decision‘, ‘Electro‘ and ‘Scratchin chi’ chin’ chi‘ are the best places to start. He’ll be supporting Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip in the Roisin Dubh in Galway on the 7th of Feb and in Cyprus Avenue, Cork on the 8th. Both gigs are put on by one of Galway’s finest independent promoters Stress.

Jimmy Penguin & MC Muipeid are playing at Deviant & Naive Ted’s EP Launch at the Bierhaus on Feb 12th.(Check out a previous album by Naive Ted here) The Community Skratch Games kick off on April 8th in the Bierhaus too.