Crash

2010 was a very busy year for Enormous. Writing, recording, performing, shouting, performing, shouting, arguing, getting frustrated with people who can’t play in time or in tune, more shouting, more arguing, fighting, police involvement…

All joking aside, it was a very turbulent time.

Time was wasted with various things like changing our domain name to enormous.co (Enormous fell for the hype like so many others but ultimately realised that dot com is the only game in town and soon came running back to their beloved enormousreloaded.com), writing endless long drawn out blog posts that probably no one read and argued with more bottom feeding promoters than they care to recall, but in the end everything boiled down to one thing…

Enormous produce pop music.

And that is all they ever wanted to do.

So, 2010 was the year when the group of musicians who had been praised by such luminary publications as Melody Maker and The Sunday Times, went their separate ways as their individual opinions and priorities literally ripped the band apart.

Ashley Morgan, trumpet player with Enormous since 1996, signed the band to his record label, Big Arena Records as part of the Enormous Reloaded project in 2005. Ashley Morgan and Paul Varga, Enormous saxophonist since 1996, were responsible for reuniting the band after an 8 year acrimonious split that began in 1998 and ended with the reformation, the reloading as Ashley Morgan called it, in 2005.

The reloading brought with it a myriad of problems. Davy Lawrence ushered in a major lineup change, altering the classic two guitar, one bass front line by replacing the rhythm guitar with a keyboard. Ashley Morgan’s analogue only distribution model, in which the internet was used purely as a throw away promotional device and real independent record shops got exclusive access to the material, was in stark contrast to the Facebook obsessed naivety of the bands newer members. And so, disagreements over new material, instrumentation, arrangements, business strategy, online presence, style, money and everything in between became too  much to overcome leading to the final split in 2010.

An agreement was reached, largely necessitated by the the fact that the music had already been signed, and released, by Big Arena Records. Davy Lawrence left the band to venture forward into new pastures. Ashley Morgan and Paul Varga retained the name Enormous. The other members of the band who took part in the reloading process disappeared back into the jobbing musicians ether from which they came.

The websites and blogs that were all part of the reloading project have been taken over by individual members of the Enormous entourage and we wish them well with their new endeavours. To follow them individually here is a handy list of where Enormous, or at least those of them that were and still are online, have relocated to.

Davy Lawrence. Davy’s blog, the ongoing story of Enormous boy, has moved from his self titled domain to enormousreloaded.com/blog. The podcast that Davy recorded in 2007 has been archived by Enormous engineer Sam Kane at brassrevolver.com/davy-lawrence and enormousreloaded.com/podcast.

Ashley Morgan. Ashley’s online presence continues to spread across a number of domains and services, the main points of entry now being ashleymorgan.com, eandrrecords.com and bigarenarecords.com. Ashley also maintains a blog at eandrrecords.posterous.com, a pair of Twitter accounts @eandrrecords and @bigarenarecords and a Linkedin profile.

Paul Varga. Paul remains in control of everything related to The Enormous Horns.

Sam Kane. Enormous engineer and unsung hero responsible for the Enormous sound since 1994 has adopted brassrevolver.com as his new blog where he showcases his skills as an audio engineer, restorer and archivist while writing about his love of old audio and retro technology.

The music of Enormous remains, as always, quintessentially British and is available from Big Arena Records at all good independent record shops.