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Comment by spacechild1 | Hacker News Reader

I should clarify that it hasn't been 100% confirmed that "eric_hard_jams" was really him, but many people on the list thought so, including James McCartney himself:

  Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 22:20:06 -0600
  From: James McCartney <---@---.--->
  Subject: Re: [ OT ]very low signal to noise ratio .
  
  on 1/17/01 9:18 PM, eric_hard_jams at eric_hard_jams@btinternet.com wrote:
  
  > 
  >> ok boss. i'm really sorry. back to normal now. much better.
  >> my apologies.
  >> 
  > ass licker.
  > 

  shut the F up already, richard.

https://www.audiosynth.com/files/sc-users-archive/v01.n226

JMC and RDJ know each personally and hung out together. Here's a picture of the two together: https://www.reddit.com/r/aphextwin/comments/6oheli/screen_ra...

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It's worth little coming from some random HN guy, but I can confirm eric_hard_jams was Richard D James. We used to hang around similar circles online, and there were a couple meetups. There were a bunch of other Rephlex and Rephlex-adjacent musicians using pseudonyms, as well.

Richard was sort of annoying at times, in the way someone on the spectrum can be. A bit of a troll with poor timing, and poor social skills, but a good, kind lad who spent his time doing things completely orthogonal to anyone else and that made him quite interesting.

I lost touch with him in around 2000-2001. He kinda went dark in those circles. I don't know what he's up to these days, probably raising a family like me.

Sure thing, Jake

Funny useless trivia: Jake is not my actual name. It's from a movie. :-P

That's interesting!

There is also this email from Tue, 16 Jan 2001 19:02:12 +0000 in https://www.audiosynth.com/files/sc-users-archive/v01.n225 where he is clearly talking as Aphex Twin. He might be just an impersonator, but given that he speaks directly to James and James calls him Richard has me pretty convinced that it's actually him.

> probably raising a family like me.

That he did, according to a surprisingly extensive 2014 interview: https://www.pitchfork.com/features/cover-story/reader/aphex-...

That audiosynth link is a fine thread for anyone lamenting the loss of civility on the modern internet.

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