21/07/2025
RIP Eamon Downes 😢 ❤️
It is with heartbreaking sadness that I’m letting the world know that we have lost Eamon Downes, devoted husband to Stella, devoted father to daughter Bea, and one of my closest friends I’ve ever had. This one really hurts.
I’ve been in Ibiza performing, he passed minutes after he heard mine and Sonya’s message. His family said he was waiting for us.
We started out in a record shop together in 1989, before I’d even started DJing, before Eamon went into the studio to make the classic Liquid - Sweet Harmony. My memories and stories with this man are some of the fondest memories of my life. From working in that shop and discovering all the amazing music coming in from around the world in ’89 and ’90, to our little rituals like curry and chips in the Chinese across the road from his flat in Stepney before he’d take me to DJ at my first ever sets at Labrynth. I can still see him dropping me back to Kings Cross on a Sunday morning after those weekends, chewing my lips off, sitting at the station that now looks nothing like it did back then. It always takes me back to him, when I wait for a train in the exact same spot.
I still remember the first time he played me “Sweet Harmony” down the phone before it went off to be cut to 12”. When he landed the record deal with XL, he was buzzing, just built for the record industry. He was talking to Pete Tong at FFRR, Nick Hawkes and Richard Russell at XL, all wanting his record. He was so excited by those meetings. When XL had a dubplate made of the “Sweet Harmony” remixes, they sent it to Pete Tong on a bike, and after he played it on Radio 1, the bike brought it straight to me at Labrynth, 12 Dalston Lane. He loved touches like that “The label is biking over an acetate”. Mad to think a year previous we were in the same place on the “Doves”.
Even when he was topping the charts and travelling the world with “Sweet Harmony”. “Liquid is liquid” was made out of a shared love for Balearic and Dub music that we had marvelled over a few years previous in the record shop. I can still remember him handing me the first-ever cut of “Liquid is Liquid”, just wanting it played at Labrynth at 5:30am, and boy did it hit the mark and all that we had loved when we 1st ever met.
We’ve got so many stories, deep friendship, deep history. When our kids grew up and Bea was born, she’d come to our house and my daughter would give her her dolls, toys, teddies. Bea would call my two kids her brother and sister. That’s how close we were.
He fought unbelievably hard over the last five years with the tumour. Kept bouncing back strong. But eventually the fight was just too much.
For as long as I can remember, we spoke every day “5, 10, 15, 20” times a day. Even after he moved to Italy, the video messages never stopped. I’m so grateful I’ve got them all, so much footage of him and my dad bantering together, both now gone.
I’ll miss the banter. Stupid things I’d say, and next thing I know it’s printed on mugs, t-shirts, posters, delivered to my house by him, just to wind me up or give me a little laugh and keep me amused throughout the day.
It’s been a very tough few years for his wife Stella, daughter Bea, and their family. Me and Sonya were able to see them when his mum was ill and when he was really unwell. Even when he came to the UK with a carer, we spent time with him and his brother. We visited him in Italy the past six months too, and selfishly I’d hope our time together, the music, the laughs, watching “The Office”, the memories and listening to music from ’89 and ’90, might somehow make him stronger. And for little glimmers, I believed they did.
Eamon loved the industry side of music, and I say that with a big smile on my face. It was never really my thing. But he just got it. Major label world, advertising world, trendy PDFs as he would call them, it was second nature to him. Back in the early ’90s when XL was sending dubplates by bike, I was clueless to that world. But 30 years later, he’s getting us booked for corporate parties through ad agencies, flying in from Italy, sending chauffeurs to pick me up from my house to play ’90s rave sets. He loved it. The lardy-dar side.
Now, every time I play a record from those golden years, ‘89, ’90, ’91, ’92, he’ll be with me. Because we built our foundations together. Behind the counter of a tiny East End record shop, discovering music and shaping our path. Every set I play, every tune I drop, every radio show, every bit of content, he’s with me.
Of course his timeless anthems will live forever with music lovers all over the world. I know his creative work over the past ten years for film, TV and advertising with Sparky — will live on too. Eamon and Sparky had worked relentlessly for many years, and between us we had managed to get Eamon in on studio sessions in the past 6 months as well. His recent work couldn’t be In better hands than Sparky.
And every time I speak to Stella. Every time I see Bea. Every time I see his face on pictures and video hes with me forever.
I miss you already, Eamon. I love you, always.
