Tune of the Day....Steve Silk Hurley-Music is the key

A classic from Steve Silk Hurley......

Tune of the Day....Subculture-TV Heaven

A belter of a track that ......

Vince Lawrence-House Music Pioneer

Vince Lawrence is a dance music producer, businessman and is one of the leading innovators of the genre of music called House Music.
Industry insiders recognize Lawrence as co-author of "On and On", the first recording officially designated House Music. He worked with Jesse Saunders in the initial creation of Jes Say Records, designing its logo by hand. He served as head of marketing and was the lyric writer for "Funk U Up" (the first House track to ever make it onto the Billboard charts), "Undercover" by Dr. Derelict, "Real Love", and many other songs released in the label's heyday. He also co-authored "Love Can't Turn Around" with Daryl Pandy, which reached #10 in the UK Singles Chart in 1986 and started the House music revolution in the UK.He organized Trax Records, a Chicago house label. He is the founder of Slang MusicGroup, which has received numerous gold and platinum awards for their contributions.

Early years

At the time, Vince’s dad, worked with Eddie Thomas of Curtom Records. Eddie managed several soul and funk acts, one of which was Captain Sky, who was a Funk artist that played on Soul Train and other shows. One year, Vince got to go on tour with the musicians. He did their pyrotechnician work and watched the guy that played the synthesizers and keyboards. He thought the guy was cool and decided to learn a little bit about his synthesizers. When he got back home, he saved up enough money to buy a small synthesizer, a Moog Prodigy. Looking up to his mentors, Vince started his own band called Z Factor with Fred Riley – keyboards, Bernadette Rabaya – singer, Larry Praither – guitar, Cordell – drums. Vince sang and played keyboards. ^[10]
Their first record was called “(I Like To Do It In) Fast Cars” and came out in 1982 when he was eighteen. Vince’s dad put the record on his label, Mitchbal Records. The record was played on WGCI in regular rotation and a few records were sold. At the same time, Vince was also going to a teen club called The Playground, which was the brainchild of a young entrepreneurial man, Craig Thomson. He then met Jesse Saunders and Farley Keith, who were the DJs. They would play old disco records, which they would mix with B-52’s music. Vince got a job there, through Jesse, doing lights. He brought Jesse and Farley his record and they would play it. Vince told them that the stuff they were playing could be put on record and would make them even more popular DJs. By making a record, crowds at the clubs would know who the announced DJ was and would make the crowd attendance bigger. Vince told Jesse that he had a synthesizer and was in a band. They decided to work together to make the first house record.
They wrote the beginnings of the “On And On” record along with ten or eleven more songs. Then they made “On And On Traxs” and went to Precision Records, a pressing plant, to pay for 500 records. These records would be played in the clubs. In three weeks it became the hottest song in the city. Vince told Jesse that they should sell the records at the concession stand at The Playground. They met the guy that ran the concession stand, Duane Buford, and when it turned out that Duane played piano, they decided to make some music together. 
It was a pain selling the records at the concession stand so they decided to go to a record store called Imports Etc., where they sold a thousand records for four dollars each. They threw a party at Duane’s house and wrote “Night Flight”, “Dum Dum”, “I’m The DJ,” and all the other songs that would eventually become popular. Some of them came out of Vince’s dad’s label, Mitchbal, and the others came out on a label Vince named for Jesse called Jes Say Records. The logo was written in Vince’s own handwriting. 
Vince went back to the Precision Records to get more records from the owner, Larry Sherman, every couple of weeks. The teenage repeat customer made the owner curious, so Larry asked him what he was doing with the records. After Vince told him that he was selling them for four dollars, Larry and Vince made a deal that Larry would press the records for no charge and share the profits. Vince wanted to have a label that would fit what they were doing and came up with the name Trax Records. 
Vince wanted to show people in Detroit the music that he was doing, because he thought the records would sell in other cities as well. He went to the clubs in Detroit and gave the DJs copies of the records. After creating relationships with the underground record shops, he set his sights on New York. He met Bruce Forrest in New York, gave him some records and ended up staying there for three months finding stores and selling records. He called up Duane and Jesse and told them to come to New York. After seeing how much Vince was making selling these records in New York, Larry financed his trips to other states to find all the DJ stores and clubs.
Other DJs started teaming up, following what Vince had started. Frankie Knuckles teamed up with Jamie Principle to make their first record and Steve Hurley teamed up with Rocky Jones to start DJ International. This was happening when Vince met Marshall Jefferson in the clubs with his friends, Sleazy-D and Adonis (artist). Marshall wanted to get a record out under his nickname, Virgo, so Vince told them to do it under his own label. Vince and Marshall made the EP, “Virgo Trax”, which still gets played today.

Slang MusicGroup

After exposing some of the dance world’s best artists such as Marshall Jefferson, Adonis (artist), Byron Styngly, Farley Jackmaster Funk, Ron Hardy, Screamin’ Rachel, and Jesse Saunders at Trax Records, Vince founded Slang MusicGroup. Staying in Chicago, Vince evolved from an artist and producer to the entrepreneur and marketer that he is today. He has made Slang MusicGroup a “pop culture divining rod,” creating original and remix music for bands, gaming, and TV along with innovative advertising campaigns. Multiple producers and artists work for Slang MusicGroup and Vince has received many RIAA Gold and Platinum awards for his work.

Chicago Fire: A Dance Music Anthology

For the musician and non musician alike, Vince wanted to make it as easy as possible for anyone to make good sounding music. He spear headed the development of the Chicago Fire: A Dance Music Anthology in conjunction with Sony Acid. This anthology covers many types of electronic music: electro, deep house, old school, progressive, and drum & bass. Vince was able to create a way for anybody to use loops to create new and improved house music. Vince when interviewed, expressed his hope that the tool set would help foster a new generation of house music makers and fans. He also expressed how he thought this would bring the house music genre out of the underground into the mainstream.

Tune of the day....Jesse Saunders-On and On

The track that is credited with being the first ever House track to be pressed on Vinyl back in 84,,,,,

GBTOR April 2nd, 2011 Part 1 Mixed by Danny Walsh

Here is part 1 of Danny's set from an incredible night with Justin Robertson gracing our night! Justin played an absolute blinder so hopefully this can stir some of the great memories from the night!!!

gbtor-apr-02-2011 Part1 Mixed by Danny Walsh

Enjoy!!

Also, a wee reminder we'll all be playing a residents day in the Nether Inn this Friday as part of the Dundee Dance Event 2011!
Come down, have a beer, a blether and experience some of the GBTOR magic!!!

Tune of the day....Wood Allen-Airport 89

Always reminds me of Ned Jordan at Fat Sams....

Tune of the Day....Bassheads-Is There Anybody Out There

Rhumba Club......Fat Sams......20th of Sept 1991...Andrew Weatherall's first tune....
Never seen anything like it since..........

Tune of the day ....Rozlyne Clarke-Dancin is like making love-Dub 2

Tune.........this belter has ripped the roof off of many a nightclub......

Finitribe-Forevergreen-Forevermost Excellent mix

Here's a blast of the 1st track Justin played at his recent Wall Shaking , Roof Rippin appearance at The Reading Rooms on the 2nd of April.....

Murk

The toast of the American house underground during the 1990s, Cuban-American producers Oscar Gaetan and Ralph Falcon stand behind several of the decade's best house tracks, dark numbers whose soulful vocal lines and high charting position bely an acid-tinged ruggedness at odds with the candy-floss arrangements of many dance hits. Most were recorded for their Murk Recordings label -- later licensed through MCA/Tribal America -- under a variety of aliases and projects including Liberty City, Funky Green Dogs, Deep South and Coral Way Chief. Gaetan and Falcon grew up together in Miami, and though Falcon spent four of his teenage years at a Georgia military school, both discovered and began enjoying house music independently. The duo gradually entered the Miami dance scene, influenced by early domestic producers Farley Jackmaster Funk and Todd Terry as well as later British comers including A Guy Called Gerald.

After producing a single called "Tricky Jazz" for the local DSR Records, Gaetan and Falcon followed with Mission Control's "Outta Limits, which appeared on an Atlantic compilation in 1992. By that time the pair had already set up Murk Recordings and released singles as Intruder and Interceptor. Their next production was Liberty City's "Some Lovin'," a sublime piece of hypnotic mellowed-out trance recorded with singer Bebe Dozier, a family friend. The single broke them to an international audience, and the Murk boys were soon being called on to DJ around the world.

In 1993, MCA's division of Tribal America responded to the fame, licensing the Murk catalogue in total and issuing Murk: The Singles Collection. That same year, another Liberty City single, "If You Really Love Someone," became another club hit. The duo remixed Madonna, Pet Shop Boys, the Beloved and RuPaul. During 1994, both Gaetan and Falcon concentrated on label ventures of their own (Gee Man Soul and Miami Soul Records, respectively) but then came together to record a Liberty City LP. When the album came out in 1996, however, it was under yet another alias from their early Murk days, Funky Green Dogs. Get Fired Up became a crossover hit, thanks to the number one dance single "Fired Up!" and another club hit, "The Way." In 1999, the pair released a volume in the mix series United DJ's of America.

Murk boys Oscar Gaetan and Ralph Falcon were hyped more on respect than sales figures before they broke out of the American dance mainstream with two of the biggest hits of 1996-97, "Fired Up!" and "The Way" by Funky Green Dogs. Gaetan and Falcon had been producing for their own Murk Recordings since the early '90s, and had earned club-play with hits by Liberty City ("Some Lovin'," "If You Love Someone") and remixes of Madonna, Pet Shop Boys, the Beloved and RuPaul, among others. After recording a Liberty City LP beginning in 1995, the pair turned around and released it as Funky Green Dogs, an alias which had graced only one of their previous recordings. The trailer single "Fired Up!" became a big hit on dancefloors (and charts) with remixes by Danny Tenaglia. After the album Get Fired Up appeared in late 1996, second single "The Way" hit number one on the dance charts. The duo added new vocalist Tamara, a native of the Bahamas, for their second album Star.

Strictly Rhythm

Think soul, think Motown. Think blues, think Chess Records. Think jazz, think Blue Note.

Think house, think Strictly Rhythm.

House labels come and go, yet while Strictly Rhythm isn't the be-all and end-all of house music imprints it's fair to say that no other single label has had such an influence on the development of house music as Strictly. We're talking about the stable that launched the careers of, among others, Erick Morillo, Roger Sanchez, Armand Van Helden, Kenny Dope, Josh Wink...damn it, pretty much most of the names we today consider to be at the top of the house music tree. So we can only count our lucky stars that Strictly didn't turn out to be a
taxi company.

Yes, that's right. When Spring records closed in 1989, Financial Controller Mark Finkelstein had $25,000 dollars to his name and an ex-wife and two children to support. The smart move, he figured, was to work for a private hire service, having just enough money to put down a deposit on a car and radio.

Enter Finkelstein's colleague Gladys Pizzaro, one serious clubber from the mean streets of Spanish Harlem. Leaving behind a lucrative career in the construction industry, Gladys had joined Spring as a receptionist and worked her way up to radio promotions, backed up by an intimate knowledge of the New York club scene based on, well, living the New York club scene. Enthralled by the new 'house' and 'garage' sounds emanating out of Chicago
and New York/New Jersey - sounds which reminded Finkelstein of the '70s disco he'd so
loved - Gladys convinced Mark that to set up their own label to focus on this new music was the way ahead. And thus was Strictly Rhythm born on May 1st 1989, with Finkelstein in charge of business matters and Pizarro at the A&R helm. Along with that legendary logo...

"I have a street background," explains Pizzaro, "and graffiti at that time was very popular, and because we were doing house music, house identified with street, so that's what I identified the label with. Street music, house music, graffiti... urban culture."

The Finkelstein/Pizarro double act composed, and that iconic grafitti logo drawn by Finkelstein in the bag, Tylon's 'Feel The Rhythm Of House' (SR1200) marked the label's debut, but the first few releases were low-key (though the label's third release, 'Special' by Sir James, overlooked at the time, has gone on to be one of the most sampled records in house). The first single to really make an impact was Logic's 'The Warning' (SR1207),
which was a club smash in 1990 ("Tony Humphries played it four times at a party," recalls Pizarro, "that helped a lot"). That was followed later the same year by Underground Solution's 'Luv Dancin' (SR1220). The debut release by one Roger Sanchez, this deep
house groover put Strictly firmly on the map.

"From there on it just started to snowball," recalls Gladys, "because the word on the street got out and producers like Todd Terry started coming to see me, and Louie Vega, Kenny Dope, DJ PIerre... it just goes on and on. It was easy really because there was just so much talent in New York."

Over the next couple of years, the label continued to turn out the club anthems - Simone's 'My Family Depends On Me' and CLS's 'Can You Feel It in 1991, Aly-Us's 'Follow Me' and Djaimin's 'Give You' in 1992 - while several other notable producers had their first ever
releases on Strictly during the same period: Kenny 'Dope' with The Untouchables's 'Take A Chance' (SR1227), DJ Pierre with Photon Inc's 'Generate Power' (SR1251), Masters At Work with Hardrive's 'Sindae' (SR1272).

The label had by now firmly established a reputation as New York's leading house label, based on a combination, as Finkelstein puts it, of "integrity in business - everyone got paid - and Gladys' ears. Gladys had the best ears in dance music, period." By now, tracks were coming through the door so thick and fast that the label stepped up the release schedule to
a single a week.

"All my competitors were saying he's lost his mind, he's going to fuck this up entirely," recalls Finkelstein. "And it turned out just the opposite. Every Friday, there'd be lines outside record stores in Manhattan, and we'd be selling them out of the box, unheard. We were fortunate in
that we had the only fanbase that would buy music to make money - the DJs. In those days there were no downloads, no CDs, you had to have the vinyl."

But things would move to the next level in 1994, with the arrival of Erick Morillo in his Reel 2 Real guise. 'I Like To Move It' (SR12192) was a chart-busting hit around the world and marked Strictly Rhythm out as a major player on the international stage. Reel 2 Real would go on to rack up five Top 30 UK hits, not to mention a gold-selling album.

1994 wasn't just about chart hits, though. The same year saw the label release classics like Barbara Tucker's 'Beautiful People' (SRB015), River Ocean feat India's 'Love And Happiness' (SREP4) and Morel's Grooves' 'Let's Groove' (SR12200). Clearly, Strictly Rhythm were on a roll.

Through '95 and '96, the classics just kept on coming. Josh Wink's 'Higher State Of Consciousness' (SR12321), Hardrive's 'Deep Inside' (SREP2), Black Magic's 'Freedom' (SR12403), Reel 2 Real's 'Jazz It Up' (SR12475), Da Mongoloids' 'Spark Da Meth'
(SR12476)... the list goes on, and on.

It was also during this period that Strictly Rhythm had their greatest commercial success in their native USA, with Planet Soul's 'Set U Free' (SR12362), a fusion of house with Miami bass. "I don't think that sold 15 copies in the UK!" laughs Finkelstein, "but it sold half a
million in the US. Whereas Barbara Tucker or Ultra Nate didn't sell anything in the US."

Ah yes, Ultra Nate. Her 1997 worldwide smashes 'Free' (SR12512), 'Found A Cure' (SR12534) and 'New Kind Of Medicine' (SR12555) saw the label at the height of its success, but also marked something of a watershed for the label, according to Pizzaro. "After 1998, after our big hit with 'Free', there was a change going on in New York."

The label itself was changing direction. "We were no longer a house label, a street label," says Gladys, "we were a dance label." A joint venture had been entered into with Warner Bros, and the label - while simultaneously having its first UK No 1 with Wamdue
Project's 'King Of My Castle' - began to license European pop-dance acts for the US market, the likes of Fragma and the Vengaboys (signed to Strictly's domestic offshoot Groovilicious Records) bringing them considerable commercial success.

"No doubt about it, at that particular time that was the best move for us to make," says Pizzaro, "And we were pretty proud of it, that a major was interested in an independent. That was definitely Mark's dream, to go on a major."

The deal didn't pan out as planned but some five years on, Strictly rises phoenix-like from the ashes, thanks to a tie-in with Simon Dunmore of the UK's mighty Defected stable. "I fought the lawsuit, got the company back, got all the rights back," says Finkelstein of the new partnership. "And it was like, now what? The dance scene in the US isn't great right now, so headquartering Strictly in the US didn't make sense. Plus, I needed a creative director, because I knew I didn't understand cutting edge music. And Simon and I have worked together and been friends for 15 years, three of the first Defected releases were signed from Strictly Rhythm so it just made sense."

As househeads worldwide will attest, if Strictly Rhythm Mk2 is even half as good as Strictly Rhythm Mk1, we're in for one hell of a ride...

Tune of the Day....Da Noyz Boyz-Touch Me

A classic from New York label Nu Groove

Pics from our last party.....

Here's a selection of pics from our last Roots party with Justin Robertson...Big thanks to Ryan Dunn for the classy B & W pics

29th 0f April Trash The Wedding-GBTOR Residents Party at The Nether Inn

Hot on the heels of Robbo giving us something to tell the grandchildren about, GBTOR are back with a wee holiday special on Friday 29th April when we will be hosting a marathon 9 and a half hour free party in association with the Dundee Dance Event.

We're particularly delighted that the venue for this one is none other than the Nether Inn - a pub that the scene seemed to revolve around back when it was known as the Parliamentary Bar. If the walls of that pub could speak....

This one promises to be an absolutely cracking day/night of music as Alan, Craig, Dean & Danny dig out and unleash whatever takes their fancy......we're really looking forward to bringing you our DJ collectives various sounds - from Korova - Diggin Deeper and everything in between...

It all kicks off around 2.30 with the sublime sounds of BPS wearing his Korova hat....after that who knows?...lets see where the music takes us....

See you at the bar....

GOOD TIMES!!!!!

It's been a while coming but Norman Jay's Good Times movie is now on youtube!
Here's the link to part 1 (all other parts are available from here)

http://youtu.be/B1egelzi9bw

Enjoy!!!!

Thank You!!!!

A big, big thank you to all that came down to the Reading Rooms on Saturday to make a truly special night!!
Justin played an incredible set which included many of the classics we have been listening to on mixtapes he did 20 years ago! Again, another true gentleman!!!
We look forward to hearing him again in the future!!!
Also, a big thanks to everyone involved in putting the night together! Without you, Roots would not be the night it is!!!
Next up, April the 29th!!!!
Dundee Dance Event 2011! GBTOR presents Korova Diggin Deeper for its ROOTS at the Nether Inn (aka The Parlimentary!!)
We will be starting at 2.30pm with BPS wearing his Korova hat to start the day!!!
It's a 12am finish with Alan, Dean and Danny all playing a bit of everything at various times through the day/night!!! This is going to be something special!!! Also its FREE!!!!!
Look forward to seeing all the old faces and lots of NEW ones!!!
Thanks Again,
Dan

Justin Robertson Links.......

Not long till Saturday now....pure chompin at the bit mysel like.....and Justin Robertson hits Dundee spinning the finest, bespoke, classics at his disposal....this is one not to be missed .....

Here's a selection of links all Robbo related......


myspace
Resident Advisor page
Discogs page
Twitter
Mix-Cloud
The Deadstock 33's
Soundcloud

Tony Humphries

In July 1981, producer Shep Pettibone asked Tony for a mastermix show tape to fill in for a no show on his KISS-FM NY radio show. A vacancy left by Pettibone at the station opened the door for his own permanent mix show. Simultaneously, schooled under the “I’ll-leave-you-in-the-booth-and-see-what-happens” antics of resident DJ Larry Patterson of NJ’s Club Zanzibar fame, resulted in him gaining “THE” residency in 1982.

Developing his creative experiences behind the recording studio’s control board only enhanced his style and magic. Artists like Mtume (Tony’s first gold record “Juicy Fruit”), Chaka Khan, Karen White, Regina Belle, Donna Summer, Jungle Brothers, Queen Latifah, and The Cover Girls were all governed by the “Humphries handicraft”.

By the mid to late 80’s, Tony became the sole helmsman weaving the tunes three nights a week, thus making dance music superstars out of local talent embedded in the heartland of Newark and her surrounding areas. Summoned across the Atlantic by the British in 1987. The “Jersey Sound” was coined by their press. In addition to traveling, remix projects mounting, pumping out a weekly radio mix show, and holding down the fort at the club, Tony was in his prime making the world of dance music exciting, hip, and refreshing.

By November 1990, his 8 year tenure ended with a tearful refrain, but this didn’t discourage Tony as he became in demand worldwide and relocated to London, England. In January of 1993, Tony took up the offer to be the resident jock at the Ministry of Sound club. That year was rounded off with a residency at “Echoes” in Rimini, Italy. This Italian residency continued for 4 years while simultaneously relocating back in NJ to launch his Yellorange Production Co.

It can be said that Tony Humphries has left an inerasable impression on the global dance music industry. To date over 300 venues he has gigged worldwide, done over 200 studio remixes, the latest being Janet Jackson’s hit “Together Again”. Throughout tremendous recognition, tons of awards and accolades from his peers, he has remained humble.
Indeed, the man... the music... the legend, Tony Humphries.

Robbo Track of the Day.....Finitribe-Ace Love Deuce....

Gonna be droppin a Robbo tune until Saturday on the blog just to get you in the mood for the man himself on Saturday night at The Reading Rooms....tickets are gettin scarce for this one and get in touch via Craig or Dean or thru gbtor@live.co.uk

Right here's Robbo's 1991 remix of Edinburgh's Finitribe with Ace Love Deux......lets rock....in a Mike Smash stylee......

BPS Oct 2010 mix

Here's a mix from GBTOR resident BPS ....from our free party @ Drouthy Neebors Bassment in Oct 2010.....enjoy.....x

Bps Gbtor Oct 2010 Mix by Going Back To Our Roots on Mixcloud

Junior Boys Own

In their own words........the label that spawned The Chemical Brothers,Underworld,X Press 2,Outrage,Ballastic Brothers.....their tunes were always an essential addition to any dj's box from 92 onwards....

Classic Trax....Jamie Principle-Your Love....

What a tune.....

Movers & Groovers - Nicky Holloway

The world's first superclub promoter, one of the Ibiza Famous 4, Nicky Holloway tells all...

As I recall, you started your DJ skills by waiting for your mum to go to work so you could borrow her hi-fi and hook it up to yours where you would practice your early sets.

"I was the original bedroom DJ, I invented it. We are talking 1975/6, I would hide in the bushes in the garden and wait for my mum to go to work and then slip back in and unplug her music centre from the living room and join it up with mine, so what you had was two hi-fi's (as they were known then) next to each other on a wallpaper table with two sets of speakers and in the middle an upright Hoover thing (the 70's equivalent to a Dust Devil) with a little square microphone selotaped to it that recorded onto a separate cassette machine. I think I was severely scarred by the fact that for six months I thought my parents were going to get me a set of FAL double decks and a rope light. In the end they bought my sister some skiing equipment for her school trip. I still hate them both for it."

Your 'Special Branch' parties in paved the way for clubland London... Pete Tong spinning hip hop, rare groove and early house alongside Gilles Peterson mixing up, simply, an eclectic mix of all things jazzy. Cool huh?

"I have managed to keep all my diaries and all the flyers for everything I have started to put together a book - and I honestly had forgotten how many gigs we did before Acid House came along. Some of them were really groundbreaking and it was all so innocent. We hated the high street - it was proper underground, We did 16 parties in London Zoo, Thorpe Park, Chislehurst Caves, the Natural History Museum and took 300 people to Ibiza in 1985. I was fearless back then. The company name was 'Starship Enterprises' and our motto was to boldly promote where no man has promoted before - myself, Gilles Peterson and Tongy, we were kids getting paid for playing music, we loved it - there was no game plan."

Your weekenders were legendary. I remember one particular event where you sang the Crystal Water anthem on the mic to 5000 people on stage. What were your best weekenders?

"The five Kaos weekenders we did between 89-92 where brilliant, you have to remember that back in those days 3000 people was regarded a a big deal - more by luck than judgment. Crystal Water 'Gypsy Woman' came out on import the weekend of one of the Kaos events and just became the anthem of the weekend. But we had been doing weekenders at Rockley Sands in Dorset through the 80's, in fact the leisure company we used (Bourne Leisure) rang me up and asked if I fancied doing one at their Berwick on Tweed site. I said no but hooked them up with Alex Lowes who was from Newcastle and that's where the first UpNorth Weekenders came about later moving to Southport."

Tell us about that first trip to Ibiza...

"Every year I get all these requests to talk about Ibiza - here are two answers - make your own mind up which one you think is true...

Answer A:
There's something magical about the place, where else can you go to such fabulous clubs and enjoy the freedom and that Balearic feeling and listen to music you have never heard before? It's so spiritual. Have you been to the Atlantis rocks?"

Or

Answer B:
It's turned into the Tesco's of clubland. there is no freedom, getting into Space is like going through customs, you pay £15 a drink and £40 to get in a club that shuts three hours later. We used to come back from Ibiza with inspiration - someone please tell what was the big tune in Ibiza this year - as I haven't a clue.

So, I can't help thinking we have turned a load of farmers into yuppies and now they no longer need the hand that fed them. I think I'm entitled to have an opinion bearing in mind I have been going there since 1982 and had a Milk Bar in Pacha 16 years ago long before any UK promoters turned up. I put the Z in Ibiza - Alex Gold stuck a poster up outside the airport."

Trip at The Astoria - I had to call Lisa Loud to ask you for a guest list because your night was the biggest in the UK and I sort of shitted myself. What a night! Memories...

"Again, the thing about those day's was that none of it was planned, there was no marketing plan, no sponsorship money, we were all just 23-26 year old kids doing something that we loved - any financial gain was a byproduct. Imagine it, there I was at 24 promoting the biggest night in London, completely twated on little fellas, DJing and walking out the door with six grand in readies in my pocket - what the fuck did I know about VAT? I just wanted the big house the big car and at 24 you never think it will end. Of course it did and I paid a heavy price. I have just dug out a load of old video footage and have got a ton of stories to tell about The Astoria that I'm saving them for my book."

Okay, here we go. Oaky and Rampling obviously saw their pot at the end of the rainbow as DJs - you saw that you could be locking up your own nightclubs at the end of a night with a bulging pocket of cash by being a promoter/club owner. Why did you want to go down this route?

"Never really had a choice, Paul is one of the smartest guy's I know. He parties but he also knows when it is time to go home. Danny caught / created a wave that I don't think anyone else since has ever managed with 'Shoom' which in turn lead him to the Radio One show. Given a choice, I would much sooner just have been just a DJ than a promoter, but it just fell that way."

Did you ever see house music exploding around the world when you were starting these nights?

"Absolutely, it was like a tidal wave."

What record do you dance around in your kitchen to that you probably wouldn't want us to know about?

"'So You Wanna Be A Boxer?' - Bugsy Malone."

The Milk Bar. Coolest EVER nightclub London has seen?

"At the tiime yes we had a line up like this...

Mondays : Myself and Darren Emerson
Wednesday : Danny Rampling
Thursday : Live bands, highlights were Jamiroquai, The Brand New Heavies and The Farm
Friday : Myself and Paul Oakenfold
Saturday : Pete Tong and Dave Dorrell
Sunday : Brandon Block and Lisa Loud"

What's your favorite ever record?

"Too many to mention, but if I had to nail three albums off all time, Marvin Gaye - 'What's Going On', Stevie Wonder 'Songs In The Key Of Life' and Pink Floyd 'Dark Side Of The Moon'."

Ibiza - maddest party you've ever been to on the White Isle?

"My 'Kaos' party in a quarry just outside San Antonio in1992 with 808 State, Rozalla, Sasha, NJoi etc. Cost me my car and my house as everyone just bunked in without paying - but what the fuck, it was a good party! Mad, because I must have been mad to do it in the first place..."

What are you up to at the moment...?

"Desert Island Disco - www.desertislanddiscos.com . By this time next year it will be a household name."

Tune of the Day....Reese-Rock To The Beat

Quality tune from Kevin Saunderson in his Reese guise.....

The Hacienda

Factory boss Anthony Wilson, Rob Gretton and New Order in the early 1980's decided that there was no club in Manchester that catered for their tastes. So the Hacienda was dreamed up. It opened on Friday May 21st 1982.
The Hacienda was designed to be a slap in the face for established night clubs. The stark industrial design from Ben Kelly was utterly unlike anything club goers had seen before. The first experience was unforgettable.

You entered through large metal doors into a vast interior space supported on steel girders of black with yellow safety stripes. It was functional, hard, almost overwhelming, like a set from the yet to be released movie ALIEN. The music was rolling out and here we were , a thousand or more poor clubbers trapped in the hold of the mothership of an Intergalactic fleet. To continue the theme of difference and subversion, below the dancefloors lurked the Traitors bar celebrating Kim Philby and Guy Burgess, the homosexual Brits who betrayed their country to spy for the Soviet Union.

The name itself was wierd, coming from an a fifties book nobody ever read called The Situationalist International Handbook, the "hacienda" being an idealised co-operative community. Even the flyers and the posters set new standards in design for other clubs( by the way some of the early promotional material is now very collectible).
The Hacienda

The Hacienda
The sheer originality of the concept and its design meant that it took almost ten years for other clubs to follow but now the basic ingredients of the Hacienda's steel, iron, glass and wood interior can be seen all around Europe - and everybody now takes great care over their flyers.
The Hacienda Throughout its existence, the club put on live concerts featuring a who's who of leftfield stars including The Smiths, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Echo and the Bunnymen, an unknown Madonna (1984), the Happy Mondays, James, Oasis, Blur and many many others .But its prime, its heyday, came in the mid and late 1980's when it popularised the new dance craze, "House", and, partially fuelled by ecstasy, became the most famous club on the planet. DJ's such as Mike Pickering (later of M-People), Graeme Park and Dave Haslam played to a packed house and had great fun experimenting; for instance, some memorable evenings included a swimming pool in the main room.
The rhythms in the club appealed to the city's indie bands and resulted in the phenomena of "Madchester", the rolling guitars flying out over beats you could dance to. Manchester even developed its own, Hacienda inspired, look of flares and floppy hats. It was the summer of love all over again. You had to be there. The staid American news magazine Newsweek picked up on the fantastic buzz in the city and put the club on its cover. The secret was simple: the Hacienda made people happy and it made them feel part of something special.
The Hacienda
But in 1990 the mood started to change, the drug gangs moved in occupying their own areas of the club and intimidating staff and public alike. Then in 1991 a young club goer from Stoke died from ecstasy poisoning. Soon after security staff were threatened with a machine gun and the police closed the club with the tacit approval of a shocked management. The club opened again in 1992 but the heights were rarely reached again.
The
The end came shortly after the fifteenth birthday celebration in the summer of 1997. Police looking into the night time economy and its malign and benign effects were sitting in their car near the Hacienda one evening accompanied by local magistrates. As the club was closing a gang of thugs almost beat to death some innocent individual who they thought had insulted them inside the Hacienda.The club became convinced it would have its license revoked and did not have the finances to support a lengthy closure. Thus the Hacienda died its final death. End
It was probably financial reasons - not the dark reputation of the club for attracting violent gangs - that lay behind the permanent closure. Despite the undoubted success of its later years, the club appears to have been run in a naive business manner. Spectacular tricks and appearance fees swallowed any potential investment money. It is said that US DJ Knucklesplayed the Hacienda on New Year's Eve 1996 and was paid £15000 plus flight, plus accommodation, plus hotel, plus limo. Even with an entrance price of £46 per head this kind of excess was unsustainable. The debts mounted.
Now, the company that bought the building wants to convert it into offices or apartments. This would mean the end of the glorious Ben Kelly interior. Manchester Civic Society has shown a modern sensibility in opposing the conversion because of the club's pop culture importance. But people who were involved with the club, such as Anthony Wilson, deplore making the Hacienda a trendy heritage centre.

They say, the Hacienda might be dead but Manchester music goes on. That's the nature of the thing. Outside the club the graffitti splashed on the walls reads "the Hacienda must be built" or just "rewind". But the enigimatic nameplate - FAC51 THE HACIENDA - next to which thousands queued to gain access to the club, has been chiselled away and a plain replacement brick slipped into its place...

Tune of the Day....Ariel Musn't Grumble

Dig out the air geetar......and get down to this belter from Ariel with Justin Robertson on the remix duties......

Mixtape.....Rhumba Club 20-09-91 Andrew Weatherall and Justin Robertson

What a night that was.......

Andrew Weatherall mix
Justin Robertson mix

Tune of the Day....Adonis-No Way Back

Chicago.........

Trax Records

TRAX Records Chicago

Think of a classic house record and nine times out of ten you'll think of Trax, although you may not realise it. 'Move Your Body'? 'Baby Wants To Ride'? 'Washing Machine'? 'Can U Feel It'? All Trax releases. 'House Nation'? 'Acid Trax'? 'Your Love'? 'We Are Phuture'? 'U Used To Hold Me'? Yup, those too. What's more they introduced the world to producers who've become immortalised as some of house music's greatest innovators - Larry Heard, Marshall Jefferson, Larry Levan - and have provided an outlet for many more of Chicago's house artists over the years, such as Armando, Liddell Townsend, Robert Owens, Farley Jackmaster Funk, Mr Lee, Adonis, Fast Eddie, Ralphie Rosario, DJ Rush, Steve Poindexter, Terry Baldwin, DJ Skull... the list goes on. And they did it all by releasing crappy-looking rec

ords that sounded like they'd been pressed on sandpaper. Now there's a story worth telling.

House music's roots lie in the spontaneous combustion that was a handful of Chicago clubs in the early 1980s. In the days when clubs only needed one DJ, that DJ was in a position to make waves. And in a city where the clubs were usually soundtracked by jukeboxes, those waves could become a storm. Larry Levan came to take up the residency of Chicago's Warehouse in 1977, bringing a style and technique pioneered in, and previously only known to, New York's disco clubs and loft parties, such as mixing and programming a set and the use of reel to reel tapes. Word spread about Knuckles' disco, soul and funk phenomenon and The Warehouse quickly became the place to be for a party-hungry gay crowd. This, it is commonly accepted, is where the term 'house' originates. Knuckles himself has denied 'inventing' house, so what we are talking about here is more a style of playing music based on the idea of a musical flow and transition - for all Walter Gibbons & co's remixes, no-one had yet made A House Record.

Knuckles moved to another new venture in 1983, The Power Plant, which is situated on the north side of the city, and already a scene was beginning to emerge. Shortly after the opening of The Power Plant, Ron Hardy, who had begun DJing at Den One in 1974 then moved to LA for a spell, took over the decks at The Music Box on the south side. He pioneered a different sound to Knuckles; Hardy's mix of disco, European electronica, industrial and alternative sounds was spiced with tape edits which he would manipulate and pause by hand. The Music Box became known as a rougher, wilder and more hedonistic alternative to Knuckles' sophisticated mixes and it was here that the straight black crowds from the south side caught the bug.

Hardy is credited by some as the ultimate creative DJ, an innovator in the way he read the dancefloor, made it his own and defined a style of music into the bargain. He was certainly dedicated - a true party animal, he was known to live his life from his DJ booth, sleeping there and spending the days practising his craft.

As the friendly rivalry between Knuckles and Hardy developed, other DJs began to push the sound, like Wayne Williams, Steve Hurley and Farley Keith Williams. Then there was Jesse Saunders, who spun at Chicago's other major house club, The Playground. Jesse, who had musical training, was constantly searching for gimmicks with which to further his name as a DJ and had taken to creating his own drum machine tracks to play from tape. He went into the studio with the idea of recreating an obscure disco bootleg, the name of which he says escapes him. But which also turned out to be the first House record...

Jessie Saunders: "So I'm looking for someone to help me make a record, and it so happened that Vince [Lawrence] had come in the club looking for me to play a record that he had, this way-out avant, garde thing, 'cause at the time I would play Devo and the B52s. He'd talked to me about how his father had this label and where they would press records, so the first person I thought of was Vince. He took me down there and that's where I met Larry Sherman. And that's when the nightmare began! [laughs]"

A former musician, Larry Sherman bought Musical Products, Chicago's only pressing plant, in 1983. This was the vital link in the chain: access to the means of production. Jessie and Vince made a track called 'On And On', came up with Jes Say Records as a label and persuaded Sherman to press them it up for them at $4 a throw.

JS: "We had five hundred records made and took 'em to the stores. We promoted the records like we promoted the parties, with posters and flyers and whatnot. On the first day the record sold 150 copies and by the third day it had sold out. And we went back to Larry, three or four days after picking up the first records, and ordered a thousand more. Now, he's got a pressing plant in Chicago, and a small plant at that, and he'd do a little jazz thing or a little blues thing here or there, and they usually ordered a couple of hundred copies and gave 'em to their friends and wouldn't come back. And we showed up and we say, 'oh, we sold out in a couple of days'. He's like, 'Really? Where?' So Larry's thinking to himself 'Wow, I got these two young kids that can sell records. I'm gonna see if I can get in on this.' Basically what he offered me was to press all the records for free and just cut him in for a percentage, which at the time I thought was a great idea. So we expanded our distribution to other stores, and the next thing I knew we had sold nine thousand records, just around Chicago."

Sherman had set up a label called Precision to make the most of his new venture, but when he saw what Jessie and Vince had achieved and had subsequently visited Hardy's Music Box, he realised something was brewing. He wanted to get more involved, yet neither he nor Saunders wanted to use their own labels for joint projects, so they set up Trax. Vince Lawrence came up with the name.

Jessie Saunders provided the first Trax release, 'Wanna Dance/Certainly' by Le Noiz and Larry and Vince took care of shifting them. In fact, several other Trax artists also worked for the label, with Wayne Williams, Rachael Cain (alias Screamin' Rachael) and Ron Hardy all pitching in. A group of creative people had found themselves the ideal outlet.

Rachael remembers it thus: "Vince Lawrence was such a go-getter, he used to just shop the records out of the trunk of his car! In one day, you could go to the studio, make a track, take it out to the club, because Ron Hardy was very co-operative, and he would play it, and you could figure out then and there, 'is this gonna work?' And at one time Larry even had his own lathe, so he could cut an acetate, and we could do it all in one day. So I think it was that Larry basically had everything we needed. But Vince and Jesse, god, they were just visionaries. And I think that they don't get enough credit for what they have done." "I always wondered what made Vince and Jesse want to go to vinyl, but I guess it was just the fact that they met Larry, Larry had the pressing plant, and they saw an opportunity to go directly into the medium, y'know? And I guess that's pretty much how it started, because we, due to our association with Larry, could move faster than anyone else. And then of course things followed, 'cause Jamie Principle came right after that."

Other house artists began to come out of the woodwork, inspired by Saunders and Farley's first releases.

"I heard Jesse Saunders on the radio and said 'Boy, I can do that'." "I was working at the Post Office at the time. That's like a pretty good job in America. I was making a little bit over thirty thousand dollars a year, which at that time was a lot of money. I knew I wanted to put out records like Jesse Saunders but I didn't know exactly how. So I went to this music store with a friend, and the salesman was telling us about this sequencer. And he said, 'You know, with this sequencer somebody who can't even play can play like a real keyboard player'. And I thought, 'This is great', but my friend wouldn't believe him. He's like, 'That's bullshit, you gotta take lessons for years and years'. But the guy was explaining it to me and I was like 'I believe him, I'm gonna make records'. So I bought the sequencer, the guy gave me credit on the spot, and then the guy goes, 'You don't wanna have this sequencer and not have a keyboard to play, do you?' I said, 'Oh... no', so I bought the keyboard. And the guy says, 'You don't wanna have this sequencer and this keyboard and not have a drum machine to play, do you?' I said, 'Ah yeah, you're right..' So he says, 'You don't wanna have this sequencer and this keyboard and drum machine and not have something to play it all on, do you?' I said, 'Ah, yeah, you're right..'. So he says, 'you don't wanna have this sequencer and this keyboard and drum machine and this mixer and not have something to record it all on, do you?' So with the recorder and all, I spent about seven or eight thousand! My friends are all laughing at me, going, 'Stupid mo'fo', all that money and he don't even know how to play shit!' [laughs] And that kinda pumped me up, 'cause I didn't want my friends to think I was stupid, so I wrote my first song two days later - you know, stayed up all night trying to figure out how to use all this stuff - and that's how I got started."

Astonishingly, Jefferson says he had to pay Sherman for what actually became Trax's 14th release, the 'Virgo EP'. "I looked on the label and found out where Jesse Saunders got his records pressed up, 'cause Jesse had his own label. I thought I might as well go to the same place, so I went there and the guy [Larry Sherman] says 'Sure, I'll press up all your records, just give me the money'. So I gave him the money and he pressed up the record. I paid about $1500 to get that record pressed and to this day I haven't seen any money from it. Larry sold... just loads of that, but I've never seen any money."

Ron Hardy's club became the perfect testing ground for Trax material. If a record worked for Ron Hardy, most likely it would work, period. Other attempts at A&R were less successful, according to Marshall.

"Larry didn't know nothing. [laughs] I remember he didn't want to put out 'Can U Feel It' by Mr Fingers, he thought it was boring, but I said, 'No man, you gotta put it out'. He's like [adopts Sherman voice] 'There's no words on it! I don't get it'!" [more laughs]

But Trax was no longer alone on the Chicago scene - many artists worked for Trax and Rocky Jones' DJ International imprint. DJ International has itself provided a fair slice of house music's early standards, such as Sterling Void 'Its Alright' and JM Silk (Steve Hurley) 'Music Is The Key'. There was rivalry between the two - Trax's 30th release was Boris Badenough's 'Hey Rocky' - but where The Power Plant's more soulful style had contrasted with the rawer sound of The Music Box, so did DJ International lead the way with the vocal releases as opposed to Trax's, er, trax. And it was DJ International which made house's first breakthrough into the mainstream with Farley Jackmaster Funk's 'Love Can't Turn Around', reaching the UK Top 10 in August 1986 via a deal with FFRR. The same year in the UK, the first house clubs opened in Manchester and London. Steve Silk Hurley's 'Jack Your Body' followed early 1987 and house had its first number one.

Trax's glory years were the mid-to-late 1980s. In 1987 they gave the world its second gift when Phuture released 'Acid Trax'. Written by Herbert J, DJ Pierre and Spanky and produced by Marshall Jefferson, it was the first acid record.

The label's parting shot was, in effect, the Jamie Principle-penned (but credited to Larry Levan) 'Your Love', a hit in 1989. By now things were beginning to take a turn for the worse.

In short, it seems that the Chicago scene began to disintegrate. There are plenty of theories as to why, but the truth is more likely that there were several things to blame.

One is the outbreak of backbiting and infighting which followed the relatively rapid expansion of the scene in a matter of just a few years - indeed Jesse Saunders left Chicago to pursue his Jesse's Gang project with Warners after disagreements surrounding 'Love Can't Turn Around', first between Farley and Steve Hurley, then regarding the licensing of the track for its UK release. Radio, too, was important, far more so than it ever has been over here. In house's nascent days radio DJs had played a vital role in bringing the music to the straight black community, most notably the famed Hot Mix Five - Farley, Hurley, Mickey Oliver, Kenny Jason and Ralphie Rosario. Chris Westbrook aka Bam Bam was running his own Westbrook label at the time and two years ago told MF:

"I was getting support from local radio and the DJs and everything, until the DJs started up their own labels. That's what killed the scene in Chicago! I don't care what nobody says! What killed the scene in Chicago was when the radio DJs, who were initially playing our music and helping us, started their own labels and started competing against us! And they was only playing the records they were putting out or that their partners were putting out."

Rachael Cain agrees. "In the beginning that didn't happen. At first it was great because people were really helping one another. And then I guess it was because everybody was starting to say, 'Hey, look what's happening, these records are breaking. I'll just do my own thing, push my own music.' So yeah, I think that's right. Right now, there are a few DJs in Chicago that are just playing their own stuff." "When I think of the fact that here in Chicago, right now, there's not a dance station - why not? If ever anybody should just herald their own music..? It wasn't that long ago that the Chicago Tribune ran a story about House music being an 'orphan at home'. Our support for the house music scene has basically been from England!"

And Trax had its problems as well, says Rachael. "What a lot of people don't know is that when Larry was at his peak, around '88, '89, and was selling a lot of copies, Landmark, which was the biggest independent distributor in America, closed its doors and Larry had to declare bankruptcy. He's since gotten out of that, but at one time Trax was bankrupt."

Larry Sherman is a peculiar but vital figure in the history of house music. As you may already know, or just have guessed from Saunders and Jefferson's earlier comments, his business practices are the stuff of legend.

MJ: "Larry's in this circle of Jewish guys, right, and all of them own each others' businesses. So you come to sue Larry or bring up something about Trax records, and some guy in Japan owns the company. Larry's like 'oh, I don't own this pressing plant, this guy in Japan owns it and he's not here'. [laughs] So they could never pin him down, man!"

It seems that Sherman was not averse to the odd shortcut here and there - he was only too willing to press onto old LPs and poor quality second-hand vinyl, which explains why most Trax releases sound like they were recorded outdoors. In the rain. Bootlegs, too, were on the agenda for Larry, says Saunders: "He knows what he's doing. He even had a label called Bootleg Records, he just... did it."

Frankie Bones released 'Bone Up' on Trax in 1996. He tells a similar story.

"Larry's a very eccentric type of guy. He's gotta be the most eccentric person I've ever met in the music industry. They buy, like, scrap records and he doesn't mind throwing records in, like, other companies jackets, Motown jackets, and shrinkwrapping them. It's really bizarre. I think the only reason I wanted a record on Trax was because of the whole bizarre background Trax has, y'know?"

Remember though, that Trax was a loose outfit full stop. Nobody cared too much about acting like a major label at first. Jesse Saunders description of Trax's contractual arrangements makes the point:

"There was never any paperwork. You gotta remember, back in those days he owned the pressing plant, I made the music. It was easy for us to make something and put it out, and it didn't really matter. So there was no paperwork or any of that stuff, we just did it, made the money and moved on."

But according to Rachael, Sherman has been unfairly labelled a crook. "Like, I saw the contract for 'Can U Feel It'. And what happened with that was that Larry Heard wanted to write his own contract, and wanted a bigger advance than Larry would normally give. So he gave away all of his rights!" Rachael also states that Sherman isn't as well off as some would have it.

"See, in the beginning we were all these young kids, and there weren't many other house labels, it was a very closed market. So what happened was you made these tracks and you sold them, you got your advance. And I think that some people thought that records were bigger than they actually were. 'Cause I know that though the numbers were there they were not as great as people think. That's a fact. People think Larry is loaded but he's not, he's practically broke. Also, I think that what happened in a lot of cases was that people gave us their best music. Now they look back and they're disappointed, because they haven't made a better one since. They're riding on that record and they're not getting the money they would like."

This contrasts sharply with Marshall Jefferson's version, however.

"Larry just... took shit, man! [laughs] Just took it. And Larry's got the pressing plant right there, man, and he just keeps pressing it up, pressing it up, year after year. And people would phone up saying, 'We were looking for some of those old Trax Records classics, like Mr Fingers and 'Move Your Body' and he'd be like [adopts Sherman voice] 'Well, you know what, luckily we still have some left..' [more laughs]"

Yet as Jefferson also points out, at the time, money wasn't the priority.

"It wasn't really important to actually make money off of it. It's like, we were making records, man. Nobody really cared about making money, that's why we kept on doing it. Nobody really brought money up unless bills had to be paid or something like that. I had a good job, right, so money was really secondary. We just wanted to put out records, man. We were putting out records that were different from anything else in the world. And then once we got into it, we kinda realised we were like, startin' something, y'know? I'm really fond of that."

As the nineties arrived, acid house blossomed and Europe began to create its own version of the house sound. Some Trax artists moved away from Chicago to further their careers, or moved into other areas of production. Others simply gave up and disappeared from view. Larry Sherman had personal problems, but maintained Trax on and off, mainly through its Saber subsidiary. Ron Hardy had left the Music Box around 1987 and died in 1991.

Some Trax artists have successfully progressed into the wider dance scene of the nineties: Farley Jackmaster Funk and Marshall Jefferson are regulars on the DJ circuit. Jesse Saunders thinks he knows why:

"Marshall told me that when he went over there [the UK] people started asking him to DJ, and he said, 'I ain't no DJ'. And they said, 'We'll pay you $1500, $2000', so he said, 'Alright, I'm a DJ!'" [laughs]

But there is no doubt that plenty more artists who, despite (unwittingly) making valuable contributions to the development of house, now live in obscurity, unrecognised by the millions who now live their lives to the soundtrack these people helped create. And that is a great shame.

The latest chapter in the Trax saga is the recent spate of crackle-free re-releases from the Trax back catalogue thanks to a licensing deal with a London company. Whether or not any of the artists were consulted about this is unclear, but those concerns aside the re-releases provide a great opportunity for today's spoon-fed dance music generation raised on the myriad of styles that house music has spawned (including, to a large extent, techno) to listen to the records which started it all. Timeless records created on the barest of equipment in an era where there were no rules or expectations about how a certain record should sound. It was genuine, it was fresh and but it's gone forever. Only the music remains. Rachael Cain:

"I think the spirit was what was so important about the house music scene. When you think about a whole bunch of young kids who had no money, all knew each other, that whole group of people made a legendary style of music. Maybe other people made more money than us by taking over our sound, and maybe people in our own town might think that this is from England, but the people who really know, know."

Frankie Bones, too, is not bitter.

"In the end, although I didn't get paid, I do still hold that label in regard. I think the whole entire movement wouldn't be where it is without Trax, y'know?"

But the last word goes to Jesse Saunders, a true unsung hero of house.

"When I did my first record, I just did it because I was bored and needed something to do, to be honest. I didn't think that anything would come out of it..."


Max Renn

Ten classic Trax
Marshall Jefferson: Move Your Body (The House Music Anthem)
Jungle Wonz: Bird In a Gilded Cage
Adonis: No Way Back
Mr Fingers: Can U Feel It
Fingers Inc: Washing Machine
Phuture: Acid Trax
Phuture: We Are Phuture
Larry Levan: Your Love
House Master Boyz: House Nation
Ralphie Rosario: U Used To Hold Me

Bubbling under
Ron Hardy: Liquid Love
Sleazy D: I've Lost Control
Steve Poindexter: Work That Motherfucker
Beltram: Flash Cube
Mr Lee: Pump Up Chicago
Maurice: I Got A Big Dick/This Is Acid
Jackmaster D: Sensual Woman
Adonis: Rocking Down The House
Marshall Jefferson: Virgo EP
Farley Keith: Funkin With The Drummer

Five not-so-classic Trax
Fat Albert: Beat Me Til I Jack
Willi Wanka: What Is House
Bart Starr: Way To Go Homer
Gotham City: Bat Trax
Farm Boy: Jackin Me Around
--Tom Robbins aka Max Renn is author of the above article. He was publisher and editor of Magic Feet magazine from which the article is lifted.


We found this disco @ http://www.geocities.com/jahsonic/Trax.html, Great!

Tune of the day - Secchi - Flute On

Graeme Park Radio Show w/e 120311

Here's Graeme's latest installment of his Radio Show with another hour from his set from our Xmas Cracker on the 27th of Dec 2010....


GRAEME PARK RADIO SHOW w/e 12MAR11

In this week’s GRAEME PARK RADIO SHOW:

- Gladys Knight and Dennis Edwards & Siedah Garret from Motown House reworked for 2011;

- new tracks from Inaya Day, Bah Samba and Tom Middleton;

- more of my recent set from Going Back To Our Roots in Dundee full of classic house, funk and disco;

- find out how to win the new Hed Kandi World Series Miami and Azuli Miami ’11 CDs;

- and discover what this week’s Random Selection is too.

Listen now at http://thisisgraemepark.com/music-archive

THE GRAEME PARK RADIO SHOW

w/e 12MAR11

TITLE (Mix), Artist

DON’T LOOK ANY FURTHER, MuSol vs Jimmy Edgar vs Dennis Edwards & Siedah Garret

YOU FOUND A WAY (Art Of Tones Classic Vocal), Tortured Soul

GET CLOSE, DJN Project feat. Arnold Jarvis & Stephanie Cooke

I HEARD IT (THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE), MuSol vs Groove Junkies vs Gladys Knight

BETTER DAYS, Inaya Day

HAVE YOU GOT YOUR BOOTZ ON? (JKriv’s Brooklyn Boogie Mix), Bah Samba

ATOMIC BLONDE, Timo Garcia

DON’T LEAD ME, Housemaster Baldwin feat. Paris Grey

CICADAS (Maya Jane Coles Remix), Tom Middleton

YOUR WORDS (David Penn Urbana Dub), Studio Apartment feat. Rae

NOBODY (Warehouse Dub), Copyright feat. Imaani

MAKE MY BODY ROCK (Basic Version), Jomanda

CUBAN GIGOLO (Original 12”), Sound Factory

WAS THAT ALL THERE WAS? (Original 12” Version), Jean Carn

VERTIGO/RELIGHT MY FIRE (Original 12” Version), Dan Hartman feat. Loleatta Holloway

LOVE SENSATION (Original Mix), Loleatta Holloway

I GOT THE VIBRATION (Lelewel Freak), Black Box

DANCE (Club Mix), Earth People

LOVE IS THE MESSAGE, MFSB

FOREVER TOGETHER, Raven Maize

BOUNCE TO THE BEAT, Todd Terry presents Sound Design

GIVE ME BACK THE LOVE (Club Mix), On The House

RISE (Bootleg Remix), Eddie Amador


© 2010 Graeme Park Productions Ltd



This Is Graeme Park: Radio Show 110312 by graemepark

Stress Records

A short history of the Stress decade:
90/91
Stress stumbles enthusiastically into existence with two instant northern rave anthems courtesy of PKA, 'Let Me Hear You Say Yeah' and 'Temperature Rising'. Upcoming DJ Sasha gets cooped up in DMC's box-like studio 3 to work on his second ever remix, the now legendary 'MFI' version of the Brothers in Rhythm-produced 'Nasty Rhythm' by Creative Thieves. Our distribution company Spartan goes bust - over to SRD for the release of PKA's 'Powergen'.
1992
Refreshed, revitalised, and finding a spiritual home amongst the new wave of van-based distribution companies, Stress comes of age with DJs and clubbers of all shades salivating over the likes of 'Mighty Ming' by Brothers Loves Dubs, 'Last Rhythm' by Last Rhythm, 'Uncle Bob's Burly House', Sasha's mix of Rusty 'Everything's Gonna Change', and the first of the Hustlers Convention disco cut-up EPs.
1993
Things are getting serious, Digweed and Muir create the classic 'For What You Dream Of as Bedrock. Tracks by the likes of Reefa, All Boxed In, Mindwarp, along with new fare from Brothers Love Dubs and the Hustlers puts the label firmly in the dance indie vanguard. The year ends with the ground breaking 'DJ Culture' compilation release, available in both unmixed and mixed formats. The latter being relatively unheard of at the time, and featuring the talents of Sasha and Dave Seaman.
1994
Two of the year's biggest vocal anthems are released: Kathy Brown's 'Turn Me Out' (with the mighty Delorme mix) and Brothers In Rhythm's 'Forever and a Day' featuring Charvoni raising hands nationwide. Chris & James announce themselves big time with 'Club For Life' and 'Calm Down'. Two more compilations follow: 'Club Culture', whose mixed version features the talents of Sure is Pure and John Digweed and utilises the club logos of Golden and Renaissance and 'Remix Culture', with Chris & James and Johnny Vicious doing the honours.
1995
A year where the balance between credibility and accessibility is struck perfectly through keynote releases such as Greed's 'Pump Up The Volume', Anthony White's 'Love Me Tonight', the Tenaglia-produced 'Change' by Daphne, Desert's sublime 'Moods', and Chris & James' Pulp Fiction inspired 'Fox Force Five'. Seaman, Warren and Whitehead produce an inspirational CD set. We make Mixmag's 'Best 50 Dance Labels in the World' list, and are dubbed "no. 1 dominators of the UK club scene." by Jockey Slut.
1996
The Top 40 is stormed three times in eight weeks with the Trainspotting-fuelled reissue of Bedrock, Full Intention's contemporary classic 'America', and Chameleon's 'The Way It Is'. We nail our colours firmly to the mast named artist development and introduce critically acclaimed new acts such as New York one-offs Superstars of Rock, Jersey's epic house icons Sunday Club, Scott Bond's Q:Dos project, and progressive pounders Palefield Mountain. Only black spot is the realisation, despite a well crafted internationally flavoured CD set from Gordon Kaye (UK), Anthony Pappa (Australia) and Tom & Jerry Bouthier (France), we're being muscled out of the compilation market.
1997
A host of quality, critically acclaimed singles include the Brothers In Rhythm / Sasha remixed 'Careful' by Horse, Chris & James' take on Japan's 'Ghosts' with A Man Called Adam's Sally Rogers on vocals, Full Intention's chartbusting revision of 'Shake Your Body', Sunday Club's Paul Van Dyk remixed 'Healing Dream' and the launch of our leftfield sister label Related (geddit? - sorry). We change tack on the compilation front with the release of the much-lauded, lavishly packaged, ahead of it's time 'Zeitgeist: New Wave Club Culture'.
1998
Full Intention go from strength to strength with tracks such as 'You Are Somebody' and the storming remix of Salsoul Orchestra's Ooh I Love It', and we celebrate by expanding their Sugar Daddy imprint into a fully fledged label where Fl are flanked by the likes of Dave Lee, Superstars of Rock and new id on the block DJ Phats. Stress goes into overdrive with Chris & James' humungous revamp of 'Club for Life' and the Anthony Pappa / Alan Bremner produced debut stunner as Freefall 'Skydive".
1999
And so our tale decades out. DMC has decided to leave the label in the decade it belonged to and move the DJ World into 21st Century music pastures.
DMC has always been motorised by DJs. Many of its employees are or have been DJs and the inspiration and the direction the company has provided to the DJ society is legend.

Almost every major DJ has been given a leg-up their career ladder by DMC. We, after all were the first company to put the Club DJ on the front page! DMC was first to recognise the artistic value of mixing. The company was formed in February 1983 as a DJ Only mixing subscription record club and from the monthly releases, which only pro club DJs could subscribe to, came world-wide inspiration. From 1983 onwards club DJs put down their microphones, placed their left hand to the headphone and their right hand on the vinyl.

It was a revolution which flourished as DMC pushed more and more initiative into Mixmag and Update, (now 7 Magazine). Stress was launched to help DJs advance their talents as producers. Every release was produced by or featured a DJ.

Now DMC has closed their main recording studio and exchanged the recording equipment for computers as the company commits itself and the DJs who support DMC, to Cyber-DJs @ dmcworld.com, a site that once again demonstrates the passion DMC maintains for the world-wide DJ population.

”Like most of the best things in life, Stress started out as a bit of fun. Back in 1990, our parent company DMC were publishing Mixmag (which you may just have heard of). Editor at the time was one Dave Seaman (he of trance-fuelled deck heroics rather than the 'tache-fuelled goal keeping feats), aided and abetted by yours truly. DMC pioneered the whole DJ producer thing, so commonplace now it's hard to recall how novel it was then, not to mention how frowned upon it was by the tired old rock industry's would-be cognoscenti.

But I digress. DMC had recording studios with DJs wandering in and out at will with boxes full of tunes and heads filled with ideas, which, if I may paraphrase Bob Dylan (pioneering speed rapper), were driving them insane. Teamed up with the right studio bods with the requisite dancefloor savvy, that insanity was channelled into a slew of rather good house records. The corporate record companies being the lumbering behemoths that they are, some of said tunes were failing to find a deserved home. So we created a label to give them one (a deserved home, that is).

So there it was - the good ship Stress, run by clubbers and DJs for clubbers and DJs (in those far off innocent days you could say things like that without being sniggered at). And looking at our catalogue of 100+ releases, I'd venture to suggest it was a damn good label. For many we were seen as prog house central, thanks to the likes of Desert, Sunday Club, Coyote, Palefield Mountain and Messrs Digweed and Muir in their mighty Bedrock guise. Top bods all, but we also pioneered quality disco house with Full Intention (aka Hustlers Convention), found room for productions and mixes from the likes of Tenaglia, Slam, Claudio Coccoluto and Fathers Of Sound, and put a host of DJ favourites onto vinyl (Chris & James, Gordon Kaye, Anthony Pappa, Jerry Bouthier and his sorely missed brother Tom). Twas a veritable global family of like-minded individuals.

Few UK dance labels have lasted throughout the 90s. In fact, you could probably count them on the fingers of one hand - certainly independents. Stress, however, survived and thrived throughout the decade. This compilation album celebrates that fact and goes a long way towards explaining it.”

Nick Gordon Brown, Stress Label Manager 1990-1999

The History of Chicago House

History of Chicago House Music

MUSIC IS THE KEY....

"The beat won't stop with the JM Jock. If he jacks the box and the partyrocks. The clock tick tocks and the place gets hot. So ease your mind and set yourself free. To that mystifying music they call the key". -Music Is The Key, JM Silk, 1985 House is as new as the microchip and as old as the hills. It first came to widespread attention in the summer of 1986 when a rash of records imported directly from Chicago began to dominate the playlist of Europe's most influential DJs. Within a matter of months, with virtually no support from the national radio networks, Britain's club scene voted with its feet, three house records forced their way into the top ten. Farley "Jackmaster" Funk "Love Can't Turn Around", Raze's "Jack The Groove", and Steve "Silk" Hurley "Jack Your Body", gave the club scene a new buzz-word, jacking, the term used by Chicago dancers to describe the frantic body pace of the House Sound. Whole litany of Jack Attacks beseiged the music scene. Bad Boy Bill's "Jack It All Night Long", Femme Fion's "Jack The House", Chip E's "Time To Jack", and Julian "Jumpin" Perez "Jack Me Till I Scream".

House music takes its name from an old Chicago night club called The Warehouse, where the resident DJ, Frankie Knuckles, mixed old disco classics, new Eurobeat pop and synthesised beats into a frantic high- energy amalgamation of recycled soul. Frankie is more than a DJ, he's an architect of sound, who has taken the art of mixing to new heights. Regulars at the Warehouse remember it as the most atmospheric place in Chicago, the pioneering nerve-center of a thriving dance music scene where old Philly classics by Harold Melvin, Billy Paul and The O'Jays were mixed with upfront disco hits like Martin Circus' "Disco Circus" and imported European pop music by synthesiser groups like Kraftwerk and Telex.

One of the club's regular faces was a mysterious young black teenager who styled himself on the eccentric funk star George Clinton. Calling himself Professor Funk, he would dress to shock, and stay at the Warehouse through the night, until the very last record was back in Frankie's box. Professor Funk is now a recording artist. He appears on stage dressed in the full regalaia of an old world English King singing weird acidic house records like "Work your Body" and "Visions". The Professor believes that the excitement of house music can be traced back to the creativity of The Warehouse. The Professor's memories carry a hidden truth.

The decadent beat of Chicago House, a relentless sound designed to take dancers to a new high, it has its origins in the gospel and its future in spaced out simulation(techno). In the mid 1970's, when disco was still an underground phenomeon, sin and salvation were willfully mixed together to create a sound which somehow managed to be decadent and devout. New York based disco labels, like Prelude, West End, Salsoul, and TK Disco, literally pioneered a form of orgasmic gospel, which merged the sweeping strings of Philadelphia dance music with the tortured vocals of soul singers like Loleatta Holloway. Her most famous releases, "Love Sensation" and "Hit and Run" became working models for modern house records. After an eventful career which began in Atlanta and the southren gospel belt, Loleatta joined Salsoul Records during the height of the metropolitan disco boom, before returning to her hometown of Chicago.

According to Frankie Knuckles, house is not a break with the black music of the past, but an extreme re-invention of the dance music of yesterday. He sees House music with a very clear tradition, a kind of two-way love affair with the city of New York and the sound of disco. If he were to list his favorite records, they would be a reader's guide to disco, including Colonel Abrams "Trapped", Sharon Redd's "Can You Handle It", Fat Lerry's "Act Like You Know", Positive Force "You Got The Funk" Jimmy Bo Horn "Spank", D-Train "You're The One". But most of all he relishes the sound where the church and the dancefloor are thrown together with a willful disregard for religious propriety. Religion weaves its way through the house sound in ways that would confound the disbelievers.

Most Chicago DJ's admit a debt to the underground 1970's underground club scene in New York and particulary the original disco-mixer Walter Gibbons, a white DJ who popularised the basic techniques of disco-mixing, then graduated to Salsoul Records where he turned otherwise unremarkable dance records into monumental sculptures of sound. It was Gibbons who paved the way for the disc-jockey's historical shift from the twin-decks to the production studio. But ironically, at the height of his cult popularity, he drifted away from the decadent heat of disco to become a "Born Again Christian", having created a space which was ultimately filled by subsequent DJ Producers like Jellybean Benitez, Shep Pettibone, Larry Levan, Arthur Baker, Francois Kervorkian, The Latin Rascals, and Farley "Jackmaster" Funk.

Most people believed that Walter Gibbons was a fading legend in the early history of disco, then in 1984 he resurfaced, and had a new and immediate impact on the development of Chicago House Sound. Gibbons released an independent 12" record called "Set It Off" which started to create a stir at Paradise Garage, the black gay club in New York, where Larry LeVan presided over the wheels of steel. Within weeks a "Set It Off" craze spread through the club scene, including new versions by C.Sharp, Masquerade, and answer versions like Import Number 1's "Set It Off(Party Rock)". The original record had been "mixed with love by Walter Gibbons" and was released on the Jus Born label, a tongue in cheek reference to Walter's christianity. Gibbons had set the tone again, the "Set It Off" sound was primitive House, haunting, repetitive beats ideal for mixing and extending. It immediately became an underground club anthem, finding a natural home in Chicago, where a whole generation of DJ's including Farley and Frankie Knuckles, rocked the clubs and regularly played on local radio stations.

For major house stars like Frankie Knuckles, the disco consul is a pulpit and the DJ is a high priest. The dancers are a fanatical congreation who will dance until dawn, and in some cases demand that the music goes on in an unbroken surge for over 18 hours. Mixing is a religion. Old records like First Choice's "Let No Man Put Asunder" and Candido's "Jingo" , Shirley Lites "Heat You Up(Melt You Down)", Eurobeat dance records by Depeche Mode, The Human League, BEF, Telex, and New Order, the speeches of Martin Luther King, and the sound effects of speeding express trains were all used when Frankie Knuckles controlled the decks. And the high priest of house had many desciples.

On the southside of Chicago, a young teenager called Tyree Cooper, was intrigued by Frankie's use of the speeches of Martin Luther King. He raided his mother's record collection and discovered a record by local preacher, The Rev. T.L. Barrett Jr. whose choir at the Chicago Church of Universal Awareness were the pride of the city. Tyree began using the record at local House parties and within a few months, sermon mixing, the art of splicing short gospel speeches over frantic dance music, became an established part of the Chicago DJ's art. It didn't end there.Tyree Cooper joined DJ International Records, ultimately releasing "I Fear The Night", and back home at his mother's church, the choir were beginning to excited about one of their featured vocalists

. A gigantic college trained vocalist, Darryl Pandy was boasting about his new record. He had left the choir a few weeks before to sing lead vocals on Farley "Jackmaster" Funk's "Love Can't Turn Around", which against all odds was racing to the number 1 spot on British charts. House had its roots in gospel and its future mapped out. The international success of House came against all known odds. New York and Los Angeles were firmly established as the music capitals of the USA and there was virtually no room for small regional records to make a national impact. According to Keith Nunnally of JM Silk, Chicago turned their limitations into an advantage, turning the poverty of resources into a richness of musical experiment.

Despite technical drawbacks, a whole wave of new independent dance labels sprung up in Chicago. The declaration of independence was led by Rocky Jones DJ International label, a relatively small company which grew out of a DJ Record distribution pool spreading from a small warehouse near Chicago's Cabrini Green housing project, to become one of the trans- national dance scene's most influential labels. At the 1986 New Music seminar in New York, DJ International roster of artists stole the show, as every major label made frantic bids to buy a piece of the house action. Within a matter of a few days, records by the diminutive House DJ Chip E, the sophisticated gospel singer Shawn Christopher and the outrageous Daryl Pandy were sold round the world.

At the height of the bidding, JM Silk signed to RCA records for an undisclosed fortune. The commercial evidence of tracks like "Music Is The Key" and "Shadows of Your Love" proved that House music had the energy and excellence to move from being a regional cult to a modern international success. Within a matter of months every music paper in the world was praying at the feet of Chicago House. Although the first wave of interest focused on the DJ International label and particulary the unlikely duo of Farley, a legendary Chicago DJ, and his opera trained vocalist Daryl Pandy, it soon became apparent that their hit "Love Can't Turn Around" was only the peak of mid-Western iceberg. Chicago was alive with musicians. Local radio stations like WGCI and WBMX rocked to the music of the "Hot Mix 5", a group of DJ's who mixed whole nights of dance music without uttering a word and clubs like The Power Plant stayed open all-night carrying the torch once held by The Warehouse.

Locked in local competition with DJ International were a hundred other labels. The most important was Trax on North Clark Street, a label which ultimately went on to release some of house music's recognised classics. Marshall Jefferson gave Trax two of its most important records, the hectic 120 BPM "Move Your Body" and the follow up "Ride The Rhythm". His reputation was rivalled by Adonis, who released "No Way Back". The second biggest selling record Trax has ever issued, a record which reportedly sold over 120,000 copies, a staggering number for an independent record which received very little air play.

Behind the visible success story of DJ International, Underground, Trax, were countless smaller labels like Jes Say, Chicago Connectinon, Bright Star, Dance Mania, Sunset, House Records, Hot Mix 5, State Street, and Sound Pak. And behind the stars like Farley and Frankie Knuckles are numerous other musicians, like Full House, Ricky Dillard, Fingers Inc. and Farm Boy. House music has spread throughout the world. It has spread to Detroit where Transmat Records released Derrick May's Rhythim Is Rhythim record at the Metroplex Studio laying down post-Kraftwerk tracks like "Nude Photo" and "Strings".

It has spread to New York, where the respected club producer Arthur Baker has been given a new lease on life, recording unapologetic dance records like Criminal Elements "Put The Needle To The Record" and Jack E. Makossa. It has spread to London where a gang of renegade funk boys called M/A/R/R/S took the British charts by storm, climbing to Number 1 with the brillant collage record "Pump Up The Volume". It has spread into the very heart of pop music, encouraging Phil Fearon, Kissing The Pink, Beatmasters and Mel and Kim to turn the beat around. And it has infilitrated into already dynamic cultures like the Latin and Hispanic dance scene creating new possibilites for Kenny "Jammin'" Jason, Ralphi Rosario, Mario Diaz, Julian "Jumpin" Perez, Mario Reyes and Two Puerto Ricans, A Blackman, and A Dominican.

Chicago house has become everyones House. House music is a universal language. Given the undoubted international popularity of the Chicago sound, it would have been easy for the producers of House music to rest on their laurels and continually reproduce more of the same. For a while the city stuck firmly to its identifiable beat - hardcore on the one - but the experimentation which gave birth to House inevitably wanted to change it. By 1987 a new style of House music began to escape from Chicago's recording studios. It was a "deep", highly sophisticated sound, which evoked strange, almost drug-induced images.

The second generation House sound probably began with the international success of Phutures's "Acid Tracks" a hugely influential record, which captured the extreme spirit of the House scene's most ardent adherents, the hardcore dancer in Chicago, who variously experimented with LSD, acid psychedelia and new designer drugs like Ectasy. Frankie Knuckles has been careful not to sensationalise the influence of drugs. "Today there is more psychedlic sound. Acid is probably the most prevelant drug on the scene, but House is no druggier than any other scene".

None of House music's prominent performers have advocated drug abuse nor set out to glorify chemical stimulation, but an increasing number of Chicago records have controversially referred to acid tracking, the estranged synthesiser sound you can hear on several house releases. These Acid Tracks have taken house music into a new phuturism, a modern uptempo psychedelia that London club DJ's call Trance Dance. The roots of Trance Dance are not to be found in the more established traditions of 60's psychedelic rock but ironically in 1970's Europe, through highly synthesised records like Kraftwerk's "Trans Europe Express" and "Numbers".

The trance-dance sound is only beginning to establish on the Chicago Scene but it has already been adopted in British Clubs and will undoubtedly shape the new phuture of house. But beneath the abstract surface of acid-track house records is the same compulsive dance command. Frankie Knuckles is sure of that. "When people hear house rhythms they go freak out. It's an instant dance reaction. If you can't dance to House you're already dead" -Stuart Cosgrove for The History of House Sound of Chicago 12 record set on BCM records, Germany, Out of Print Inevitably, it was the restless London club scene and the illegal pirate radio stations of urban Britain that seized on the real potential of house.

The relatively cheap and do-it-yourself ethics which governed house production meant that young DJ's with inexpensive equipment could make records that were fresher and faster than the more institutionalized major labels. A series of sampled and stolen sounds, released on small scale British independent labels took the popcharts by storm, suprising the record industry and demonstrating that the house sound had a commercial appeal beyond even the wild imagination of the London club scene. In the spring of 1988 a small group of London based DJ's traded their turntables for the recording studios. Tim Simenon, working under the club pseudonym Bomb The Bass and Mark Moore using the band name S-Express had unexpected pop hits with sampled house rhythms. "Beat Dis" and "The Theme From S-Express" were charateristic of the sound that creative theft and sampling could achieve.

DJ's with huge record collections and a catalogue knowledge of breaks, beats, bits and pieces could string together an entirely new record concocted out of barely rememberal records. The masters of the London sampling scene were two unlikely DJ's, Jonathan Moore and Matt Black, who played under the name DJ Coldcut and devastated London's pirate airwaves with imaginative record choices, crazy mixes and a wilful disregard for what made musical sense.

When Coldcut's remix of Eric B and Ra-Kim rap hit "I Know You Got Soul" took the ungrateful New Yorkers to Number 1 in the pop charts in Europe it became obvious that sampling and the spirit of "Pump Up The Volume" was here to stay. The Coldcut rap mix was closely followed by the more house orientated "Doctorin The House" which featured Yazz and The Plastic People, than a cover version of Otis Clay's "The Only Way Is Up", an obscure soul sound which was big on Britain's esoteric northern soul scene. By a strange twist of history, and old Chicago soul singer from the 60's had his career momentarily revitalised by the fallout of the modern Chicago house sound.

By the summer of 1988, the British charts and teh over zealous tabloid press were over-run with acid. The music had clearly touched a raw pop nerve as one by one underground acid-house records stormed into the pop press. But their unexpected commercial success was pursued by controversy and daily press reports that the acid-house scene was a dangerous focus for drug abuse. Each new day brought increased public panic about the abuse of the synthetically compounded Ecstasy drug and by October 1988, acid house and its casual catch phrases "get on one matey", "can you feel it", and "we call it acieeeeed" were in everyday conversation.

The controversy reached its head in the autumn of press overkill when "We Call It Acieed" by D. Mob reached number 1 on the British pop charts. Radio stations were reluctant to play the record, BBC's phone in program, "daytime" had a nationwide debate on the acceptability of the song, and in a fit of moral outrage, the Burton's clothes chain withdrew smiley tee-shirts from their stores and refused to participate in the acid epidemic. Behind the hype and the press hostility the music continued its journey of unparalled progress.

If acid house had troubled the mainstream press it had also advanced the creativity of music introducing the remarkable and prodigious talent of Brooklyn's Todd Terry to the forefront of the underground dance music scene. Todd Terry is a child of house. His whole life spent buried in club culture and experimenting with the extremes of hi-tech music. Under the pseudonym Swan Lake, Martin Luther King's spiritual dream is turned into a dance floor drama, as Royal House's "Can You Party" and The Todd Terry Project "Just wanna Dance" catches the garage spirit of modern house.

-Stuart Cosgrove for The History of House Sound of Chicago The Story Continues... BCM Records, Germany Out OF Print