Acid house
Encyclopedia
Acid house is a sub-genre of house music
that emphasizes a repetitive, hypnotic and trance
-like style, often with samples or spoken lines rather than sung lyrics. Acid house's core electronic squelch sounds were developed around the mid-1980s, particularly by DJs from Chicago
who experimented with the Roland TB-303
electronic synthesizer-sequencer. Acid house spread to the United Kingdom
and continental Europe
, where it was played by DJs in the acid house and later rave
scenes. By the late 1980s, copycat tracks and acid house remix
es brought the style into the mainstream, where it had some influence on pop and dance styles.
Nicknamed "the sound of acid", acid house's influence on dance music is tangible considering the sheer number of electronic music tracks referencing acid house through the use of its sounds, including trance
, Goa Trance
, psytrance, breakbeat
, big beat
, techno
, trip-hop and house music
.
, Illinois
. Phuture
, a group founded by Nathan "DJ Pierre
" Jones, Earl "Spanky" Smith Jr., and Herbert "Herb J" Jackson, is credited with having been the first to use the TB-303 in the house music context (the instrument appeared as early as 1983 in disco via Alexander Robotnick
).
Chicago's house music scene was suffering from a massive crackdown on parties and events by the police. Sales of house records were dwindling and, by 1988, the genre was selling less than a tenth as many records as at the height of the style's popularity. However, house and especially acid house was beginning to experience a massive surge in popularity in Britain.
and his wife, Jenny. The club was extremely exclusive and featured thick fog, a dreamy atmosphere and acid house. This period began what some call the Second Summer of Love
, a movement credited with a reduction in football hooliganism
: instead of fights, football fans were listening to music, taking ecstasy
, and joining the other club attendees in a peaceful movement often paralleled to the Summer of Love
in San Francisco in 1967.
Another club called Trip was opened in June 1988 by Nick Holloway at the Astoria in London's West End. Trip was geared directly towards the acid house music scene. It was known for its intensity and stayed open until 3 AM. The patrons would spill into the streets chanting and drew the police on regular occasions. The reputation that occurrences like this created along with the UK's strong anti-club laws started to make it increasingly difficult to offer events in the conventional club atmosphere. Considered illegal in London during the late 80s, after-hour clubbing was against the law. However, this did not stop the club-goers from continuing after-hours dancing. Police would raid the after-hour parties, so the groups began to assemble inside warehouses and other inconspicuous venues in secret, hence also marking the first developments of the rave
. Raves were well attended at this time and consisted of single events or moving series of parties thrown by production companies or unlicensed clubs. Two well-known groups at this point were Sunrise, who held particularly massive outdoor events, and Revolution in Progress (RIP), known for the dark atmosphere and hard music at events which were usually thrown in warehouses or at Clink Street, a South East London nightclub housed in a former jail.
The Sunrise group threw several large acid house raves in Britain which gathered serious press attention. In 1988 they threw "Burn It Up," 1989 brought "Early Summer Madness," "Midsummer Night's Dream," and "Back to the Future." They advertised huge sound systems, fairground rides, foreign DJs, and other attractions. Many articles were written sensationalizing these parties and the results of them, focusing especially on the drug use and out-of-control nature that the media perceived.
In August 1989, Sunrise held the largest Acid House rave ever, just outside Reigate in Surrey. In the fields adjacent to the school playing fields at Hartswood (between Woodhatch and Sidlow Bridge), the rave took place and lasted from 10pm on the Saturday night until late into Sunday night. It was estimated that nearly 20,000 attended during the weekend, and car queues stretched 4 miles, from the top of Reigate Hill to the Hartswood fields. It was widely covered by the press and television.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, news media and tabloids devoted an increasing amount of coverage to the hedonistic acid house/rave scene, focusing on its association with psychedelic drugs and club drug
s. The sensationalist nature of the coverage may have contributed to the banning of acid house during its heyday from radio, television, and retail outlets in the United Kingdom.
The moral panic of the press began in 1988, when the UK tabloid The Sun
, which only weeks earlier had promoted Acid House as "cool and groovy" while running an offer on Acid Smiley Face T-Shirts, abruptly turned on the scene. On October 19, the tabloid ran with the headline "Evils of Ecstasy," linking the Acid House scene with the new and relatively unknown drug. The resultant panic incited by the tabloids eventually led to a crackdown on clubs and venues that played Acid House and had a profound negative impact on the scene.
UK acid house and rave fans used the yellow smiley
face symbol simply as an emblem of the music and scene, a "vapid, anonymous smile" that portrayed the "simplest and gentlest of the Eighties’ youth manifestations" that was non-aggressive, "except in terms of decibels" at the high-volume DJ parties. Some acid house fans used a smiley face with a blood streak on it, which Watchmen
comics creator Alan Moore
asserts was based on Dave Gibbons
' artwork for the series.
Within just a few years, acid house had gained a considerable fan base, and the influence of the music reached beyond the club and warehouse environment. It also influenced UK pop music during these formative years, emerging in a somewhat sanitized version in songs like Bananarama
's "Tripping on Your Love
" (1991) and Samantha Fox
's "Love House
" (1989). Acid house influences also appear in the 1988 hit by S'Express
, "Theme from S'Express
" and in remixes of pop songs on 12" singles by various mainstream acts.
Musically, acid house started to move away from its almost total reliance on the TB-303, but continued to use repeated sound sequences that were shifted and warped by electronic modulation.
One account ties it to Phuture's "Acid Trax": Before the song was given a title for commercial release, it was played by DJ Ron Hardy
at a nightclub where psychedelic drugs were reportedly used. The club's patrons called the song "Ron Hardy's Acid Track" (or "Ron Hardy's Acid Trax"). The song was released with the title "Acid Trax" on Larry Sherman's label Trax Records
in 1987. Sources differ on whether it was Phuture or Sherman who chose the title; Phuture's DJ Pierre says the group did because the song was already known by that title, but Sherman says he chose the title because the song reminded him of acid rock
. Regardless, after the release of Phuture's song, the term Acid House came into common parlance.
The reference to "acid" may be a celebratory reference to psychedelic drug
s in general, such as LSD
, as well as a popular mid-1980s club drug
Ecstasy (MDMA). Such drugs were reportedly prevalent in Ron Hardy's club, where Acid Tracks was first heard and popularized.
According to Rietveld it was the house sensibility of Chicago in a club like Hardy's The Music Box, that afforded it its initial meaning. In her view "acid connotes the fragmentation of experience and dislocation of meaning due to the unstructuring effects on thought patterns which the psycho-active drug LSD or 'Acid' can bring about. In the context of the creation of Acid Tracks it was a name to indicate a concept rather than the use of psycho-active drugs in itself."
Philippe Renaud, a journalist for La Presse in Montreal, states that the term Acid house was "Coined in Chicago in 1987 to describe the sound of the Roland 303 bass machine." Renaud states that acid house music "made its first significant recording appearance on Phuture's Acid Trax (DJ Pierre) in that year."
Electronic music historian Dan Sicko also advances this theory in his book Techno Rebels, stating acid house is "named for its psychedelic sounds," particularly that of the Roland TB-303.
Other accounts of the etymology of the term are not based on the LSD or psychedelic connotations. The theory that acid was a derogatory reference towards the use of samples in acid house music was repeated in the press and in the British House of Commons
. In this theory, the term acid came from the slang term "acid burning", which the Oxford Dictionary of New Words calls "a term for stealing." Since acid house makes substantial use of sampling, this can be deemed "stealing from other tracks."
In 1991, UK Libertarian advocate Paul Staines
claimed that he coined the non-drug-oriented explanation (equating "acid burning" with stealing) to discourage the government from adopting anti-rave party legislation. Staines stated that he spread this misinformation because he believed that the British public would deem the use of drugs at rave parties to be unacceptable, and would therefore support legislation against rave parties.
Various accounts tie "acid house" to British performer and musician Genesis P-Orridge
of the experimental music collective Psychic TV
, which in 1988 released a record called "Tune In (Turn On The Acid House)", allegedly the first record to have the phrase in its title. However, London Records released a compilation album in 1987 called "The House Sound Of Chicago - Vol. III - Acid Tracks" under the ffrr label.
Some of the accounts claiming that P-Orridge coined the term tell of a visit he made to a Chicago record store. One says that he combined the terms "acid" and "house" after seeing them separately on the covers of albums he bought there. Other accounts, including one from P-Orridge himself, say he merely bought records from a bin marked "acid". A variation of the story says the bin's label was a reference to a corrosive liquid, but P-Orridge mistook it as a reference to LSD. One account goes on to say he bought the whole bin and played the records at his regular DJ gig at Ibiza, where he introduced the Chicago sound to the MDMA-using, Osho
-following "orange people" there, who discovered the music and drugs complemented each other. P-Orridge's role is disputed by music journalist Simon Reynolds
, who calls it a "self-serving myth", and by Fred Giannelli
, another member of Psychic TV.
Once the term acid house became more widely used, participants at acid house-themed events in the UK and Ibiza made the psychedelic drug connotations a reality by using club drug
s such as ecstasy and LSD. The association of acid house, MDMA, and smiley faces was observed in New York City by late 1988. This coincided with an increasing level of scrutiny and sensationalism in the mainstream press, although conflicting accounts about the degree of connection between acid house music and drugs continued to surface.
At least one historian considers the Phuture's "Acid Trax" to be the genre's earliest example; DJ Pierre says it may have been composed as early as 1985, but it was not released until 1987. Another points out Sleezy D's "I've Lost Control" (1986) was the first to be released on vinyl, and it's impossible to know which track was created first.
, a Bollywood
session musician from Mumbai
, released a record featuring Indian Ragas
fused with disco
. The album Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat was recorded using the same basic Roland
equipment often used for later acid house music: the TR-808
and particularly the TB-303
, which Singh was one of the first musicians to utilize. The record was initially a commercial failure in India and eventually forgotten, but its re-discovery in 2002 and eventual re-release in early 2010 has prompted many comparisons to acid house music, with some even considering it to be the first example of an acid house record.
Additional references
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
that emphasizes a repetitive, hypnotic and trance
Trance music
Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s.:251 It is generally characterized by a tempo of between 125 and 150 bpm,:252 repeating melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and breaks down throughout a track...
-like style, often with samples or spoken lines rather than sung lyrics. Acid house's core electronic squelch sounds were developed around the mid-1980s, particularly by DJs from Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
who experimented with the Roland TB-303
Roland TB-303
The Roland TB-303 Bass Line is a bass synthesizer with built-in sequencer manufactured by the Roland corporation from late 1981 to 1984 that had a defining role in the development of contemporary electronic music.-History:...
electronic synthesizer-sequencer. Acid house spread to the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and continental Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, where it was played by DJs in the acid house and later rave
Rave
Rave, rave dance, and rave party are parties that originated mostly from acid house parties, which featured fast-paced electronic music and light shows. At these parties people dance and socialize to dance music played by disc jockeys and occasionally live performers...
scenes. By the late 1980s, copycat tracks and acid house remix
Remix
A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....
es brought the style into the mainstream, where it had some influence on pop and dance styles.
Nicknamed "the sound of acid", acid house's influence on dance music is tangible considering the sheer number of electronic music tracks referencing acid house through the use of its sounds, including trance
Trance music
Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s.:251 It is generally characterized by a tempo of between 125 and 150 bpm,:252 repeating melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and breaks down throughout a track...
, Goa Trance
Goa trance
Goa trance is a form of electronic music that originated during the late 1980s in Goa, India.-History:The music has its roots in the popularity of Goa in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a hippie capital, and although musical developments were incorporating elements of industrial music and EBM...
, psytrance, breakbeat
Breakbeat
In 1992, a new style called "jungalistic hardcore" emerged, and for many ravers it was too funky to dance to. Josh Lawford of Ravescene prophesied that the breakbeat was "the death-knell of rave" because the ever changing drumbeat patterns of breakbeat music didn't allow for the same zoned out,...
, big beat
Big beat
Big beat is a term employed since the mid-1990s by the British music press to describe much of the music by artists such as The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers, The Crystal Method, and Propellerheads typically driven by heavy breakbeats and synthesizer-generated loops and patterns in...
, techno
Techno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
, trip-hop and house music
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
.
Chicago acid house movement
The first influential acid house records were produced in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. Phuture
Phuture
Phuture is a Chicago-based acid house group founded in 1985 by Spanky, DJ Pierre and Herb J.The group's 12-minute track "Acid Tracks" is one of several recordings that lay claim to being the first-ever acid house record....
, a group founded by Nathan "DJ Pierre
DJ Pierre
DJ Pierre is the stage name of Nathaniel Pierre Jones, a Chicago born DJ and performer of house music. He helped to develop the house music subgenre of Acid House, as member of Phuture, whose 1987 E.P...
" Jones, Earl "Spanky" Smith Jr., and Herbert "Herb J" Jackson, is credited with having been the first to use the TB-303 in the house music context (the instrument appeared as early as 1983 in disco via Alexander Robotnick
Alexander Robotnick
Alexander Robotnick is an Italian electronic musician. He made his debut on the Italian music scene as the founding member of Avida, a dance-cabaret band featuring Daniele Trambusti and Stefano Fuochi....
).
Chicago's house music scene was suffering from a massive crackdown on parties and events by the police. Sales of house records were dwindling and, by 1988, the genre was selling less than a tenth as many records as at the height of the style's popularity. However, house and especially acid house was beginning to experience a massive surge in popularity in Britain.
The London house-music scene
London's club Shoom opened in November 1987 and was one of the first clubs to introduce acid house to the clubbing public of the UK. It was opened by Danny RamplingDanny Rampling
Danny Rampling is a British House Music DJ and is widely credited as one of the original founders of the UK's rave/club scene. His long career began in the early 1980s playing hip-hop, soul and funk around numerous bars and clubs in London.-Ibiza:...
and his wife, Jenny. The club was extremely exclusive and featured thick fog, a dreamy atmosphere and acid house. This period began what some call the Second Summer of Love
Second Summer of Love
The Second Summer of Love is a name given to the period in 1988-89 in Britain, during the rise of acid house music and the euphoric explosion of unlicensed MDMA -fuelled rave parties...
, a movement credited with a reduction in football hooliganism
Football hooliganism
Football hooliganism, sometimes referred to by the British media as the English Disease, is unruly and destructive behaviour—such as brawls, vandalism and intimidation—by association football club fans...
: instead of fights, football fans were listening to music, taking ecstasy
Methylenedioxymethamphetamine
MDMA is an entactogenic drug of the phenethylamine and amphetamine class of drugs. In popular culture, MDMA has become widely known as "ecstasy" , usually referring to its street pill form, although this term may also include the presence of possible adulterants...
, and joining the other club attendees in a peaceful movement often paralleled to the Summer of Love
Summer of Love
The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, creating a cultural and political rebellion...
in San Francisco in 1967.
Another club called Trip was opened in June 1988 by Nick Holloway at the Astoria in London's West End. Trip was geared directly towards the acid house music scene. It was known for its intensity and stayed open until 3 AM. The patrons would spill into the streets chanting and drew the police on regular occasions. The reputation that occurrences like this created along with the UK's strong anti-club laws started to make it increasingly difficult to offer events in the conventional club atmosphere. Considered illegal in London during the late 80s, after-hour clubbing was against the law. However, this did not stop the club-goers from continuing after-hours dancing. Police would raid the after-hour parties, so the groups began to assemble inside warehouses and other inconspicuous venues in secret, hence also marking the first developments of the rave
Rave
Rave, rave dance, and rave party are parties that originated mostly from acid house parties, which featured fast-paced electronic music and light shows. At these parties people dance and socialize to dance music played by disc jockeys and occasionally live performers...
. Raves were well attended at this time and consisted of single events or moving series of parties thrown by production companies or unlicensed clubs. Two well-known groups at this point were Sunrise, who held particularly massive outdoor events, and Revolution in Progress (RIP), known for the dark atmosphere and hard music at events which were usually thrown in warehouses or at Clink Street, a South East London nightclub housed in a former jail.
The Sunrise group threw several large acid house raves in Britain which gathered serious press attention. In 1988 they threw "Burn It Up," 1989 brought "Early Summer Madness," "Midsummer Night's Dream," and "Back to the Future." They advertised huge sound systems, fairground rides, foreign DJs, and other attractions. Many articles were written sensationalizing these parties and the results of them, focusing especially on the drug use and out-of-control nature that the media perceived.
In August 1989, Sunrise held the largest Acid House rave ever, just outside Reigate in Surrey. In the fields adjacent to the school playing fields at Hartswood (between Woodhatch and Sidlow Bridge), the rave took place and lasted from 10pm on the Saturday night until late into Sunday night. It was estimated that nearly 20,000 attended during the weekend, and car queues stretched 4 miles, from the top of Reigate Hill to the Hartswood fields. It was widely covered by the press and television.
Media attention
Club drug
Club drugs are a loosely-defined category of recreational drugs which are associated with discothèques in the 1970s and dance clubs, parties, and raves in the 1980s to the 2000s...
s. The sensationalist nature of the coverage may have contributed to the banning of acid house during its heyday from radio, television, and retail outlets in the United Kingdom.
The moral panic of the press began in 1988, when the UK tabloid The Sun
The Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...
, which only weeks earlier had promoted Acid House as "cool and groovy" while running an offer on Acid Smiley Face T-Shirts, abruptly turned on the scene. On October 19, the tabloid ran with the headline "Evils of Ecstasy," linking the Acid House scene with the new and relatively unknown drug. The resultant panic incited by the tabloids eventually led to a crackdown on clubs and venues that played Acid House and had a profound negative impact on the scene.
UK acid house and rave fans used the yellow smiley
Smiley
A smiley, smiley face, or happy face, is a stylized representation of a smiling human face, commonly occurring in popular culture. It is commonly represented as a yellow circle with two black dots representing eyes and a black arc representing the mouth...
face symbol simply as an emblem of the music and scene, a "vapid, anonymous smile" that portrayed the "simplest and gentlest of the Eighties’ youth manifestations" that was non-aggressive, "except in terms of decibels" at the high-volume DJ parties. Some acid house fans used a smiley face with a blood streak on it, which Watchmen
Watchmen
Watchmen is a twelve-issue comic book limited series created by writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colourist John Higgins. The series was published by DC Comics during 1986 and 1987, and has been subsequently reprinted in collected form...
comics creator Alan Moore
Alan Moore
Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...
asserts was based on Dave Gibbons
Dave Gibbons
Dave Gibbons is an English comic book artist, writer and sometime letterer. He is best known for his collaborations with writer Alan Moore, which include the miniseries Watchmen and the Superman story "For the Man Who Has Everything"...
' artwork for the series.
Within just a few years, acid house had gained a considerable fan base, and the influence of the music reached beyond the club and warehouse environment. It also influenced UK pop music during these formative years, emerging in a somewhat sanitized version in songs like Bananarama
Bananarama
Bananarama are an English female pop duo who have had success on the pop and dance charts since 1982. Rather than relying on a two part harmony, the duo generally sings in unison, as do their background vocalists. Although there have been line-up changes, the group enjoyed their most popular...
's "Tripping on Your Love
Tripping on Your Love
"Tripping on Your Love" is a song recorded by English girl group Bananarama. It appears on the group's fifth studio album Pop Life and was released as the album's fourth single in the UK and the first single in the United States...
" (1991) and Samantha Fox
Samantha Fox
Samantha Karen "Sam" Fox is an English dance-pop singer, actress, and former glamour model. In 1983, at the age of 16, she began her topless modeling career on Page Three of The Sun, and went on to become a popular pin-up girl...
's "Love House
Love House
"Love House" is a pop–dance song performed by British singer Samantha Fox and written by Ferdi Bolland and Rob Bolland. It was produced by Ferdi Bolland and Rob Bolland. It was released as the first European single from Samantha’s third album, I Wanna Have Some Fun, in the third quarter of 1988...
" (1989). Acid house influences also appear in the 1988 hit by S'Express
S'Express
S'Express were a British dance music act from the late 1980s, who had one of the earliest commercial successes in the acid house genre."Theme from S'Express", based on Rose Royce's "Is It Love You're After", was also one of the earliest recordings to capitalize on a resurgence of sampling culture...
, "Theme from S'Express
Theme from S'Express
"Theme from S-Express" is an acid house song by English dance music band S'Express from their album Original Soundtrack. It is widely regarded as a pivotal moment in dance music history and is notable for introducing acid house culture to the UK's charts....
" and in remixes of pop songs on 12" singles by various mainstream acts.
Musically, acid house started to move away from its almost total reliance on the TB-303, but continued to use repeated sound sequences that were shifted and warped by electronic modulation.
Etymology of the term
There are conflicting accounts about how the term acid came to be used to describe this style of house music.One account ties it to Phuture's "Acid Trax": Before the song was given a title for commercial release, it was played by DJ Ron Hardy
Ron Hardy
Ron Hardy was an instrumental DJ in the development of house music. An innovator and originator of the genre, he is highly regarded not only for his iconic performances at the Muzic Box, a Chicago house music club, but for his pioneering edits and mixes of disco, soul music, funk and early house...
at a nightclub where psychedelic drugs were reportedly used. The club's patrons called the song "Ron Hardy's Acid Track" (or "Ron Hardy's Acid Trax"). The song was released with the title "Acid Trax" on Larry Sherman's label Trax Records
Trax Records
Trax Records is a house-music record label based in Chicago. It played a major part in the development of house music with records such as Jamie Principle & Frankie Knuckles's "Your Love."...
in 1987. Sources differ on whether it was Phuture or Sherman who chose the title; Phuture's DJ Pierre says the group did because the song was already known by that title, but Sherman says he chose the title because the song reminded him of acid rock
Acid rock
Acid rock is a form of psychedelic rock, which is characterized with long instrumental solos, few lyrics and musical improvisation. Tom Wolfe describes the LSD-influenced music of The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Iron Butterfly, Big Brother & The Holding Company, Cream,...
. Regardless, after the release of Phuture's song, the term Acid House came into common parlance.
The reference to "acid" may be a celebratory reference to psychedelic drug
Psychedelic drug
A psychedelic substance is a psychoactive drug whose primary action is to alter cognition and perception. Psychedelics are part of a wider class of psychoactive drugs known as hallucinogens, a class that also includes related substances such as dissociatives and deliriants...
s in general, such as LSD
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
, as well as a popular mid-1980s club drug
Club drug
Club drugs are a loosely-defined category of recreational drugs which are associated with discothèques in the 1970s and dance clubs, parties, and raves in the 1980s to the 2000s...
Ecstasy (MDMA). Such drugs were reportedly prevalent in Ron Hardy's club, where Acid Tracks was first heard and popularized.
According to Rietveld it was the house sensibility of Chicago in a club like Hardy's The Music Box, that afforded it its initial meaning. In her view "acid connotes the fragmentation of experience and dislocation of meaning due to the unstructuring effects on thought patterns which the psycho-active drug LSD or 'Acid' can bring about. In the context of the creation of Acid Tracks it was a name to indicate a concept rather than the use of psycho-active drugs in itself."
Philippe Renaud, a journalist for La Presse in Montreal, states that the term Acid house was "Coined in Chicago in 1987 to describe the sound of the Roland 303 bass machine." Renaud states that acid house music "made its first significant recording appearance on Phuture's Acid Trax (DJ Pierre) in that year."
Electronic music historian Dan Sicko also advances this theory in his book Techno Rebels, stating acid house is "named for its psychedelic sounds," particularly that of the Roland TB-303.
Other accounts of the etymology of the term are not based on the LSD or psychedelic connotations. The theory that acid was a derogatory reference towards the use of samples in acid house music was repeated in the press and in the British House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
. In this theory, the term acid came from the slang term "acid burning", which the Oxford Dictionary of New Words calls "a term for stealing." Since acid house makes substantial use of sampling, this can be deemed "stealing from other tracks."
In 1991, UK Libertarian advocate Paul Staines
Paul Staines
Paul Staines is an English-born Irish right-wing political blogger. Writer of the pseudonymous "Guido Fawkes' blog of parliamentary plots, rumours & conspiracy", which had as of February 2009, 118,000 visitors per month, his political blog has been described as "one of Britain's leading political...
claimed that he coined the non-drug-oriented explanation (equating "acid burning" with stealing) to discourage the government from adopting anti-rave party legislation. Staines stated that he spread this misinformation because he believed that the British public would deem the use of drugs at rave parties to be unacceptable, and would therefore support legislation against rave parties.
Various accounts tie "acid house" to British performer and musician Genesis P-Orridge
Genesis P-Orridge
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is an English singer-songwriter, musician, writer and artist. P-Orridge's early confrontational performance work in COUM Transmissions in the late 1960s and early 1970s along with the industrial band Throbbing Gristle, which dealt with subjects such as prostitution,...
of the experimental music collective Psychic TV
Psychic TV
Psychic TV or PTV, is a video art and music group that primarily performs psychedelic, punk, electronic and experimental music...
, which in 1988 released a record called "Tune In (Turn On The Acid House)", allegedly the first record to have the phrase in its title. However, London Records released a compilation album in 1987 called "The House Sound Of Chicago - Vol. III - Acid Tracks" under the ffrr label.
Some of the accounts claiming that P-Orridge coined the term tell of a visit he made to a Chicago record store. One says that he combined the terms "acid" and "house" after seeing them separately on the covers of albums he bought there. Other accounts, including one from P-Orridge himself, say he merely bought records from a bin marked "acid". A variation of the story says the bin's label was a reference to a corrosive liquid, but P-Orridge mistook it as a reference to LSD. One account goes on to say he bought the whole bin and played the records at his regular DJ gig at Ibiza, where he introduced the Chicago sound to the MDMA-using, Osho
Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
Osho , born Chandra Mohan Jain , and also known as Acharya Rajneesh from the 1960s onwards, as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh during the 1970s and 1980s and as Osho from 1989, was an Indian mystic, guru, and spiritual teacher who garnered an international following.A professor of philosophy, he travelled...
-following "orange people" there, who discovered the music and drugs complemented each other. P-Orridge's role is disputed by music journalist Simon Reynolds
Simon Reynolds
Simon Reynolds is an English music critic who is well-known for his writings on electronic dance music and for coining the term "post-rock". Besides electronic dance music, Reynolds has written about a wide range of artists and musical genres, and has written books on post-punk and rock...
, who calls it a "self-serving myth", and by Fred Giannelli
Fred Giannelli
Fred Giannelli is an electronic musician born 1960 in Lowell, Massachusetts. He began experimenting with electronics in the late 1970s as Turning Shrines. In 1984, Giannelli met Psychic TV's Genesis P. Orridge while the group was in Boston for a gig. This led to Giannelli eventually flying to...
, another member of Psychic TV.
Once the term acid house became more widely used, participants at acid house-themed events in the UK and Ibiza made the psychedelic drug connotations a reality by using club drug
Club drug
Club drugs are a loosely-defined category of recreational drugs which are associated with discothèques in the 1970s and dance clubs, parties, and raves in the 1980s to the 2000s...
s such as ecstasy and LSD. The association of acid house, MDMA, and smiley faces was observed in New York City by late 1988. This coincided with an increasing level of scrutiny and sensationalism in the mainstream press, although conflicting accounts about the degree of connection between acid house music and drugs continued to surface.
First acid house songs
The earliest recorded examples of acid house are a matter of debate.At least one historian considers the Phuture's "Acid Trax" to be the genre's earliest example; DJ Pierre says it may have been composed as early as 1985, but it was not released until 1987. Another points out Sleezy D's "I've Lost Control" (1986) was the first to be released on vinyl, and it's impossible to know which track was created first.
Proto-acid house
One early example of music that sounds similar to what would later be called acid house has recently received attention. In 1982, Charanjit SinghCharanjit Singh (musician)
Charanjit Singh is a musician from Mumbai, India, who performed in numerous Bollywood soundtrack orchestras in the 1960s and 1970s. He led a wedding band and recorded and released a number of albums covering popular film songs...
, a Bollywood
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...
session musician from Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
, released a record featuring Indian Ragas
Raga
A raga is one of the melodic modes used in Indian classical music.It is a series of five or more musical notes upon which a melody is made...
fused with disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
. The album Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat was recorded using the same basic Roland
Roland Corporation
is a Japanese manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment and software. It was founded by Ikutaro Kakehashi in Osaka on April 18, 1972, with ¥33 million in capital. In 2005 Roland's headquarters relocated to Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture. Today it has factories in Japan,...
equipment often used for later acid house music: the TR-808
Roland TR-808
The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer was one of the first programmable drum machines . Introduced by the Roland Corporation in early 1980, it was originally manufactured for use as a tool for studio musicians to create demos. Like earlier Roland drum machines, it does not sound very much like a real...
and particularly the TB-303
Roland TB-303
The Roland TB-303 Bass Line is a bass synthesizer with built-in sequencer manufactured by the Roland corporation from late 1981 to 1984 that had a defining role in the development of contemporary electronic music.-History:...
, which Singh was one of the first musicians to utilize. The record was initially a commercial failure in India and eventually forgotten, but its re-discovery in 2002 and eventual re-release in early 2010 has prompted many comparisons to acid house music, with some even considering it to be the first example of an acid house record.
Notable acid house artists
- PhuturePhuturePhuture is a Chicago-based acid house group founded in 1985 by Spanky, DJ Pierre and Herb J.The group's 12-minute track "Acid Tracks" is one of several recordings that lay claim to being the first-ever acid house record....
- ChicagoChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
-based group of acid-house pioneers, formed in 1985 and best known for its classic 1987 single "Acid Tracks," which is considered to be the 12-inch single that gave birth to the acid house movement. - DJ PierreDJ PierreDJ Pierre is the stage name of Nathaniel Pierre Jones, a Chicago born DJ and performer of house music. He helped to develop the house music subgenre of Acid House, as member of Phuture, whose 1987 E.P...
, a member of Phuture, released various solo acid house tracks and remixes - ArmandoArmando (producer)Armando Gallop , who released material under his first name only, was an American house-music producer and DJ who was an early contributor to the development of acid house....
- Chicago acid house musician, for "Land of Confusion" and many other seminal tracks - Mr. LeeMr. LeeMr. Lee is an American DJ, producer and house music rapper, from Chicago, Illinois. He is known in the Chicago house music scene as one of the pioneers who brought hip hop to the genre, which would later be coined as hip house. He also helped to launch the career of R. Kelly.Mr...
- another Chicago house musician who released several acid house tracks in 1988 - Fast EddieFast EddieFast Eddie , is an American House producer from Chicago, Illinois.-Career:Prior to his entry into the realm of production, Fast Eddie was one of the premier DJs of the early Chicago House movement....
- another Chicago house musician, for "Acid Thunder" - AdonisAdonis (artist)Adonis is a Chicago acid house pioneer who made his name with the classic 1986 tracks 'No Way Back' and 'We're Rockin Down The House'.Adonis recorded many innovative and influential dance tracks. Born and raised on the West Side of Chicago, Adonis was introduced to music at a young age...
- another Chicago house musician, for "We're Rockin Down The House" - Bam BamBam Bam (Chris Westbrook)Bam Bam was an American pop group, created by the vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Chris Westbrook. They had mainstream chart success in the United Kingdom during the 1980s with a single entitled "Give It To Me", which was released on the Serious record label. It entered the UK Singles Chart on...
- another Chicago house musician, for "Where Is Your Child" and "Give It To Me" - Lil LouisLil LouisLil Louis is the stage name used by Chicago-born house-music producer and DJ Louis Sims. He scored a number of hits on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in the 1980s and 1990s, three of which hit #1....
- another Chicago house musician, for "Frequency" - 808 State808 State808 State are a British electronic music outfit, formed in 1987 in Manchester, taking their name from the Roland TR-808 drum machine and their common state of mind...
- a group of house/techno musicians from ManchesterManchesterManchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
formed in 1988. The group's first album, Newbuild, was acid house, and occasional acid house influences appear in later tracks. - A Guy Called GeraldA Guy Called GeraldA Guy Called Gerald is the stage name for the musician, record producer and DJ Gerald Simpson ....
- 808 State cofounder, for the single "Voodoo RayVoodoo Ray"Voodoo Ray" is a 1988 Acid House single by Gerald Simpson, recording under the name A Guy Called Gerald. The single was released the UK in 1988, in the 7" and 12" vinyl formats, on the Rham! label. It reached number 12 in the UK singles chart, and was the best selling independently released single...
" - The KLFThe KLFThe KLF were one of the seminal bands of the British acid house movement during the late 1980s and early 1990s....
- for "What Time Is Love?What Time Is Love?"What Time Is Love?" is a song released, in different mixes, as a series of singles by the band The KLF. It featured prominently and repeatedly in their output from 1988 to 1992 and, under the moniker of 2K, in 1997...
" and their self-described "stadium house" sound, which mixes acid house with hip-hop, pop, and stadium rock/chant influences - The ShamenThe ShamenThe Shamen were an experimental electronic music band, from 1985–1999, initially formed in Aberdeen, Scotland, as a psychedelic-influenced indie rock act. The founding members are Colin Angus , Derek McKenzie and Keith McKenzie...
- Psychedelic techno act formed as a rock band in AberdeenAberdeenAberdeen is Scotland's third most populous city, one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas and the United Kingdom's 25th most populous city, with an official population estimate of ....
, ScotlandScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in 1986. One of the first groups to bring acid house and techno into the pop mainstream. - Psychic TVPsychic TVPsychic TV or PTV, is a video art and music group that primarily performs psychedelic, punk, electronic and experimental music...
, released early albums of acid house music in 1988 as fake compilations. - S'ExpressS'ExpressS'Express were a British dance music act from the late 1980s, who had one of the earliest commercial successes in the acid house genre."Theme from S'Express", based on Rose Royce's "Is It Love You're After", was also one of the earliest recordings to capitalize on a resurgence of sampling culture...
- Brought acid house to number one in the United Kingdom - Baby FordBaby FordPeter Ford, better known as Baby Ford, is a British electronic music record producer, known particularly for his contributions to the birth of acid house...
- English producer Peter Frank Adshead. 1988 release Oochy Koochy and first album, Fordtrax influenced by acid house. - D MobD MobD Mob is one of the stage names used by British house music producer Dancin' Danny D .The 1988 UK hit "We Call It Acieed" hit #3 in the UK Singles Chart, and was one of a wave of acid house singles to enjoy success that year. The video was directed by Marek Budzynski...
- Best known for 1988 UK #3 hit "We Call It Acieed" - Kevin SaundersonKevin SaundersonKevin Saunderson is an American electronic music producer. At the age of nine he moved to Belleville, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit where he attended Belleville High School and befriended two students, Derrick May and Juan Atkins...
- Detroit house musician known as Reese & Santonio with his hit "Rock To the Beat", coveredCover versionIn popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
by 101 - MauriceMaurice JoshuaMaurice Joshua, also known just as Maurice, born in Chicago, Illinois, is a record producer who is most known for his laid back and soulful House music style remixes.-Career:...
- Chicago house musician best known for the 1988–1989 hit "This Is AcidThis Is Acid"This Is Acid," also known by its full title, "This Is Acid ", is the name of a #1 Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart single by Chicago house music DJ and producer Maurice Joshua, who recorded the track under his first name "Maurice." It reached the top spot in April 1989 and stayed there for two...
".
See also
- Second Summer of LoveSecond Summer of LoveThe Second Summer of Love is a name given to the period in 1988-89 in Britain, during the rise of acid house music and the euphoric explosion of unlicensed MDMA -fuelled rave parties...
- Lords of AcidLords of AcidLords of Acid is a Belgian-American post-industrial/techno band, led by musician Praga Khan. They debuted with the controversial new beat single "I Sit on Acid" in 1988...
- Sunrise/Back to the FutureSunrise/Back to the FutureSunrise/Back to the Future were one of the most widely publicised Acid House promoters in the UK. One commentator states "Over the course of 1989, promoters such as World Dance, Genesis, Helter Skelter and Energy succeeded in setting acid house nights free of the urban core's constructions, staging...
- Genesis '88Genesis '88Genesis'88 was a party promotion crew who threw some of the first acid house parties also known as raves in the United Kingdom from 1988 to 1992. It was founded during 1988 during the U.K's discovery of acid house. They were an organisation that staged acid house parties in empty industrial...
- MadchesterMadchesterMadchester was a music scene that developed in Manchester, England, towards the end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The music that emerged from the scene mixed alternative rock, psychedelic rock and dance music...
- Free partyFree partyA free party is a party "free" from the restrictions of the legal club scene, similar to the free festival movement. It typically involves a sound system playing electronic dance music from late at night until the time when the organisers decide to go home. A free party can be composed of just one...
- Acid technoAcid technoAcid techno is the term used to describe a style of techno that developed out of late 1980s Chicago Acid house. Acid house was essentially house music made with a specific sound, obtained by using very distinctive instruments created mainly by Roland, such as the TB-303 for bass and lead sounds,...
- New BeatNew BeatNew Beat is a term that was used in the 1980s to refer to two different genres of electronic dance music. It also refers to an underground 1980s Belgian music style.- Terminology :...
- RaveRaveRave, rave dance, and rave party are parties that originated mostly from acid house parties, which featured fast-paced electronic music and light shows. At these parties people dance and socialize to dance music played by disc jockeys and occasionally live performers...
- List of electronic music genres
External links
- Acid-House.net, acid house fan site
- Jahsonic's History of Acid House
- History of House Article covering the history of house, touching on Acid House
- Discussion of Race and Music with specific references to Acid House
- Entertainment & Sports Law Journal Vol 1. No. 3 contains a comparative review of 11 books covering the acid house and early rave scenes
- Acid history Short multimedia history of early steps in acid house.
- They Call It Acid - promotional site for an acid house documentary film.
Additional references
- Collin, Matthew; Godfrey, John. (1st edition, April 1997; 2nd edition, November 15, 1998). Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House. Serpent's Tail. ISBN 1-85242-377-3 (1st edition); ISBN 1-85242-604-7 (2nd edition).
- Bussmann, Jane. (1998) Once in a Lifetime: The Crazy Days of Acid House and Afterwards. London: Virgin. ISBN 0-7535-0260-7.
- Shapiro, Peter (ed.), et al. (October 15, 2000). Modulations: A History of Electronic Music: Throbbing Words on Sound. Charles Rivers Publishing Co. ISBN 1-891024-06-X.
- A bibliography of acid house references in 1988–1989 periodicals