Electronic Music History (Part 7)

In 1983 the Muzic Box club opened in Chicago. Owned by Robert Williams, the driving force was a DJ, Ron Hardy. The chief characteristics of the club's sound were sheer massive volume and an increased pace to the tunes. The pace was apparently the result of Hardy's heroin use. The club also played a wider range of music than just disco. Groups such as Kraftwerk and Blondie were well received, as was a brief flirtation with punk, dances like "Punking-Out" or "Jacking" being very popular.Two tunes are arguably the first House music, each arriving in early 1984. The tune that was chronologically first was Jamie Principle and Frankie Knuckles' "Your Love", a huge hit in the clubs, but only available on tape copies. The second, "On And On" by Jesse Saunders was later but on vinyl (Shapiro, 2000).By 1985 house music dominated the clubs of Chicago, aided by the musical electronic revolution - the arrival of newer, cheaper and more compact music sequencers and drum machines (such as the legendary Roland TB-303 in late 1985) gave House music creators even wider possibilities in creating their own sound, indeed the creation of Acid House is directly related to the efforts of DJ Pierre on the new drum machines. Of equal importance was the rise in Chicago of the Trax record label, founded by Larry Sherman (the owner of the only vinyl pressing plant in Chicago). This was something of double-edged sword. In its favour Trax was very fast to sign new artists and press their tunes, establishing a large catalogue of House tunes, but the label used recycled vinyl to speed the pressing process resulting in physically poor quality records. Also disappointing was that many artists signed contracts that were rather less favourable towards them than they hoped.Trax became the dominant House label, releasing many classics including "No Way Back" by Adonis, Larry Heard's "Can You Feel It" and the first so-called House anthem in 1986, "Move Your Body" by Marshall Jefferson. This latter tune gave a massive boost to House music, extending recognition of the genre out of Chicago. Steve 'Silk' Hurley became the first house artist to reach number one in the UK in 1986 with "Jack Your Body". This and other tracks such as such as "Music is the Key" and "Love Can't Turn Around" helped moved house from its spiritual home to its commercial birthplace - the United Kingdom.In Britain the growth of house can be divided around the "Summer of Love" in 1988. House had a presence in Britain almost as early as it appeared in Chicago however there was a strong divide between the House music as part of the gay scene and 'straight' music. House grew in northern England, especially Manchester, as an extension of the 'Northern Soul' genre. The key English club was the Hacienda in Manchester, founded in 1982 by Factory Records. But until 1986 the club was a financial disaster, the crowds only started to grow when the resident DJs (Pickering, Park and Da Silva) started to play House music. House was boosted by the tour in the same year of Knuckles, Jefferson, Fingers Inc. (Heard) and Adonis as the DJ International Tour. Amusingly one of the early anthemic tunes, "Promised Land" by Joe Smooth, was covered and charted within a week by the Style Council. The first English House tune came out in 1986 - "Carino" by T-Coy. Europeans embraced House music, and began booking legendary American House DJs to play at the big clubs, such as Ministry of Sound, who's resident, DJ Harvey brought in Larry Levan. (...)(...) But house was also developing on Ibiza. A hippy stop-over and a site for the rich in the 1970s by the mid-1980s a distinct Balearic mix of house was discernable. Clubs like Amnesia where DJ Alfredo was playing a mix of rock, pop, disco and house fueled by Ecstasy, began to have an influence on the British scene. By late 1987 DJs like Paul Oakenfold and Danny Rampling were bringing the Ibiza sound to UK clubs like Shoom in Southwark (London), Heaven, Future and Purple Raines Spectrum in Birmingham. But the "Summer of Love" needed an added ingredient that would again come from America.In America the music was being developed to create a more sophisticated sound, moving beyond just drum loops and short samples. New York saw this maturity evidenced in the slick production of disco house crossover tracks from artists such as Mateo & Matos. In Chicago, Marshall Jefferson had formed the house 'super group' Ten City (from intensity), demonstrating the developments in "That's the Way Love Is". In Detroit there were the beginnings of what would be called techno, with the emergence of Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson. Atkins had already scored in 1982 with Cybotron and in 1985 he released Model 500 "No UFOs" which became a big regional hit, followed by dozens of tracks on Transmat, Metroplex and Fragile. One of the most unusual was "Strings of Life" by Derrick May. The NME described it as "George Clinton and Kraftwerk stuck in an elevator". It was a darker, more intellectual strain of house that followed it's own trajectory. "Techno-Scratch" was released by the Knights Of The Turntable in 1984 which had a similar techno sound to Cybotron and is possibly where the term techno originated, although this is generally credited to Atkins, who borrowed the term from the phrase "techno rebels" which appeared in writer Alvin Toffler's book Future Shock (see Sicko 1998).The records were completely independent of the major record labels and the parties which the tracks were played at never played any commmercial pop music.The combination of house and techno came to Britain and gave House a phenomenal boost. A few clubs began to feature specialist House nights - the Hacienda had "Hots" on Wednesday from July 1988, 2,500 people could enjoy the British take on the Ibiza scene, the classic "Voodoo Ray" by A Guy Called Gerald (Gerald Simpson) was designed for the Hacienda and Madchester. Factory boss Tony Wilson also promoted acid house culture on his weekly TV show. The Midlands also embraced the late 80s House scene with many underground venues such as multi storey car parks and more legal dance stations such as the Birmingham Institute (now Sundissencial's 'The Sanctuary').Rather than be confined in the clubs ambitious promoters took the music to large temporary sites such as fields, handling up to 30,000 people in a single illegal event, called a rave. Promoters like Sunrise, Energy, Biology, Fantasia and World Dance held massive events in defiance of the police and music industry. Unlike many nightclubs they were open to all ages and races.The press lead the general public to believe that the events were shaped soley by the consumption of ecstasy, but others pointed out the music was refreshing and intoxicating enough without consumption of drugs. The British tabloid press helped publicize the scene, generally portraying rave parties in a negative light, which tended to alarm institutions such as the government and the police. Many tunes became hits from these events such as "Everything Starts with a E" by the E-Zee Possee," which was created by a savvy music producer rather than a band, "The Trip" by S'Express and "NRG" by Adamski who became the first rave superstar. (...)(...) The publicity and the knowledge that these events could make significant amounts of money led more professionally criminal groups to take an interest in raves. The police became more active in preventing or closing down raves. As the second "Summer of Love" arrived in 1989 the police became even more oppressive, culminating in a 1990 Act of Parliament. This was counter-productive, it both forced raves back underground and increased the criminal presence in organising raves. But the music continued, one of the longest lasting and influential groups grew out of the rave scene, named Orbital after the M25 motorway. Their British hit "Chime" was snapped up by Pete Tong's FFRR label. By the end of 1989 House was mainstream music in Britain, it charted regularly with "Ride on Time" from Black Box being at number one for six weeks.Although some venues in Wales (such as Wentwood Forrest near Newport) were still successfully holding outdoor raves well into the early 1990s, the majority of outdoor raves from the Midlands, the North West and South East were gradually closed down by the police, this did not deter the events organisers and new indoor venues were once again sought. Large country venues that were used to entertain many hundres of revellers and smaller (up until then) weaker commercial inner city nightclubs were exploited to fill the House scene gap. These events were fueled by illegal pirate radio stations, the mass production of flyers and word of mouth.The most significant revolution in house music took place in the very early 1990s with bedroom musicians like Unique 3, LFO, Nightmares on Wax, N-Joi, 4-Hero, Shut Up 'N' Dance, Ryhmatic and Altern8. These Rave musicians were counted by their hundreds due to the way sampling had become affordable to the masses (thanks to Akai), hundreds of other one off white label artists enoyed instant fame like The Prodigy and Zero 7, this unusual version of house steered away from the monotonous Balearic beats that prevailed at the time and eventually jungle music, drum and bass and breakbeat eventuated by musicians who experimented with live breakbeats as oposed to the usual Roland 909 Drum Machine kick and snare.Back in America the scene had still not progressed beyond a small number of clubs in Chicago and New York, Paradise Garage was still the top club, although they now had Todd Terry, his tune "Weekend" demonstrated a new House sound with hip-hop influences evident in the quicker sampling and the more rugged bass-line. While hip-hop had made it onto radio play-lists, the only other choices were Rock, Country & Western or R & B.Influential gospel/R&B-influenced Alias released "Time Passes On" in 1993 (Strictly Rhythm), then later, "Follow Me" which received radio airplay as well as being extensively played in clubs. Other US hits which received radioplay was the ghettotech single "Time for the Perculator" by Cajmere. Although these are generally grouped in with classic house now, the early 1990s sound was different from the early 1980s Chicago house WBMX sound - due at least in part to digital audio improvements.

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