Hacienda Classics

The famous Hacienda night club was the epicentre of dance music and the emerging acid house scene in the North of England at the end of the 1980s. The London had Paul Oakenfold’s ‘Shoom’ and Danny Rampling’s ‘Spectrum’ whilst the North had ‘The Hac’ aka Fac 51, the record catelogue number given to the club by it’s owners Factory Records and renowned electro/indie legends New Order.

I could talk about the Hacienda until the cows come home and about the affect it had on me and everyone else who went there at the time. The only things I can say is that the first time you visited you came out a different person to the one who went in.

The main DJs at the time were Mike Pickering, who later went on to set up M-People, Jon Da Silva and Greame Park, who still DJ’s on Galaxy FM in the UK. Pickering is renowned as the first person in the UK to play house music. At first it was too cutting edge and different to stuff that was being played and the crowd needed something to be educated slowly but once acid house hit from then on it was the music policy that really made the club what it was.

There are so many good records to choose from around that era so here I have stuck to ’86 to ’89 with a mix of US and British tunes. Here are some of the ones I can remember:

Rhythm is Rhythm’s “Strings of Life” eptomises that uplifting era. The paino riff is one of the most recognised ever having been sampled countless times.

The rhythm and lyrics of Ce Ce Roger’s “Someday” defined what was happening at the time listen and enjoy. (This record was als famously sampled for the enduring happy hardcore classic Liquid’s ‘Sweet Harmony’

Mister B’s ‘Let’s Get Horny’ is the song I remember being played the most at The Hac in the early days. It really stuck in my head because of it’s famous piano riff that it lifts from Dan Hartman seminal disco classic ‘Relight My Fire’, an absolute belter of record, which was later murdered by Take That.

It’s impossible to choose just four songs from The Hacienda so I will have to do a part 2 and probably a 3 for 4 and 5 to go with it, but any synopsis of Fac 51 has to include New Order. They were the club: part owners, regulars dancing on the stage and loosers of thousands and probably millions of pounds due to Tony Wilson’s bad management. This is the beautiful 12″ extended version of Round & Round. This song is from the ground breaking album Technique, which the first that brought the Balearic sound of Ibiza to the masses. It was recorded in Ibiza in 1988 just when ecstasy was hitting the island. By all accounts it changed the lives of New Order and those pioneers of the music scene like Oakenfold, Rampling and Carl Cox who were also on the island at the time.

Hint – Google search: ‘free youtube to mp3 converter’

The Greatest Saxophone Record Ever

The later 80s acid house scene and rave scene of the early 90s were heavily influenced by disco and funk, which were the earliest true forms of dance music.

The likes of Funkadelic and Parliament have been widely sampled and remixed. Some of the best funk came from Maceo and The Macks, including what I consider the best saxophone record ever, Soul Power, which I have just uploaded to YouTube and include on the link below. Enjoy:

Acid House’s roots in the 1960s Flower Power movement

Acid House was one of the great youth movements of the modern era. The first was Rock’n'Roll in the 1950s, the second was the 1960s Flower Power revolution, then the 1970s had Punk and Disco and the end of 1980s saw the explosion of acid house.

The emergence of Acid House truly was a new revolution that changed the face of generation, most notably in the UK. It seemed everyone from the age of 15 to 30 (and a damn site older) was into the scene. It crossed musical, racial and geographic boundaries. It stopped football hooliganism m(it really did, I’ve seen sworn enemies hugging on a dance floor). It didn’t matter where you were from or who you were the difference was that you were there and you were into acid house and evertything that came with it. The music, the openmindedness and the togetherness that came with the feeling that the world was changing and you were riding that wave of change. It sounds cheesing now, and maybe we were a little naive at the time, but that was how it felt.

These characteristics gave it a lot of similarities with hippie/flower power revolution. of the 1960. It wasn’t just the use of acid and similar drugs and it wasn’t just that fact that flares and baggy colourful clothing were were the order of the day, it was psychological similarities that really made us think “wow this is what the 1960s must have felt like”.

This similarity filtered through to the music, which was heavily influenced by the music of the 1960s (as it was also by funk and disco). Samples of from the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin and Hendrix abound. Not so much The Beatles because their copyright was heavily protected from sampling and permission was rarely given, although Candy Flip did do their famous cover over Strawberry Fields.

Probably the most well known, and most obvious, is the house classic ‘JJ Tribute’ by Asha from Italy, release in 1990. There was a lot of house music originating from Italy at the time and this is one of the best with it’s uplifiting piano and Janis’s rough vocals it was the perfect tonic for the acid house era. At almost 20 years old it still sounds remarkably fresh. The JJ in the title stands for Janis Joplin, so the record is essentially fitting tribute to late great Woodstock legend. The song samples her song ‘Ball and Chain’ plus some of the rambling speech she made at Woodstock.

And, here is Janis singing the original at the 1967 Monterey music festival

Jimin Hendrix is very rightly known as one of the greatest guitar legends ever. But, funnily enough, it wasn’t his guitar playing that was used on the best known record that uses his sample from the era, which was by hip hop/rap outfit Caveman on 1990′s “I’m Ready”, which takes a riff from Jimi’s “Crosstown Traffic”. This is a bit scratched but if anyone wants a better copy let me know and I’ll email it.

Here is a veritable piece of history: Jimi Hendrix’s original video for “Cross Town Traffic”.

The Rolling Stones were also heavily sampled. The next record ‘Movin’ (Transluna Injection Burn Mix) by Marathon aka Joey Negro. The record cover on the video is 1992 reissue of this mix, which was originally released the previous year. It uses the unmistakable sound of the introduction to The Stones’s ‘Gimme Shelter’ at the beginning.

Here’s the Stone’s original ‘Gimme Shelter’

This record called “It’s A Moment In Time” was heavily played by DJs like Sasha at the time. At about 38 seconds in there is a huge piano riff, which sounds like modern piano riff of the time but it is actually a speeded up sample of the piano from The Stones’s song ‘We Love You’.

And here is the original Rolling Stones ‘We Love You’

Anymore suggestions anyone can think of are most welcome

Ends

The BBC’s fear about acid house

This BBC News clip about Acid House from 1988 is priceless. There are lots of old news footage on YouTube including a World In Action special separated into 10 minutes chunks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgjog28R9_0

Florence and the Machine Remixes

One of my favourite new bands around at the moment are Florence And The Machine. They cross the indie/chart/dance music divide and have a very unique sound. There are some great remixes around of thier song Rabbit Heart. The first remix has been hammered over the last few months from Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1. It is Jamie T’s remix and in my opionion is absolutely quaility, especially the piano, that Jamie T says is reminiscent of the Hacienda, which I totally agree with. Anyway here it is:

Florence And The Machine – Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) (Jamie T / Lionheart Remix)

There are a number of unofficial remixes flying around the youtube, but this is my favourite by P.E.S.T whos myspace is below.

P.E.S.T Remix of Florence And The Machines’s Rabbit Heart (www.myspace.com/whoispest whoispest@gmail.com)

In true dance music crossover fashion Florence and the machine have been getting a reputation for covering dance music classics. Here they are performing the legendary The Source’s ‘You Got The Love’ on Channel 4

Florence And The Machine You’ve Got The Love T4 on the Beach 2009

(It’s funny Channel 4 have removed embedding from YouTube, but WordSpace only needs the URL. These kind of posts are great PR for Channel so it baffles me why these media companies don’t embrace the internet more instead of hiding behind copyright.)

Sonique fighting breast cancer

I heard the sad news a few weeks ago that singer and DJ Sonique is suffering from breast cancer and recently underwent emergency surgery. Sonique’s real names is Sonia Clarke, she’s most well known for ‘I Put A Spell On You’ and ‘It Feels So Good’ for which she won a Brit and Ivor Novello award-winner. She was resident DJ at the Manumission nightclub in Ibiza from 1997 to 1999.

I first saw Sonique DJ in 1996 at the original Gatecrasher club in an old cinema on the outskirts of Sheffield near the Don Valley. What sticks out is the energy she created, it wasn’t just the difference a woman DJ makes but the way she was had a head mic on and sang vocals over the songs. I had never seen that done before and it was truly incredible.

I just wanted to wish her well and to remind people how good her cover of ‘I Put A Spell On You’ actually was. I say cover because it was originally written in 1957 by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and is in the The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. It has been covered by numerous others, most notably to me Nina Simone. But, here is my favourite version of the song – get well Sonique.

Yes The Doves really were Sub Sub

Most people don’t believe it when you tell them that Manchester indie band The Doves were once dance music legends Sub Sub.

Unfortunately most people remember Sub Sub for their only chart hit ‘”Ain’t No Love” with Melanie Williams, which was a bit cheesy. But, prior to this Sub Sub made some classic dance records the most well known of which is the legendary rave classic “Space Face” from 1991, their first ever record, which features the famous sample of the last line from 2001 Space Oddessy “my god it is full of stars”, said by the lead character as he drifts helplessly through space. Here’s “Space Face” in its full glory:

Here is something a bit more mellow that Sub Sub did called “Past”, which was the B-Side of their 1992 single “Inside Out”. It featured on Faithless’s ‘Back to Mine’ compilation.

And just to prove The Doves really were Sub Sub here they are finishing one of their sets with “Space Face”, which is incorrectly entitled ‘Spacefaces’. They finished their Glastonbury set with it this year too.

So why did they change? They had the unfortunate incidence that every musician must dread, which is that their studio burnt down and they lost everything. So, they wiped the slate clean and started again as The Doves. There’s a lesson in their for us all somewhere.

Ultraviolet “Kites” two classics from 1990.

In 1988/89 Sasha made his name in the acid house scene by driving up from Wales to DJ are at some the warehouse parties that were held in Manchester and Lancashire after the nightclubs like the Hacienda, Man Alive and Konspiracy closed and thousands of people used to go in search of the all night warehouse parties that were prevalent at the time.

In 1990 he picked up his first residency at Shellys, the acid house nightlub in Stoke. This first video is the original of Ultraviolet ‘Kites’ from 1990, which he used to finish his renowned sets with. It is one of my favourite old school house records.

Ultraviolet ‘Kites’ (Original Mix) 1990

His name became so associated with playing Kites that he was asked to remix the record; the outcome is below, which is a brilliant remix and rave classic. But, in my opinion it doesn’t beat the beauty of the original record, which is itself a balearic classic and associated with the early days of the Ibiza and in particular the original open air Amnesia club where the legendary Jose Padilla and god father to the original Ibiza scene made his name.

Ultraviolet “Kites” (Fantasy Ft Part 1) 1990

Kites is sung by Maria Nayler who Sasha later worked when she sung vocals his records ‘Be As One’ and ‘Naked and Scared’. She was also laterly known for ‘Angry Skies’.

Burn any of these from YouTube using the Free-YouTube-to-MP3-Converter. You’re OK most of these records are deleted anyway, and only available second hand, so you are not affecting renumeration to the artists or the retailers:

http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/products/dvd/Free-YouTube-to-MP3-Converter.htm

Welcome to Dance Music Source

I love music and in particular dance music, be it early disco, through to 80s electro, acid house and modern dance music. As a DJ and collector of thousands of vinyl records I wanted to start a blog that highlights dance music and dance music culture.

This new blog will cover everything dance music related and highlight classic records from the last four decades of dance music. From its early origins in 1970s disco, through to early 80s electro the birth of house music, rave, drum & bass to progress, trance and modern dances music.