Acid Tracks
Song by Phuture
Chicago in late 1985, three late teens, Earl "Spanky" Smith Jr, Nathaniel Pierre Jones aka DJ Pierre, and Herbert "Herb J" Jackson, J, formed the group Phuture.
They spent all of 1985 recording demos to release them on the Chicago label, Trax Records and DJ International.
The first demos were clumsy or uninteresting.
That is until one day when Dj Pierre listened to the demos of a musician friend, Jasper G, who had used a Roland TB 303 for his bass lines. Pierre was not impressed by the sound of this bass line machine, but he told Earl "Spanky" Smith about it, and he bought one sometime later.
“The members of Phuture don’t know how to operate it, and they spend hours turning the knobs and trying to tune it. ”
And then an accident or stroke of genius happens.
As they turn the knobs, play with the sound, and play with the modulation in real-time, a sound never heard before appears!
A resonant, squealing sound! Like in a typical jam session, Dj Pierre and Spanky play with the TB 303, while Herb J programs a Roland TR 707, a rhythm-based bass drum with reverb, cowbells, and whistles open hi-hats in counter time. The gimmick is there, and the idea for the song is in place.
“They record the song on tape and listen to it again, hallucinating. ”
It sounds nothing like what was recorded before. The rhythm doesn't stray from black dance music rhythms, but the sound, the idea, and minimalism are close to the "Big Bang." It's entirely new!
They then try to meet Ron Hardy, the legendary deejay who rules the Music Box club, in the hope of giving him a tape to play.
They finally meet him, and Hardy listens without saying a word to the 12 minutes of the song, answering only with a terse: "can I have a copy?
As the song was not yet fully edited, Dj Pierre answered: "I'll bring it to the Music Box next Friday night."
“Ron Hardy, who played for more than 12 hours in a row, will test the track four times during the same night. ”
The first time, the dancers don't realize yet that this track will change the music and give birth to a new genre, and the reactions are mixed. Many dancers leave the track to return to the bar.
But Hardy insists and plays the song, a second time, and a third, and at the fourth, late in the night and the club finally filled, the magic operates, and all the club becomes mad.
A classic is born.
Once the song was recorded and mixed properly, the members of Phuture were looking to release it commercially. In spring 1986, the members of Phuture attended a Marshal Jefferson concert at the Power Plant in Chicago.
“They witness dance music collide and flirtatiously mix with pop, techno-pop, funk, Italo disco, and new wave to operate in its ultimate metaphor: House Music. ”
Marshal Jefferson is becoming a star of the genre. His song "Move Your Body" as well as "Love Can't Turn Around" by Farley Jackmaster Funk, Jesse Saunders, Darry Pandy, and "Jack Your Body" by Steve Silk Hurley, became hits in the hottest clubs in Chicago, New York, London, Paris, and Berlin.
The British, always on the cutting edge and hungry for new music, dive headfirst into anything that comes out of Chicago and is called House Music.
Marshal Jefferson is a former A&R manager for Universal. He is a friend of Larry Sherman, the boss of Trax Records. Jefferson will get them signed to Trax, and mix the track by slowing down the original tempo from 130 bpm to 120 bpm, which gives it an even more hypnotic feel.
The release of the record in 1987 will be a huge success.
It is the starting point of the Acid House movement.
A whole generation of young English people (Baby Ford, Krush, Coldcut, S/XPRESS...) will know worldwide commercial success, leaving Phuture in the legend of underground club culture without ever knowing all the glory or triumph!