It didn’t involve anything other than being intrigued by the looped Betty Boop video on Top of The Pops but Jack Your Body was the first house music record I bought aged 13.
Seem to remember having the U.K Electro comp before that but it must’ve been the worst one in the series and I never got into it.
It was Happy Mondays and Stone Roses in 1989 that really got me into the life though. Easy step from there via Weatherall, Primal Scream, Flowered Up, Moonflowers, Paris Angels etc into raves and the rest is pretty blurry history.
God so much feeling for this thread. We have good memories because somehow we came through it all intact, probably all running own business’ or making music and much more all lucky to have been born at the right time. Thanks @J_C for the credit, Blackpool and Leicester Boys in the south in 88 we never been apart since.
Music! to OP , Friend from underage clubbing and school was big into U.S culture, hip hop, comics, we were hearing the roots of house next to all the 86 hip hop and Luther Vandross being played when out, he was into Chicago house and told me theres a gig at Waves nightclub we need to go to. 87. We were 16, getting in clubs because we fronted the doorman as ‘locals’ which got us in. A half empty gig the guy behind this tune did a P.A to us few on the dancefloor, jacking. The few that sat around the sides were like, ‘what is this shit?’ He was blind, but he was belting out the vocal, backed by d.j and dancing himself, did a few tunes, but you know this one- that was it, H.O.U.S.E all life long. He never made much else, an outlier like many of the early house tracks. Loving your stories, X
I was about 8/9 and was into Bros. My sister was quite a bit older and her and her friends used to take the piss out of me. We were going on our first family holiday abroad, and because I was shit scared of flying, my parents bought me a Walkman. My sisters hot friend was coming with us, so I nicked some tapes of my sister to impress her, haha.
Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and some DJ mixtapes. I was fixated. Every photo of that holiday has me with my headphones on.
A perfect storm erupted when I was 17. It was 1988. I had finished high school that year but I was still living out in a semi rural suburb miles away from any real excitement and/or culture. The one nightclub in my town was called CT’s. It catered exclusively for the lug headed rock pigs, handbag Cheryls and bogan bourbon and coke drinkers of my fine vicinity.
Luckily for me, the sanctuary of key radio shows hosted by Tim Ritchie and Andy Glitre on JJJ fm opened the door to hip hop, funk and inevitably house music. The 3 tunes that really bore their way into my skull were Inner City’s “Big Fun” and “Good Life” (these still sound amazing to me today) and the inescapable tune “The Only Way Is Up” by Yazz and The Plastic Population. I’d love to say that I experienced these tunes for the first time on the dancefloor at a very cool underground party, but it was in fact in some random nightclub on Queensland’s Gold Coast where i had traveled to for “Schoolies Week” with a group of guys who weren’t my immediate friend circle but who happened to be going there, so I glommed on. It didn’t really matter - just hearing Inner City on a huge sound system was totally electric and addictive. when I got back to Sydney, I was on a mission to hear more.
Around this time, my neighbor’s older brother Phil was dating the guy who was responsible for some of Sydney’s most iconic parties and club nights . My mate Richard and I now had a direct line into the best parties around town, even if it was a 2 hour journey via public transport to get to them. We often got some strange looks from the clubbers queued up outside, as we were far from fashionable, but never had to wait in line to get in most places.
As the club scene expanded into much larger spaces, we experienced our first big warehouse events - the feeling of which can never be recreated ever again. I actually preferred raving to clubbing, at least for the 2-3 year period they were pure and proper, before the dodgy dealings, crims and darkness descended to introduce a less than loved up element.
One that stood out was one of Sydney’s infamous R.A.T. parties at the Horden Pavillion, held on NYE 1992. The line up was insane - Frankie Knuckles, Paul Oakenfold, Graeme Park, The Prodigy, Sasha - I just remember dancing in the morning as the daylight began streaming in and seeing the joy on so many faces around me. Everybody your best mate for one night only.
After synergy with the Shamen it was a friends house party in Manchester where most of my friends were at college. I remember coming back from that and buying the source with Candi Staton and move your body by xpansions and never looking back. Don’t think we had a Friday or Saturday night in for the next two years.
First Walkman: blue, bought on the day of live aid
1989 doing a Summer building job in East London, back home from Uni. We were gutting an old house and there was a 1950’s mahogany stereo with radio. It was locked onto Centreforce who played French Kiss on repeat, only interjecting to advertise their raves. It blew my mind and I knew I needed more.
Those orange headphones! The penny really dropped when I bought a 12” copy of Bassline by Mantronix and was utterly blown away by how raw it was. House came much later and was more of a gradual progression.
I have had a few, but the real “it” moments really stand out for me. First, like the OP was Electro 2 Streetsounds, I heard that Mastermind, the guys responsible for the street sounds Electro mixes were to play at Notting Hill Carnival. I got there to hear all my favourites on a massive reggae type sound system. Hearing Shannon- Let the music played so loud and clear, crowd going beyond nuts under the westway, changed everything forever. (they were an amazing system).
Cut to a few years later and I was at a rare groove kind of night, I was given a white pill of something(probably sought it out and purchased it). The night lineup changed over to some guys playing what I then learned was house and proto acid stuff, the combination of everything was another pivotal experience x 100.
I loved that Urban Allstars track - an early Norman Cook joint. Must have been not long after the Housemartins split in 1988. You can see young Norm in his nascent djing stages during the Housemartins 1986 doco “London 0, hull 4” in which he can be seen mixing 45’s of The Clash with Run DMC to produce what he calls “Clash DMC”.
89 …I was 25. There was this gig in Paris with My bloody valentine and happy mondays on the same bill at le New morning. I was there with a lot of friends who were there mostly for the valentines. I came from a rock background. The bands were late and as we were waiting patiently they started to play T-coy, A guy called Gerald, sounds of the North compilation and early 808 state. We were drowned in fumes and lights and I was : woah! This music! What’s that? All my friends hated it. They were ‘what’s this shit? Can’t see anything, it’s so loud’ but me well … at that time it was very hard to find UK imports in France. So a few months later still in 89 I headed up north to Manchester (I was already an ACR, New order guy) and buy “deepville/Let yourself go” in Eastern bloc by the hand of Graham Massey himself. We talk a little bit and he even invited me to follow them to a rave where they were playing dj sets the same day. I bring some 40 12 inches with me (early Warp, dream frequency …).
Happy mondays stole the show that night but Bez came back on the scene when the valentines were playing and danced with them. During the mondays set all of the valentines were also on one side of the stage, dancing.
Manchester vibes in the area. Copies of the 808 sunset radio mixes were treasured possessions to us when friends brought them back from college in the holidays. Many are now collated here along with some more up to date mixes. We used to love the ads and kids voices used in them, made a change from London pirates
At school a couple of mates told me about pirate radio. We lived not far from Crystal Palace where a lot of the pirates were broadcasting from.
I started listening to JFM and Horizon which was my introduction to soul, funk, jazz funk and disco.
Then a bit later (1983?) my mate Mark started to record the electro and hip hop shows on Invicta and LWR and we would go round his after school and listen to the tapes.
The first house records I heard didn’t make much of an impression on me but by the time I heard Adonis - No Way Back and Mr. Fingers - Can You Feel It I was hooked.
Yes!! I bought House Hallucinates and it blew my mind. It had Phuture Acid Trax on it I think? Lent it to a someone and it came back with one of the 12’s missing grrrr!
