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-- Amazing new discovery in the early house/ acid house music history
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quote:

Originally posted by nefardec I know it's blowing your mind, but every time I hear someone described 303 squelch as 'acid', i have to cringe at their pedestrian ignorance. It's like when someone hears any 4/4 beat and call it 'techno'.

So, what do you think the common element that unites acid house, acid techno and acid trance is then?

ecstasy

It's not really well known where exactly the term came from, I've always heard the whole "reminiscent of acid rock - so let's call it acid house" bit.

Wikipedia has some good info on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_h...ogy_of_the_term

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec I know it's blowing your mind, but every time I hear someone described 303 squelch as 'acid', i have to cringe at their pedestrian ignorance. It's like when someone hears any 4/4 beat and call it 'techno'.

That's because you're an insufferable purist wanker who desperately wants to wrap up the music you like in esoteric knowledge to make it more exclusive. Acid house must have some hastily bullshitted essence that no average joe would spot. Or wait... is it actually a cultural movement? Who cares, as long as you can assuage yourself with the thought that you know way more about house music than the trendy dickheads charting this Ten Ragas track on RA, right?

And nothing you're saying is blowing my mind. I'd expect nothing less.

quote:

And it's not about relabeling tracks. Since when does music need to be dogmatically compartmentalized like this? What is the purpose of relabeling music in this way? In many cases early house and techno are not easily discernable or cannot be discerned as unique styles.

Point is that if your definition is correct and widely understood, half the dance music ever made would probably be labelled "acid" from 1987 onwards. Strangely enough, only tracks dominated by the 303 get dubbed as such.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J That's because you're an insufferable purist wanker who desperately wants to wrap up the music you like in esoteric knowledge to make it more exclusive. Acid house must have some hastily bullshitted essence that no average joe would spot. Or wait... is it actually a cultural movement? Who cares, as long as you can assuage yourself with the thought that you know way more about house music than the trendy dickheads charting this Ten Ragas track on RA, right? And nothing you're saying is blowing my mind. I'd expect nothing less.

believe me, all the insufferable purist wankery is on your end, trying to define define define according to a pure notion that has no basis in reality, that is, that the sound of a tb-303 with filter and resonance is called 'acid', without any supporting evidence to your claim, in the face of several primary source accounts that disprove your argument.

and you're the one trying to exclude a lot of great acid tracks from your puritanical scheme.

now you are really grasping at straws - your last defense is to accuse of me self aggrandizement simply because I am defending a position about the discussion we're both having.

the problem is not one of the 'essence' of acid house. it's the naming. the word has come to be associated with the sound, though it was not in origin. yet if you talk to any old school raver or historian of electronic music or detroit/chicago dj/producer from that era, they will reiterate over and over that acid was more than a sound, it was a whole movement, and the sound was its battle cry. it's not about elitism. it's just that the acid sound is so recognizable and brandable, that it has outlasted the movement itself.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Point is that if your definition is correct and widely understood, half the dance music ever made would probably be labelled "acid" from 1987 onwards. Strangely enough, only tracks dominated by the 303 get dubbed as such.

it is correct, it's NOT widely understood, for the same reason you can play a deep house track or a drum and bass track to most americans and they will say it's techno.

and it's also the same reason people say 'ATM machine' or 'PIN number'. a combination of convenience and ignorance.

actually your point about half of dance music ever made is a good point. acid house changed all dance music forever, and its germ replicates itself in nearly everything since.

quote:

Originally posted by Domesticated So, what do you think the common element that unites acid house, acid techno and acid trance is then?

acid techno and acid trance all come from the same conceptual planet and share many of the same mechanical production techniques, and yes, instruments.

people do tend to have more of a 303 fetish in those scenes, but again, all of the same conventions i described about acid house appear in these derivations.

I always thought it was just literally about LSD.

quote:

Originally posted by enydo I always thought it was just literally about LSD.

my thoughts exactly. or freebase.

is this acid?


i think it is, still no 303, 909 or even 808.

[[ LINK REMOVED ]]

quote:

Originally posted by Domesticated Strings of Life: - 808? I think it uses this, but then most tracks at the time did. - Rhythm? Strings of Life has no percussion or bassline. - Minimalism? Perhaps for its time, at a stretch. - Militant cadence? Not at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. - Vocals? None. - Alien sense of authority? Not at all. Again, the opposite. It's full of soul. If you're going to make a believable argument, you'll have to be a lot more consistent. Which characteristics do you think qualify Strings of Life as acid house, even though I just debunked everything you said previously?

i didn't set out to a make a believable argument, i set out to make a true argument.

first of all, i don't think you've ever heard the song.maybe you've heard 'strings of the strings of life', which is an acapella. did you ever wonder why it was called 'rhythim is rhythim'?



808 - check
rhythm - absolutely
militant snare cadence - check
minimalism - check (minimal doesn't mean quiet, btw)
vocals - it's not there are vocals, it's that IF there are vocals, they are cut up as samples, and used as rhythmic sound objects. in this case, the 'voice' is the piano.
alien sense of authority - i disagree. it's certainly alien, certainly like an unidentified sound object. except these aliens are like the aliens in the 5th element, with a message of hope and life for all mankind.

ive actually yet to hear cool tracks using roland equipment only (samplers not taken to consideration).

quote:

Originally posted by enydo I always thought it was just literally about LSD.

well that's certainly probably where the word comes from, and one reason why it stuck.

but the discussion comes from whether a track with a beat and a 303 is automatically 'acid house', as SYSTEM J contents. That would mean the raga disco stuff is 'acid house'.

My contention is that acid house was a cultural movement, and its music has a broader definition, and that because it was cultural in nature, only something connected to the movement can be acid house. since the raga disco record was developed independently, it's just an electronic dance track with a 303 in it.

some might get a clue where i got all my oldschool house references from now lol.

im with nefardec on this one, acid is alot more than just a 303. 303 came in later imo. and made it suck.

josh wink - higher state is probably the least acid track ive ever heard.

quote:

Originally posted by clay is this acid?

maybe acid techno. but it doesn't jack enough. acid pops rhythmically


this is acid techno



and it's a great example because it shows how it is the rhythm and the modulation technique are the foundation of acid, not the specific result of the sound or instrument, though the sound in general is electronic, rough, unadultered, alien.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec now you are really grasping at straws - your last defense is to accuse of me self aggrandizement simply because I am defending a position about the discussion we're both having.

I don't really need a "defence" because your position is self-contradictory and quite evidently being made up on the spot. Acid is a movement. No, it's a genre. Here are the characteristics. Here's a track that doesn't fit them that apparently could be called acid. It's a joke, and it's more interesting to figure why I'm being subjected to it.

You want a basis in "reality" (whatever the fuck that means in this discussion)? Is John McCready ignorant? He was writing about acid house in 1988 and was the first British journalist to write about Detroit techno. I'd say he qualifies as an "electronic music historian", so let's see what he has to say:

quote:

The great Marshall Jefferson once told me that nobody in Chicago could get anything out of this silver machine so someone came up with the solution of taking the batteries out, putting them back in, switching 303 on and seeing what happened. That could explain a lot of the nonsensical, impossible genius of early acid. The batteries story is probably bollocks but, then again, pre-1987 you�d have died of shock had you heard someone strolling down the street whistling �Acid Tracks�. As a result of records like this the 303 became known as the acid machine. Acid, put simply, is the sound made by a constantly repeating pattern modulated with the little knobs on the top of the machine so it becomes more bassy, then extreme or squelchy and distorted. Most of the great acid records consist of a drum pattern and someone twisting these knobs round for an hour or two. Boring now, I know, but it sounded like all hell was being let loose back then. The fact that the 303 died a creative death several years back did not however stop Josh Wink from making a career out of shaking his fake dreads around, hunched over a 303 treating us to the house equivalent of a sad metal guitar solo.

http://www.rocksbackpages.com/artic...?ArticleID=4686

Or how about DJ Pierre himself?

quote:

"The acid squiggle was there to start with," Pierre has said. "The machine already had that crazy acid sound in it that you were supposed to erase and put your own in..."

From Simon Reynolds - Generation Ecstasy. You can find it on Google Books. Take a wild guess at which machine he's referring to.

True argument fo' real.

quote:

Originally posted by clay im with nefardec on this one, acid is alot more than just a 303. 303 came in later imo. and made it suck.

303 was always around but the sound of tb303 became like a fetish and people started clinging to it. not unlike the wobble of dubstep.

meh plastikman and his 808 sux, i wouldnt call that house at all. belongs to hip hop breakdance tracks but his stuff is just detroit techno or something. acid needs a hook imo.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J

finally.


but i still don't see how you've proved anything given that i've already presented a lot of sources from others besides mccready that contradict that.


and you yourself discredited phuture.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J EDIT: And of course Phuture were crap. That's the whole reason their story is more memorable, because they're a classic example of something being discovered by absolute incompetent luck.

who knows if they would have had another machine they would have created acid with that too. after all, they were just turning knobs, right?

quote:

Originally posted by clay meh plastikman and his 808 sux, i wouldnt call that house at all. belongs to hip hop breakdance tracks but his stuff is just detroit techno or something. acid needs a hook imo.

i didn't. i said 'acid techno'.

oh ok. i call it minimal.

this is from the official plastikman bio

http://www.facebook.com/PlastikmanOfficial?sk=info

btw he used a 909

quote:

PLASTIKMAN is the main recording identity for Richie Hawtin (aka Plastikman, FUSE, Circuit Breaker, From Within to name a few). Since his debut as States of Mind and FUSE in 1990 to the launch of Plastikman in 1992, his sound has developed through early connotations of acidic techno and extreme levels of energy (1993's 'Spastik') to sonic experiments in futuristic-rhythms and off-world ambience (1998's 'Consumed' LP). More minimal approaches were evident through his year long 12-record project 'Concept 1' from 1996. His recording attention is matched head-on by his groundbreaking DJ performances, which incorporate turntables, effects processors and additional instruments (the 909 drum machine and Roland SH-101 synthesizer). His world-renown enhanced DJ set-up of DECKS, EFX & 909 has kept pushing the boundaries of what a DJ can do by increasing the potential of creativity through once again, technology.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec but the discussion comes from whether a track with a beat and a 303 is automatically 'acid house', as SYSTEM J contents. That would mean the raga disco stuff is 'acid house'.

That's not what I'm contenting, or contending, at all. Strawman any harder? I'm saying the 303, particularly the tweaked 303, is acid. A track can contain acid without being "acid house", which is why genres like acid techno, acid trance and acid breaks exist. In all of these cases, the TB-303 is the predominant sound. So a trance record predominantly using the 303 would be acid trance. You can also get acid cropping up in genres not named "acid" at all. Any track can contain an acid section or an acid riff, but unless the acid is the focal point of the track it's highly unlikely to be dubbed "acid [whatever]".

Ten Ragas is not acid house because it's not house. It also doesn't predominantly feature the 303. The 303 is pretty secondary. It doesn't rewrite acid house history because it quite obviously had no influence on the use of TB-303s in the Chicago house scene.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec and you yourself discredited phuture.

As musicians, you utter fuckwit.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J That's not what I'm contenting, or contending, at all. Strawman any harder? I'm saying the 303, particularly the tweaked 303, is acid.

ok, fair enough, still wrong. by this you definition you would have to call the track something ridiculous like 'bollyacid' or 'carnatic acid' or 'indo-acid'

look at the purist calling the kettle purist.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Ten Ragas is not acid house because it's not house. It also doesn't predominantly feature the 303. The 303 is pretty secondary.

no, it's definitely the first thing you notice about it.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J It doesn't rewrite acid house history because it quite obviously had no influence on the use of TB-303s in the Chicago house scene.

There you go, you said acid house history depends on the use of tb-303 is in the chicago house scene. thanks, that is what i've contented all along.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J And seriously? You think Spastik is acid techno?

yes,and so does richie hawtin

honest question:

why do you think several of the tracks on the soul jazz record were included even though they don't have TB303, and thus supposedly aren't acid. didn't that ever confuse you?


this is a record with a big fucking "ACID" written on it. And it's a "definitive" set.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec ok, fair enough, still wrong. by this you definition you would have to call the track something ridiculous like 'bollyacid' or 'carnatic acid' or 'indo-acid'

I've no idea what genre that shit is supposed to be in the first place, but I quite like "Acid Raga".

quote:

There you go, you said acid house history depends on the use of tb-303 is in the chicago house scene. thanks, that is what i've contented all along.

I think you need to read back on what we've actually been arguing about.

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