First acid house track you ever heard

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Growing Up In England in the 70s or 80s. just reminded me.

If you were around the UK in the late 80s, the arival of acid house was a cultural event, maybe as earth-shattering as punk was a generation earlier.

What was the first acid track you heard? And what was your response.

For example, the first time I knew about acid house was reading a review in (I think) "Music Technology" magazine of Baby Ford's Ooochy Koochie. The review went something along the lines of "synthesizers come, synthesizers go, not always in tune, nothing really changes ... it could end up your record of the year." I was immedietely intrigued.

A couple of weeks later, my friend stuck it on a compilation tape he was making for me, and it did, indeed end up one of my favourite tunes of the time.

So, how did the whole thing hit you back in the 80s?

― phil jones (interstar), Friday, 8 April 2005 15:25 (twenty years ago)

stakker humanoid.

fuck.

even now i get shivers ooop me spine with this ..

― mark e (mark e), Friday, 8 April 2005 15:32 (twenty years ago)

How would I know?

― The Sensational Sulk (sexyDancer), Friday, 8 April 2005 15:37 (twenty years ago)

It didn't, really. It was just another sound in all the hubbub I was getting to grips with as a teenager. By the time I started being interested in dance music, it was late 88 and I was more into Todd Terry. Han

I suppose I ought to be able to remember the first time I heard that squelchy noise, but I don't.

I remember hearing Chicago House for the first time a year or two previously (in the shape of a House Sound of Chicago tape my sister had, plus of course 'Jack Your Body' et al. being in the charts) much more vividly. I thought it was rubbish. "He just says 'Jack' in one ear and then the other!" said rockist 13-year-old me.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 8 April 2005 15:39 (twenty years ago)

I have no conscious memory of hearing it. Like the hoover/mentasm sound it was just something to slowly slipped into my listening and became ubiquitous without really realizing it. And it was years before I even knew what people were calling this stuff. It was all just rave music to me.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 8 April 2005 15:42 (twenty years ago)

I have no idea either. Whatever they were playing on Chicago late-night radio back in '87.

― ()ops (()()ps), Friday, 8 April 2005 15:44 (twenty years ago)

I really don't think the arrival of acid house was that huge a cultural event. Or at least it didn't seem so at the time, unless you were part of a very small group of clubbers. The rave scene generally, yeah, as it unfurled musically and culturally over the next few years, but it wasn't like acid house was a huge big bang.

I think of those 1987 pioneers as being like the swinging, free love set in the 60s - much smaller scale than history is now painting them. Most of the nation didn't start letting their hair down till the 70s, just like rave culture didn't really impact widely until the 90s.

Maybe punk was like that too. I dunno. Perhaps I'm talking through my hat.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 8 April 2005 15:48 (twenty years ago)

I think it was probably "We call it acieed" by D-Mob, or "Acid Man" by Jolly Roger, which both went into the chart on the same week as I remember. I don't knowingly remember anything before that. The week it charted was quite a big cultural event I think, what with the Sun's smiley T-shirts and so on.

I thought both these tracks were great. I don't really know why; it was a bit like jungle a number of years later; it just seemed like good fun.

― Keefy (kmw), Friday, 8 April 2005 15:52 (twenty years ago)

I have no idea either. Strangely, when I think of late 80's acid house, one of the first tracks I think of is Maurice -- "This Is Acid", which talks about acid house but isn't really an acid house track (no 303, but lots of sirens and euphoria -- it's more of a proto-rave track).

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Friday, 8 April 2005 15:52 (twenty years ago)

I just discovered this stuff a little over a year or ago! I love it though. "Acid Tracks."

― Lethal Dizzle (djdee2005), Friday, 8 April 2005 15:53 (twenty years ago)

I back Stakker Humanoid too. It hit all the right buttons. I used to do a lot of acid before acid house came along though, so I must have already been primed.

― snotty moore, Friday, 8 April 2005 15:54 (twenty years ago)

I was 13 and just getting into synth-y, dance-y stuff when one of the local Royal Air Force kids lent me a copy of "That's What I Call Music (Volume: Fuck Me If Can Remember)" on cassette. This particular edition had "We Call It Acieeed" and "The Only Way Is Up" on it, the former of which pretty much blew my tiny teenaged mind. I didn't hear "real" house or techno for a while, but those two tracks started me on the path.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Friday, 8 April 2005 15:56 (twenty years ago)

Ah, the "K & T" mix, which is like the best Todd Terry record that Todd Terry never made. (It's an obvious cop of his production style.) The b-side had a couple of more obviously "acid" mixes.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Friday, 8 April 2005 15:58 (twenty years ago)

A quick check of my record reveals that you're correct, and have a better memory than I do.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Friday, 8 April 2005 16:02 (twenty years ago)

A quick check of my record reveals that you're correct, and have a better memory than I do.

Sadly, I can only remember useless music trivia.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Friday, 8 April 2005 16:10 (twenty years ago)

my answer is exactly the same as Keefy's

― $V£N! (blueski), Friday, 8 April 2005 16:10 (twenty years ago)

It was Phuture's "Acid Trax".

― donut debonair (donut), Friday, 8 April 2005 16:19 (twenty years ago)

It was 87 or 88 and I read an article about this thing going on in England called "Acid House" and my parents were going there on a trip so I said in my bratty high school way, "Bring me back an acid house record" so that I would know what was up. They brought back a Todd Terry album under the name Royal House called "Can You Party?", and a dayglo acid house t-shirt! Score!

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Friday, 8 April 2005 16:23 (twenty years ago)

I have a very clear memory of Acid Man by Jolly Roger being in the charts. No video, no band photo. On the Chart show rundown they just showed a picture of the label.

― everything, Friday, 8 April 2005 16:25 (twenty years ago)

Does anyone remember the Personics make-your-own-mix-cassette-tape machines they had in record stores in the late 80s? You could preview a few seconds of each track before adding it to your mix cassette tape.. it was the cassette version of iTunes 15 years before the fact..

Anyway, I discovered Todd Terry in '89 because the machine had "Bango" on it, so I went and bought the To The Batmobile Let's Go CD, and hence that was probably my first acid house album purchase. This was after buying Bomb The Bass's Into The Dragon, S'Express's Original Soundtrack, and Coldcut's What's That Noise? [UK], which were acid-related, but not really acid house albums, per se.

The first acid house song I got addicted to was the Fluffy Bagel mix of S'Express's "Superfly Guy"...

(Though, back in late '87 or so, I had heard the Phuture track though on Los Angeles's KROQ's friday night dance show with The Swedish Egil, hence the first acid track I ever heard.)

― donut debonair (donut), Friday, 8 April 2005 16:29 (twenty years ago)

I'm not even sure I know what acid house is anymore (did I ever?)

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 8 April 2005 16:32 (twenty years ago)

Bomb The Bass's Into The Dragon, S'Express's Original Soundtrack, and Coldcut's What's That Noise?

Classic, classic, and super-mega-ultra-classic.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Friday, 8 April 2005 17:22 (twenty years ago)

Actually, I take all that back.

The first acid house track I ever heard was Donna Summer's "Our Love" when i was 9 years old.

― donut debonair (donut), Friday, 8 April 2005 18:04 (twenty years ago)

I was at the Box the night Ron Hardy got a reel to reel copy from Pierre.

― Disco Nihilist (mjt), Friday, 8 April 2005 21:45 (twenty years ago)

I was at the Box the night Ron Hardy got a reel to reel copy from Pierre.

Wait - you were there? SHARE.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Friday, 8 April 2005 21:48 (twenty years ago)

drew, yr parents sound pretty cool!

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 8 April 2005 21:52 (twenty years ago)

Jolly Roger - Acid Man

I still love that cheesy track. But it was Humanoid which really blew my mind.

I discovered the Chicago acid a few months after that - it was quite a while before I heard the Phuture track. I got hold of all those early acid comps, like Acido Amigo etc. The killer on that record was 'Rock This Party Right' by Cool House featuring Tyree. What happened to Tyree??

― moley, Friday, 8 April 2005 22:06 (twenty years ago)

Humanoid was good on Top of the Pops. I seem to remember two dancer guys doing backflips, like Phil Fearon out of Galaxy.

― KeefW (kmw), Friday, 8 April 2005 22:07 (twenty years ago)

I hear the clip was good too? Fairlight videosynthesizer action? I never saw it.

― moley, Friday, 8 April 2005 22:14 (twenty years ago)

Me neither unfortunately.

― KeefW (kmw), Friday, 8 April 2005 22:16 (twenty years ago)

I'm pretty sure it was "This Is Acid" on John Peel. One of the properly Acidic mixes mentioned above. I giggled a lot and then realised I'd heard the greatest thing ever.

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Friday, 8 April 2005 22:18 (twenty years ago)

You know, I've got a memory of the Triffids doing something acid housey on John Peel around '88. Did my brain make this up? Probably; it seems rather improbable. Does anyone know?

― KeefW (kmw), Friday, 8 April 2005 22:19 (twenty years ago)

D.Mob - "We Call it Aceeeeid", heard on CBC radio's Brave New Waves sometime in '88 or '89.

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Friday, 8 April 2005 22:24 (twenty years ago)

Depends on what you define as Acid. "Jack Your Body" was the first house track I heard, but that one certainly wasn't acid. By the time I heard "We Call It Aceeeeid", house was way established, and even though I hated it I had kind of gotten used to it. It took me 15 years to find any value in that stuff :-)

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 8 April 2005 22:26 (twenty years ago)

Probably 808 State's "Pacific" (which isn't that heavy on acid) or "Acid Tracks."

― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Friday, 8 April 2005 23:44 (twenty years ago)

i bought this at a Camelot music in 1988:
http://www.geocities.com/scottpurkiss/music/assets/images/house_hallucinates.gif
pretty much blew my mind at the time. took me a year to really figure out what the hell the music was about.

now, it's been awhile since i've heard it, but if i remember correctly (and i swear i've already claimed this on another thread), "We Call It Acieeed" doesn't actually have any real acid on it, does it?

― heywood jablomi (heywood), Saturday, 9 April 2005 02:26 (twenty years ago)

my first acid song was bros "i quit" (acid mix)then eighth wonder "dusted ".my fave was d-mob'we call it acieeed"

― matt and luke, Saturday, 9 April 2005 03:39 (twenty years ago)

I can't remember what was the first acid house record I heard, but at the time me and my friends thought acid house sounded like the most exciting thing ever, although the reality of it was infinitely far from our experience. I remember us all sitting around in '89 or so wearing our Zeus jeans with the 18" flares and pretending we'd been to raves. There was some girl down the street and they dared me to go up to her so I went up to her holding a packet of strepsils and asked her if she wanted to buy any acid. She said she didn't so I asked her if she wanted to go to MacDonalds instead but she wasn't up for that either. Then we got somebody's elder brother to get us some Buckfast and went and drunk it in the cemetery while listening to "This is ska" and "Swan Lake" on somebody's boombox. Those were the days.

― Jacob (Jacob), Saturday, 9 April 2005 08:40 (twenty years ago)

I remember when acid house hit the mainstream U.S. market in 1990 or so.. there were some great remixes. One of them? Acid house remix of Debbie Gibson's "Electric Youth" (the single) Shit you not, one of the best dance tracks of that year.

― donut debonair (donut), Saturday, 9 April 2005 08:47 (twenty years ago)

First "proper" acid house track, i.e. not counting stuff like "We call it acieeed" was probably "Dream Girl" by Pierre's Phuture Pfantasy Club. Also that Fluffy Bagel mix of S'express someone mentioned above.

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Saturday, 9 April 2005 09:28 (twenty years ago)

I remember the stuff leading up to Acid House much better than anything which was actually called Acid House. I bought 'Jack Your Body', 'Pump Up The Volume', 'Theme From S-Express', 'Doctorin' The House' (Coldcut/Yazz) as a 13/14 year old, and they were all big hits. I can remember hearing a report on Capital Radio in the summer of 1988 about the crazy new acid house scene in London's clubs, which was mostly positive, but did mention danger drug ecstasy. Then I can remember a few months later when it suddenly exploded over the front pages and they were smiley acid t-shirts all over the place, but I don't remember hearing any of the music - by late 88 I was turning into a teenage indie kid so I missed out on all of that.

― The Horse of Babylon's Butler (the pirate king), Saturday, 9 April 2005 09:36 (twenty years ago)

Probably Humanoid here too - mainly because unlike most acieed stuff*, it was actually released here, by IIRC low-budge shonk-merchant licensing outfit with great taste Possum Records. first I ever heard of it was in a dance music primer in the local version of Smash Hits tho! Your pre-teen guide to House, Hip-Hop, Hi-NRG and Acid House. Them were the fucking days.

*apart from the biggest pop hits, eg S-Express, D-Mob, &-Cetera

― kit brash (kit brash), Saturday, 9 April 2005 11:17 (twenty years ago)

Tricky Disco, oh the blipping joyz!

or Cubik maybe.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Saturday, 9 April 2005 13:15 (twenty years ago)

Rhythm Device "Acid Rock" (more new beat than proper acid though?)

― Siegbran (eofor), Saturday, 9 April 2005 16:09 (twenty years ago)

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