A Beginner's Guide To Acid House

According to a recent poll three out of four young people under the age of twenty have never heard of Acid House. In fact House music itself is about as fashionable and popular as Morris dancing at the moment. Not ones to shy away from our musical and historical heritage here at  one million sunsets 808, we present: A Beginner’s Guide to the Acieeeeeed Phenomenon.

1.)    Frankie Knuckles and Larry Levan, the Godfathers of Acid House, had been friends since their teens and began going out clubbing in Manhattan together. Their first job was at The Gallery preparing ginger bread biscuits for the doormen (It is a little known fact that New York doormen subsist on gingerbread throughout the year to stave off the Yips). They famously made one little ginger bread man with a fat tongue who later went on to make TV Cookery Shows. His name Jamie Oliver. Knuckes and Levan also invented Apple Macs, Moss and Scientology.

2.)    Before Ron Hardy DJ-ed at the Music Box he used to be an astronaut. He conceived the famous acid house symbol the ‘smiley face’, by spending far too much time long looking purposefully out of his space shuttle window at the moon’s surface, which according to him was made up of ‘smiley cheese maaaaaaan’.

3.)    ‘The Project’ in Streatham was not actually host to the first Balearic/Acid House gatherings as is assumed. They actually took place at Ms Stoppard’s Guinea Pig Boarding Kennels in Lewisham. The address was later altered to protect the innocent guinea pigs who would be subjected to repetitive bpms and lazer wands. Local Vet Carl ‘Drontal’ Cox allegedly provided the ‘Frontline’ and worming tablets to help things along.

4.)    Mark Moore’s group S’Express would eat old Blue Note and Funkadelic record covers for breakfast to give them their special popjazz power. Shredded up and doused in Lucozade they would subsist on two bowls a day for most of 1988. Moore told the industry publication ‘Cereal Today’ ‘It’s what Blakey would have wanted’.

5.)    Nicky Holloway’s early Acid House club, The Trip used to be full of plastic surgeons on leave from the local hospital. Depending on how much Kestral you plied them with they’d perform a free nose job for you under local anesthetic. At the end of the night the pint pot collectors would have to wade through piles of noses to get to the bar.

6.)    Posho promoter Tony Colston-Hayter, the ‘Mr Big’ of Acid House, used to carve polo hammers from rhino ivory in Kenya until a bizarre accident involving a rogue elephant, a tranquilizer dart and an irate gourd carrier from Wonalirri rendered his carving days obsolete. He worked as a tobacconist for a while until a soothsayer from Ngungunda sayed him some sooths about opening a Marquee full of bandana wearing, pilled up ravers and his future was made.

7.)    Mike Pickering, famous Hacienda spinner, would have after club parties in his garden shed with his collection of ‘Mancunian Rave Gnomes’ bought from the local garden centre. He’d drop Chill Out whilst they fished Kentucky Fried Chicken out of Hooky’s fecund midden. Pickering was responsible for the musical movement ‘Garden Shed’ which eventually morphed into ‘Garage’. The Mancunian Rave Gnomes went on to release several records and enjoy a Top Twenty hit with Step On.

8.)    Frank Sidebottom RIP – the helium voiced papier-mâché freak thing – invented Indie dance; a spin off movement for student virgins who couldn’t actually dance and thought Acid House was for, ‘those kids from the rough estate’. Frank lived in a shoe box next door to Ian Brown and John Squire and on occasion would stand outside their doorstep and busk. His rendition of the Smiths Meat Is Murder mixed with Little Frank’s tap dancing routine, sparked the idea for Fools Gold……..somehow.

9.)    Phuture invented the sound of the Acid ‘Squelch’. Well actually it was in their studio that their cleaner, Mrs Enid Feltcher, came in one day ripped to the tits on Mogadons and Quaaludes, and thinking their mixing desk was actually an electric knitting machine got working. Under the delusion that she was knitting a balaclava for her son Zak she pressed several buttons and Hey Presto! Acid House!

10.) Orbital Raves were invented by Ginsters in order to push supplies from the European Sausage roll and Cornish Pastie Mountain. Hallmark and Road Atlas also provided sponsorship. There was even a Scotch Egg Tsar appointed at one point.