Acid Tracks

"Acid Tracks" is a 1987 acid house song by Phuture produced by Marshall Jefferson and released by Trax Records. Phuture consisted of Nathan Pierre Jones, better known as DJ Pierre and Earl Smith Jr. (known as "Spanky") and Herbert Jackson. Jones had been interested in developing dance music and became superficially interested in house music after Spanky had taken him to see DJ Ron Trent perform in Chicago. The trio began developing tracks without finding anything that they felt was satisifying, Jones had heard a track made on the unpopular Roland TB-303 bass machine, which led the group purchasing one.

"Acid Tracks"
Single by Phuture
B-side"Phuture Jacks", "Your Only Friend"
Released1987 (1987)
GenreAcid house
LabelTrax
Songwriter(s)Herbert J, DJ Pierre, Earl "Spanky" Smith Jr.
Producer(s)Marshall Jefferson
Phuture singles chronology
"Acid Tracks"
(1987)		 "We Are Phuture"
(1988)

In 1985, the group developed a track initially known as "In Your Mind" that they gave to Ron Trent to listen to. Trent listened to the whole track and agree to play it for them at a club called Music Box. Initially, the audience was not receptive but as the night grew longer, the track was played over three times and on the fourth went over very well with the audience. The track was becoming bootlegged as "Ron Trent's Acid Track" leading to Phuture to seek out a way to release it on vinyl. The group connected with Marshall Jefferson, who was working for Trax Records at the time and already had a popular house music song with "Move Your Body". Jefferson assisted them with the recording by slowing down the beats per minute on the song and suggesting a vocal change on the b-side "Your Only Friend". Following the tracks release in 1987, hundreds of tracks in the acid house style were made and released in the next few years. The tracks popularity expanded outside Chicago and led to a rise of popularity in the United Kingdom leading to the press to describe an acid house scene as early as 1988.

Development

Background
"Acid Tracks" was developed through experimentation on the Roland TB-303

Nathan Pierre Jones, better known as DJ Pierre, grew up in a musical family in Chicago suburb of University Park. He played drums and clarinet in school bands before getting into DJing and scratch mixing. [1] Pierre stated he initially became interested in music through DJing and mixing by listening to the radio show Hot Mix 5, specifically the episodes hosted by Farley "Jackmaster" Funk, and wanted to become a radio DJ.[2][3] Jones mainly was predominantly making break-dancing music but changed styles after Spanky took him to a club called the Music Box where DJ Ron Hardy performed.[1] Jones described it as being "baptized into real house music by going there, I'd never seen anyone yell for a DJ before Ron Hardy. I mean, they were screaming his name. People were so passionate that they would start crying.”[1]

As Phuture, Jones, Earl Smith Jr. (known as "Spanky") and Herbert Jackson began experimenting with songs but not being satisfied with any basslines they developed.[3][1] Jones heard a friends track and was inspired by his bassline he created, and learned it was developed on a Roland TB-303, a machine initially designed to provide an automatic bass accompaniment for solo guitarists.[3][2] Jones recalled that Spanky had found the TB-303 at a second-hand shop for about $40 while Spanky recollected that he his initial search for the machine had no result until he found it second hand for $200 which he "spend [his] last dime on."[4] Following the purchase of the equipment, the group began experimenting on their first tracks.[3]

Production

Work began on the track in late 1985, with Phuture members Herb and Spanky making the 303 produced a bleeping noise which then led to Jones working on the machine, stating he "started turning the knobs up and tweaking it just like [Herb and Spanky] were."[2][5] Spanky recollected that the group was pressing a button that was supposed to sound like a live bass guitar, but the imitation was poor and afterwards "began pushing buttons [he] didn't understand."[6] Encouraged by his bandmates, Jones kept experimenting with the sound.[5] When experimenting with the machine, Jones recalled that he "wanted to make something that sounded like things I'd hear in the Music Box, or I heard Farley play on the radio" and that "when we made "Acid Tracks", that was an accident. It was just ignorance, basically. Now knowing how to work the damn 303."[2]

The group thought about all which DJs in Chicago might be open to the track and felt that only Ron Hardy would as Jones knew he played a lot of different sounds.[7] In comparison, Jones felt that a DJ like Frankie Knuckles was an "amazing DJ but he was strictly house, strictly piano, strings."[7] They took a cassette tape of the track to the Music Box for Ron Hardy to play. They waited outside the club for two hours before giving it to him, believing that "he was the man. If he said he loved something, that was it. But if Ron Hardy had said he didn't like it, that would have been the end of acid."[5] According to Jones, Hardy listened to the whole 30 minute tape and did not say anything while listening to it.[1] Jones recalled that Phuture "were worried, because he didn’t give us any indication that he liked it... and so we were just quiet. When it faded out he looked over at us and said, "When can I get a copy?""[1]

Jones recalled that when "Acid Tracks" was first played by Hardy everyone left the dance floor leaving the group to think "OK, I guess he won't be ever playin' that ever again."[5] Hardy played the song throughout the night getting a slightly better reaction each time and by the fourth play around 4am the audience was more responsive.[5] Jones recalled that "People were dancing upside down. This guy was on his back, kicking his legs in the air. It was like, "wow!""[5] When originally conceived, the track was titled "In Your Mind".[5] The track began regularly played in Hardy’s DJ sets with fans resorting to bootlegging it on microcassette recorders.[8] These fans began calling the track "Ron Hardy's Acid Track," leading to the tracks title change.[8][5] On the new title, Jones recollected that he was "very innocent" and was unfamiliar with the drug acid, recalling that "sometimes things will go right over my head. I was like, acid makes a gritty sound. Like you know, you have battery acid, you’d always see the sign “acid” and then they show somebody pouring something out of a tube onto metal and be melting it. And I thought, okay, this thing is gritty. It’s like acidic! It’s a tough sound! So that’s what I thought. "[7] The relationship with the song and drug culture led to the group developing the track "Your Only Friend", a song with anti-drug lyrics which Jones recalled "didn’t even get across like that, people literally, in Chicago, would go get their drugs when that song came on. And I was thinking, Oh crap, you guys, I’m trying to tell you something."[7]

Re-recording and release

Unsure on how to release the track as a record, Phuture tried to reach out to Marshall Jefferson.[7] Jefferson was a house music producer who had already established himself as a star of the scene with tracks like "Move Your Body".[8] Marshall Jefferson was performing “Move Your Body” at a club called Power House in Chicago and I wrote a note on a piece of paper stating "My name is DJ Pierre. I'm in a group called Phuture, and we did a track called "Acid Tracks", and Ron Hardy has been playing this track off a reel. Could you help up make a record?"[5] The group was in front of a stage where Marshall was performing "Move Your Body" trying to pass him the note. House producer Curtis McClain eventually took the note and passed it on to Jefferson.[5]

Jefferson had recently taken over as the A&R at Trax Records after Vince Lawrence left the label[9] and agreed to help and had mix the track, suggesting them to slow it down considerably as the original track was around 130 beats per minute and felt that New York audiences would be get into it more if it was slowed down to about 120.[5] Initially the group did not want the track slowed down, which Jefferson responded that if the DJ wanted to play it faster, they would speed up the record.[3] Jones So, you know, we listened, slowed it down to 120. According to Jones, Jefferson's contributions to the track were limited to "setting levels and stuff. But as far as producing, he didn’t add any new sounds to it or anything like that."[3] Marshall also suggested changes to the track "Your Only Friend" having Spanky do the vocals instead of Jones and added harmonizer to make the voice deeper.[3] Jefferson recollected on the recording stating that he "I sat in the studio and watched them" and that he Larry Sherman of Trax did not want to put the record out unless [Jefferson] produced it. Since I recommended the project, I wanted to make sure it got taken care of."[6] "Acid Tracks" was released in 1987 under the name Phuture.[8][6] Spanky said the groups name came when their friend Tyrone was sitting with them in a restaurant and suggested the name "Future".[6] Concerned that the bands name was already used, the trio decided to call themselves Phuture.[6] The members of Phuture were payed $1500 from Trax and were unaware of the tracks popularity outside the Chicago area. Jones looked back on this payment stating “it kick-started our careers, so I never look back and complain. I state the fact that Trax is the most crooked label on the planet. But good came of it. Phuture was born, and DJ Pierre was here to stay.”[10] "Acid Trax" was followed up with the single "We Are Phuture" in 1988.[11][12]

Reception and legacy

Phuture pioneered a sound which would later be known as acid house, derived from the track's title.[2][5] The style itself being known for the distinctive sounds made from the Roland TB-303 bassline machine.[13] Following the physical release of "Acid Tracks", countless acid house tracks were released, with Jefferson accounting to this that Jones had revealed that the Roland TB-303 was the key instrument to the track.[6] In their over view of the genre, Dummy magazine sated that between 1987 and 1988 countless acid house tracks were made and that "the brilliant tracks made in this brief period number into their hundreds."[14]

Outside of Chicago, "Acid Tracks" was also spun several times in the United Kingdom at clubs like Shoom in London and the Hacienda in Manchester.[8] By 1988, the British press had began describing an "acid house" scene in the United Kingdom.[8] Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton, authors of Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, stated that this scene however had many listeners "ignorant of any distinctions", leading acid house to become shorthand for any house music and techno tracks becoming a blanket term in Britain for new electronic dance music.[13][15] Matt Black, British DJ of Coldcut described tracks such as "Acid Tracks" and "Nude Photo" "Your Love" and "Move Your Body" having "a phenomenal impact" and that "Even straight away you realised that here was a new form of energy that has materialised."[16] British DJ Dave Dorrell recalled that "Acid Tracks" and Armando's "Frequency" and "Land of Confusion" were the first acid house records he got his hands on stating that "acid house was so far out there that it was beyond anything. There were no direction signs."[17]

From retrospective reviews, Micah Salkind in their book Do You Remember House? declared "Acid Tracks" as eventually becoming "One of Trax Records's most iconic releases".[9] John Bush of AllMusic gave the release a four and a half star rating out of five, referring to it as an "incredibly raw cut [...] Still, the superb acid squelch, ripe for the picking by DJs across the world, continued to impress long after the first hundred or so "covers" and answer records flooded the dance racks."[18]

Track listing

12" single (TX142)[19]

  1. "Acid Tracks"
  2. "Phuture Jacks"
  3. "Your Only Friend"

Credits

Credits adapted from the singles label sticker.[19]

  • Marshall Jefferson – producer, mixing
  • DJ Pierre – writer
  • Spanky – writer (on "Acid Tracks" and "Phuture Jacks")
  • Herbert J – writer (on "Acid Tracks" and "Phuture Jacks")
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References

Footnotes
  1. Arnold 2015.
  2. Brewster & Broughton 2014, p. 335.
  3. DJ Pierre.
  4. Lawrence 2005, p. 3.
  5. Brewster & Broughton 2014, p. 336.
  6. Arnold 2015, p. 4.
  7. Saxelby 2014.
  8. Glazer 2017.
  9. Salkind 2018, p. 131.
  10. Whitehurst 2014.
  11. Bush, John. "Phuture Biography". AllMusic. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
  12. "We Are Phuture". AllMusic. Retrieved August 13, 2020.
  13. Brewster & Broughton 2014, p. 399.
  14. Saxelby 2012.
  15. Brewster & Broughton 2014, p. 400.
  16. Brewster & Broughton 2014, p. 401.
  17. Brewster & Broughton 2014, p. 402.
  18. Bush.
  19. Acid Tracks (label and sleeve). Phuture. Trax Records. 1987. TX142.CS1 maint: others (link)

Sources
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