A Guy Called Gerald on Acid House

ACID HOUSE

There's alot online about acid house and I find it really interesting seeing the perception of what is considered to be acid house and how 808 State fitted into the picture.

The 303
I was probably the first dance music producer in the UK to aquire a transistor bass Roland 303 drum machine in 1986. It was on sale as "a band in a box" in the local synth shop in Manchester. It came as an accompaniment to a drum machine called a Roland TR606. I had seen it in the shop and I was really interested in drum machines at the time because of Mantronix, Davey DMX and Arthur Baker. They had been using drum machines in (the original) Electro music / proto hip hop since the early 80's. In the early 80's they were expensive but by 1986 people who had bought them were trying to sell them. It wasn't the kind of thing a recording studio would buy either - in those days they would have bought something like a LinnDrumm. The 303 and 606 package didn't appeal to professionals. So you found a lot of them in secondhand shops going cheap. I did see one being used once in a hotel foyer where the pianist had the 303 and 606 mounted on his sheet music stand. It was accompanying his cocktail music. So they were seen as cheesy and cheap. I bought it because it was cheap and because it was Roland. I always wanted an 808 because most of the electro records I had bought up to then had an 808 sound. But I bought the 303 because I wanted to move on from DJing - I thought I had taken cutting and scratching to it's limits and wanted to get more into production. I remember hearing the Ice T track "Dog 'N The Wax" and definitely he had used this 303 bass machine. I already had a small drum machine that I used for my recordings but now with the 303 I could have bass accompanying my cutting and scratching and now I could build backing tracks for rapping over. It was around about the time Run DMC had their first LP - with sucker MCs - and I bought a really early Roland drum machine - I think it was called Dr Drum or something.

The 808
Most of the tunes in early dance music was dominated by the 808 - from the electro to the soul stuff - all the tunes I really liked had this drum machine. From there I bought an SH101 and basically could synch everything up together and my turntables started to get dust on them because I was spending all my time programming drum machines, bass machines and keyboards. Learning my own way of making music. But behind all this the drive was to have exclusive stuff that I could dance to. I also got hold of a Tascam 4 track and I'd record everything onto this 4 track machine and I would mix it down onto a cassette deck. I could make the tunes to play on my walkman. I never really played any of my music to anyone at that time apart from my brother. Sundays we used to jam in the attic at my mum's house. The Spin Masters (Andy and Darren), Rap Assassins (Carsten and Anderson) and Scratch Beat Masters (me, MC Tunes and Dave Cane) would come round every Sunday to jam but I would never play them my housier stuff - just the hip hop beats because I knew they wouldn't have been interested anyway.

Acid House
Stu Allen, on his Sunday soul and funk show on Piccadilly Radio, would have a half hour house break where he would play "jackin'" music coming out of Chicago and Detroit. Music by artists like Chip E, Doctor Derelict, Adonis, DJ Pierre, Ron Hardy, Frankie Knuckles, Armando, Mr Fingers (Larry Heard), Jesse Saunders, Mike Dunn, Gentry Ice. All the UK and European stuff that came after 1987 was directly inspired by these Chicago and Detroit guys including Voodoo Ray and what followed with 808 State. I had heard some of this stuff at this time and I recognised the sound as being my 303. Before I recorded my tracks I always used to try and tune my bass into making a different sound, then I would record. What was really cool about what they were doing was they were actually recording the tweaking and I thought that was raw. Coming from a punk / hip hop culture, to me raw was good. So I immediately recorded a tape full of stuff like this and gave it to a local record shop called Spin Inn. Stu Allen from Piccadilly Radio would go there to buy his imports. They gave him the tape and he played it. I was chuffed about that so I started getting a bit more serious about it and started working on more material to send to him. He'd always have a little part on the show for Chicago acid and somehow all my stuff started getting on there because there was not really other stuff from the UK that sounded like what I was doing. There were a few other demos but none of them were using analogue synthesisers. No one really knew what was making the acid sounds and I didn't want to say to anyone how I was making my music at the time.

Voodoo Ray
It was a few months later I was contacted by some people around the neighbourhood who were involved with a Liverpool independent record label called Rham Records. They had heard the buzz about some of my stuff on the radio and arranged some recording time in a local 16 track studio. I was chuffed about this and went for it. Round about the same time a local singer I was doing some music with - more SOS Band type stuff - was in the studio and I had planned to do as much as possible with the studio time. I decided I would record two tracks of mine for Rham and maybe one track of hers so I had a variation of music. Because in them days there were no musical barriers so to speak. There was soul and hip hop but people would experiment. I wanted to show off my broad musical production skills so I wanted to do a street soul track with Nicola and housey stuff for myself. So when we were in the studio I'd laid down the basis for Voodoo Ray. They had a sampler in the studio that they hadn't really used. I was into experimenting and my machines looked pretty archaic compared to the FM synthesis computer synths and samplers that they had in the studio. But I was open to try anything so decided we would get a riff from the vocalist and sample it. I got her to sing something over the top of the beat I was doing and laid her singing over the track down on one channel, grabbed one bar of her vocal and played it backwards over the same time as the forward singing. It created a really hypnotic effect - she kind of swam in and out of the acid sound. So we recorded and moved on. Spent that day doing the rest of the tracks and in the end finished about six songs and picked the best out for the vinyl. Voodoo Ray stood out to me as the track to work on. I did a few other bits and pieces to it in the studio. Within two days everything was recorded and ready to go. I learnt alot in those two days in the studio. My mind was on how to get one of these samplers. I thought the more tunes I made, the more money I could get together. I had already played around with the equipment in the AOne shop but it was alot different to actually using in your own productions. With the sampler I'd seen a gateway to the future.

The Scratch Beat Masters
With the Scratchbeat Masters every Sunday we would jam in my attic studio so I had quite a bit of hip hop type stuff. We were looking for a studio to record in. First of all we went to The Kitchen in Hulme and recorded a version of 'Back To Attack' with the engineer Jamie. We took that demo down to Eastern Bloc Records where we met Martin and Graham (the other two original members of 808 State) and they were really interested. Martin was one of the owners of the shop. They said we could improve it and that they had access to a studio. Graham could get free studio time at No.10 Tariff Street - an audio engineering school that he was attending. This got us really excited because they were talking about doing records where we had only got to the stage of getting into the studio. Funny, I never saw the original recording on tape of "Back To Attack" from The Kitchen again after giving it to Martin but we re-recorded it anyway. Along with Graham and Martin, The Scratchbeat Masters and another crew called the Spin Masters we released a white label called Wax On The Melt. Everyone who was part of The Hit Squad had a little bit to do with this record.

The version that we did at The Kitchen in Hulme had a kind of acid-y baseline to it. When I first got the 303, I used to write basslines for my hip hop tunes. I was trying to mimic an early Ice-T record called Dog In The Wax. The version that we recorded at Tariff st of Back To Attack just had a really deep drone going through it. It was that version that ended up on the B-side of Wax On The Melt.

Because I had already given the acid stuff to Rham in Liverpool I thought it best to keep quiet about this to Martin and Graham at the time. By the beginning of '88 Voodoo Ray was being played in the Hacienda and I started to hear more of the music I liked from Chicago in the clubs in Manchester.

So after the Wax On The Melt release there was a bit of disruption in The Hit Squad. Basically Martin and Graham wanted to explore the more electronic road of travel. I would practice in the attic on Sundays with The Scratchbeat Masters but the rest of the week was open for my experimenting. That is when I would do acid house with just synths and no cutting/scratching or rappers. This was the stuff I was giving to Piccadilly Radio. I will never forget the time walking into Eastern Bloc and seeing Martin talking to the other guys in the record shop - asking if they'd heard this Guy Called Gerald Voodoo Ray tune? There had been something in a magazine talking about Voodoo Ray. It might have been Jon Da Silva talking about local acid house. So things had started to pick up in the clubs. I finally let the cat out of the bag to Martin and Graham and gave them some of the music I was doing in my spare time to listen to and that's when they suggested using a space in the basement of Eastern Bloc as a studio.

808 State
When I first met Martin and Graham they were more into what I classed back then as "student music" which I now know would be called Indie. Their idea of dance music at the time was the UK stuff - chopped up mega-mix type stuff - the Double D and Steinski / Bomb The Bass type vibe - DJ cut-up sampled kind of thing. I had grown over my excitement at that kind of thing in the earlier hip hop days of megamixes like DJ Cheese, Grandmaster Flash, Grandmaster DST and DJ Red Alert - yeh, you know, the rest of them - the ones that built hip hop. From the age of 6 or 7, me and my brother David had been hungry for stuff to dance to. Martin and Graham were indie kids who wanted to produce a 'dance' record. I was more into pushing things on but I didn't mind helping out with a bit of cutting and scratching. I also had this philosophy of "each one, teach one".

That's when I started to bring my equipment down to Eastern Bloc and jamming with Graham in the basement - basically showing them how I set up the machines to synch. You have to remember this was pre-midi and all my machines were Roland synch and a lot of the wires I 'd patch together myself. I would dismantle my bedroom studio - 2 x SH101s, an 808 drum machine, a 303 drum machine, some early Korg percussion box, and a few effects pedals and would walk from Chorlton into Manchester city center with two bags full of equipment. Graham had a syndrum and a little casio sampler. This was the first time both Martin and Graham had seen a transistor bass 303 machine or heard a Roland 808 drum machine and I was really young and excited to show what I could do other than the scratching and the DJing thing.

We did a few gigs around around Manchester as The Hit Squad. One in particular I could remember was at this club called The Boardwalk in Manchester. You can hear one the recordings on the recent Prebuild album that Rephlex has released. The Hit Squad was the collective of three groups - The Scratchbeat Masters, The Spin Masters and another hip hop group of lads from Altringham. Because the club side was beginning to pick up Martin started to give that side more attention and studio time. The Spin Masters and Scratchbeat Masters were getting pissed off. I was caught in the middle because I was doing the acid stuff with Graham and Martin. This was pre-808 State when we were called The Thermo Kings. We did a live show on BBC Radio Manchester and started to do a few gigs around Manchester. We were invited to go and play at some universities in Scotland so things started to move a little bit on the acid front so Martin sugeested we go back into Tariff St, take all the equipment and record an entire LP. So that's what we did and that was Newbuild. I can't remember how long we spent down in that dungeon.

By this time I was wondering what was going on with Wax On The Melt. I already knew you couldn't get rich just from releasing a record but I thought at least there could be something that would come back from it. At the time I was living on egg mayonaise sandwiches. I was starting to get wise that I was probably not going to get paid anything. Martin was now going on about getting a deal with a big record company and I was still wondering what happened to Wax On The Melt. But being a lover of the music and because I was working as A Guy Called Gerald outside of 808 State thing the fact that I wasn't going to get paid didn't settle in straight away. So we carried on recording the album and I actually did enjoy working with Graham so it wasn't that bad at first.

I remember seeing the artwork for the first time for Newbuild and thinking cool - another record out - an album. It was a local thing and it seemed like there was a lot of excitement but somehow I still felt like I was in the background of what was going on. In those days I was more the reserved, shy, quiet type. I decided to concentrate on A Guy Called Gerald stuff more. Martin mentioned something about working on getting a deal so we could build a studio. I kind of thought that was a really cool idea but still hadn't seen any kind of payment. I suppose if I had a job I wouldn't have been grumbling about money but it was really hard lugging your equipment about. Somehow I felt like I was in the centre of all this but at the same time in the background. So when I told him I was going to do my own thing he freaked. From then on I saw his true colors. I still respected Graham so when they asked me to come back to do a Peel Session I was happy to do it. By then I 'd worked with a few people around Manchester like Edward Barton and I 'd moved from Chorlton into my posh new squat in Hulme. For me it was really great - it was one floor down from The Kitchen studio and five minutes away from the Hacienda.

So I agreed to do (what became a) pseudo Peel session which consisted of three tracks. I thought it was strange because I knew that usually John Peel would ask the artists' to come to the BBC studios in London. Under the guise of A Guy Called Gerald I 'd already done the Emotions Electric Peel Session down at Maida Vale Studios in London. Martin said that the BBC had given them some money for studio time so I squeezed off 3 tracks. I left little sound bytes embedded within each track as a sound watermark - it would probably be a 303 riff that I would have used earlier on in something that I recorded. You could probably hear one of these in the Massage-a-rama tune where I 'd put a bassline from a Peel Session - the Rockin' Ricki tune - at the end of an 808 State track. I had the feeling now they knew the secret of how to produce the music - (we'd gone and bought a 909) - that my days of moaning about wanting to get paid were soon to end.

I was one of these people that would basically disappear. I had my own career I wanted to work out. II was living on bread and water and I was supplying them with music. They weren't just taking advantage because I was maybe young and naiive, it was a total piss-take. It got disturbing for me.

I'd gone through this whole thing with the Peel Session and I said that was going to be the last time I would record with them. Now, I'd been asking what was going on with the Lounge Jays -The Hit Squad I knew basically paid for itself as it was just a white label - but with Newbuild album, it was getting some success and there was no payment. Even gigs we were doing I don't remember getting paid for. Even with Voodoo Ray side of things, everyone had an excuse why you couldn't be paid. I had left home and really wanted to move on and it was a surreal time. By now, the acid house thing had started to blow up in Manchester. I was doing interviews for TV documentaries from my squat and because they were using my electricity to power their cameras and lights, they gave me some money. That was the first money I can say I earned from music.

I think I always came across and probably still do that I was moaning all the time but as someone that was doing this music, and I was really young, I could get into the club free and hange out - I didn't drink - I was kind of in a bubble. I could see all this stuff happening around me - I felt like I was part of it in a way but it was strange.

On the Voodoo Ray side of things in the meantime, I started to go down to London. The radio pluggers who were working for Voodoo Ray had some management contacts. I was looking for management by this stage because I realised I couldn't survive on my own. People all around me were cashing in on my situation. I decided to check out London and got involved with some people who were interested in management. I wanted them to straighten out the 808 Sate thing and, by now, Voodoo Ray as well had started to get hardcore too. It just seemed like I was complaining all the time - my music was popular and that was supposed to be enough.

By now the 808 State guys probably thought I'd disappeared into some dole queue somewhere. I think I may have caught them off kilter a little bit when they actually got a letter from my lawyer. They had to come to an agreement. On the strength of Pacific State - one of the psuedo Peel Session tracks - they had gone ahead and signed an album deal with ZTT Records without my permission. After the Peel Session I had told Martin I didn't want anything I'd done with them to be released or used in anyway. At first I thought they had respected that. but the next thing I know I was watching TV - Tony Wilson on The Other Side Of Midnight - and who was on their performing Pacific State but 808 State had two new members - the Spinmasters - Darren and Andy! If you ever get a chance to see this footage you should note the reel to reel tape machine spinning away in the background - that was where the music was coming from - a total mind job. But I suppose by then ZTT were into them for a couple of hundred grand and they had to do something! I called Martin and told him he couldn't put the track out. I told him that if wanted to put it out he had to take all the programming that I did off it. So I thought I would take the opportunity to name all the work I did on the track. As I did that martin admitted the saxophone was the only part I didn't make. He said the saxophone part was what made the track anyway.... and he just laughed at me. By then I was thinking I would play the recording I had done of the conversation to my lawyer and see what he could do. When I played him the tape the lawyer laughed.

Links:
Roland TB303 History Video