Track-By-Track: O/B #11
Frankie Bones is known for 'bringing rave to the US' after the experience he had playing a 25,000-person party called Energy in England in 1988. Acid house was the creation of Black musicians in Chicago, but the rave culture that it would inspire – huge illegal parties fuelled by huge amounts of pills – seems to have been a largely British invention.
On his return home from that trip, Bones and his crew started throwing ever-larger illegal parties in Brooklyn warehouses, booking DJs who would go on to be megastars: Sven Väth, Richie Hawtin, Doc Martin... In retrospect, the transposition of 'rave' back to the US does look a little like a key step in the inexorable whitewashing, not to mention commercialisation, of house and techno music, clad in the increasingly empty language of 'peace, love, unity, respect' (PLUR).
Bones's M.O. on his seminal Bonesbreaks series is questionable on many fronts: taking breaks from electro, freestyle, house and industrial tracks, splicing and looping them into DJ tools, often sloppily and always without any credits, and selling them by the tonne (quite literally – Bones says that Vol 1 sold 22,000 copies). Sure, sampling is the foundation of hip hop and some of the best dance music, but there's something about the brazenness of it on these 12s that pushes the limits of fair play. That arrogance is also, of course, the source of their brilliance, and for willing DJs they're both a challenge and a delight.
The Rhythm Masters - Acid 10 A.M. (Underworld, 1990)
(Discogs)
Note: this is an entry in the Track-By-Track series for my mix for O/B.
Track-By-Track is a series that looks back at records you will have heard in my mixes, one by one in the order they were played. Who made them, and when? How did I come across them? And what do they make me feel?