Monday, April 05, 2010

Birth Of House  


There is a mainstream revival of the classic 909 driven Chicago house sound at the moment, which most of you probably are more aware of than me, but some of the popular stuff that has crossed over recently doesn't sound so much inspired by mid to late eighties Chicago house so much as is mid to late eighties Chicago house in higher fidelity, and that's fine by me.

As such we are hosting Azari & III this Friday at Mezzanine in San Francisco, and I will be spinning alongside Jeno, Solar, Conor, Ken Vulsion and Derrick Love, it'll be a blast. If your not a San Francisco local or Euro holiday maker passing through, simply came here for the mp3's and don't give a shit about our party or the local hero line up (myself humbly excluded) then no apologies are given, as you are still better off for it, because it inspired me to record my beaten copy of Z Factor's Fast Cars for this post. Argued by academics to be the first ever house record made available to the public.

Z Factor included Vincent Lawrence and Jesse Saunders, two names that are well documented in the music history books and there are great interviews and accounts of that time in 1982/83/84 and what they achieved. Both would have been in their late teens when Jesse Saunders joined the new wave synth punk band Z Factor in Vince's father's studio, the owner of Mitchball records, the label that put out the promo I have, at the time a small soul and Chicago blues print. Some say 'On and On', Z Factor's follow up record is the first true house recording, a tape edit of some rhythms that Jesse Saunders would loop in the south side clubs during his sets at the time, but you can certainly hear the foundation for what was coming here in this rare 1983 release:

Posted by Black Shag | 3 comments

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3 comments: to “ Birth Of House


  • April 6, 2010 at 12:50 AM  

    Eclectro,south England.
    Tho i do download the tracks u kindly put up,i also like the knowledge u share. As House only hit my city(& most of England) in 86,a local club DJ was playing 'Jack Your Body(Import)' in 85. B4 that i didn't know it existed & was into Synth Pop/Electro & Hip Hop.
    So thanks 4 the knowledge! Does 'Clear-CYBOTRON' count as older House,as it was marketed as part of 'the house sound of Detroit' & made in early 80's?


  • July 13, 2010 at 8:27 AM  

    Like the previous poster, I am from England and got into house music 86/87 however there are certain 'proto' house records that never really became known in the UK and the Z-Factor releases most definitely fall under that category. Of course I am not saying no-one in the UK picked up on the Z-Factor releases as I am sure it was a well guarded secret amongst certain house DJ circles but for most of us it went as far back as Jesse Saunders 'On & On' in 84 or maybe the Shari Vari/Cybotron releases.

    Thats why I love this blog as it fills important gaps in the origins story of acid/house and the Z-Factor album is definitely a 'missing link'. I was blown away when I heard the Fast Cars post and for the last few months I have been trying to track down the album. Finally found a decent rip and my gods is it astonishing!

    It reminds me in many ways of the 1983 Cybotron 'Enter' album. Musically its different but it has that same feel of different musical strands been woven together to create something new; the historical moment before the mould had been set into what became a 'house' record in terms of a fixed 808/303 form and structure. For me this is the most exciting kind of music as it still sound strangely fresh.

    Anyway, for the one other person who may read this, I did find a decent rip of the 1984 Z-Factor 'Dance Party Album' (from an old bentleyfunk blog that closed down, I used the google reader paste in the URL trick to rescue it from the memory hole and here it is (a few crackles but at 256 a decent enough rip, shame I cannot credit the uploader but thats the way I guess).

    http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XTNREA98


  • September 16, 2010 at 12:37 AM  

    Thanks for this link Saucer People, I only just got round to hitting it up. I appreciate it.