Idris Elba's How Clubbing Changed the World Page #9

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twist these knobs in a crazy way,

"cos I like warping that sound."

And I was like, "All right,

let me start twisting the knobs."

And then we was like...

Like jamming, like this.

And we were just,

"Yeah, keep doing that."

He said, "Pierre, keep doing it,"

so I was like, "OK, OK."

I'm turning the knobs,

and then we got a sound real crazy.

And then I started

turning like this,

and then we was like, "Oh, that's it

right there, that's it."

The resulting tune was Acid Tracks.

Our number nine - a relentless

12 minute, 303 mind warp,

which single-handedly invented

an entire new sound...

Acid House.

When Acid Tracks came out

they lost their minds.

You know, I don't know what happened,

man, with that song.

You know, something just like...

That machine, that TB-303

had triggered his brain cells

and stuff.

It didn't really have a beginning,

or middle, or an end.

It just was.

It's a point of genius.

This was ground-breaking DIY music

being made on a shoestring budget.

Now everybody could get involved.

It's very cheaply done,

very affordable, very street,

very gritty, which is what the scene

was all about.

Technology was coming down in price

at the time.

So suddenly you could afford to buy

bits of kit, to make these records.

There's a bit of that

punk rock spirit...

anyone can do it,

just get up and do it.

You were in control.

You didn't have to go to outside

agents and knock on the door

and say, "Please, can I make some

art in your studio?"

You didn't have to ask

anybody's permission.

For the current generation

of bedroom producers,

making a massive club

tune has become

more affordable and accessible

than ever before.

Because of laptops,

anyone can make a beat at home,

put it on the internet

and create a huge hit.

So, this is a very, very big

revolution.

People can go from

zero to hero so quickly.

You've got a French kid called Madeon

in his bedroom in Nantes,

who literally listened

to The Beatles,

listened to Daft Punk records and

kind of worked out how to make music,

almost like cracking a multi-level

Xbox game or something.

Posted a link on YouTube and...

You know, a few months later

he's headlining Coachella.

Making a track in your bedroom

is all well and good,

but breaking into the charts

is another thing entirely.

Charley says, "Always tell your

mummy before you go off somewhere."

In 1991,

The Prodigy released Charley,

sampling a talking cat

from a public safety campaign.

Many initially dismissed it

as a novelty record.

I remember Mixmag -

the biggest magazine of the time...

absolutely slagged it off and said,

"What kind of music?

"They're using this cartoonish,

kind of, you know, take on music

"and they're breaking it down

into the lowest common denominator."

Charley says, "Always tell your

mummy before you go off somewhere."

Charley is musical genius,

because it was so simple.

Anything that comes out of that

track just hits you in the face,

and slaps you one side

and backslaps you on the other side.

Defying their critics,

The Prodigy went on to become

the face of rave culture

for the MTV generation.

I think that a lot of artists

in the electronic area,

before The Prodigy,

hadn't necessarily delivered it

in a really easily definable way.

It was all a bit faceless.

When I toured with them in '92 they

were all wearing harlequin costumes

and it was all big celebratory

hands-in-the-air rave music.

And then, a few years later,

they were tough rock guys.

I think the clever thing

about The Prodigy is that

they've always been a band,

even though only really Liam

does the production

and plays the instruments.

There was the sense of all of them

being on stage together,

all of them performing together.

It wasn't just this faceless

producer behind a wall of equipment,

it was a crew.

I'm the trouble starter

Punkin' instigator...

Their influence and unbending

dedication to dance culture

over the last 20 years

is truly incredible.

The Prodigy arethe ones

that has changed the face

of everything that we know today

when it comes to rave music.

The longstanding legacy of it is,

it allowed dance music a chance

to get into the charts

without compromise.

I'm a firestarter

Twisted firestarter...

But Prodigy's Keith Flint

isn't the first flamboyant figure

to grace our dance floors.

Believe it or not, and hear me out,

he owes a lot

to early gay club culture.

We're lost in music

Caught in a trap...

If there wasn't gay clubs

in New York in the '70s,

inventing disco music,

then dance music as we know it would

be a completely different thing.

And if gay people weren't looking

for underground electronic sounds,

then house music

wouldn't have existed either.

We're lost in music...

In 1969, it was against the law

to be homosexual in the US.

Gay men faced a lifetime

of oppression.

Their clubs were a haven.

All too often, raided by the police.

To me, is a tragedy...

There weren't allowed to be

gay clubs.

It was all very secretive.

Gay culture was clearly

an illegal culture.

Everything would change

on the 28th June

at the Stonewall Inn, New York.

The police came to shut down

a party, but this time,

after years of persecution,

the gay community had had enough.

I think that night, they were being

pushed around a lot by the police.

People just got very excited -

"We're not going to take it."

And they really exploded,

and started turning over cars,

and it really got everyone together.

With Stonewall, gay people

were saying, "Actually, no."

You know? So, it's not that

the world changes, youchange.

And when you change, you know,

you kind of liberate other people

because you say,

"You can't do that to me any more."

You make me feel

Mighty real...

After Stonewall,

gay culture was out and proud

on the dance floors of New York.

And that was just the beginning

of mainstream acceptance.

I think there's probably

an acceptance of gay culture

by the way that music crossed over

into straight clubs.

I think when people realise that

you dance to a record that goes,

"You think you're a man,

but you're only a boy,"

or "It's raining men,"

you realise you kind of

got sucked into the gay world

without prejudice.

Flamboyant freedom of expression

hasn't been the only legacy

of New York's

sexually liberated club land.

At the dawn of the '80s, New Order

visited the city's nightclubs,

and were inspired by what they saw.

We'd seen very under-designed

clubs in New York,

and really enjoyed them.

And come back to Britain

and Rob Gretton and Tony Wilson

had a vision.

They had a dream

about people like us

having somewhere to go

in Manchester.

The result was The Hacienda...

part live venue,

part art experiment.

When it opened in 1982, no-one

was really sure what it was for.

It looked great when there was

nobody in it, which was quite handy,

cos the first seven years

there was nobody in it.

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