"It's my first time" - the following records were heard the first time i was exposed to mdma with a cohort of ne'er-do-wells. Wow, tediously groundbreaking disclosure, just stay with me and our segue to the tune vaults
What happens neurologically and physiologically when revelatory musical transcendence upper-cuts you in the chops clean out of time? You've seen enough of the world for isolated revelations, clumsy fumbles and heartbreak, but there's always this asteroid out there, lurking, that causes a shift in your overall orbit from its point of impact on (even more so if you go looking for it)
The before/after threshold was the Hacienda. Undiluted anarchy with a Mancunian strut, it defined northern England for a brief eclipse. I loved how Mancunians could be the most vocal about telling London to go fuck itself (sorry Londinium), except Nottingham was changing quickly too. You couldn't fully gauge what was growing steadily - how do you map parameters that don't exist initially, within a social domain that had no recognisable name other than the loosest moniker possible, 'House'?
Forest Fields is our setting, a mixing pot of red-bricked, mossy, damp hovels, most of which have had serious upgrades since the late 1980's. Its squat network was eviscerated with buy-to-lets blowing in. Very Coronation St in architectural layout, ethnically diverse and hadnt been tonked as bad in the Radford Riots. Every weekend you could expect the unexpected. Like Radford and Hyson Green, it had a unique microcosm of different tribes, except squat parties had no real dress codes - rigged up crews with links to the city's dub community doing smash and grab nights, playing anything and everything. Christmas 87 however, sounds (like sands) were shifting
You're in an offy thieving cider that contained zero apples, entire streets adorned with the cosy glow of Christmas lights. Bump into a friend of a friend who tells us about a bash on. This lad turned away to head off, then turned back and muttered something akin to "got a bag of E's here, fancy moving an amount if i tick you up?". So these are "E's"? All the Sheffield Utd lads were caning them and the trans-Pennine express was in full effect. Duck into a side alley, count out a bunch, work out the profit margin and the next thing we're inside this decrepit gaff necking em. I forgot the approaching space-time loop ahead bird watching, age being what it was, glugging cans. Approximately 90minutes later, sat on a broke sofa with my sister and mates jammed all over this thing, the gods appeared to the soundtrack of Carly Simon
What the fuck is happening? Everything (for about ten minutes) went into blue-scale, ie every colour shifted into a spectrum of blues, nothing else. Don't panic, keep it to yourself. Nope, everything is still blue. All too quickly we all realised it was too late - why was Dik pawing at the arm of the sofa like a cat? Why are we all pulling absurd faces? What the fuck is this RHYTHM? In unison like paramilitaries, a dozen of us started grooving like dementia patients on this stair landing. Add swinging black trenchcoats and jack booted green mohawks, rastas beaming like big kids who'd discovered the secret waveform to the universe. Acid and speed wasn't this. Instead of a slap across the face, a rapturous euphoric hug steam-rolled you into the liberation of dance. At some point, time slipped out of consciousness entirely (the bike chain's off, why peddle?)
DANCE YOU CUNT. Cue Peter Bown
Pupils prolapsing, the thump on Strafe descending deeper and deeper into a woozy, crystalised zone, utterly mesmerised. A holy ghost flaming a fire-spirit in your soul that i still can't find the language for, your entire being locked into
1000 ft up in the ether, looking down at myself and friends. Seeing dreds, red adidas trackies, bomber jackets, a mullet or 2, constellations of souls (every man and woman is a star) altered ineffably. Commence to snap back down some kind of vertical reality-ladder into the 'now' with Bam Boo's It's All in Your Mind
So, so pickled. Relentless rhythm you could not disengage from, then an ethereal daydream of a tune with enough sub to make the walls wobble and dust spirals pirouette from ceilings in the half-light....... Suburban Knight's The Groove
Hours pass, sliding in and out of kick drums like the possessed. Enter Frequency by Lil Louis
The most unexpected element was daybreak. What? When? People's faces lit up, beaming. Dribbling, sweaty wrecks. How can a human being move like this serpent, be consumed so viscerally in whatever synthesis we all just passed through? Caucasian Walk by the Virgin Prunes as the last record was a genius touch, punks po-going, jouissance alive in thick arm swirls and ripped jeans crab-walking there way to mania
I can't remember the walk to Sylvia's greasy spoon for pots of tea, jibber-jabba and stupid sized joints. Overall (in the most personal and collective sense), something inconceivable that you couldnt even identify yet had changed our tiny army of scallies, pikeys, Sikhs and crooners irrecoverably. A mass conversion event. Tune-hunting what we'd heard that night was now one of the fundamental pillars of existence
Alhamdulillah - we're all in mate, balls deep