Sunscreem

Before L and I got together we knew of each other as we had mutual friends and frequented the same pubs in our hometown, strangely however, very rarely were we in each others company, apart from me gate crashing the odd party at her house when out my face.

About 18 months before we started going out she asked me if I had this record and would I tape it for her. It was Sunscreem - Love U More, I did have it and said that I would record it and bring it to the pub the following week.

Sunscreem are described in Wikipedia as a "techno/house band", however I would describe them as a pop house group who employed some great remixers. I bought Love U More due to the fact that it was mixed by Boys Own (Farley/Heller) then bought the second twelve for the Slam mix.

So when L asked for me to tape the track she really didn't know what she was letting herself in for. I recorded all 9 of the mixes and filled the C90 up with similar stuff, Secret Life, Fire Island etc. How was I to know that L wasn't into dance music, just happened to like that song.
I eventually found out a few years later, when I asked her about the tape. It transpired that she didn't like the mixes that much and went out and bought the album on cd in order to have the correct version, now there is a novel way in which home taping made somebody buy an album.

I lost interest with Sunscreem after buying the 2nd single Perfect Motion for the Boys Own and Leftfield mixes.

Sunscreem - Love U More (album mix)

Sunscreem - Love U More (Slam mix)

Tabloid Hysteria and The Second Summer of Love.

1988 saw house music go overground and a new term was coined for the sounds which were evolving, Acid House. There are various often conflicting versions of how this term came in to common usage, some to do with the use of LSD other say the term was used to describe the sounds produced by the TB303 which was being pioneered by Chicago producers. Where ever the term came from, Acid House caught on in the UK and spread across the country like wildfire.

Inevitable the meedja jumped on the bandwagon,  first embracing the music wholeheartedly, featuring the sounds, fashions and running ads for smiley t- shirts. However as the year progressed the tone in the tabloids, especially turned. Whereas some of the style bibles and and music papers were renaming 1988 as the "Second Summer of Love", the red tops began focusing on the use of illicit drugs, largely Ecstacy and LSD hyping up the alleged use to epidemic proportions and led the campaign for this music to be banned from the radio, TV and some rather stupid retailers who wouldn't stock a copy of We Call It Acieed by D Mob but would happily stock cigarettes and sell them to minors.

At this time I was having a ball. After deciding that I wasn't cut out for penury and starvation, I jacked in Uni and got a "real" job. I had money to spend on such fripperies as records again, dungarees and wallabies. I attended a few illegal parties in warehouses, went down to Manchester a couple of times to the Nude nights at the Hacienda and generally had a good time.

During the tail end of 87 a few home grown house tracks started to appear by the likes of M/A/R/R/S and Krush. The following year more and more UK house tracks started to appear by S'Express, Bomb The Bass, T-Coy and countless others although some of these tracks sound dated now at the time they were new and exciting and making people up and down the country dance like dervishes whether on one or not.

M/A/R/R/S - Pump Up The Volume (Ultimix)

T-Coy - Carino

Brandon Cooke Feart Roxanne Shante - Sharp As A Knife

Psychic TV feat Jack The Tab - Tune In