I have a special place in my heart for all things DIY: Punk, metal. But early undergournd house music really does it for me. It really encompasses that dirty, unpolished sound that has unfortunately disappeared. This track is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Granted, it is a crappy vinyl rip on youtube, but even hearing these tracks live, they never sound very "clean." Understandbly these guys didn't have big fancy studios at their disposal. They had a couple borrowed synths’ and an eight track recorder set up in their mom’s crappy basement in downtown Chicago somewhere.
But isn’t that where all the great music comes from? And even though synthesizers had been around since the mid 60's, it wasn't until the mid/late 80's that musical equipment for, say, a couple kids from the ghetto interested in four-four beats, became affordable. And even then they probably had to pool their money together and buy a used one.
(Adonis' actual 303 he made "No Way Back" on)
Which really puts having twenty different snares on Garage Band in perspective. Since those guys would have killed for that back then... and I can't even make one lousy tune. Interesting note, later Maurice would get hired by big names like CeCe Peniston, and even later Beyonce (and win a Grammy), for remixing rather clean sounding club hits. Good for him. And to be fair, these guys weren’t aiming for a DIY sound like some punk bands around the same time. If anything they were trying their damnedest to make it sound studio produced. So maybe it’s just that old school things sounded better back in the day even though they really didn’t. Nostalgia can be very distorting. But it would be nice if I could just get a little more of it. There has been a minor revival of 90’s house music of late with bands like Hercules and The Love Affair, (CHECK THIS OUT), or more recently B.C. (CHECK THIS OUT). But it still sounds (feels) a little too clean for me.
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