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53-470: Psychedelic film Acid house (also simply known as just " acid ") is a subgenre of house music developed around the mid-1980s by DJs from Chicago . The style is defined primarily by the squelching sounds and basslines of the Roland TB-303 electronic bass synthesizer-sequencer, an innovation attributed to Chicago artists Phuture and Sleezy D circa 1986. Acid house soon became popular in

106-574: A commercial dispute. Consequently, Staines declared himself bankrupt in October 2003 after two years of litigation, and legal costs on both sides running into hundreds of thousands of pounds. In September 2004, Staines started publishing his political blog Guido Fawkes . The blog was named after the Spanish name for Guy Fawkes , an English Catholic involved in the failed Gunpowder Plot to assassinate King James I in 1605. Paul De Laire Staines

159-634: A digital advertising agency which operates an advertising network representing dozens of leading political websites. In 2012, it advised the successful Boris Johnson London mayoral campaign . Private Eye reported in June 2012 that MessageSpace was advising the Russian Embassy in London on using social media. Global & General Nominees Limited (GGN) publishes the Guido Fawkes website, and

212-417: A parliamentary debate on a particular topic, but not necessarily lead to any Parliamentary Bills being put forward. When the petition closed on 4 February 2012 it had received 26,351 signatures in support of restoring capital punishment. Staines described his political journey in an interview in 2013, "I was " anarcho-capitalist , [then] libertarian, then pragmatic libertarian." He went on to say his ideology

265-567: A reality by using club drugs such as ecstasy and LSD . The association of acid house, MDMA , and smiley faces was observed in New York City by late 1988. This coincided with an increasing level of scrutiny and sensationalism in the mainstream press, although conflicting accounts about the degree of connection between acid house music and drugs continued to surface. Acid house was also popular in Manchester . The Thunderdome (which

318-419: Is a film genre characterized by the influence of psychedelia and the experiences of psychedelic drugs . Psychedelic films typically contain visual distortion and experimental narratives, often emphasizing psychedelic imagery . They might reference drugs directly, or merely present a distorted reality resembling the effects of psychedelic drugs. Their experimental narratives often purposefully try to distort

371-402: Is an irregular feature that comprises pictures of attendees at political events. Although the pictures are of both men and women, the majority are of attractive young women. Staines' wife is referred to as Mrs Fawkes and his daughters as Miss Fawkes and Ms Fawkes. On Monday mornings, the blog features a Monday Morning Point of View cartoon by "Rich&Mark", cartoonist Rich Johnston , archived at

424-538: Is credited with having been the first to use the TB-303 in house music (the instrument had been used earlier in disco records by the earlier mentioned Charanjit Singh in 1982, in hi-NRG, Alexander Robotnick in 1983). The group's 12-minute " Acid Tracks " was recorded to tape and was played by DJ Ron Hardy at the Music Box, where Hardy was resident DJ. Hardy once played it four times over the course of an evening until

477-429: Is impossible to know which track was created first. In the 21st century, attention was drawn to Charanjit Singh 's album Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat , featuring Indian ragas fused with disco . The album released as early as 1982, featured a TB-303 prominently, Singh being one of the earliest musicians to use it on a commercial release. The record predates the famously known "Acid Trax" by 5 years. It

530-469: The Committee for a Free Britain , a right-wing Conservative pressure group, alongside David Hart . Staines acted as editor of British Briefing , a long-standing publication by the group that was a "monthly intelligence analysis of the activities of the extreme left" that sought to "smear Labour MPs and left-leaning lawyers and writers". Staines relates of his work with the committee: I was lobbying at

583-785: The Council of Europe and at Parliament; I was over in Washington , in Jo'burg , in South America. It was 'let's get guns for the Contras ', that sort of stuff. I was enjoying it immensely, I got to go with these guys and fire off AK-47s . I always like to go where the action is, and for that period in the Reagan/Thatcher days, it was great fun, it was all expenses paid and I got to see the world. I used to think that World Briefing

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636-684: The United Kingdom and continental Europe , where it was played by DJs in the acid house and later rave scenes. By the late 1980s, acid house had moved into the British mainstream, where it had some influence on pop and dance styles. Acid house brought house music to a worldwide audience. The influence of acid house can be heard in later styles of dance music including trance , hardcore , jungle , big beat , techno and trip hop . Acid house's minimalist sound combined house music's ubiquitous programmed four-on-the-floor 4/4 beat with

689-733: The 1980s, he was a member of the Federation of Conservative Students . Staines lives in Ireland and was a member of the now defunct Irish political party, the Progressive Democrats . Defunct Staines is a libertarian who described in a 2000 publication, how he became a libertarian in 1980 after reading Karl Popper 's The Open Society and its Enemies . He joined the Young Conservatives whilst at Humberside College of Higher Education , "because they were

742-615: The Fawkes blog shared a fax number with Staines. Although he subsequently refused to confirm the links, further media coverage continued to name Staines as Fawkes until the airing of a BBC Radio 4 documentary about him on 10 February 2007, which gave a detailed history and background, and prompted his blog post "So Much for Anonymity". In 2005, Guido was voted the best in the Political Commentary category of The Backbencher Political Weblog Awards, run by The Guardian . It

795-531: The Future". They advertised huge sound systems, fairground rides, foreign DJs, and other attractions. Many articles were written sensationalizing these parties and the results of them, focusing especially on the drug use and out-of-control nature that the media perceived. Once the term acid house became more widely used, participants at acid house-themed events in the UK and Ibiza made the psychedelic drug connotations

848-888: The Grip of the Sandinistas: Human Rights in Nicaragua 1979–1989 , under the auspices of the International Society for Human Rights (of which he was UK secretary-general), analysing the Sandinistas in Nicaragua from 1979 to 1989. He was then the editor of a series of papers called the Human Rights Defenders Briefing Papers . In August 2011, Staines —who writes the political blog Guido Fawkes and heads

901-752: The Humberside College of Higher Education, but did not complete the course. While a student there Staines wrote to an organiser of the British National Party proposing joint "direct action" to disrupt the meetings of leftwing students. He was a member of the Social Democratic Party , sitting on the national executive of its youth wing, and the Conservative Party . Whilst studying at college in Hull in

954-611: The Mancunian rock scene. Prominent Madchester bands include the Stone Roses , Happy Mondays , the Charlatans and Inspiral Carpets . In the late 1980s and early 1990s, British news media and tabloids devoted an increasing amount of coverage to the hedonistic acid house/rave scene, focusing increasingly on its association with psychedelic drugs and club drugs . At first, promoters like Tony Colston-Hayter tried to monetize

1007-551: The Restore Justice Campaign—launched an e-petition on the Downing Street website calling for the restoration of the death penalty for those convicted of the murder of children and police officers. The petition was one of several in support or opposition of capital punishment to be published by the government with the launch of its e-petitions website. Petitions attracting 100,000 signatures would prompt

1060-855: The RichAndMark website. In 2012, RTÉ Radio 1 broadcast a documentary about Staines, Our Man in Westminster , as part of its Documentary on One series. Vote Leave employee Tom Harwood was hired as a Guido reporter in July 2018; he left in 2021 to join GB News . Staines has said that Steve Bannon , a former senior adviser to Donald Trump and head of Breitbart News , once tried to buy Guido . "That fell through over price," Staines told Press Gazette . "I never could work out whether we were talking dollars or sterling ". Staines has four alcohol-related convictions In 2002, Staines

1113-519: The after-hour parties, so the groups began to assemble inside warehouses and other inconspicuous venues in secret, hence also marking the first developments of the rave . Raves were well attended at this time and consisted of single events or moving series of parties thrown by production companies or unlicensed clubs. Two well-known groups at this point were Sunrise , who held particularly massive outdoor events, and Revolution in Progress (RIP), known for

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1166-472: The banning of acid house during its heyday from radio, television, and retail outlets in the United Kingdom. The moral panic of the press began in late 1988, when a UK 'red-top' tabloid called The Sun , which only days earlier on October 12 had promoted acid house as "cool and groovy" while running an offer on acid smiley face t-shirts, abruptly turned on the scene. On October 19, The Sun ran with

1219-545: The blog was being less hypocritical and breaking the clique by refusing to cover up such stories. The coverage of the Prescott affair drew considerable extra traffic to Staines's blog. He was named at number 36 in the "Top 50 newsmakers of 2006" in The Independent , for his blog, and his role in the Prescott scandal in particular. In 2011 GQ ranked him, alongside co-author Harry Cole , jointly at number 28 in

1272-530: The crowd responded favorably. Chicago's house music scene suffered a crackdown on parties and events by the police. Sales of house records dwindled and, by 1988, the genre was selling less than a tenth as many records as at the height of the style's popularity. However, house and especially acid house was beginning to experience a surge in popularity in Britain. London 's club Shoom opened in November 1987 and

1325-687: The dark atmosphere and hard music at events which were usually thrown in warehouses or at Clink Street, a South East London nightclub housed in a former jail. Promoters like (The Big Lad) Shane McKenzie and the gang back in 1987 were doing small parties in NW London, moving raves from the streets and the fields to the clubs of London 1990–2005 which saw the future of raves in clubs all over the UK and Spain. The Sunrise group threw several large acid house raves in Britain which gathered serious press attention. In 1988 they threw "Burn It Up", 1989 brought "Early Summer Madness", "Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Back to

1378-406: The electronic squelch sound produced by the Roland TB-303 electronic synthesizer-sequencer. The sound is commonly produced by raising the filter resonance and lowering the cutoff frequency of the synthesizer, along with programming the 303's accent, slide, and octave parameters, to create variation in otherwise simple bass patterns. "Exploration of texture" is preferred over melody; "a refusal of

1431-507: The headline "Evils of Ecstasy ", linking the acid house scene with the newly popular and relatively unknown drug. The resultant panic incited by the tabloids eventually led to a crackdown on clubs and venues that played acid house and had a profound negative impact on the scene. Any records that mentioned the word acid, such as Dancin' Danny D's record with scene promoter Gary Haisman (D Mob's " We Call It Acieed "), were taken off radio and television playlists just as they were climbing towards

1484-480: The late eighties". He once said, "I never wore a 'Hang Mandela ' badge, but I hung out with people who did". Staines was active in the Libertarian Alliance . He was pictured at the 1987 Libertarian Alliance conference with a T-shirt supporting UNITA , produced by his Popular Propaganda enterprise (while at college), which produced posters and T-shirts. Staines worked as "foreign policy analyst" for

1537-598: The magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential Men in Britain. Staines encourages readers to forward political documents and information, which he publishes on his blog. One such leak was a strategy document for the Peter Hain for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party campaign. This leak caused embarrassment to Hain's campaign as it included information on MPs who had not gone public with their support, as well as others who were supposed to be independent. "Tottywatch"

1590-448: The metaphysical priorities of western music discourse." Other elements, such as synthetic strings and stabs , were usually minimal. Sometimes tracks were instrumentals such as Phuture 's " Acid Tracks ", or contained full vocal performances such as Pierre's Pfantasy Club's "Fantasy Girl", while others were essentially instrumentals complemented by the odd spoken word 'drop-in', such as Phuture's "Slam". There are conflicting accounts about

1643-732: The name Baby Ford , the record peaked at number 58 on the UK Singles Chart on September 24, 1988, and was followed by Baby Ford's "Chikki Chikki Ahh Ahh" hit. The genre was extremely popular with the city's football hooligans . According to Manchester United football hooligan Colin Blaney in Hotshot: The Story of a Little Red Devil , the acid house venues were the only place where rival hooligan gangs would mix, without coming to blows with one another. The Madchester and baggy movements saw acid house influences bleed into

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1696-402: The only people around who were anti-Socialist or at least anti-Soviet". Having joined the Federation of Conservative Students , he described his politics as "Thatcher on drugs". He relates that at college he was a "right-wing pain in the butt who was more interested in student politics than essays", who went on "to work in the various right-wing pressure groups and think tanks that proliferated in

1749-486: The origin of the term acid . One self claimed account by members of Phuture points to their own " Acid Tracks ". Before the song was given a title for commercial release, it was played by DJ Ron Hardy at a nightclub where psychedelic drugs were reportedly used. The club's patrons called the song "Ron Hardy's Acid Track" (or "Ron Hardy's Acid Trax"). The song was released with the title "Acid Tracks" on Larry Sherman's label Trax Records in 1987. Sources differ on whether it

1802-578: The other club attendees in a peaceful movement that has been compared to the Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967. Another club called Trip was opened in June 1988 by Nicky Holloway at the Astoria in London's West End. Trip was geared directly towards the acid house music scene. It was known for its intensity and stayed open until 3 AM. The patrons would spill into the streets chanting and drew

1855-405: The police on regular occasions. The reputation that occurrences like this created along with the UK's strong anti-club laws started to make it increasingly difficult to offer events in the conventional club atmosphere. Considered illegal in London during the late '80s, after-hour clubbing was against the law. However, this did not stop the club-goers from continuing after-hours dancing. Police raided

1908-406: The popular club drug Ecstasy ( MDMA ). According to Professor Hillegonda Rietveld, a researcher specializing in electronic dance music , it was the house sensibility of Chicago, in a club like Hardy's The Music Box , that afforded it its initial meaning. In her view " acid connotes the fragmentation of experience and dislocation of meaning due to the unstructuring effects on thought patterns which

1961-474: The psychedelic drug LSD or 'Acid' can bring about. In the context of the creation of "Acid Tracks" it indicated a concept rather than the use of psychedelic drugs in itself. Some accounts disavow psychedelic connotations. One theory, holding that acid was a derogatory reference towards the use of samples in acid house music, was repeated in the press and in the British House of Commons . In this theory,

2014-467: The scene by promoting his Apocalypse Now parties (organised with Roger Goodman) on the ITV News (ITN) in the same way that a latter-day popstar such as Gary Barlow would promote his album on the news (generally in the "...And Finally" part of the programme). However, these reports soon changed from positive promotion to a negative viewpoint, with the sensationalist nature of the coverage contributing to

2067-494: The term acid came from the slang term "acid burning," which the Oxford Dictionary of New Words calls "a term for stealing." In 1991, UK Libertarian advocate Paul Staines claimed that he had coined this theory to discourage the government from adopting anti-rave party legislation. The name of acid jazz is derived from that of acid house, which served as one of the inspirations for the genre's development. Before

2120-410: The term "acid house" was introduced, rawer early acid house was " hi-NRG ", a type of bassline-driven electronic music that began with disco music that discarded its funk element, starting with Giorgio Moroder productions for Donna Summer . However, the earliest recorded examples of acid house are a matter of debate. Sleezy D 's "I've Lost Control" (1986) was the first to be released on vinyl, but it

2173-513: The top of the UK chart. By the time Colston-Hayter had invited another ITV news team down to promote his latest party (this time from Granada's current affairs show World in Action ), acid house was being described as a "sinister and evil cult" that was just encouraging people to take drugs. Despite this, one tune broke through into the mainstream in November 1988. " Stakker Humanoid ", produced by Brian Dougans (later of Future Sound of London ),

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2226-497: The undercover journalist Mazher Mahmood . Staines agreed to publish the photo if 10 other bloggers would do so. The picture remained on Guido , and, following legal action from George Galloway , was subsequently released into the public domain. Guido reported the allegation that Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was having an extramarital affair with an MP. It also named the woman in question, saying that such rumours had long been shared among Westminster journalists, but that

2279-439: The viewers' understanding of reality or normality. This film genre–related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Paul Staines Staines acquired an interest in politics as a libertarian in the 1980s and did public relations for acid house parties in the early 1990s. He then spent several years in finance, first as a broker then as a trader. In 2001, he sued his fund's financial backer in

2332-448: Was Phuture or Sherman who chose the title; Phuture's DJ Pierre says the group did because the song was already known by that title, but DJ Pierre says he chose the title because the song reminded him of acid rock . Regardless, after the release of Phuture's song, the term acid house came into common parlance. Some accounts say the reference to "acid" may be a celebratory reference to psychedelic drugs in general, such as LSD , as well as

2385-458: Was a bit funny. The only scary thing about those publications was the mailing list – people like George Bush – and the fact that Hart would talk to the head of British Intelligence for an hour. I used to think it was us having a laugh, putting some loony right-wing sell in, and that somebody somewhere was taking it seriously. You've got to understand that we had a sense of humour about this. In 1989, Staines published In

2438-528: Was a hit not just at influential clubs like The Haçienda in Manchester or Shoom in London, but was championed by mainstream stalwarts such as BBC Radio DJ Bruno Brookes and record producer, Pete Waterman . It went on to reach number 17 in the UK in November 1988, leading to Dougans' appearance on Top of the Pops on December 1, 1988. Psychedelic film Psychedelic film Psychedelic film

2491-445: Was banned from driving for 12 months for drink driving. When he was convicted of the same offence six years later, he was asked in court by District Judge Timothy Stone whether he had an alcohol problem and replied: "Possibly." He was banned from driving for three years, as well as being given an 18-month supervision order and wearing an electronic tag for three months. In 2006, Staines, along with Jag Singh , co-founded MessageSpace,

2544-726: Was born in Ealing , London, to Irish-born Mary (née Cronin) and Indian-born Terril De Laire Staines. Staines' father was a Fabian who went to work for John Lewis because it was a cooperative; he is from Jhansi , Uttar Pradesh . Staines' mother is from a working-class background and grew up in Finglas , Dublin . Staines grew up in Sudbury, London . Raised a Catholic , he attended Salvatorian College Catholic grammar school in Harrow . Subsequently, he read business information studies at

2597-529: Was generally advertised as a techno night) in Miles Platting was at the epicenter of the scene and gave rise to acts like A Guy Called Gerald , 808 State , Jam MC's, Steve Williams and Jay Wearden. A Greater Manchester-based producer called Peter Ford teamed up with Richard Salt and recorded a record called "Oochy Koochy", regarded as the first British acid house track. Released by dance indie Rhythm King Records as "Oochy Koochy (FU Baby Yeah Yeah)" under

2650-553: Was initially a commercial failure in India and eventually forgotten. Following its rediscovery and eventual re-release in early 2010 some music journalists compared the music to that of acid house music, even suggesting it might be the first example of the style. The first acid house records were produced in Chicago, Illinois . Phuture , a group founded by Nathan " DJ Pierre " Jones, Earl "Spanky" Smith Jr., and Herbert "Herb J" Jackson,

2703-582: Was not a survey of Guardian readers explicitly, but instead an internet poll linked to the Guido Fawkes website. In May 2006, Staines (as Guido Fawkes) co-authored a book with Iain Dale , which was critical of the Labour Party 's practices since taking office in 1997. In April 2006, Staines was one of numerous bloggers subject to an injunction from News International for publishing a picture of

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2756-651: Was now closer to the Conservatives and UKIP . He supports Brexit . In 2023, the New Statesman named Staines the 39th most powerful right-wing British political figure of the year. In September 2004, Staines began writing an anonymous blog about British politics under the name of Guido Fawkes , an alternative name of Guy Fawkes , one of the group that plotted to blow up the Palace of Westminster in 1605. In February 2005, The Guardian reported that

2809-559: Was one of the first clubs to introduce acid house to the clubbing public of the UK . It was opened by Danny Rampling and his wife, Jenny. The club was extremely exclusive and featured thick fog, a dreamy atmosphere and acid house. This period began what some call the Second Summer of Love , a movement credited with a reduction in football hooliganism : instead of fights, football fans were listening to music, taking ecstasy , and joining

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