when the original SL-1200 was on the drawing boards, my 23-year old mother and
I hadn't even moved to the United States...

when the TB-303 was put on the market, i was on the playground at school...

when the TR-808 first started kicking, i had no comprehension of WHAT goes into
an electro record...

i was 10 years old, and i was breakdancing to UTFO, Afrika Bambatta, and
Newcleus...

we couldn't afford a radio until i was 10 years old.  my aunt bought it for me
for christmas.  i rapidly filled the five blank tapes i owned with strange
bleeping sounds and bouncy beats.  i was like a little addict... i'd stay up
all with the little one-speaker transistor tape deck... listening to Kraftwerk
and Whistle Possee being mixed by the DJ at the local radio station.  it wasn't
until the late 80s that i first heard acid house....

i could understand it, but nobody else could.  i went to school in a rich,
white, suburb area that idolized MTV.  anything that even faintly resembled a
4/4 beat they called it "disco", and they said "disco sucks" without even
thinking why...

America is the land of idols...  the people here don't want dictators... but
for the last XX years there have been big-business Capitalists dictating music
to the people.  a quarter of a million people will stand in a crowd and have
silly trends and aimless lyrics be dictated to them by rich pop idols...

acid is a completely different ideal...

what is acid?:
    ...acid is why i'd go to school tired off my ass after listening to
analogue synthesizers under the covers at 2am with a flashlight.
    ...acid is holding you head high when you are ridiculed.
    ...acid is telling yourself "they are the ones that are wrong".
    ...acid can gather several black men, a group of hispanic women, a few
white kids, several homosexuals, an assembly of poor welfare children, the
oppressed "geeks" from the American school system, the punk rocker that no
longer swears alleigance, the 40-year-old disco queen that never went home, and
the ghetto youths with nowhere safe to go at night... it can put all these
people in a room for 8 hours and move their bodies as a community.
    ...acid can overshadow all other instruments... electric, electronic,
or conventional...  it can speak volumes of information in every language known
to humanity.
    ...acid can tell the story of black teenagers to Irish youngsters.
    ...acid can tell the story of Irish teemagers to black youngsters.
    ...acid can manifest itself as a beat, as a tone, as a sound, as a
thought, or as an emotion.

the best DJs are the ones that were oppressed.  they can tell you that their
great-grandfather survived, but 137 of the 750 people on the ship died from
disease, exhaustion, and sadness.  they can speak to an alien culture and tell
them stories with their fingertips...

the best acid comes from three beat-up Japanese synthesizers piped through
cheap cables onto an old open-reel tape deck.  police sirens wane in the far
distance...  acceptance is even farther away.

where do the patterns come from?  if you really knew then i wouldn't have to
ask or answer.

what are the inspiration for the beats and rhythm?  the true story had its
beginnings in ancient kingdoms far away, long ago...

in a truly amazing acid pattern, there is the story of a broken home and a tear
shed when the factory shut down.  listen to the beat, i can hear and feel soul
and rhythm created on a wooden dancefloor by a man with only one good pair of
clothes; the rest of his are rags, and all his other shoes have holes in them.

acid will never be understood by mainstream culture.  they wear their Suede
Pumas because they are trendy.  we wear them because it's the only
comfortable transportation we can afford.  we wore polyester adidas to keep the
cold away, they wear it now because adidas is fashionable.

there are others that "hear" the acid, but they don't have a clue...
acid is to me what a soccer ball is to a Brazillian street-kid...
acid is to me what a bicycle is to a mainland chinese youth...
acid is to me what a fiddle was to a field worker 300 years ago...
acid is respect for the creators.

for the people that TRULY know what acid is, it will never die.

..to all others it is only a passing phase...
..."No hope, no dreams, no love, my only escape is underground."..............

Obin Robinson                Station Manager
                    (and House/Techno Music Director)
robins52@snycorva.cortland.edu        90.5 "The Dragon" WSUC-FM
http://137.123.1.101/~robins52/welcome.html