Ron Hardy

What you been listening to?

TIME TO JACK

come over 2 the darkside Naphta!

What you been listening to?

These

http://www.deephousepage.com/search_resu...on%20hardy

Loads of his mixes - mostly from the mid 80s... early Chicago house, Jackin and Acid mixed with disco, soul and electro-pop.... loadsa personalised tape-loop re-edits too. For those like me who know bugger-all about this chap and early house, a decent biog can be found here

http://suenomartino.net/ronhardy.htm

.. along with some tracklists for those mixes.

I always wondered was there any 'House' that I'd like, and I'd figured that the earlier, rawer stuff would appeal to me most... but more than that, this guy's skills and daring on the decks have blown me away... Hardy is credited with a unique Djing style and selection, but as he died in 1991, I guess he missed out - not just on a chance to capitalise on the explosion of House and related music worldwide, but also on securing himself a place in its official legacy.... he seems to have been a wildcard even back in them days, mixing in lots of European and odd stuff that other legendary types such as Larry Levan wouldn't touch).

Anyway, I've finally sourced some of the bits of old skool House that were still hovering at the fringes of dance music consciousnes when I discoverd it in the early 90s.. and they were already 10 years old

These mixes are providing me with a real education - and are filling in the last of the great source sounds for early Hardcore and Jungle too for me also - I've already copped the original Liquid Fingers in here, plus lots of vocal hooks that were later sampled by Omni Trio, Nookie, Goldie etc.

PS The tape quality is pretty fucked up on many of these recordings, but I can still dig it

which mix ya reccomend naphtor.. ?

which mix ya reccomend naphtor.. ?

not sure. i downloaded them all



and have been listening to them randomly :d


to complicate things, only some of the mixes have tracklists (on that other site i posted a link to), and cross-referencing them is a pain in the nads



try 1039

dhp mix 1039a - ron hardy 1985tb1
1.our darkness - anne clark
2.your mine - mr fingers (unreleased version)
3.god father of house - chip e (dj intl)
4.disco circus - martin circus (prelude)
5.like this - chip e (dj intl)
6.everybody dance - bumblebee ultd.
7.my love is free (walter gibbons mix - double exposure (salsoul)
8.everybody here must party - direct current (tec)
9.i've lost control - sleazy d (trax)
10.when you touch me - taana gardner (west end)
11.down to love town - originals (motown)
12.pleasure principle - parlet (casablanca)

fairly mental methinks :d




ps 1985

http://www.dhpmixes.com/mixes/ronhardy1985-86-mark.mp3


this one is funky herad loads of samples from old metalheadz tunes and stuff, like riders ghost

http://www.dhpmixes.com/mixes/ronhardy1985-86-mark.mp3


this one is funky herad loads of samples from old metalheadz tunes and stuff, like riders ghost

btw, one of hardy's dj things was to play whole tunes backwards

you'd never get away with that kind of carry-on nowadays.

come over 2 the darkside Naphta!

Alfred: did you mean the darkside of 4-2-the-floor? or the darkside of Ron Hardy?

i'm hitting the downthemall mp3 button this mix is the shizzle...

i'm hitting the downthemall mp3 button this mix is the shizzle...

it's a whole universe of previously unheard shit for me :d

these mixes contain a lot of my first 'house' memories & a lot of tunes that shaped my musical influences,nice to see an old dog like naphta learning some new tricks & learning about where this whole rave thing actually originated from.

Wicked Naphtron!

There's a story to be told about early house and its interaction with forerunner sounds...PiL, post punk etc, obviously disco...I was thinking this when reading Simon Reynolds book on post-punk.

these mixes contain a lot of my first 'house' memories & a lot of tunes that shaped my musical influences,nice to see an old dog like naphta learning some new tricks & learning about where this whole rave thing actually originated from.

totally. :d i needed a mentor to introduce me to this world - and ron hardy is tha man for the job!



he's my new dj hero

There's a story to be told about early house and its interaction with forerunner sounds...PiL, post punk etc, obviously disco...I was thinking this when reading Simon Reynolds book on post-punk.

Let me guess... it's a story that takes place in Sheffield

Here Naphta, Have a look at this vid if you havnt already seen it.
Its called Pump up the Volume, it was on Channel 4 a few years back.

Theres a few people talking about hiself and the club he used to run on vol 1.

http://www.paradise-garage.ch/media.htm

There's a story to be told about early house and its interaction with forerunner sounds...PiL, post punk etc, obviously disco...I was thinking this when reading Simon Reynolds book on post-punk.

Let me guess... it's a story that takes place in Sheffield

Yeah, yeah...to an extent

I always think of acid house in terms of year zero, the Big Discontinuity but I think its interesting to put it in the wider canvas (which goes hand in hand with the re-evaluating the 80s thing that has been going on for the last two or so years).

[Statto]

house came out of gay disco in the US

house came out of gay disco in the US

Yes I know!

But - especially in Britain, there were other things in the mix too, personel cropping up here and there - Richard H Kirk, the New Order guys for example.

I always think of acid house in terms of year zero, the Big Discontinuity but I think its interesting to put it in the wider canvas (which goes hand in hand with the re-evaluating the 80s thing that has been going on for the last two or so years).

Well.... I guess that my view of all of this has always been very UK-centric, as Ireland very much followed the UK in its adoption of dance music and all the associated culture... and then it (the UK) went and produced hardcore and jungle so....

But for me, this mid-80s Chicago style feels now like the utter roots of all that I ever experienced in dance music, precisely for the fact that Ron Hardy seems to have been operating at the precise crossover point between gay disco and the emergent house sound - (his further mutant mash-ups of old soul with that weird cold 80s doomy/romantic electropop stuff marking the extremes at either end of that spectrum IMO...)

Whether that feeling is just a product of my own particular trajectory (having already learned more about, say, Jungle's roots in reggae and hiphop in recent years than I ever knew about its roots in house)...or whether it's more telling with regard to where dance music REALLY 'began'.. I can't quite say yet.

But... from what I can tell, this (early-mid 80s, Chicago) was precisely the point at which 'DJ mixing (roughly) continuous beats to a drugged-up audience of mixed races and sexual preferences' seems to have begun in earnest. No?

I mean, I know that there were similar musical ideas in Detroit simultaneously.. and probably in Europe too (Kraftwerk, synth-pop like Gary Numan, also the Belgian nu-beat stuff perhaps?), but had that formula occurred elsewhere to that degree before? i.e. seamless dance-music DJ mixing + racial/sexual oblivion in drugs...?

Gotta remember that Phuture's 'Acid Trax' 303 tingy was premiered at Ron Hardy's night in that environment... and that everything in the UK that happened after that happened because of that....

Yes I mean the big thing in the UK wasn't just the music, it was everything else - warehouse parties and raves removed the racist and arbitrary door policies in the cities simply by being in an illegal, uncontrolled space, so people of different races, ages, sexual orientations etc were able to dance together to one music, the emergence and widespread adoption of E etc.

And probably the first site where those relations of forces were synergised was the Music Box, along with the paradise garage maybe.

Also there was some gay club in Texas (the Saint I think) where E took off in a massive way in about 1980. Remember reading a feature on it in DJ or Muzik.

BTW Naphta you should come and check out one of the good dubstep parties in London, there's definitely that weird energy happening again...it doesn't really come across in a home listening environment.

yes i mean the big thing in the uk wasn't just the music, it was everything else - warehouse parties and raves removed the racist and arbitrary door policies in the cities simply by being in an illegal, uncontrolled space, so people of different races, ages, sexual orientations etc were able to dance together to one music, the emergence and widespread adoption of e etc.

without that, the music was just ideas. without function - and therefore without force for social change.

and probably the first site where those relations of forces were synergised was the music box, along with the paradise garage maybe.

that's what i've been thinking.

also there was some gay club in texas (the saint i think) where e took off in a massive way in about 1980. remember reading a feature on it in dj or muzik.

i guess there are always further precedents.... but the other two would actually have premiered dj-music made specifically for that environment - some of which would go on to directly inspire uk acid house and rave (i've lost control, you're mine, acid trax etc.)... tracks which were still being played at parties when i got into rave (92/93)... again i reckon that might make chicago at that moment in time unique.

BTW Naphta you should come and check out one of the good dubstep parties in London, there's definitely that weird energy happening again...it doesn't really come across in a home listening environment.

Would do if I weren't so broke