Three O' Three

I've been thinking about this blip for a while, possibly more so than the 300th one. What I really wanted to do was post a picture of a TB303 which was possibly the most influential musical instrument in my late teens and early twenties. Unfortunately while I can think of 5 people I know in Edinburgh who have at least one of them I've been out of contact with them for a while and calling them up just to ask if I could take a photo of their 303 seemed a bit off. As a result I've pictured a twelce inch single featuring and named after the instrument.

As the wikipedia article states Roland initially introduced them along with the similarly styled TR606 drum machine to provide easy backing tracks for guitarists and other musicians. Unfortunately the very synthetic sound they produces meant they weren't particularly popular. Where their popularity really started was when DJ Pierrre got hold of one while trying to create house music in Chicago in the mid to late eighties. while most people had discounted them due to the unusual sound Pierre started playing about with the filter dials on the machine while it was playing a loop and discovered the very distinct sounds the machine was capable of producing.

His Acid Trax EP with phuture was the first 12" I'm aware of to use the sound and from there Acid House was born. Other people like Bam Bam and Armando made some cracking Acid House records. In the early ninties as electronic dance music became more widespread and production became better there was a second wave of Acid music with acts like Public Energy, Richie Hawtin, Underground
Resistance and Acid Junkies leading onto more mainstream acid sounds from bands like Hardfloor, Josh Winx and eventuallt the Chemical Brothers.

you can hear the DJ Pierre track that started it all here and a later classic by Richie Hawtin here.

The track shown in the photo is on this mix from about 1 minute forty seconds in until about four and a half minutes in.