Chicago House and Acid House: The Roots of Techno

Where house came from

Techno did not appear out of nowhere. Its close cousin, and in many ways its older sibling, is Chicago house. The name is most often linked to The Warehouse, the club where Frankie Knuckles played from 1977. Its audience was largely Black and Latino, and in large part gay, and the music was about community and freedom.

Frankie Knuckles: the man of edits

Knuckles, previously part of the New York disco scene, played disco and soul records but reworked them his own way. He used a reel-to-reel tape machine for his own edits, and over time he added drum machine rhythms under the music to boost the energy of the dancefloor. When disco fell out of fashion in the mainstream, that dance tradition survived in clubs like The Warehouse. Knuckles later opened his own club, The Power Plant, and records such as "Your Love" (with Jamie Principle) and "Tears" became classics. He is often called the "godfather of house".

Cheap machines

In the first half of the 1980s, cheap synthesizers and drum machines such as the Roland TR-808 and TR-909 appeared on the used-gear market. Chicago producers like Jesse Saunders, Marshall Jefferson and Larry Heard started building tracks on these machines. The result was rawer and more mechanical than disco, but still built on a steady "four on the floor" dance pulse.

The TB-303 and the birth of acid house

The Roland TB-303 was meant to be an automatic bass accompanist for guitarists. It failed commercially and soon ended up in pawn shops and used-gear stores. Chicago creators discovered that turning the filter and resonance knobs produced a distinctive, squelching, gliding "acid" sound.

In 1987 the group Phuture (DJ Pierre, Spanky and Herb J) recorded "Acid Tracks", considered the first acid house record. Its hook is essentially a single bass line whose tone keeps changing as the filter is turned by hand. The word "acid" then became the name of a whole style.

Why it matters for techno

The Detroit trio of Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson listened to the same radio shows and imports, and influence between Chicago and Detroit ran strongly in both directions. From house, techno inherited club culture, working with machines and the dance pulse. The TB-303 later returned in many forms of techno, and the acid sound survives to this day.