HOUSE MUSIC

The term "house music" is said to have originated from a Chicago club called The Warehouse, which existed from 1977 to 1983. Clubbers to The Warehouse were primarily black, who came to dance to music played by the club's resident DJ Frankie Knuckles, whom fans refer to as the "Godfather of House". Frankie began the house trend by splicing together different records when he found that the records he had weren't enough to satisfy his audience. He would use tape and a knife to accomplish this. After the Warehouse closed in 1983, the crowds went to Knuckles' new club, The Power Plant. Knuckles remarks that the first time he heard the term "house music" was upon seeing "we play house music" on a sign in the window of a bar on Chicago's South Side. One of the people in a car with him joked, "you know, that's the kind of music you play down at the Warehouse!".

Farley Jackmaster Funk was quoted as saying "In 1982, I was DJing at a club called The Playground and there was this kid named Leonard 'Remix' Roy who was a DJ at a rival club called The Rink. He came over to my club one night, and into the DJ booth and said to me, 'I've got the gimmick that's gonna take all the people out of your club and into mine – it's called House music.' Now, where he got that name from or what made him think of lies with him.

House was the first direct descendant of disco. In comparison with disco, House was "deeper", "rawer", and more designed to make people dance. Disco had already produced the first records to be aimed specifically at DJs with extended 12" versions that included long percussion breaks for mixing purposes. The early 80s proved a vital turning point. Sinnamon’s "Thanks To You", D-Train’s "You're The One For Me", and The Peech Boys "Don’t Make Me Wait", a record that has been continually sampled over the last decade, took things in a different direction with their sparse, synthesised sounds that introduced dub effects and drop-outs that had never been heard before.