DJ Pierre
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DJ Pierre is the stage name of Nathaniel Pierre Jones, a DJ and performer of house music. He helped to develop the house music subgenre of Acid House as member of Phuture, whose 1987 E.P. Acid Trax is an early Acid House recording.[citation needed].
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[edit] Career
[edit] Phuture
Jones was born in the suburbs of Chicago. He has recorded under the names DJ Pierre, Phuture, Phuture Phantasy Club, Pierre's Pfantasy Club, and Photon Inc. Along with two friend known as Spanky (Earl Smith Jnr –founder/technical producer) and Herb J (Herbert R Jackson Jnr - keyboards) he formed Phuture.
During the mid-1980s, the trio began using the squelch sound that became common in Acid House recordings after their initial experiments with a Roland TB-303 bass line synthesiser produced these "squelch" sounds. Living in the Chicago area, they were at the epicenter of the house music revolution; Hot Mix 5 artists (Farley "Jackmaster" Funk, Ralphi "The Razz" Rosario, Kenny "Jammin" Jason, Mickey "Mixin" Oliver and Scott "Smokin" Seals) were producing many tape and vinyl hit recordings. Frankie Knuckles was DJing and the Warehouse club (where house Music may have derived its name).
[edit] First recordings
Pierre and Spanky had been to Chicago DJ Ron Hardy's club called Music Box. The first Acid House track they recorded was 'Acid Tracks' (renamed by Ron Hardy from its original title 'In Your Mind'). A slow burning, bassy, heavy, deep, unrelenting record that plays for eleven minutes and seventeen seconds. Their first track was put on tape and first played in the Music Box in 1985 or 1986. Ron Hardy played it several times on its first night. It was rerecorded at Trax Records (produced by Marshall Jefferson) and released in 1986, and it was the best selling house track up to that time.
DJ Pierre went on to record many of the first Acid House tracks on Trax Records under the names Phuture, Phuture Pfantasy Club, Pierre's Pfantasy Club (with Felix Da Housecat), Phortune with notable underground hits such as Your Only Friend (Cocaine), The Creator, String Free, Got The Bug, Box Energy, Dream Girl, Mystery Girl, Fantasy Girl, We Are Phuture, Slam and Spank Spank. One of the tracks has a voice proclaiming "We are The Creator of Acid Music and we're back." DJ Pierre's track 'Your Only Friend' has a very strong anti-drug message. Ron Hardy was drug user and perhaps the name acid was an LSD reference.
[edit] Acid House style
Acid House is a very repetitive, hypnotic and trance-like music form which has a decidedly hypnotic, transcendental, psychedelic feel. Most Acid House tracks do not have conventional lyrics on them but were either purely instrumental or only had samples/spoken rather than sung wording. Later, as Acid House became more and more popular with clubbers and ravers it became commercialized, leading to many copycat tracks and Acid House remixes (e.g., D-Mob's song We Call It Aceiid).
Acid House is one of the first offspring of House Music. It had its own dance called Trance Dance where arms held up in the air and are waved in time to the music either alternatively up and down, side to side like an orchestra conductor or swirling around mid air in front whilst the feet are jerked forward one at a time). It triggered the Rave phenomenon in the UK and the Acid House/Rave/M25 Orbital Parties including the 1989 Second Summer of Love and all its media hysteria in the UK (along with House / Hip House / Garage /Balearic genres that came shortly after it). Acid House was initially a relatively short lived House trend (from 1986 in Chicago and 1987 in UK to its demise in 1989/90).
[edit] Post-Chicago
DJ Pierre moved from Chicago where the House Music scene was slowing down and joined (among other labels) Strictly Rhythm records in 1990 where he was also briefly A&R manager. He also went to the UK for his first visit overseas. DJ Pierre and other Chicago House artists did not usually own their own copyrights. The music they were produced was exported and licensed overseas.
Other hits he released since leaving Chicago include Generate Power by Photon Inc, Follow Me by Aly Us, and The Horn Song Featuring Barbara Tucker. He is still DJing and producing. On January 14, 2007 he appeared on Pete Tong's Essential Mix on British BBC Radio 1. Chicago's own Trax Records website says that House is "the biggest movement in club music since the dawn of Disco". But for its overall globalisation (through accompanying advances in technology affordable to youth) and its longevity, House is more significant than Disco. Although Disco (along with other music types such as blues, jazz, soul, funk, rap, pop and electronica) is directly part of House's parentage.
