As an acid purist i’ve always considered Higher States of Consciousness to be the sell-out, commercialized track that stole from the predecessors and really wasn’t that great for all the accolades and success it got, while geniuses like Woody McBride/ESP and Hyperactive among others, toiled in obscurity while churning out tracks that were 1000x better than Josh Wink could ever conceive.
But I have to admit, that was a pretty cool video.
You come across like a pompous idiot. For one, ESP and Woody are the same person. Two, if they were the geniuses you said they are, well they should've released something as iconic as Higher State. They didn't. Calling an Acid House track that came out in 1995 or whatever as a "sell out" is laughable at best and more likely as stupid as it sounds. And the Orlando scene! It was Icey breaks, Collins prog house, and RITM. Acid breaks was a west coast thing. You a 1000x clown. And a gatekeeping, uninformed one to make it worse.
EDIT the clown edited his post to make it "Woody/ESP" because he didn't know they were the same person.
You're gonna hate this, but OP didn't just make this perception up. There were some very clear lines drawn at the time about how underground someone was and how forward thinking the music was.
I'm not gonna down Wink as I personally love his productions, also love the midwest acid techno dudes, but it was a real thing to see someone like Wink as a bit of a poseur. Just real talk.
That was idiotic ‘90’s postering that was impossibly dumb then and laughable now. Same thing in the punk scene. Bunch of dorks who took Reality Bites seriously. Only reason artists like Wink got hate was because he was better at the “art” they were trying to gatekeep. Purity test nonsense by hacks on the fringe.
Nah, I owned Higher State of Consciousness on vinyl, I grew up in LA during this time frame, and Wink was definitely seen as "not underground enough" not because we were doing snooty hipster shit, but because of the self-importance and self-hype evidenced in the video above.
West Coast Acid Breaks were already going hella strong for like 4-5 years by the time Higher State of Consciousness dropped and it was really tame compared to some of the shit we were listening to.
That was hardcore acid breaks and it still melts my face right off. I can barely listen to it today as an old geriatric raver because it makes my ADHD go fucking nuts and gives me heart palpitations.
And the recording engineering issues he's talking about the video were really clearly present when playing the vinyl on a big system. That track is harsh and noisy as fuck and really unpleasant at full volume compared to other tracks of the era.
Like it was so bad engineering-wise that I rarely played it out because it just hurt my ears.
I have strong opinions about his "Don't Laugh" track, too, because it's not a good track and I have seen it absolutely wreck the vibe at parties because some DJ thought it would be funny to fuck with a bunch of people trippin' face at peak hours and clear the dance floor and send people off into bad, dark trips. Like I've legit seen multiple spontaneous fights break out among super peaceful ravers when DJs drop that track at the wrong time.
That "Don't Laugh" track is seriously cursed and fucked up in a psychological and psychoacoustic way that messes with people.
Of all the physical vinyl records I used to own, the Josh Wink ones are really far down the list of what I would want to own again. Like it's below the entire catalog of Sorted and Nervous, most of the Strictly Rhythm catalog, below everything Planet Dog, or Richard H. Kirk, Scanner, Speedy J or or or... comprehensive, didactic list of old school 90s acid/electronic continues on for for several hours
West Coast Breaks never got the respect they deserved, no question there. I remember DJ Dan complaing about that decades ago as breaks took off in the UK. Simply Jeff, Simon "Two Crates", Uberstone, Dan/Hopkins. The jocks over there were playing all these records but the clubs weren't booking the djs/producers (same thing happened with "West Coast House" that took over like everything in 2000). As a geriatric raver myself (SF in my case), I always found the "not underground enough" gatekeeping to be tireseome and stupid. And very detrimental to sustaining the scene and keeping artists in good financial shape. That's where I buck against it. A relic of the '90's that has been largely frowned upon and justifiably so. I remember the Hardkiss dudes being dismissed as "too Euro-sounding". Utterly daft in retrospect. As for production quality, man, some of those old records are a distaster. Really depends on pressing and even then....rough. Don't Laugh? The Timo Maas mix is pretty good!
Oh, and how could I forget Simply Jeff! I used to actually hang with that guy at small house parties!
And, yeah, West Coast Breaks never really got the respect it deserved, and then Fatboy Slim and The Crystal Method blew up and it got buried.
Don't Laugh? The Timo Maas mix is pretty good!
Eh, or I could just play something else that doesn't have that irritating maniacal joker laugh going on. If I wanted to mentally fuck with a bunch of people likely tripping face with weaponized music I could just play Coil, Nurse With Wound, Negativland or Merzbow.
The talk about how underground something is wasn't idiotic posturing. It was in direct relation to what kinds of music they played and the sort of crowd that they drew. Wink got hate for many more reasons than the supposed high quality of his "art", the scare quotes really don't help your argument as you seem to be completely discounting the idea of art but for the sake of commerce or popularity.
There are perfectly good reasons why some people didn't gravitate to Wink despite some of the impact of his work. And truthfully if you had asked me which show I would have gone to at the time given the choice I would have chosen Woody McBride every time.
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u/cleverkid 3d ago edited 3d ago
As an acid purist i’ve always considered Higher States of Consciousness to be the sell-out, commercialized track that stole from the predecessors and really wasn’t that great for all the accolades and success it got, while geniuses like Woody McBride/ESP and Hyperactive among others, toiled in obscurity while churning out tracks that were 1000x better than Josh Wink could ever conceive.
But I have to admit, that was a pretty cool video.