Garden Of Eden

While writing music for the award winning ‘Breaking On The Stock Exchange’ I was listening to Chicago House.

I was totally in love with Adonis, Fingers Inc, Phuture, Tyree and a synthesiser line which seemed to be speaking to me in an alien language.

The drum machines were obvious and it was clear the same set of samples was appearing on everything produced by Marshall Jefferson or Todd Terry, but one particular record ‘Acid Tracks’ caught my attention.

Perhaps hindered rather than helped by my technical expertise in the area of synthesis, I had no idea how to make the sound I heard on the record.

I got very close with a Roland JX8P, an SH101 or the SH2 but DJ Steve Jackson who we were writing with was having absolutely none of it.

What we all know now is the elusive squelch was created by a Roland TB303 and we eventually got hold of a couple of them. I read the manual and became a veritable expert, then Darrell Lockhart used the batteries out of them for something else and killed all my programming.

While I was initially furious, the ensuing memory corruption became the very reason why the batteries never got taken out of them again.

We made several trips to an old school in Muswell Hill with fashion photographer turned artist Peter McArthur, who was developing a stop motion technique that used a prism and a number slide projectors.

Peter kept taking photographs of TV screens and seemed to have more slides than a library has books. An exciting concept that married our music with Peter’s imagery, gave birth to The Occasional Project.

While the British media was busy twisting context, talking about drugs destroying teenagers minds, I learned the term ‘Acid House’ had nothing to do with the accompanying drug scene.

Another artist we were working with, Jimi Polo from Chicago / Detroit, explained that sampling someone else’s work was called a burn, the strongest kind of burn being an acid burn.

Watch ‘The House That Jack Built’ video

The Occasional Project
Darrell Lockhart: keyboards&drum programming, Mark Tinley: keyboards&sampling&guitar, Steve Jackson, Pam Hogg, Angela McKlusky:vocals

“I already have enough problems, I drink a bottle of wine every night, I have an addictive personality, I could do without being addicted to anything else” I heard myself say.

The proposal however was mind blowing, one pill with a street price of twenty five pounds that would let you see into the future. It unravelled the true nature of everything, even showed you your soul, or so he was saying.

I was standing on a street corner in London and had parked my car near Drury Lane, they used to let you do that back then, and here I was waiting with my girlfriend, waiting for the man.

Freuds, significantly we were going into Freuds and it was full of vintage fans, those rather nice black and chrome desk top fans everyone had on their office desk in the eighties. I was in a gritty mood “don’t take it with alcohol” he had said, “or it will make you crazy” and my fear was glitching up against my humanity. I would never set foot in a place like this unless I was at the barely walking stage and it was packed, packed with sweaty office refugees who were trying to find freedom inside a pair of cheap cotton pants.

“Darling” I heard one of them say as she lurched sideways at a chap who looked like he would be boring even in accounts. We sat and waited in the sticky summer atmosphere and then waited some more.

“Why are we in here” I shouted “because he’s gone to get some ticket stubs and the beans” came the reply. We waited some more, then some more. “I need you to listen Tin” he handed me a pill, “I want you to get this, what it’s about, the scene”.

When we walked, High Holborn wasn’t the high I was expecting, then we arrived outside the London Astoria where a swirling crowd of people had taken over an entire three lane street and were trying to get into the club, Trip.

Across a sea of people a nod and fifteen of us linked arms and made like a snake through the crowd into an even hotter lobby. I explored the club listening to my sobriety gnawing away at me, I was hot. Then I felt my legs buckle from under me and I sat on the floor for what seemed like twenty minutes.

When I got up, what I think of as me wasn’t there and in my place, a space of total clarity. Once liberated from me something started listening, taking in everything, exploring this techno ear candy and referencing all detail for the studio.

We needed Christmas, that was it, bells, that’s what we needed!

I sat high in the seats above the old stage surrounded by glowing globes, taking it all in. “Do you meditate”? Darrell Lockhart hollered at me from across a table, a disciple of Sri Mataji Nirmala Devi “try, go inside yourself what do you see”?

“I see a snake” I replied “a coiled snake and it lives inside me protected by a beautiful deep purple velvet bag”. “What do you see in your mind”? his eyes seemed gentle.

“I see a light surrounded by petals, inside each of these petals is an aspect of self, each self has a doorway, a choice” I replied “it’s like a Garden”.

“Yes, for you a Garden Of E” he laughed.

The Garden Of Eden successfully became Britain’s first Acid House band and charted on 24th December 1988.

Our video was played constantly on The Chart Show and The Hitman And Her.

We did licensing deals with Sonet in the UK and Virgin in France and against the advice of the record companies, the record was released early, selling some 30,000 copies across Europe just before Christmas in 1988.

In retrospect had we listened to reason and released the single the week after Christmas we would have been number one.

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Listen/Buy ‘The Serpent In The Garden’ (PINK LABEL)

The Garden Of Eden
Darrell Lockhart: keyboards&drum programming&kundalini, Mark Tinley: keyboards&TB303&sampling&demons, Steve Jackson, Pam Hogg, Angela McKlusky: vocals

To buy the ringtone go to the iTunes App on your iPhone.
Click on Search “Acid House 1988″ or “Garden Of Eden”