Class of 88 - Wayne Anthony Interview - Independent June 1999

To Hear the Stories from the Man Himself - You Must Read The Updated Version of Class of 88

From a man that has kicked off more warehouse doors than most graffiti writers or squatters and run away from more law enforcement agencies than your average international gangster. As one of the pioneers of world rave culture Wayne Anthony's personal account of Acid House has NO EQUAL

Over 100 Added New Pages - 2011

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GENESIS'88: Wayne Anthony, Keith Brooks & Andrew Pritchard

Class of 88 - The True Acid House Experience (Special Edition) OUT NOW

The Special Edition 2011 has been completely rewritten and now includes brand new stories from Wayne Anthony’s epic journey into the world of Acid House and the organisers that staged some of the biggest illegal warehouse parties in the history Great Britain. The party promoter was the first amongst his contemporaries to tell his true story to the world. Genesis is one of the founding companies that created and neutered a platform for large-scale all night dance parties. This brought Wayne and his Genesis partners to the attention of gun totting mercenaries, well known gangsters, bank robbers, and members of parliament, riot squads though worse of all The Media. This true story tells the epic tale of England’s biggest sub-cultural movement that began on the Island’s of Ibiza and Tenerife in 1987. The influence of promoters such as Wayne Anthony can be felt in almost every dance music venue in the world today. Twenty years on this Special Edition delves even further into the history of the worlds biggest Acid House promoters. 

Over 100 Added Pages

Paperback Coming Later so for now: EXCLUSIVELY on KINDLE

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 SOME REVIEWS OF THE ORIGINAL BOOK 1998

  ‘ It’s gonzoid journalism of the best get-stuck-in-kind, with more parties, drugs, blags and scrapes with the law than a lifetime of tabloids could produce. And it still tells us everything the academics come out with.... ‘                                                                                        NME (  APRIL 98 )

‘ This is a book about parties, some of the biggest and most successful ever thrown in Britain ..... In this context house parties are not the sort of events that feature in Tatler, illustrated by photographs of the scions of aristocratic families toasting each other with champagne ‘  DAILY TELEGRAPH ( JAN 98 )

 
  ‘ Wayne was at the forefront of a revolution for Britain’s youth as they rejected boozy fights on a Friday night for an unprecedented unity on the dance floor. And the catalyst was Es and binding beats ‘.                                                                                      EAST LONDON ADVERTISER ( FEB. 98 )

 ‘ Some bloke takes an E in 1988 and thinks he’s Nick bloody Hornby ‘. LOADED ( MAR 98 )

 

‘ Written in “ cheerfully conversational “ style, it probably won’t win any Booker Prizes but, as a grittily authentic tale of the early rave scene’s, has few equals ‘.  VENUE ( JAN 98 )

 

CLASS OF 88 on FACEBOOK

Wayne Anthony and Siruis23 interview the UK / USA Heroes of the Day

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Class of 88 - Dreaming in Colour

The original book was written around 1997 and published in celebration of a decade since the offset of Acid House in 1998. I felt both honoured and privileged to have the book published by Virgin Books. Mainly because i had a gut feeling from the very beginning that Richard Branson's company may well publish the book considering the entire movement was started from a club belonging to him.

Don't ask me how i knew but even though i hadn't written anything beyond two pages i just knew that virgin would publish it. Not because it was a great work of art but because it epitomised a great movement of people that filtered out into the wider world from gay club Heaven's. This was a story fit for the Virgin empire. Most professional authors need only submit a synopsis of their book to a publisher who then has a period of three months to decide whether the book can slot into their marketing machine without much effort.

Those days everyone wrote on computers but for me i needed to feel the attachment of pen against paper and so wrote the entire book out in ink before going anywhere near a computer. Not that i had a computer at that time, i'd been traveling around Australia until i hastily left. I didn't know what i was going to do next. Meanwhile certain magazines published Acid House History specials and Genesis were never mentioned yet we were there since 1988. I knew what we'd been through during that period and to think that we were being ignored and companies that came after us were getting all the praise. That really used to piss me off and most of the time you could tell the person doing the writing wasn't even there.

My Genesis partners didn't care much as they were earning big money and moved on long ago. Acid House had changed me from the core outwards and i wanted the public to understand what we were doing but more so i wanted the people that came to events like Genesis to realise how far promoters went in pursuit of what we regarded as freedom.  We each had a different story to tell and i personally couldn't articulate the way anyone else felt about Acid House. That really extends to my Genesis partners as well, i remember how we felt at certain times but during the course of writing the book i didn't discuss any of the ideas with the lads i just got on with it. Writing from memory brought up much of my past and made me question everything i did and the motivation for doing it. This process helped me to grow spirituality as i came to understand myself much more due to writing about Acid House.

When i finished writing the book i contacted Virgin Books but didn't get past the main reception as she seemed to know that Virgin wouldn't be interested in a book about MDMA. She didn't even get to hear the title or my name. I just went back home and started doing rewrites for a few months before contacting Virgin for the second time. Again didn't get past the front desk and no names. I still knew it would be published by Virgin, call it a higher-self and whatever you may, i was determined that Virgin would become its home. I went back to the drawing room and continued fine tuning for a another few months until finally calling them for the third time. I was in luck, the receptionist asked me to hold the line! The cheerful sound of Virgin's newest Senior Music Editor came online and sounded quiet excited about the concept. He promised to have an answer for me within days if i got it there ASAP. It was Ian Gittins first commission at Virgin and they went all out to make it a success…

Within what seemed like a short time the book went out of print and to my surprise received overnight cult-status. I nearly fell off my chair when i noticed that readers were selling secondhand copies of my book for hundreds of pounds on Amazon.  I kept a close eye on amazon and watched the price reach £500 at one stage. Tis was a great feeling i must say regardless of the fact that i'd have to sell a shitload of books to receive that royalty through book sales.

So its given me great pleasure to rewrite and add new content to the Special Edition of Class of 88 - The True Acid House Experience which is available via Kindle in advance of the paperback book which will be published either later this year or early next year…

More news to follow in next few days...

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