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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