Joey Beltram on dance music’s early years (1986 - 1990)

Joey Beltram on dance music’s early years (1986 - 1990)

6 May, 2009 | 12.16PM

• Written by: Terry Church
• Filed under: Music News: 20 years of dance music, joey beltram, r&s;

Over the next couple of months Beatportal aims to commemorate 20 years of dance music by interviewing some of the key pioneers behind the music.

Here in part 1, Joey Beltram discusses his groundbreaking 1990 techno track ‘Energy Flash’ and retrospectively reviews 10 records that helped define the electronic music years of 1986 - 1990.

Joey Beltram’s ‘Energy Flash’

Joey Beltram seized control of techno in 1990 with ‘Energy Flash’, hypnotising ravers from Belgium to Brooklyn with murmurs of “ecstasy” and “acid” like a drug dealer in the shadows, hidden by machine-driven haze and the stench of sweaty warehouse walls, powered by a radioactive bassline and a wired 303.

The young rave revolutionaries of the time gleefully necked the self-expressionism and aggression of the record which sent power surges across the global network with a force that can still be felt today. The dancefloor jolted. Beltram was the 18-year-old jump-starter.

“I wanted to make a track that could bring a certain mood to the dancefloor but still keep the peak time energy of the room,” explains Joey Beltram, 19 years after he sparked his ‘Energy Flash’. “It was something I was looking for in my own DJ sets at the time. I really couldn’t find too many records like that for me to play out so I decided to try and make it myself.”

Beltram’s beginnings

‘Energy Flash’ raged like wild fire, yet Beltram’s initiation into electronic music was much cooler. He started DJing at the age of 13 and remarkably, almost immediately, heard his calling.

“Pretty much from that point I knew I wanted to make that kind of music and see how far I could take it. By the time I was 17-years-old I had already begun to produce some basic tracks and had sent some stuff to local labels in NYC. By the time I was 18 and 19 I had already made and released records like ‘Energy Flash’ and ‘Mentasm’ and a bunch of others, and I had already played in several countries around the world. To me it just seemed natural, and even though I was young, it felt to me like I had already been at it for a while.”

That “Ecstasy...Ecstasy” vocal

Underground clubs, warehouses and raves in fields across Europe, the UK, and America were powered by ‘Energy Flash’ in 1990, but its most recognisable aspect – the pitched down vocal references to drug culture – were not, as many people believed, deliberate.

As Beltram says, “It wasn’t an intentional reference to ecstasy. At the time when I was working on the track I was looking at a few different vocal phrases and samples to place in the track. The ecstasy sample is the one that worked the best, so I kept it in. It’s as simple as that.”

Beltram speaks of ‘Energy Flash’ as though it was an accidental discovery. He is an activist who discovered a gift for crowd speaking and his words and ideas just so happened to resonate. But how different would techno be had his happy studio experiment not succeeded? Thankfully, we will never know.

Tracks that defined dance music 1986 - 1990

Joey Beltram provides a retrospective review of some of the records that defined 1986 - 1990.

LFO ‘LFO’ (Warp) (1990)

“This is a great track and was one of the most memorable tracks released that year.”

A Guy Called Gerald ‘Voodoo Ray’ (Rham!) (1988)

“For some reason, every time I hear this track it reminds me of my high school years.

“It was massive at the time.”

Phuture ‘Acid Tracks’ (Clearwater) (1987)

“This was a truly ground-breaking record.

“It took me forever to find a copy back then.”

Jungle Brothers ‘I’ll House You’ (Idlers) (1989)

“I’ve got a lot of memories in this record.

“You could hear it everywhere in NYC during that year.”

4Hero ‘Mr. Kirks Nightmare’ (Reinforced Records) (1990)

“In 1990 the line between genres was still blured.

“You would hear this track being played a lot in both house and techno sets that year.”

808 State ‘Pacific 202’ (ZTT) (1989)

“I first heard this one being played by Tony Humphries on his radio show and it took me many months to find out what it was.”

The Black Dog ‘Virtual’ (Soma) (1989)

“This was not an easy record to find back then living in NY. In New York back then you had to get records like these on special order since they were always filed under the “other” category.”

Armando ‘Land Of Confusion’ (Clearwater) (1988)

“An absolute classic! What a great track this is!”
   

Marshall Jefferson ‘Move Your Body’ (Clearwater) (1986)

“This is one of my favorite records of all time. Marshall Jefferson during these years was a huge inspiration to me.”

Joey Beltram ‘Energy Flash’

“I have a lot of memories tied into ‘Energy Flash’. It sometimes brings me right back to that time.”

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