Dave Haslam, Paul Martin & Kate Magic

Kate Magic is joined by Haçienda DJ veteran and Manchester-based author Dave Haslam chaired by music pillar and academic Paul Martin, who co-ran the infamous Talkin' Loud alongside Gilles Peterson. In this conversation we revisited the past. Not in a nostalgic, reminiscent way - but as aptly put by Dave - in a way that provides ‘ammunition’ and ideas for the future. We explored local music heritage, the varying scenes and their respective venues (including necessary conversations on the Haçienda of course), the individualisation and commodification of DJ culture and the ways in which both consumerism and politics feeds into the changing landscape of music, venues, dance and beyond. Recorded by Garth Thomas in Manchester, October 2025. 

What is 88 – The Untold Story of a Revolution?

In 1988, a new cultural youth movement, known as Acid House, swept across the UK. Was it born out of the disaffection of Thatcher’s Britain? Was it down to the new musical styles emerging from Detroit and Chicago? Or was it just all about The Drugs? Whatever it was, everyone wanted in on it, and before long, it felt like an entire generation was raving in a field with their hands in the air, dreaming of a Promised Land where we would all be Free.

Kate Magic was a teenager in those early heady days of acid house, and once the initial euphoric rush had subsided, and everyone had gone back to the job of integrating those experiences into regular life, she always wondered, what really happened then? Why was that time so pivotal for millions of us?

In 2007, she set about interviewing a wide spectrum of people who were in London between 1987-1992 and were caught up in the scene. This podcast is a collection of some of those original interviews and some new ones with some of our Acid House heroes.

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