“The plan was to be underground for three years and then sell-out and be bigger than Abba,” jokes Mark Moore, S’Express’ main creative force. Instead the band went to No 1 with their first release, the sample-heavy ‘Theme From S’Express’. Mark now specialises in playing more eclectic mixes to smaller clubs, as well as running a record label and a London club night. But back in 1988, instant success meant he was on the fast track to becoming a pop star. Not that he enjoyed it much.
“We did these promotional things,” he remembers, “and at first we’d have really cool people there, but then these schoolgirls started to show up and I was like, ‘This is wrong, these people shouldn’t be buying my records!’”
‘Theme From S’Express’ was released in April 1988 and became a seminal part of the soundtrack of that year’s “second Summer of Love”, when Britain discovered the joys of house music, dancing in fields, and ecstasy. Mark believes the drug was key to the acid house phenomenon.
“People can try and deny it, but ecstasy was what fueled that scene,” he proffers. “I don’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of. Just like acid went with the hippies, ecstasy went with the rave generation.
“I see people who are on Es nowadays, and it’s not the same vibe,” he continues. “Everyone seems to be having a good time, but it’s not that loved up ‘we are one’ unified feeling.”
S’Express were one of the earliest mainstream pioneers of sampling, inspired by American hip hop, although Mark isn’t impressed by the use of samples in modern rap.
“They just take a whole record and rap over the top,” he grimaces. “Most of the ideas have been used, it doesn’t feel like there’s anything new there.”
It might seem a bit passé now, but sampling was exciting stuff back then.
“We felt we were pirates,” says Moore, “like we could take anything and break it down. Before you get successful, the idea of stealing from successful people’s records seems quite anarchic, it’s only when you get successful that you think ‘Hang on, that’s stealing!’”
Moore has only good memories of acid house, though it’s left him with a medical condition called prosopagnosia, which means he regularly forgets people’s faces.
“I’ve always had a bad memory,” he explains, “but acid house didn’t help! The way prosopagnosia works is that I might see Paul Oakenfold in Tesco’s and not recognise him, whereas if I saw him in a club I would because that’s the environment I associate him with.”
Anyone planning to catch Mark’s BudRising DJ set can sleep easy knowing he won’t neglect to play ‘Theme From S’Express’. He made that mistake once, and the promoters were almost in tears.
“It’s weird, I listen to it now and I do wonder how we did it,” he reflects. “I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, but it’s kind of timeless.”