MUSIC - History
Fred Disko was one of the first DJs in Goa who started to promote electronic music as well. After all, that decision gave him his “Disko” pseudonym.
Besides Fred Disko, there was earlier mentioned Ray Castle, and Goa Gil, who promoted rock/fusion during the 70’s.
Later, in the 80’s, Goa Gil started to promote Goa influenced electronic music too, and he gave it a rather “simple” name: the first post-punk experimental electronic dance music coming from Europe, the neue deutsche welle, electronic body music.
Ray Castle explained that the very first form of Goa Trance sound could be recognized with bands/projects like Nitzer Ebb, Front 242, Frontline Assembly. Fred Disko also mentioned
the influence of classical-traditional Indian music which was easily recognized in Goa trance sound.
The symbiosis of these rather different influences was inevitable. The reasons of that symbiosis become very clear, especially when you imagine 10 tablas, 6 sitars and an Indian female vocalist performing a song in the repetitive way, so that you can actually feel like flying.
Fred Disko and Ray Cole said that the contemporary “scene” in Goa was formed from a handful of DJs who were mostly people from France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland.
The main goal was to exchange and collect the music which was brought from Europe. They were all trying to obtain hard-to-get rare music as much as they could. They also wanted to have rarities which sounded more psychedelic.
These quests were labelled as “The quest for weird psychedelic music”.
The great part of their inspiration was hidden within the consummation of LSD, the drug which became a symbol of Goa parties, especially because it was easy to get, and mostly free of charge. It was known as “free acid punch”
DJs of the late 80’s had often used DATs for their DJ sets, but the preparations for the show were hard and time-consuming.
According to Steve Psyko (he was also one of the first Goa DJs), the DJs would often cut-out the parts of the songs mixing them with other tracks, in order to create a mega-mix which would be played at the parties later on.
The use of vinyl records was not practiced because of the risk that the vinyl could actually melt due to high temperatures.
Ray Castle recalls one time when DJ Sven Vath came to Goa with all his records, in order to become “Techno pope of India”.
However, that didn’t work out well, because you just have to be used to DATs on such high temperatures.
Paul Chambers (British Goa trance DJ) recalls his trips to Goa and the very first electronic music parties that were held there. There were no more than 200 people on those events. The decorations were really colourful but not numerous and there were a few black-light lamps around.
The first police raids occurred during the 1990. but the situation became better in 1991. and 1992. It was during these years, that the first hype and rush to Goa had started.