Hithouse

[Hitcore]

Hello and welcome to my music corner. Thank you Retro for creating this space, it allows me to separate my own videos while sharing the music videos of artists I like. And I think it would be most appropriate to start the first thread with the artist that has inspired me to do what I do lately, and in fact has introduced me to music altogether.

I'm taking you back to Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 1988. Me and my parents and my older sister were living in the heart of the city. I was only 6 years old. My sister was 18 at the time, close to 19. Her sociable nature and fashionable appearance landed her a job at BlueTiek-in, one of the hottest discotheques in the city at that time,


(below this post some more pics as attachments)

At BlueTiek-in one of the resident DJ's was Peter Slaghuis. If you were to translate his last name to English in the most literal form, you get Hithouse. Which was a very cool and unique name to DJ and produce (acid) house music under. But no matter if you were the main DJ or "just" bar staff, everyone in the crew was considered equal and got included with all sorts of activities. Some of which were the shoots of Hithouse's videoclips. My sister was in one of them (though not in the one below).

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Jack to the Sound of the Underground was arguably Hithouse's most well known track. In 1988 it stood 22nd place in the Dutch Top 40, a solid 8th place in the UK Singles Charts, and there were some moderate successes in Germany, France, and Belgium. Not bad for a record in a niche genre that was competing with artists and tracks such as Michael Jackson (Dirty Diana + Smooth Criminal), Phil Collins (A Groovy Kind of Love), Pet Shop Boys (Always on My Mind), Yazz (The Only Way is Up), Bobby McFerrin (Don't Worry, Be Happy), and Salt-N-Pepa (Push It) in the charts.

I was only 6, but I remember it all very well. My sister frequently brought home vinyl records and CDs, most of which by Hithouse, and I was hooked straight away. The beats, the sounds, the samples, they all spoke to me, and already as a young boy I realized: wow, what a time to be alive.
Jack to the Sound of the Underground became my all-time favorite record. The radio edit was about 4 minutes, the version my sister owned and I listened to was double the duration, the full party mix. On the B-side there were even more edits, and some samples that DJs could use.

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In 1989 Hithouse released this album. As time goes on I will post these tracks in this thread as well, with some of them there's something I can tell about.
So you may wonder: if Peter Slaghuis was so succesful and such a pioneer in this scene and genre, where is he now?
Unfortunately Peter has passed away in 1991 at the age of 30 in a car crash. He was on his way home after a DJ gig in Amsterdam. A tragic ending, not only because he was a star rising, but mostly because Peter was known to have a soft and gentle personality.
BlueTiek-in also awaited a sudden end as there was a huge fire in the discoteque, of which they've never recovered.

Because of my tender age of 6, and 9 by the time Peter deceased, I of course have never seen Hithouse live or have been to BlueTiek-in, but because of hearing and seeing it all unfold via my sister still makes it that I have a personal connection with it.

More details on Hithouse's story in this video:

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[Retro]

You're welcome, Hitcore.

Oh, what a track! I've got this on an a house compilation CD from 1988 and have played it over and over. Great to have the long version here, too.

I'm really sorry to hear about Peter. RIP Sir. And shame about the nightclub.

 

[Retro]

Here's another video of the long version that appears to be ripped from a CD and hence has better sound quality.

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[Hitcore]

I've got this on an a house compilation CD from 1988 and have played it over and over.

Nice, which compilation CD might that be?
I also have it on a compilation CD: Turn Up the Bass vol. 1

I really sorry to hear about Peter. RIP Sir. And shame about the nightclub.

It's awful. I remember being really upset when I learned the news from my sister when I was 9. It's funny how I've never met the guy, but it felt like I knew him. My sister always spoke of him with the highest regards. That stuck on me, I guess.

And yeah, her job ended as well as BlueTiek-in ceased to exist, though she has a respectable career now.
The location of BlueTiek-in still looks like there may be a nightclub present, but that's just the fancy lighting on the outside. On the inside it has become a quite modernized car dealership.

 

[Retro]

Nice, which compilation CD might that be?

Now there's a question! Apologies, I've had a look, but can't find it at the moment. I think it's a double album full of great house music. I'll keep an eye out for it though and will let you know if I find it.

It's awful. I remember being really upset when I learned the news from my sister when I was 9. It's funny how I've never met the guy, but it felt like I knew him. My sister always spoke of him with the highest regards. That stuck on me, I guess.

And yeah, her job ended as well as BlueTiek-in ceased to exist, though she has a respectable career now.
The location of BlueTiek-in still looks like there may be a nightclub present, but that's just the fancy lighting on the outside. On the inside it has become a quite modernized car dealership.

I'm sorry about these sad things. I've lost friends and pets over the years so I know just how that feels, but glad that your sister's doing well now.

 

[Tiffany]

Nice thread @Hitcore and thanks for sharing some special detail, some sad details (very sorry) but with music and lots of pics.

 

[Hitcore]

Yesterday I mentioned that I also once made a video with a driver's cab view on the tracks. Except for that this was in the Copenhagen metro, which is driverless, a.k.a. fully automated. Ergo: you can just sit all the way in the front and see what it would be like as if you were driving the thing. Which is what I did. I sat there holding a camera still (more or less) for like 45 minutes, sped it up, and then placed Hithouse's track Blast Off with it.

Now I've got to warn you: it's all very basic. The video camera was a DV8, so with a little tape in it. Nothing near HD. This was in 2009. While during these days you *could* get equipment that could shoot in 1080p, back then it was heaps expensive, so I had to resort to that dinosaur of a tapey camera. Also, I've edited this in... Windows Movie Maker. On the other hand, that does give it legit some oldskool vibes. Enjoy!

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[Tiffany]

Nice video of your Copenhagen metro. I like the view you chose from your drivers cab too, because it makes you feel like you're immersed in the video and motion. Nice music choice too. The music complemented the experience.

 

[Hitcore]

Thank you, @Tiffany . Definitely a blast from the past!

Yesterday I talked with @Retro about night riding music. I just finished a trip and even though I do not have my Bluetooth helmet yet, there was a certain Hithouse track playing in my mind the entire time.
You're gonna love it, Retro, because it is about 8 minutes long. Real 80s acid house, with an atmosphere that just fits dark roads and night lights.

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Started riding 5 o'clock in the morning, arrived only moments before writing this!



Now for a cup of coffee. Enjoy the day, and the track!

 

[Retro]

Oh wow, that takes me back, a classic track mixing an even more classic track from 1976, Donna Summer's I Feel Love.

And best of all, I've never heard it before.

 

[Hitcore]

You have a good ear, @Retro this track is indeed kind of a remix of Donna Summer's I Feel Love, as also pointed out by this user on Discogs:

https://www.discogs.com/master/106713-Hithouse-Hithouse

In my memory Peter Slaghuis and Donna Summer even worked at least once together, and I'm fairly sure that I have seen a photograph of them together, but now that I'm trying to find this on Google, for the life of it I can't find it. To the point that I'm beginning to wonder whether or not I've gotten myself into my very own Mandela Effect. Oh well.. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Hitcore]

Yesterday a rather extensive article about Peter Slaghuis/Hithouse was published, about how -- early on in his career -- he made the (expensive) rookie mistake of choosing money upfront over royalties.
The article is in Dutch. Short articles I tend to translate manually, but I'll be damned to do that with this wall of text , so the following translation has been brought to you by ChatGPT.

Remixer Peter Slaghuis maakte in 1986 een wereldhit én een dure beginnersfout

Peter Slaghuis maakte met tegenzin de remix van ‘I Can’t Wait’ (Nu Shooz). Het werd een wereldhit, maar door een foute keuze liep de Nederlandse producer een fortuin mis.

historiek.net

Remixer Peter Slaghuis made a global hit in 1986 — and a costly mistake
Rogier Verkroost (translated from Historical magazine Historiek)

In the autumn of 2025, publisher Aspekt will release a book by Rogier Verkroost about Peter Slaghuis (1961–1991). In Forever a Promise: A Musical Biography of Peter Slaghuis, Verkroost portrays the life of this Dutch DJ and producer from Rijswijk. During the 1980s, Slaghuis played a very influential role in shaping the Dutch dance-culture. He was a popular remixer of pop hits, created his own tracks under the name Hithouse, introduced house music into Rotterdam’s nightlife as a DJ at the Bluetiek-in, and discovered several artists such as Paul Elstak, Jeroen Verheij and Extince. In 1991, however, he died in a tragic traffic accident. Because of that, there will always be the question of how far he could have gone had he lived.

This excerpt from the book describes Peter Slaghuis’s unexpected success in 1986 with his remix of “I Can’t Wait” by the American band Nu Shooz. Few people know that this classic of the ’80s has a Dutch connection: it was Slaghuis’s remix that, against his own expectations, turned the song into a world hit. But because of a misjudgement, he earned very little money from it — although it was his big breakthrough as a remixer.

Success with Nu Shooz​

In the summer of 1985, Karel Hendrikse of Injection Disco Dance Label picks up the phone. He believes he’s got something with potential: a song by the American band Nu Shooz. Peter Slaghuis has never heard of them before. He doesn’t even know what the song sounds like yet. When he gets the commission, he still doesn’t know which track he will be working on.

Peter tells his friend Marcello about the new assignment while they are shopping for records at Attalos Records in Amsterdam. They’re regular customers in the shop on the Amstelveenseweg. Every week, the owner sets aside a pile of newly imported records from the United States for them. Marcello is curious about how the song sounds, but Peter can’t tell him yet. The shop owner overhears them, goes to look through the stack of imported demos — and is lucky: there is a demo by Nu Shooz with several songs. The three of them listen to the LP. They play every track, and Peter immediately starts coming up with ideas for making something beautiful and commercially successful.

But there is one song he simply cannot get into. He thinks I Can’t Wait is terrible. He can’t find any inspiration to do something worthwhile with it. A week later, he returns to the shop, and the owner is curious which track Peter was supposed to remix. It turns out to be I Can’t Wait — the very song Peter has been avoiding. The irony is not lost on them.

Nu Shooz​

Nu Shooz was founded in 1979 as a jazz/soul act in Portland, Oregon, on the U.S. west coast. The band’s line-up changed frequently; at one point, it had twelve members. But the core of the group was clearly the married couple John Smith and Valerie Day, who described themselves as “jazz-hippies.” They met in the mid-1970s at the same music school. After a trip to New York, John took the initiative to form a soul group. They released a few singles, and recorded an album.

Valerie began as a percussionist, but from 1983 she became the lead singer. However, they reached only a limited audience. In 1983, John Smith bought a TEAC 3440 four-track recorder, and over 1984 he recorded several new songs. These were collected on the cassette That’s Right. One of the tracks was I Can’t Wait, recorded in the summer of that year. He wrote the lyrics in just fifteen minutes at his kitchen table.

Looking for remixers​

I Can’t Wait was released as a single and was a local hit on radio stations in Oregon. But the band failed to breakthrough outside their state; labels rejected them, saying they sounded too similar to Madonna. In a bid to gain more success, the band’s manager sent the song to Hot Tracks, a service company that commissions remixes. Hot Tracks sent it all around the world to find remixers who might want to work on it — and that’s how it ended up in the Netherlands, in the hands of Karel Hendrikse. Hendrikse saw potential — but felt something was missing. A better melody could help. So he called Peter to see if he could provide that missing piece.

When Peter gets I Can’t Wait on his desk, he really doesn’t want to do it. He thinks the song is bad, and struggles to come up with a hit-sounding idea. He tries to evade the assignment by avoiding phone calls from Injection. But the record label persists. Eventually, Peter’s parents, tired of all the calls, ask him to give an answer.

Despite his lack of inspiration, he produces a remix in about an hour and a half — one that he considers acceptable. Peter excelled when pressured; even then, he could create something good enough to pass muster. I Can’t Wait becomes one of the first assignments where he uses his sampler. He brings forward the bare bassline that was buried at the end of the original, removes some trumpet sounds, and adds harder drum hits and claps. But the most remarkable addition is the melody: he takes a moaning female voice sample from the 1984 song Loveride by Nuance featuring Nikki Love, reshapes it, and creates a melody using six different pitches. This was a technique Peter used in other remixes too — he even sampled part of Into the Groove by Madonna.

“It’s actually a miracle we didn’t get sued for it, because there was no permission …”
… later comments John Smith. Still, the label is very satisfied with the result. Once the remix is approved, Peter and Karel negotiate how to split the earnings. Peter is given a choice: US$ 500 up-front, or a share of the royalties. He has little faith that I Can’t Wait will ever be a hit — so he takes the flat fee. It will turn out to be a very expensive miscalculation.

I Can’t Wait​

The single is re-released in the Netherlands on Injection Disco Dance Label. The A-side features the original (called the “American Mix”), while the B-side is Peter’s version, named “The Dutch Mix.” The record finds its way through import channels to record shops in New York City. There, it catches the ear of the legendary DJ Larry Levan, resident DJ at the club Paradise Garage.

Levan loves the track and plays it frequently at the Paradise Garage, a club that was hugely influential in New York. Levan had a reputation for making records into hits — and that’s exactly what happens here. His former assistant François Kevorkian later reflects:

“If I had heard that record in a shop, I would’ve thought it was bubblegum music, with that dah-dunh-dunh. But Larry played that record ten times a week in the club. Until everyone started copying that little melody. That’s how hits are made.”

Peter’s melody, that he added so unconventionally, turns out to be exactly what the original song lacked. Suddenly, sales explode: ten thousand copies a week are sold. With Larry Levan’s support, Atlantic Records decide to release the single on a large scale in the spring of 1986. John Smith hears the new version over the phone while he's off to a gig — he’s pleasantly surprised:

“I would never have thought to make the record that way. We couldn’t even afford a synthesiser initially. But thanks to Peter’s remix, the band moved more into the electronic direction.”

The music video is also ambitious: Valerie is shown singing amid then-very-modern visual effects. The video is conceived by Jim Blashfield (also from Portland), with visual effects by Mike Quinn — who would later be famous for groundbreaking videos such as Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer and Paul Simon’s The Boy in the Bubble. MTV loves it, the song resonates with the audience — and in no time, the version that neither the label nor Peter himself initially believed in becomes a world hit.

In the U.S., the song reaches #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Dance Club Play chart. The band is even nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Act, though they lose to Bruce Hornsby & The Range. In the Netherlands, I Can’t Wait becomes one of the memorable summer hits of 1986, reaching #9. Interestingly, despite the success, Nu Shooz never perform in the Netherlands. In the UK the song reaches #3, and in Germany even #2.

In 1987, Peter later creates a Go Go Shooz mix for the remix service DMC — but John Smith only hears it over thirty years later, in an interview by Harold Zwaartman. In 2008, producer Krafty Kuts brings renewed attention to the melody when he includes the song on his Back to Mine compilation series (where each producer collects tracks that inspired them). Even as recently as 2022, Slaghuis’s melody resurfaces in an Amazon Prime commercial.

A Costly Rookie Error​

Peter is deeply frustrated by how much money he missed out on because of his poor choice. His sister Dana remembers:

“He was crying at the kitchen table when he realised what an enormous mistake he had made.”

He talked about it for years — especially when young producers came to him for advice. One of them was Tim van Leijden, who visited Peter to discuss releasing his first EP on Peter’s label. Dana says:

“He probably told that story to every beginner musician. He wanted to warn others against such an expensive rookie mistake.”

New Work in New York​

Although the financial sting of his misjudgement hurt, the deal does lead to more work with Nu Shooz. Due to the hit’s success, the band need to rework existing songs to match their new electronic direction. Peter is invited to New York to help. He meets the band members for the first time. John Smith later recalls:

“He was very shy, and besides, he didn’t speak very good English.”

Peter works in Atlantic’s studio at 1841 Broadway, on the corner of 60th Street — a place stacked with gear that he could only dream of having back home. At the same time, artists like Alice Cooper and Chaka Khan are recording in the same building. But Peter, being so reserved, doesn’t reach out to them. After he returns to the Netherlands, he laments that he didn’t forge connections with important American remixers.

Making the productions proves difficult. Peter dislikes the crowded studio setting and works better with his own equipment. He also struggles with the tapes: in the U.S., they use thicker tape reels than in Europe. He complains to his girlfriend Helen about this in a phone call during his stay — but he still completes the assignments. He remixes the track Don’t You Be Afraid and works on a few other songs.

John Smith later says:

“He had a distinct method. I couldn’t go into the studio, and I couldn’t hear anything before it was completely finished …”

He also teaches Smith some basics about cutting and splicing tape. But Peter isn’t entirely happy with the new tracks that Nu Shooz has written — he thinks they’re almost as weak as their big hit. He reworks them heavily, but feels he’s not given enough creative freedom.

“They really expected me to perform miracles. They thought my production was too radical. Perhaps I was just too far ahead of my time for that environment,” he says later in Mixmag.

Tragically, much of the work Peter did in New York will never be released — the tapes are lost soon after he leaves. Smith believes the tapes were stored in the manager’s basement, which flooded, destroying many recordings, including Peter’s. Despite the loss, Peter still earns about US$ 10,000 from his New York work. With that money, he buys a very popular Roland TR-909 drum machine for his own studio back in the Netherlands.

“Modern Stealing”​

Although his journey with Nu Shooz brought disappointment, it ultimately served him well. Thanks to the success, his name as a remixer skyrocketed in Europe. He even gained a place on the roster of the influential Disco Mix Club (DMC), which produced remixes for major pop artists to make their hits club-friendly.

His work with Nu Shooz also earns him a small interview in the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant, where he explains what a remix is and how he works. When asked whether lifting parts from other records is acceptable, he replies:

“There is no sampler law — and probably never will be.”

This sparks debate. A week later, an article titled “Modern Stealing” is published, in which experts discuss the legal and ethical aspects of sampling.

 

[Retro]

Oh yeah, Nu Shooz, I remember this one. Used to play this 1985 classic all the time! Interesting video, too.

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[Hitcore]

Tbh I didn't know this song. Pretty cool, though! Very mid-80s, and interesting video indeed.