been a long time since we first dragged a sound system and a bunch of friends to baker beach to get high dancing to acid house under a full moon. 15 years to be exact. there was something in the air that night, something majestic about the fog rolling back at sunrise revealing the golden gate bridge above our heads, a sight i'll not forget in a hurry.

30 people at that first party mushroomed into 100 at our first official 'wicked' party, an afterhours the following friday above just opened bpm records in the city's sex district. the following week wicked moved to a never before used basement at big heart city. jesse street was the breeding ground for our acid house brothel for several months. up til that point we had a 3rd dj, a local called ernie munson. things started out well but differences in personality became impossible to ignore.

by this point jeno & i had been building a steady following of late night freaks. the full moons and come unity parties at 1015 at which we also played had taken on a life of their own. by the time markie joined our fledgling sound system at the 1 year anniversary full moon party we had close to 1,000 people. what a year 1991 was!

with markie, an old friend from tonka days in london replacing ernie, the wicked rep grew. when thomas, another character from tonka sound system arrived at around the same time it was clear where our destiny lay. with the 4 of us playing a diverse mix of freaky disco we could go all night and maintain the energy. after a few heady one-offs at unpredictable locations that alan and trish dug up, and with our 4 man music lineup settled we moved to the king street garage in 1992 for our next chapter in wicked history. the parties were bigger and better than ever. 1500 people was not unusual. our trademark army netting transformed the space into a cheese-free zone where the wicked energy could manifest itself, and so it did.

it took longer than we thought to finally buy our own turbusound system. but by 1995, custom built by revered uk sound engineer tony andrews, those purple cabinets arrived. sadly their arrival coincided with alan and trish's downhill freefall. after all their hard work manifesting the dream, the pressures of life took a toll and they both returned to england that same year.

with no one left to steer the ship but us djs at that point, we looked to an uncertain future and decided to invite some of our own heroes to play with us on the sound system. this led to the infamous guest sessions when the likes of francois k, harvey, doc, chez damier, stacey pullen, roger s, kenny hawkes, three, li'l louis vega, mike clark, tony humphries, robert owens and alton m turned us on to some serious new music.

after 6 years of wild and free full moon parties we decided to move in a new direction. moving across to townsend was a seamless transition and one that fitted well with our appetite for bigger sound and guest djs. one by one we each built our own recording studios around this time, flirted with the idea of wicked records before breaking it down a year later (i started my label grayhound).
the king street and townsend years were undoubtedly the strongest in wicked's tenure. the club closed for good in 2001 and we lost our home. we had a years worth of fun over at dna for the final chapter and wrapped things up in 2004.

all in all wicked lasted a good 13 years. bloody good in fact. like any good yarn, this one came to an end. an end it seems to me now that was overdramatized by someone in the crew in order that he might retire from music altogether. in the downtime since we parted ways it's become clear that 3 of us have no intention of throwing in the towel. music is everything to us. jeno, thomas and i had quite a night of it in vegas last weekend. such a grand old time in fact that i wouldn't rule out the possibility of us getting together to do it all over again.

you've been warned! keep the faith...

g x.