I went to see Andrew on New Year's Eve with Fiona Cartledge, who used to put on Sign of the Times acid house parties. He deejayed for five hours. Most of the set he was hunched over, eyes closed, listening to what he was playing. There was virutally no physical interaction between him and the audience in the warehouse, but the music was fantastic.
I learned about his death via a text from Helen Mead, who used to be the reviews editor of NME in the late Eighties. We'd been going to acid house parties and I'd got to know Weatherall well through Boys Own and Alex Patterson, who he was sharing a flat with in Battersea. Alex was getting The Orb together.
Helen and I pushed for more space in NME as acid house developed into techno. A club culture page was set up and we got Andrew to write for it under the name Audrey Witherspoon. Sometimes I'd go and pick up his copy, other times he'd bring it in.
Helen asked me to do an on-the-road piece on Primal Scream in the Spring of 1989. I ducked out of it because their first album, Sonic Flower Groove, was only okay. It didn't excite me like the music I was hearing in acid house clubs. Helen got Weatherall to do the piece instead.
Later in the year I stayed at Bobby Gillespie's in Brighton, as the music for Screamadelica was starting to come together. One Saturday we went to a rave in a tent in the country. Bobby had a DAT copy of 'I'm Losing More Than I Ever Have' with him. This song was on the band's self-titled second album, which the Boys Own football fanzine liked. Bobby tracked Weatherall down and gave him the DAT. This is what Andrew turned into Loaded, one of the era-defining moments.
By using samples and from the movie Wild Angels, The Emotions 'I Don't Want To Lose Your Love', Gillespie singing a line from Robert Johnson's Terraplane Blues, set to a drum sample from an Italian Edie Brickell bootleg of 'What I Am', Loaded helped to launch Weatherall, Primal Scream and 'Screamadlica'.
"Just what is it that you want to do?
Well, we wanna be free, we wanna be free to do what we wanna do
And we wanna get loaded and we wanna have a good time."
The last time I spoke to Andrew was about three years ago. I'd gone to somebody's birthday party at a club in Shoreditch. Afterwards I was standing on the pavement and heard somebody say "Hey Jack, how are you?" I turned around and it was Weatherall, although I didn't immediately recognize him. His hair had grown long and he had a beard.
We talked for a while to catch up. He asked me if I was doing anything concerning the growing acid house revival. I told him no, can't see the point. I asked him if he was. "No," he laughed, "that would be like reliving the Teddy Boys when acid house came along." He told me if I was ever in the area, I should give him a call. I wish I had.
Graham Sherman, who used to write for NME and deejays, has been writing a book on Weatherall for a fair number of years. I hope it sees the light of day. Weatherall's take on music in terms of original compositions, production and remixes is going to be around for a long time.
Weatherall was very funny and knowledgeable about many things, not just music. He was also a Chelsea FC supporter, I believe.
RIP Andrew. We definitely all got 'Loaded'.
Jack
