“Like a 1989 UK illegal rave in book form”: Harold Heath looks back on Jane Bussman’s Once In A Lifetime, one of dance music’s finest — and funniest — books.
Once In A Lifetime: The Crazy Days of Acid House and Afterwards by UK award-winning comedy writer and author Jane Bussman is, possibly, the best book on the UK acid house [1] and rave scene ever written. It’s not a traditional music history book, and it’s not a biography, autobiography or memoir. Instead it’s kind of its own thing, a unique collection of stories, jokes, recollections, anecdotes, non-sequiturs, observations, charts, photos, newspaper clippings, flyers and more, along with contributions from various famous and not-famous contributors. Clubbers, DJs, dancers, producers, promoters, designers, drivers and the various other assorted human flotsam and jetsam of clubland recall, as best they can, the best nights of their lives, while Bussman ties it all together via the medium of really good jokes.
In terms of documenting “important rave events that happened,” Once… is thorough, but the tale is largely told through countless afterparty conversational diversions and side-quests. Its constant humour, the tempo, the level of detail, its disjointed-yet-connected style, the familiar characters and the oh-so-perfectly-observed details so redolent of that particular time, all coalesce into an extremely authentic literary depiction of rave culture. Once… is also one of the funniest things I’ve read and I don’t think that it is a particularly bold statement to call it the funniest book about dance music ever written. There’s an Oakenfold quote on the contents page: “The key, the secret to the whole thing, is fun. People had never had so much fun,” and, in this matter at least, he’s right; I was there too and can concur, it was all terribly good fun. And in Once…, it’s as though the funnest elements of late ’80s/early ’90s acid house and rave in the UK have been isolated and then distilled down into words on a page: Once In A Lifetime is like a 1989 UK illegal rave in book form.
‘I was determined to do something that felt accurate, and that’s what everyone always says about it. But I’m most happy about the fact that it captures the spirit of the thing — which was really silly.’
You get eleven chapters, once for each year between 1988 and ’98, with page after page of eminently quote-able quotes literally from the very first page of the prologue (subtitle: It’s 1987 And I Wish I Was Dead), where Bussman, with assassin-level accuracy, describes the last days of London’s late ’80s rare groove scene as “ten people dressed like the Bisto Kids standing in the Wag Club pretending they liked James Brown.” Once… details the parties, the music, the dancers, the DJs, the fashion, the drugs, the impromptu 4am motorway service station ecstasy networking events, and all the other elements that made up UK rave culture, swooping between the micro and the macro, giving equal weight to the important social and political trends that were relevant to the UK party scene as well as the minutiae of long-forgotten rambling chill out room conversations. The stories from clubbers and ravers are by turns funny, hilarious, crazy, weird, fucked up, beautiful, touching, then funny again. They’re like a shared body of memories and experiences that will be instantly familiar to anyone who was involved in the scene, a series of reminders of the good times, of being young and experiencing this new music, these new parties, this whole new thing for the first time.
From her home in Spain where she’s currently setting up a dog sanctuary/adoption centre, Bussman chatted over the phone with us about how she felt about Once…, over twenty-five years after it was published.
“I’m really pleased about it, and I’ll tell you why — I was determined to do something that felt accurate, and that’s what everyone always says about it. And all the facts and the stuff that might otherwise have got lost, I’m really glad that it’s all on record. But I’m most happy about the fact that it captures the spirit of the thing — which was really silly.”
And would she do anything different were she writing it today? “I think the pink shiny cover always looked horrible. It was a complete cock up, I had asked for orange, which I thought would be matte and Day-Glo so how the hell it ended up being salmon pink and shiny I have no idea. I think I was trying to be too clever for my own good, should’ve just made it bright yellow with a great big smiley on the front.” I guess I could add that, presumably to squeeze in as many jokes, charts and little easter eggs of rave delight as possible, the sidebar font is only about two atoms tall so it’s really hard to read, but these are clearly extremely minor quibbles.
As our call drew to an end, Jane told us that at a recent birthday party, she was looking through photos of a rave from way back when. “Everyone was lovely then!” she told us. “They all just looked so lovely, there was so much joy and innocence and kindness and well-meaningness to the whole world, in the faces in the photos… Everyone was just eyes wide open, heart wide open.” She’s right, we were, and Once In A Lifetime managed to perfectly capture and document that spirit of pure rave joy for posterity.
[1] In the UK, just as in the US, “acid house” refers to Roland 303-based house music, but it also has a secondary meaning, where it functions as a general umbrella term for the early days of UK rave culture, which is how I’ll be using it here. —HH

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5 Mag Issue 213
Released: May 2024
ROOTED: This was originally published in 5 Mag Issue #213 featuring electronic music pioneer Laurent Garnier, Monty Luke, Petals In Sound, Henna Onna, Paul Johnson and more. Become a member for $2/month and get every issue in your inbox right away!
[…] 5 Mag Book Club: The Crazy Days of Acid House. Harold Heath looks back on Jane Bussman’s Once In A Lifetime, one of dance music’s […]
[…] two installments of the 5 Mag Book Club. The first selection will be published here tomorrow — Jane Bussman’s Once In A Lifetime: The Crazy Days of Acid House and Afterwards, which Harold describes as “possibly the best book on the UK acid house and rave scene ever […]