Latest news with #JamesHamilton
Business Wire
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Wire
Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Initiates Phase 1/2a Study of ARO-ALK7 for the Treatment of Obesity
PASADENA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARWR) today announced that it has dosed the first subjects in a Phase 1/2a clinical trial of ARO-ALK7, the company's investigational RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutic being developed as a potential treatment for obesity. ARO-ALK7 is designed to intervene in a known pathway that signals the body to store fat in adipose tissue. The study initiates in otherwise healthy obese subjects using single and multiple escalating doses of ARO-ALK7 monotherapy and is expected to progress rapidly to investigate combinations of ARO-ALK7 with tirzepatide in obese patients with and without type 2 diabetes. ARO-ALK7 is designed to intervene in a known pathway that signals the body to store fat in adipose tissue. Share 'Arrowhead's two clinical stage RNAi-based obesity programs, ARO-ALK7 and ARO-INHBE, intervene in a known pathway that signals the body to store fat in adipose tissue. Both programs have strong genetic validation and promising results in preclinical studies, which suggest that silencing the respective genes may lead to reduced body weight and potentially preserve lean muscle mass resulting in improved body composition,' said James Hamilton, M.D., Chief Medical Officer and Head of R&D. 'This ongoing Phase 1/2a clinical study will evaluate single and multiple ascending doses of ARO-ALK7 as monotherapy in otherwise healthy obese volunteers as well as multiple doses in obese patients with or without type 2 diabetes in combination with incretin therapy.' About ARO-ALK7 ARO-ALK7 is designed to silence adipocyte expression of the ACVR1C gene to reduce production of Activin receptor-like kinase 7 (ALK7), which acts as a receptor in a pathway that regulates energy homeostasis in adipose tissue. In large genetic datasets, reduced ACVR1C expression has been associated with healthier adipose distribution and reduced risk of obesity-related metabolic complications. In preclinical animal studies, ALK7 silencing in adipose tissue led to reduced body weight and fat mass with preservation of lean muscle. Treatment with investigational ARO-ALK7 has the potential to reduce visceral adiposity and improve lipid and glycemic parameters. About the AROALK7-1001 Phase 1/2 Study AROALK7-1001 (NCT06937203) is a Phase 1/2a first-in-human dose-escalating study to evaluate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of ARO-ALK7 in up to 90 adult volunteers with obesity. Part 1 of the study is designed to assess single and multiple doses of ARO-ALK7 monotherapy, and Part 2 of the study is designed to assess ARO-ALK7 in combination with tirzepatide, a subcutaneously administered GLP-1/GIP receptor co-agonist that has been approved in the United States and the European Union for management type 2 diabetes mellitus since 2022 and weight management since 2023/2024 respectively. About Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals develops medicines that treat intractable diseases by silencing the genes that cause them. Using a broad portfolio of RNA chemistries and efficient modes of delivery, Arrowhead therapies trigger the RNA interference mechanism to induce rapid, deep, and durable knockdown of target genes. RNA interference, or RNAi, is a mechanism present in living cells that inhibits the expression of a specific gene, thereby affecting the production of a specific protein. Arrowhead's RNAi-based therapeutics leverage this natural pathway of gene silencing. For more information, please visit or follow us on X (formerly Twitter) at @ArrowheadPharma, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. To be added to the Company's email list and receive news directly, please visit Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act: This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements contained in this release except for historical information may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, words such as 'may,' 'will,' 'expect,' 'believe,' 'anticipate,' 'hope,' 'intend,' 'plan,' 'project,' 'could,' 'estimate,' 'continue,' 'target,' 'forecast' or 'continue' or the negative of these words or other variations thereof or comparable terminology are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. In addition, any statements that refer to projections of our future financial performance, trends in our business, expectations for our product pipeline or product candidates, including anticipated regulatory submissions and clinical program results, prospects or benefits of our collaborations with other companies, or other characterizations of future events or circumstances are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about the initiation, timing, progress and results of our preclinical studies and clinical trials, and our research and development programs; our expectations regarding the potential benefits of the partnership, licensing and/or collaboration arrangements and other strategic arrangements and transactions we have entered into or may enter into in the future; our beliefs and expectations regarding milestone, royalty or other payments that could be due to or from third parties under existing agreements; and our estimates regarding future revenues, research and development expenses, capital requirements and payments to third parties. These statements are based upon our current expectations and speak only as of the date hereof. Our actual results may differ materially and adversely from those expressed in any forward-looking statements as a result of numerous factors and uncertainties, including the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on our business, the safety and efficacy of our product candidates, decisions of regulatory authorities and the timing thereof, the duration and impact of regulatory delays in our clinical programs, our ability to finance our operations, the likelihood and timing of the receipt of future milestone and licensing fees, the future success of our scientific studies, our ability to successfully develop and commercialize drug candidates, the timing for starting and completing clinical trials, rapid technological change in our markets, the enforcement of our intellectual property rights, and the other risks and uncertainties described in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. We assume no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect new events or circumstances. Source: Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Associated Press
2 days ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Initiates Phase 1/2a Study of ARO-ALK7 for the Treatment of Obesity
PASADENA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 2, 2025-- Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARWR) today announced that it has dosed the first subjects in a Phase 1/2a clinical trial of ARO-ALK7, the company's investigational RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutic being developed as a potential treatment for obesity. ARO-ALK7 is designed to intervene in a known pathway that signals the body to store fat in adipose tissue. The study initiates in otherwise healthy obese subjects using single and multiple escalating doses of ARO-ALK7 monotherapy and is expected to progress rapidly to investigate combinations of ARO-ALK7 with tirzepatide in obese patients with and without type 2 diabetes. 'Arrowhead's two clinical stage RNAi-based obesity programs, ARO-ALK7 and ARO-INHBE, intervene in a known pathway that signals the body to store fat in adipose tissue. Both programs have strong genetic validation and promising results in preclinical studies, which suggest that silencing the respective genes may lead to reduced body weight and potentially preserve lean muscle mass resulting in improved body composition,' said James Hamilton, M.D., Chief Medical Officer and Head of R&D. 'This ongoing Phase 1/2a clinical study will evaluate single and multiple ascending doses of ARO-ALK7 as monotherapy in otherwise healthy obese volunteers as well as multiple doses in obese patients with or without type 2 diabetes in combination with incretin therapy.' About ARO-ALK7 ARO-ALK7 is designed to silence adipocyte expression of the ACVR1C gene to reduce production of Activin receptor-like kinase 7 (ALK7), which acts as a receptor in a pathway that regulates energy homeostasis in adipose tissue. In large genetic datasets, reduced ACVR1C expression has been associated with healthier adipose distribution and reduced risk of obesity-related metabolic complications. In preclinical animal studies, ALK7 silencing in adipose tissue led to reduced body weight and fat mass with preservation of lean muscle. Treatment with investigational ARO-ALK7 has the potential to reduce visceral adiposity and improve lipid and glycemic parameters. About the AROALK7-1001 Phase 1/2 Study AROALK7-1001 ( NCT06937203 ) is a Phase 1/2a first-in-human dose-escalating study to evaluate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of ARO-ALK7 in up to 90 adult volunteers with obesity. Part 1 of the study is designed to assess single and multiple doses of ARO-ALK7 monotherapy, and Part 2 of the study is designed to assess ARO-ALK7 in combination with tirzepatide, a subcutaneously administered GLP-1/GIP receptor co-agonist that has been approved in the United States and the European Union for management type 2 diabetes mellitus since 2022 and weight management since 2023/2024 respectively. About Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals develops medicines that treat intractable diseases by silencing the genes that cause them. Using a broad portfolio of RNA chemistries and efficient modes of delivery, Arrowhead therapies trigger the RNA interference mechanism to induce rapid, deep, and durable knockdown of target genes. RNA interference, or RNAi, is a mechanism present in living cells that inhibits the expression of a specific gene, thereby affecting the production of a specific protein. Arrowhead's RNAi-based therapeutics leverage this natural pathway of gene silencing. For more information, please visit or follow us on X (formerly Twitter) at @ArrowheadPharma, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. To be added to the Company's email list and receive news directly, please visit Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act:Source: Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, Inc. View source version on CONTACT: Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Vince Anzalone, CFA 626-304-3400 [email protected]: LifeSci Advisors, LLC Brian Ritchie 212-915-2578 [email protected]: LifeSci Communications, LLC Kendy Guarinoni, Ph.D. 724-910-9389 [email protected] KEYWORD: CALIFORNIA UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: HEALTH DIABETES GENETICS CLINICAL TRIALS PHARMACEUTICAL BIOTECHNOLOGY SOURCE: Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Copyright Business Wire 2025. PUB: 06/02/2025 07:30 AM/DISC: 06/02/2025 07:28 AM
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Health
- Telegraph
Sadiq Khan wants to legalise cannabis. It killed my son
Whenever plans to decriminalise cannabis are mooted, 'my heart sinks,' says Janie Hamilton. So it was again this week when Sir Sadiq Khan backed calls for the partial decriminalisation of the Class B drug, stating that the way it is policed 'cannot be justified given its relative harm'. This kind of logic is touted only by those who 'really don't know what they're talking about,' believes Hamilton, 73, whose son died in his mid-30s after battling with cannabis addiction for more than two decades. She recalls spending years visiting locked wards as his health deteriorated and schizophrenia took hold. 'They were filled with people either off their heads or shuffling around like zombies,' says Hamilton. 'The common denominator between them all? Cannabis.' Hamilton's son, James, first became her window into the drug's harms when he was 14. At the time, the family was living at a prestigious Surrey boarding school where both she and her husband taught. But as he began to dabble in drugs, she says, James morphed from an adventurous boy who had dreams of becoming a journalist into a 'very rude, arrogant and unpredictable' individual. 'I'd never had a teenager before and, at first, believed the unpleasant things I was witnessing were the result of normal adolescent behaviour,' Hamilton recalls. 'I just thought, 'I love my son, but I don't like him.'' Schoolfriends had given James cannabis, which began having a marked effect both on his mind and his grades. He had been predicted three A-stars at A-Level, but eventually received an A, B and D, losing a place at Durham University. Then 18, instead of trying to secure a new course via clearing, he went on holiday with 'cannabis-smoking friends' while his mother scrabbled to enrol him elsewhere. Just a few months later, she says, 'he came home looking completely lost; he was barely holding it together.' James then took on a string of low-commitment odd-jobs while his behaviour became increasingly erratic. He would stay in his room all day, often until midnight, when 'he'd come out and go down to the kitchen, turn the light on, turn the grill on, come up to the bathroom and start showering.' He also stripped his room of all possessions – even the bed – until there was just a mattress and sheet on the floor. James was 20 when, on finishing work on a building site, he returned home one day 'turning in circles saying 'I'm free, I'm free.'' When Hamilton asked him to stop, 'he told me he'd spent all his wages on cannabis.' The next day, Hamilton called a doctor, who quickly returned with a psychiatrist and a social worker. 'Within minutes they gave each other the nod, and he was sectioned,' Hamilton says. 'And that was the beginning of 16 years of being sectioned, then getting a little bit better, being well enough to come out of hospital and eventually coming off his medication.' But each cycle would only make the next fall yet harder, and James 'became more and more ill'. What she hadn't understood during his teens was that 'the cannabis was changing his brain, and changing his thinking'. But by the time he turned 20, its impact was clear, as James began to develop paranoid schizophrenia. This was not a genetic condition, Hamilton says. 'It was the cannabis that changed him,' she adds. Hamilton had been hopeful that his being sectioned would mark a turning point. After his first three-month stint he appeared to improve, moving back in with his family and securing a job as a porter 'in the kitchens of the school where he'd once been a star pupil'. When he decided that his medication had left him 'deadened', however, the progress came to a shuddering halt. He told his mother that he was abandoning the treatment, slamming the door as she pleaded with him to continue. More erratic behaviour ensued: an ambulance was called after he 'finished up everybody's dregs' during a visit to the pub, and fell off his bike. He blasted music across the grounds of the school they lived at – James's attempt 'to drown out the voices in his head because you can't get away from them,' she knows now. 'We warned and warned and warned him that he'd be re-sectioned, and he took no notice.' Between inpatient stints, where he would flit between prescribed medication and cannabis, James's paranoia flourished. He had a small scar from a mole removal that he became convinced people were unduly whispering about; he developed body dysmorphic disorder, getting the tip of one ear – which scarcely differed from the other – pinned back on Harley Street. Of his 16 years in and out of institutions, there was just one spell where 'he got insight, actual insight into what he had done to himself,' says Hamilton. 'He knew it was the cannabis; he suddenly saw what he had put us through, and he apologised.' But then, again, he came off his medication, and the problems began anew. 'Nobody could do anything, that was the tragic part of it,' Hamilton says. She becomes emotional recalling another incident where after more strange behaviour on school grounds aged 21, they moved him to a nearby hostel, his belongings stuffed into a black plastic bag. He would eat only when his parents brought food over and at one stage, he went missing. 'I remember thinking: he's off his head, nobody's looking after him, he could die… and then I thought to myself, if he dies, he dies. From that moment on I felt there was nowhere else to go but up, because I had faced the worst in my head.' There were glimpses of the old James at times, Hamilton reflects. She calculates that they went to National Trust properties over 1,000 times; even in his ill state he could fashion a witty one-liner. It all could have been so easily avoided, Hamilton thinks, had he not 'got in with the wrong crowd'. But in 2015, when James was 36, the psychological issues wrought by his cannabis-taking would become fatal. He had been diagnosed with early stage testicular cancer – something he initially kept from his parents – and refused to accept treatment. There were hospital meetings and even a court case to try and make him see reason. But 'you cannot fight psychosis. It is impossible,' Hamilton says of her son's mental state. 'What they hear in their head and what they see in their delusions are so strong that they believe those, rather than what's said to them.' It devastates Hamilton that her son's eminently treatable cancer produced the most awful of outcomes in July 2015, when he passed away. 'Cannabis stole his life three times over,' she says: first robbing him of his potential, then potentially triggering the disease (several studies have shown a link between heavy use of the drug and testicular cancer), before finally denying him the 'ability to make a right-minded decision to have life-saving treatment'. 'So in every way it got him, and he did not have to die. He could still be here,' Hamilton adds. It is for this reason that she fears the dangers of cannabis being downplayed. (In response to Khan's comments, David Sidwick, Dorset's police and crime commissioner, urged that cannabis be considered on par with crack cocaine and heroin.) 'Some people will have done exactly what James did and got away with it – but many don't,' Hamilton says. Through activism since his death, she has met numerous parents of addicts who have become shadows of their former selves, disinterested in the world beyond their bedrooms and unrecognisable from the promise-filled people they were before. They don't factor into official statistics because they are not in treatment, Hamilton explains, but their distorted lives are proof of the drug's potentially devastating effects. Hamilton continues to campaign, so that other families don't suffer the same fate she has. 'The fight against cannabis just makes some sense out of James's death,' she says. 'Because I know what it does.'
CBC
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
How Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and more disabled artists changed music
From unique guitar chords to sign singing, we explore the innovations of disabled musicians Cripping is a term used by disabled people to reclaim how they see themselves. As Eliza Chandler, an associate professor at TMU's School fo Disability Studies writes,"animated by the experiences of living in a world that does not typically desire us, or even imagine us as cultural participants, disability arts specifically mobilizes a disruptive politic.... the disability arts community doesn't want to be included in an ableist world/culture, we want to create something new. This disruptive politic comes through the word 'crip.'" When it comes to music, an industry that often treats disabled musicians and spectators alike as an afterthought, they've taken matters into their own hands. In a co-production between CBC Music, CBC Creator Network and AccessCBC, composer, performer and comedian James Hamilton takes viewers through the different ways disabled musicians have innovated, or "cripped," music. "Disabled musicians, by simply existing and being artists, can radically change the music world as we know it. This can be in the concert form, musical content, new technologies, or breaking down our definition of what music entails," Hamilton says in the introduction. Two such musicians are Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, who were both disabled by the polio epidemic that swept Canada in the 1950s. After losing some of the mobility in her hands, Mitchell changed the tuning on her guitar to make it easier to play, and simultaneously changed the sound of the chords, leading to her signature "jazzy" guitar sound. Young recorded his 1972 album, Harvest, in a back brace after an accident on his ranch in the Santa Cruz mountains. The restrictive apparatus could have led to his "more mellow and minimalistic style," limiting his ability to play guitar and sing. More recently, ASL rapper Sean Forbes is popularizing sign-rapping with his songs like Watch These Hands, and Toronto-based composer Stephanie Orlando is writing music with neurodivergent listeners in mind. Both are making space for more diverse music audiences. Watch the video above for more insights into the myriad ways people are "cripping music."
The Guardian
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Everyone knew who he was: James Hamilton, the ‘eccentric aristo' who catalysed British club culture
Norman Cook can remember the first time he met James Hamilton very clearly. 'He was enormous,' he laughs. 'Enormous and very well-spoken, called everyone 'dear boy', quite camp. He looked so … unlikely. Not a party animal, not into anything apart from dance music and the vibe and the culture of it all. Not interested in being cool, he was like, 'it's OK to be nerdy as long as you really know your music', but I think he really enjoyed the fact that every club he went to, everyone would know who he was and they were all going to tell him some gossip or give him a record.' Moreover, Cook remembers their meeting because James Hamilton had caused him a whole world of trouble. It was the 80s, a decade before Cook became Fatboy Slim, superstar DJ and multi-platinum producer of countless dancefloor hits: he was still the bass player in indie band the Housemartins, who had quietly put out his first solo single – 'a kind of cut-up rap record called The Finest Ingredients' – under a pseudonym, DJ Megamix, further masking his identity by trying to make the 12in look like an American import. 'And James Hamilton found out who I was, and when he wrote about it in Record Mirror, he put 'Norman from the Housemartins'. And all hell broke loose: the rest of the band were going 'What are you doing? You have to stop this! We'll lose fans if they think that you're into hip-hop!' It was that era of 'hang the DJ' – you couldn't be in an indie band and like dance music. So the first thing I said to him was 'oh, thanks for outing me – how did you know?'' It's a very James Hamilton story: it makes reference to his imposing physical stature, his fabled public school poshness (he was 6ft 8in, and variously described as resembling 'a country squire', 'an eccentric aristocrat', 'a headmaster that had turned up in the middle of a nightclub' and compared to James Robertson Justice, the fearsome star of the Doctor at Large films). It notes the sheer improbability that someone like that would be a pivotal figure in the world of dance music, however encyclopedic his knowledge. But a pivotal and pioneering figure in dance music history is exactly what James Hamilton was: so important that Pete Tong describes him as 'the oracle'. At a time when Black music tended to go ignored by the mainstream music press, he wrote a column in Record Mirror that began in the mid-70s, reviewing every new release that might conceivably be of interest to club DJs, in a deeply idiosyncratic, adjective heavy style: tracks could be 'jittery' or 'jogging' , a 'jiggly smacker', a 'solid clomper' or – a personal favourite – 'gallopingly exerting'. The first of two collections of Hamilton's writing, James Hamilton's Disco Pages 1975-1982, has just been published: it's edited by Mike Atkinson, a writer and podcaster whose stepmother married Hamilton in 1994. His writing 'was like an actual different lexicon, that you'd eventually understand,' says broadcaster and DJ Gilles Peterson, who describes seeing his name mentioned in print by Hamilton for the first time as 'the highlight of my life up to that point'. Hamilton also dished out news, gossip and tips from across Britain, encouraging DJs to send in lists of their biggest records that he compiled into the first ever UK dance chart: in an era when, as Cook puts it, DJs 'very rarely played outside their own local catchment area', it was as if he was trying to singlehandedly forge a country-wide dance scene. 'I mean, it's impossible for kids with the internet to believe, but there were all these little scenes going on in different places, and unless you went to visit a mate for a weekend, you'd never know what was going on in the next town, there was no cross-pollination between different cities – if you lived in Brighton, you would have no idea what the Wild Bunch were playing in Bristol,' says Cook. 'James Hamilton was the conduit for everything.' Perhaps most importantly of all, after a visit to New York where he visited the Paradise Garage and heard the legendary DJ Larry Levan, Hamilton relentlessly promoted the idea of matching the tempos of different records and seamlessly mixing them together: a hitherto-unknown concept in late 70s Britain, where club DJs tended to get on the microphone and talk between records. It's hard to imagine in a world where mixing records is what club DJs do as a matter of course, but Hamilton's idea met with a combination of indifference and outright hostility. Pete Tong believes it was 'down to resistance of the unknown, like 'I don't really understand how to do this',' but DJ and producer Greg Wilson – an early adopter of mixing, who ended up demonstrating his turntable skills to a visibly baffled Jools Holland on The Tube in early 1983, and who is publishing the new collection – thinks it had more to do with the possibility that it might frustrate their aspirations to become broadcasters. 'DJs didn't travel all over the country, they weren't stars in the same way they are now, so their ambition was usually to get on the radio. So the idea of putting the microphone down in order to mix records … they were absolutely dead set against that.' But Hamilton persisted, taking British DJs with him when he returned to the Paradise Garage. Most of them seem to have been distinctly nonplussed, but one, Steven 'Froggy' Howlett had what Wilson calls 'a Damascene conversion' and apparently imported the UK's first set of Technics decks on his return. He started peppering his writing with suggestions about other tracks you could mix into the one he was reviewing, and started counting records' speeds – their beats per minute – with the aid of a stopwatch and adding that information to reviews too: whenever you see a BPM measurement attached to a dance track, that's basically down to James Hamilton. Hamilton was a fascinating figure. Quite aside from his writing career and the various innovations it spawned, he'd spent the 60s alternately working with the Beatles in America, and DJing at legendary London mod nightclub the Scene under the name Doctor Soul; he then built Britain's first custom-made mobile DJ console, and took to playing at aristocratic country house balls, where requests tended more to the Blue Danube and Scottish jigs and reels than the latest US imports. And yet, 29 years after his death from cancer, Hamilton remains an almost entirely forgotten figure. 'No one under the age of 50 knows who he is,' laments Wilson. The new collection offers an endlessly intriguing glimpse into a forgotten world of 70s and 80s nightlife, filled with unexpected details – the sudden surge of interest in 40s swing music among soul fans in the mid-70s, which led to not one, but two versions of Glen Miller's In the Mood making the Top 40; the fact that the first mixed DJ set in Britain was played not in a hip nightclub, but at a roller-skating event at glamorous-sounding Pickett's Lock Sports Centre in Edmonton – the writing testament to Hamilton's surprisingly catholic tastes. He was quick to pick up on the importance of gay clubs in the development of dance music, running charts from their DJs from the mid-70s onwards and was, a little surprisingly, a huge fan of punk, approvingly – and characteristically – referring to the Sex Pistols' Anarchy in the UK as a 'noisy bubblegum chugger'. 'In the mod days he saw the Who as a rock band followed by mods who spent most of their time dancing to soul music at the Scene,' says Atkinson. 'Then he saw people at the Lacy Lady in Ilford dressing in punk gear' – 'festooned with chains, safety pins dancing to soul, funk and disco, and made the connection between the Sex Pistols and the Who.' He was also impressed by the burgeoning new romantic movement, talking up the Blitz club's DJ Rusty Egan and coining a weirdly familiar term for the music he played: electronic dance music or EDM. This, however, proved a step too far for the purists. 'There was a record shop and label that really took umbrage at him covering this white, electronic music, and threatened to withdraw their advertising from Record Mirror, so he had to stop,' says Wilson. 'The irony is that in the US, Gary Numan and the Human League were being played at Black block parties in the Bronx, and that's how you ended up with records like Planet Rock by Afrika Bambaataa.' His influence finally began to wane with the arrival of acid house in the UK. Hamilton liked the music, but was wary of the accompanying drug culture (invited by Paul Oakenfold to his acid house night Spectrum, Hamilton famously surveyed the club, then turned to Oakenfold and said 'I've heard the crunch of amphetamines on the dancefloor before, you know'). And, as Peterson points out, acid house was 'sort of creating a new movement that didn't want to be associated with the past'. 'It was our punk rock moment, it was year zero,' agrees Tong. 'It was almost like everything that came before was forbidden. Things like the Boy's Own fanzine were really influential and they were a bit 'fuck off, soul boys'. It's how the phrase 'it's all gone Pete Tong' came about – I was accepted, but in print, they took the piss out of me because I was connected to the past.' Moreover, acid house was too big a scene for one writer to oversee (Record Mirror folded in 1991 and specialist dance titles including Mixmag and DJ sprang up, although Hamilton kept reviewing for the latter until his death). And its impact on British culture was so vast it tends to overshadow everything that came before, no matter how impactful and influential it was. 'People forgot about the world before the rave scene,' says Wilson. 'So these very important characters like James got forgotten. We're in a weird position today, where people in Britain can tell you all sorts about what was happening in New York clubs in the 70s, they know about the Loft or everything Larry Levan was playing, but they're at a loss when it comes to the UK. That's one of the important aspects of doing a book, to bring history into play, so that people understand that there was a scene here, with a different approach, its own character, its own background, and James was a part of that – he pushed things forward.' James Hamilton's Disco Pages 1975-1982, edited by Mike Atkinson, is out now, published by Super Weird Substance, £30
