Peter Slaghuis

Peter Slaghuis (21 August 1961 – 5 September 1991) was a Dutch DJ, record producer and remixer, whose work was mostly released under the name Hithouse (a literal translation of his last name — slag, a hit, a beat; and huis, house).

Slaghuis was born in Rijswijk, Netherlands on 21 August 1961.

As a child, he was already unlucky, as he was always ill and would be in hospital.

Fortunately, he got better when he turned 10, and grew into a healthy boy.

His father Charles Slaghuis gave him and his sister Dana their first cassette recorder.

This led to Slaghuis' love for music, while Dana was not interested.

After graduating from school, Slaghuis began working as a DJ in a local club in The Hague in his teens in 1979.

One day, he heard an illegal bootleg American megamix, which inspired him to try and copy the style.

He was already mixing in the club while at home he was experimenting with the cassette recorder's pause button's editing technique.

Using this he created his first remix, a 3/4-hour long remix of "Dancing Queen" by ABBA.

He saved some money and bought two completely different fixed speed decks and a receiver.

By wiring them up, he was able to hear one deck from the left and one from the right.

Slaghuis' next purchases included a mixing console, two varispeed decks and a Pioneer reel-to-reel, which had "horrible sound quality".

Slaghuis made a name for himself as a remixer in the 1980s, producing popular remixes of various hits.

In his home studio at his parents' house, he made music by taking samples from obscure records and pieces of music, cleverly mixing them together into his own self-produced tracks.

He secured connections with the "Disco Breaks" bootleg label and started creating megamixes and remixes for them.

Some of the earlier mixes were actually created on cassette, including the rare "Dutch Mix" of "Lay All Your Love on Me" by ABBA.

As more equipment piled into his studio at his parents' home, he became more certain of his future.

He was always playing his mixes in clubs with great reactions from the crowds, being one of the first DJs to do so, along with Ben Liebrand.

He worked extensively with Erik van Vliet and Michiel van der Kuy from 1982 onwards, producing remixes for their Euro disco/Italo disco projects Laserdance ("Megamix Vol. 1") in 1988 and Sisley Ferré (with vocals by Jody Pijper) in 1987-1990.

In 1984, Slaghuis was asked to join the Euro disco project VideoKids, which released songs such as "Woodpeckers from Space", which became a number 1 hit in Spain and Norway, and "Do the Rap".

He was featured in the videos for both songs alongside Bianca Bonelli and Tico Tac, the group's cartoon mascot.

They released two albums, The Invasion of the Spacepeckers in 1984 and On Satellite in 1985.

With his fame, Slaghuis managed to get a place as a DJ at the BlueTiek-in in Rotterdam in 1985.

He bought his own Akai S900 sampler, being one of the first people to have one.

His big break as a remixer came in 1986 with the Vocal/Long "Dutch Mix" of "I Can't Wait" by Nu Shooz.

Atlantic Records asked him to produce the remix of the song.

Slaghuis hated the song and initially did not want to remix it at all, but Atlantic kept calling with the question if he wanted to produce the mix.

His mother, Helen Slaghuis, went insane from the record company's phone calls, and told Slaghuis to either knock them off or make the remix.

Slaghuis decided to produce the remix, making it in an hour.

He did not change much, but he did add a curious-sounding synthesizer melody over the top.

He had no confidence that the song would ever become a hit, but Atlantic loved it, much to his surprise.

They offered Slaghuis royalties or money, and as he did not rate the track, he took 500 guilders.

Atlantic would later make up for this and take him to America, where he was allowed to remix other Nu Shooz songs there for their album, Poolside, only one of which was used.

Upon the realisation that bootlegs were not the right way to go about getting a name for himself, he sent mixes to Ferry Maat's Soulshow.

He also worked for the Disco Mix Club for some time, producing mixes of songs such as "La Isla Bonita" and "True Blue" by Madonna, "Respectable" by Mel and Kim, "Rock the Night" by Europe, and even "I Can't Wait" by Nu Shooz, for which he was paid decently.

His first mix for the Disco Mix Club, "Slag It Off", was put onto vinyl.

Later that year, Slaghuis remixed "Just Buggin' (Nothing Serious)" by Whistle and "How To Win Your Love" by Spencer Jones, and produced the "Evelyn Thomas Megamix".

He was asked by Maat to make an annual mix for Soulshow, which he created more as a contrast rather than competition to Ben Liebrand's similar year mix for Radio Veronica.

In 1988, he remixed "Downtown" by Petula Clark as "Downtown '88", which was released on 6 June 1988 and reached its No. 10 peak on the UK Singles Chart on 24 December 1988.