Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Where were you in 92? the thread.

I'm interested in how now legendary times in music e.g. hardcore, acid house, uk garage, grime - have become misrepresented in the media and collective imagination.

Obviously even people who were at Rage or whatever only had a partial view of something much bigger but what are some of the big myths you see now accepted as gospel?
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
What prompted this was listening to a compliation of 'old skool' with all these amazing tunes and thinking 'wow everything was amazing back in those days' - but then wondering, was it ever really like that, or were these tunes that have survived the diamonds in a pile of so-so shit?
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
wasn't there there but most of those tunes are lightweight. as soon as liquid sweet harmony comes on I'm out for a fag.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
probably the only person who can answer this semi-authoritatively is bliss but even then he was living in the US for most of the time.
 

mvuent

Void Dweller
the topic of how things looked at the time vs. in retrospective is always very interesting imo. you know there are going to be differences--but it still always surprises me how, when I come across a list of the of the most important / popular artists from a given time that was made during that time, it inevitably has names I've never even heard. whether it's the 19th century or 90s.

was thinking about this bc I used to assume the old skool youtube videos with the most views were the most popular back in the day--but have increasingly realized this isn't the case due to the recommendation algorithm, etc.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
you'll have to ask some of the old pulse fm jocks. good luck trying to find them thugh. that being said you have connections in the wire.
 
There was a lot more criminality than is generally acknowledged.

Junior Disprin Ecstasy
Big Vern types
Robbery - mate of mine was mugged 3 times by different groups of lads just walking alone a few dozen yards through a Universe rave in 1992 (first big one I went to, missed the Fantazia at Castle Donington, which was on our doorstep, because we all went to Corfu instead)
Early 90s were pretty violent really

Also, acid and speed (combined) were much more common than ecstasy in most areas in the Midlands, I think that fuelled the lunacy of hardcore more than E.
E was practically unknown until about a year later, only encountered it when I arrived at university, where everyone was into progressive house at best. The hardcore/techno night, Prism at the Cowley Road Venue in Oxford fucking finished end of my first term. The two or three times I was able to go (£3 on the door!) were fully amazing, time of my life.

Oh yeah, the Horn Track was everywhere that Summer but hasn't really made it into the canon.
 
Last edited:

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
He really starts scraping the barrel a few pages in - 'Here Comes the Hotstepper'?! :crylarf:

It's a good one to bring up though cos I guess it's easy to think everyone loved those anthemic tunes that survived the decades. Apparently not!
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Big Vern reference was lost on me, love this character design though, can imagine it on a bomber jacket

1389767.jpg
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
He really starts scraping the barrel a few pages in - 'Here Comes the Hotstepper'?! :crylarf:

It's a good one to bring up though cos I guess it's easy to think everyone loved those anthemic tunes that survived the decades. Apparently not!


he's an 88-91-er. has some good reviews if you look through though really hates jungle lol.

but yeah, 91 hardcore and 92 hardcore have a lot of evolution between them.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I guess this is why it all split into separate strands so fast isn't it (if it ever wasn't in seperate strands) - one man's meat/one man's poison and all that.

I'm very interested in that thing of tunes that were big at the time but have disappeared from the canon...
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
well a lot of it is pure economy isn't it. people like hype and randall were playing a lot of US and belgian stuff into early 92. then when they had their own music they obviously had to commit to that. you won't find any american or Belgian tunes in a 93 randall set. this is the danger with the patriotism going too far looking back historically. but then again i would say that.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
The hardcore/techno night, Prism at the Cowley Road Venue in Oxford fucking finished end of my first term. It was fully amazing, time of my life.
Tell me about this, was that at the Zodiac or what? Would love to know about stuff happening in Oxford.

I do like that Egyptian Empire one, sampled from C-Cat Trance who were the same guys as Medium Medium I think.

Big Vern types did make me laugh - "they'll never me alive".
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
well a lot of it is pure economy isn't it. people like hype and randall were playing a lot of US and belgian stuff into early 92. then when they had their own music they obviously had to commit to that. you won't find any american or Belgian tunes in a 93 randall set. this is the danger with the patriotism going too far looking back historically. but then again i would say that.

This sort of thing is worth talking about definitely, again because it's more nuanced and breaks down that myth that's accrued around hardcore

Maybe the futurity of hardcore was doomed to become legend and nostalgia, just less quickly than it would have done in the internet era
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
it's hard to say... memory being a form of filtering and selection and mythification in itself

one thing i've noticed though is that old skoolism necessarily distorts because an old skool dj set or mixtape can cream off the best tunes over a whole span of time, whereas in the clubs at the time deejays would typically play a lot of out-that-week tunes and a lot of these would be fairly run of the mill white labels.... i mean, the kind of obscure oddities or pretty-good things that we would now be buzzed to stumble on YouTube or in some stack of old second-hand vinyl .... but at the time these were were sub-anthemic stuff, DJ tools really - and the accumulation of that could be a bit.... level, i think is the word... it would do the job, sustain the basic vibe .... but not have the explosive effect of an anthem dropping

i can remember some mediocre nights ... where it didn't quite ignite cos the music was all of that type (or the pill was a dud)

but when all the elements converged, it was every bit as incandescently exciting as the myth says

in a way the anthems or amazing tunes, when they drop, have more effect against a more workaday backdrop

if you played 10 x 'Renegade Snares' or 'Terminator' in a row, it wouldn't work
 
Top