Whatever happened to 'speed garage'?

Buick6

too punk to drunk
did it become 'grime', or was it another of those trendy critic-created 'fad' genres like 'New Romantic', 'Shoegazer' and countless others....?
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
Speed garage's ear was mid-late 90s, which pre dates 2step (99-01). grime grew out of the 2step era in 02/03. i also hear there's a revival of speed garage with new homegrown tunes in sheffield now.
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
Buick6 said:
another of those trendy critic-created 'fad' genres like 'New Romantic', 'Shoegazer' and countless others....?

most critics despised or were at least suspicious/sniffy re. the New Romantic scene, which emerged of its own volition.

and 'shoegazer' -- again, i think you'd have to blame my bloody valentine and cocteau twins for that phenomenon (which is hardly a fad -- you've got bands, and even techno artists, today being influenced by it, and pieces about the legacy of shoegaze) -- not that i'm defending shoegaze, mind, it was mostly pretty dilute stuff. but the idea that critics willed it into being is mistaken. in fact that scenario hardly ever happens. would that we had the power!


as for speed garage -- isn't there a whole genre of Speed Garridge Will Never Die oop north, called Bassline House?
 

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
i also hear there's a revival of speed garage with new homegrown tunes in sheffield now.
Yes -- in that the revival is at least five years old now and is -- I think -- slightly on the wane, though still going. Still sounds good though. There's a shop on West Street that stocks quite a lot of it.

isn't there a whole genre of Speed Garridge Will Never Die oop north, called Bassline House?
Yes and no. The genres are intimately related and cover the same scene, but there's a slight distinction between Speed Garage and Bassline house -- the beats of Speed Garage are a bit bumpier and the vocals slightly more ragga-fied, Bassline house being more about big sinewave-underpinned rerubs of vocal house hits.

The scene is big from Birmingham to Wakefield, bit of Leeds too but I haven't seen many flyers for clubs in Leeds. It doesn't cross the Pennines to Manchester or go further south than Brum.

It's real Chav music, but it's got a huge Asian / Punjabi following too. I don't know how racially integrated the scene is but I get the impression that sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.
 

jk_gabba

gabba survivor
Yeh, plenty of speed garage/bassline house pirates here in Brum, usually a lot easier to find than stations playing grime..
 

ambrose

Well-known member
here is speed garage


bassline is massive in leeds and sheffield!

studiobeatz have a residency at paradise club in leeds every month, niche still running nights,
theres a massive night called bass factory coming on at tall trees in yarm soon. big things at the adelphi in shef too.

studibeatz seems to be the epicentre of the norhtern scene, they are the fist label ive heard of to distinctively arise from it all, its a shop on west st in sheffield. you can buy bassline 12"s in hmv in shef and leeds, also reflex records (formely in sheffield) are opening a "dj superstore" which i predict will be a big big centre for it in leeds.

you hear it all thwe time in leeds, on fri night every other car was bumpin the tunes, the bassline always seesm to have the same progression. theres 5 cdrs for 10 quid down leeds market all the time too.
 
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Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
ambrose said:
bassline is massive in leeds and sheffield!
Cheers Ambrose, glad to see the virus has penetrated Leeds' glam lifestyle :).

ambrose said:
studibeatz seems to be the epicentre of the norhtern scene, they are the fist label ive heard of to distinctively arise from it all, its a shop on west st in sheffield.
Yeah, that's the one, right next to one of the cheapest Mac stores in the UK... They stock loads of banging funky house, which will probably appal most Dissensians, but which I like!

ambrose said:
reflex records (formely in sheffield) are opening a "dj superstore" which i predict will be a big big centre for it in leeds.
So that's where they've gone... sadly, I didn't realise they were shutting up shop in Sheffield, so I failed to snaffle the enormous volume of cheapo bashment they had... :(

you hear it all thwe time in leeds, on fri night every other car was bumpin the tunes, the bassline always seesm to have the same progression.
I just love it! Grime is great, but bumpin' 4x4 modern speed garage is the bomb...
 

mms

sometimes
ambrose said:
here is speed garage


bassline is massive in leeds and sheffield!

studiobeatz have a residency at paradise club in leeds every month, niche still running nights,
theres a massive night called bass factory coming on at tall trees in yarm soon. big things at the adelphi in shef too.

studibeatz seems to be the epicentre of the norhtern scene, they are the fist label ive heard of to distinctively arise from it all, its a shop on west st in sheffield. you can buy bassline 12"s in hmv in shef and leeds, also reflex records (formely in sheffield) are opening a "dj superstore" which i predict will be a big big centre for it in leeds.

you hear it all thwe time in leeds, on fri night every other car was bumpin the tunes, the bassline always seesm to have the same progression. theres 5 cdrs for 10 quid down leeds market all the time too.

why do you reckon that is ?
it's quite fascinating as london gets grimier -even electroclash which was quite london based was much grimer and moodier than garage - while the north and midlands are chinking etc .
do you think it derives from variants of the kind of frida night house and hard house into something more salubrious ?
 

ambrose

Well-known member
the thing is bassline isnt realy "sexy" in the way that 4x4 and speed garage was sexy, its more kids, and kinda a more hardcore feel to it, in so far as the scene goes as much as anything.

i think its the basslines as much as anything that drive it. i went into a mobile phone shop and asked the kid (about 14/15) behind "what bassline cds should i get" (nb i have NEVER ever asked fro recommendations before!) the kid was a bit nonplussed and then asked if i liked "wobblers" or something else that i didnt catch. i guessed that was kinda referring to the basslines, but for some reason i just said "tthe more speed garage stuff", i think i ws a bit freaked out by the slang. but i dont really know what bassline has taken the place of, i think it has been here ever since speed agarge was big down south but just expanding its audience until it has the ubiquity of grime in london, and as already noticed, it spans both black asian and white communities. i see it as kids music in a sense, as grime is, it has a big constituency amongst the kids, which bodes well for its longevity.

the north as far as i know has always been on a more ravey axis than the south maybe, i dont think you get the strong happy hardcore scenes down south that you do in newcastle of all over scotland, as though after rave happened, the "cheesy" stuff stayed up north, and the "darkside" blew up down south, theres definately a cheesy element to all northern dance musci i think, scouse house, funky house, bassline, happy hardcore etc. i dont know how well jungle did yup here though, and leeds is another weirdo outlier as techno, as in pure techno, surgeon ben sims etc etc is dead strong here, it has a similar audience, eg "chavs", quite young guys in ellesse polos, the demise of the orbit hasnt killed the scene.

this migth be extrapolating here, and im definately not entitled to such a comment, being such a relative newcomer (only been in north since 98, and was too obsessed with warp to notice anything else then!), but maybe the splits within rave that i heard about from breakbeats and techno, to the dark stuff and the cheesy, havent been as great in the north. maybe all those same elements have remained popular i think, and the differentiation hasnt been as great.

as for grime, well its not represented, partly becayuse the undergound homegrown scene here IS bassline, but jammer and ears are playing on fri or satand thats a fairly big club, so it exists.

but bassline is king. i want to stress that i have no idea what i am talking about as i dont know anythign about rave/hardcore, nor do i know anything baout the north. but it doesnt stop me dreaming dumbass theories.

edit: two points for 2step fan

a) the glam element in leeds, to be foudn in the mint club are hopeless at being glam anywya, but i doubt they would touch bassline with a bargepole cos its fro "chavs"
b) i dont know if reflex in sheff is actually closing! it migth just be expanding. it keeps on movign around sheffield though, i sort of lost track. moving back in a week wo will check it out.
c) sheffield town - watch out for jammer and ears in oct!
 
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AshRa

Well-known member
ambrose said:
also reflex records (formely in sheffield) are opening a "dj superstore" which i predict will be a big big centre for it in leeds.

There's a Reflex DJ Superstore in Manchester with a massive 'bassline' section (although i've never spent any time checking it out). They're pretty good-ish for grime too - I always check it out when I want to save postage from Uptown and they turn up the goods most of the time...
 

ambrose

Well-known member
is reflex in manc on oldham st? cant find a site for it. the leeds one is def an offshoot of the sheffield one, its got the same logo:

left.jpg
 

Buick6

too punk to drunk
blissblogger said:
most critics despised or were at least suspicious/sniffy re. the New Romantic scene, which emerged of its own volition.
... (which is hardly a fad -- you've got bands, and even techno artists, today being influenced by it, and pieces about the legacy of shoegaze) --

A-ha! (no Freudian slip!) - but today you have *PLENTY* of bands being 'influenced' by the whole 'New Romantic' shtick - from the Dandy Warhols latest 'image' to Franz Ferdinand to elements of mash-up dance music , I mean you could say the earliest incarnations of 'rave' pilfered from the Nu-Romantic with heaps of sounds being lifted from Visage's 'fade to grey' ('Amphtamine' anyone)...
 

AshRa

Well-known member
ambrose said:
is reflex in manc on oldham st? cant find a site for it. the leeds one is def an offshoot of the sheffield one, its got the same logo:

Yep it's the last record shop on your right and it has the same logo too. Can you believe they don't have a website in this day and age?! Maybe I should offer my services... :D
 

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
1. I am going in StudioBeatz ASAP and getting some CDs.
2. I can't keep track of Reflex either -- I really thought they'd closed... maybe they've followed their audience to Gleadless... :eek:
3. The north has always been more ravey, more glam, more integrated in terms of the breakbeat / 4x4 divide than the south, but while it's always been more hardcore than the south it's less junglist. (Mind you loads of kids on the west side of Sheffield are total D'n'B heads -- long after the hipsters [hello Matt!] decided it was verboten. ;)
4. Fascinating that Reflex is pushing Bassline in Manc...
5. Deffo gonna look out for Jammer and Ears in October, any idea of the venue?
6. Another thing to bear in mind about the north - south divide is that the north is cool wheras the south is full of Shandy-drinking wankers :p
 

labrat

hot on the heels of love
Another thing to bear in mind about the north - south divide is that the north is cool wheras the south is full of Shandy-drinking wankers [/QUOTE]
as ever an exellent point
 

zhao

there are no accidents
blissblogger said:
not that i'm defending shoegaze, mind, it was mostly pretty dilute stuff.

hey nothing dilute about pre and up to Garlands era Cocteau Twins, or the first Ride album, and MBV... nevermind.
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
2stepfan said:
The scene is big from Birmingham to Wakefield, bit of Leeds too but I haven't seen many flyers for clubs in Leeds. It doesn't cross the Pennines to Manchester or go further south than Brum.

so what's big in manchester at the moment?

ambrose said:
i dont know how well jungle did yup here though[

2stepfan said:
The north has always been more ravey, more glam, more integrated in terms of the breakbeat / 4x4 divide than the south, but while it's always been more hardcore than the south it's less junglist

i've been told that while jungle tekno (91/92/93) was big in manchester, at least, that jungle proper (94 onward) never really caught on there
 

AshRa

Well-known member
dominic said:
i've been told that while jungle tekno (91/92/93) was big in manchester, at least, that jungle proper (94 onward) never really caught on there

There was shootings every time somebody put on a jungle night in the mid 90s!!

In fact I can remember wanting to go to a jungle do at the Hacienda in 95 when I was on my summer holiday from university and i'm glad I didn't - it was like a warzone in there apparently!!

Once it turned into 'd'n'b' in the late 90s the violence wasn't so much of a problem - i'm guessing that this wasn't just Manchester though...
 

labrat

hot on the heels of love
AshRa said:
There was shootings every time somebody put on a jungle night in the mid 90s!!


my buddies used to promote/DJ the Musicbox and decided to make a shitload of money on an opportunist jungle night (nowhere else would )
predictibly it lasted one evening- guns,guns,guns :(
 
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