happy hardcore

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
Obviously there is no shame in liking early 90's breakbeat hardcore (we're probably only a couple years away from a Soul Jazz retrospective, now that they're on early techno and house), but who here was into hardcore after the big split with jungle and the kick drum stabbage really took over?

Obviously much of it was the cheesiest cheese to ever stalk the planet, but happy hardcore raves were incredible fun (way better than moody jungle raves), and some of the tunes still stand up to scrutiny all this time later (now that happy hardcore in the classic style doesn't really exist any more). Scott Brown 'Now is the Time' - now that's a tune!

I used to go raving with a shaved head and a tracksuit and wave glowsticks and blow a whistle and get up to all kinds of tops-off gurning malarkey (I was thin then though)...who else is willing to out themselves as the sort of person who thought that Skelter tape packs were just the thing for a relaxed Sunday afternoon?
 

hint

party record with a siren
Pearsall said:
who else is willing to out themselves as the sort of person who thought that Skelter tape packs were just the thing for a relaxed Sunday afternoon?

let's just say I saw the inside of remix records in camden and slammin' vinyl in kingston more than once ;)

that kind of hardcore is going for silly money on ebay at the moment, isn't it? I feel a purge coming on.
 

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
Hah, I used to go to Remix Records too!

As for selling it, I'm not sure what prices are at the moment. I know that old gabba and hardcore techno goes for ridiculous prices. Early Deathchant stuff in particular racks up huge prices.
 

hint

party record with a siren
heh... well in this instance I was classing "silly money" as anything more than 99p

although I did see a copy of jimmy j's version of 99 red balloons go for £30 the other day
 

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
Well, there's still a UK hardcore scene, but the music is more trance-based now than the old stab n' piano stuff.
 

Chef Napalm

Lost in the Supermarket
dubplatestyle said:
happy hardcore is (was?) great! does it really not exist anymore? what took its place?
Seems to me that this did. I tried to start a thread on scouse house about a month ago, but had no takers.

Aside to Jess: um... why?
 

LRJP!

(Between Blank & Boring)
up here, it's almost impossible not ot hear some sort of Happy Hardcore isotope on public transport between eight and ten. tinnily grinding out of shitty boomboxes and mobile phone speakers usually in the hands of the under eighteens. Can't say i'm a fan in this context...

I saw a Judgement Day or After Dark poster up in a record store in Newcastle the other day, so i guess something is going on...

Is Scouse House as it sounds, Trance-y Hardcore?
 

jed_

Well-known member
dubplatestyle said:
happy hardcore is (was?) great! does it really not exist anymore? what took its place?

it definately still exists in Scotland. Specifically in the flat below mine.
 

3underscore

Well-known member
It does seem that Happy Hardcore has stayed about somewhat more in the North (Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow all seem to have a party scene embracing the music). They still seem to advertise Bonkers compilations, so I guess it must be selling still.

I was too young for it really - had a few friends get into Fantasia and all that, but I wasn't really into that at the time. I think, much like gabba, it has always been a bit too fast for me.
 

hint

party record with a siren
I saw a poster in bristol yesterday advertising a night with dj vibes as the headliner
 

bun-u

Trumpet Police
I was chatting to my friend about this last night. How it’d be great to track down all the lost strands and splinters of dance music still surviving somewhere – battling it on – ardcore will NEVER DIE - you could make a documentary film….nah that’s a poncy idea
 

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
LRJP! said:
up here, it's almost impossible not ot hear some sort of Happy Hardcore isotope on public transport between eight and ten. tinnily grinding out of shitty boomboxes and mobile phone speakers usually in the hands of the under eighteens. Can't say i'm a fan in this context...

I saw a Judgement Day or After Dark poster up in a record store in Newcastle the other day, so i guess something is going on...

Is Scouse House as it sounds, Trance-y Hardcore?

In the North East I think the big hardcore sound if Makina, which is Spanish stuff. Kazoocore. Dire.

Scouse House is not really hardcore. It's just ultra-cheesy trance. You know all those trance covers of old hardcore tunes like 'Shooting Star' and 'Heart of Gold' that have gone into the charts in the last coupe years? That's Scouse House. Horrible stuff.
 

mister matthew

Active member
simon silverdollar said:
a friend of a friend sells old happy hardcore flyers and tapepacks for absolutely stupid amounts on money- like, over £30 a tapepack, easily.

yeah, this is gutting to me. I chucked a big stack of all my old flyers out when i moved house, and now i see people flogging em ebay. *weeps*

still got all my old tape packs although i haven't listened to them in ages, in fact i don't even have a working tape deck anymore...
 

wonk_vitesse

radio eros
personallly i like the trance, jungle and hard tek shit that takes elements of HH rather than the thing it's self, the stuff around 94-96 is ace though all that rave euphoria gets me going no end.

I quite like Ishkur's comments in his guide to electronic music Electronic Music Guide

"Music so childish you feel like a paedophile just listening to it" ;)
 

Backjob

Well-known member
mad milngavie posse!

Well I'm utterly unashamed to have been a massive fan of this stuff at the time. Tuned into the Tom Wilson show every week, went to Rez, did that skippy double-time dance. Got stacks of stuff on Evolution Gold and dubs of dubs of DJ Vibes tapes.

I liken HH to Northern Soul in that it is/was northern, working class, essentially retro, and utterly ignored by the mainstream music press until long after its peak.

In an odd way I also find it incredibly 'soulful' music because it's so honestly unafraid of mockery. People laugh at stuff like 'Heart of Gold' but it's so disarmingly naive that if you're in a roomful of gurning teenagers and that comes on full volume, you do utterly BELIEVE in it (unless you're a shrunken little gnome of a man with the empathic capacity of a bonsai tree).

The music also affected the people at the raves. That whole "casuals on E" vibe that according to the myths vanished in 1989 or something was present the whole way through the 90s in Scotland, with these nasty little neds suddenly being all sweet and cuddly. I had some fantastic conversations at the rez.

Reminds me, on one of the Bonkers cds, it opens with this unbelievably sweet song with a female vocal about some guy who's died or gone away or something but she still remembers him "being without you is like a dying pain, I'm here looking up, searching for you in the rain" something like that. Jaw-droppingly emotional, brings a tear to my eye every time, but I don't have a clue who it's by or what its called. Anybody know?
 

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
Backjob said:
Reminds me, on one of the Bonkers cds, it opens with this unbelievably sweet song with a female vocal about some guy who's died or gone away or something but she still remembers him "being without you is like a dying pain, I'm here looking up, searching for you in the rain" something like that. Jaw-droppingly emotional, brings a tear to my eye every time, but I don't have a clue who it's by or what its called. Anybody know?

Was that one of the early ones? I bought 2 through 5, then stopped when Sharkey dropped out (I was more into his trancecore than the straight happycore).

Who remembers Dream FM in London?
 
Top