Those wot were there, set the historical record straight

Corpsey said:

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?

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i wasn't at rage, no. but i did go to a number of raves around that time. i heard people like rhythmatic, 808 state, and derrick may around 91. i liked things like the ragga twins and SUAD when they were happening and those records were coming out. i was dj-ing in edinburgh and glasgow in 92 when i was a student - mainly things that were "on a ragga tip". but i did go out a lot. i definitely wasn't in the thick of rave - but my view would count as more distant observer's view - more like your regular 21-year old.

my recollection is that:
a) most of the time as a punter you didn't know what in the hell it was you were listening to. the categories didnt seem obvious because it was all so new.
b) there was almost no sense of purism - you would hear a big mashup of techno, house and stuff that had elements of ragga and hip-hop mixed in
c) the lineups , when you look back at them, you had all manner of different bods sharing the platform

there definitely were these little pockets of aesthetes focused on particular styles - the cluster around reinforced records that played at rage especially. and you definitely hear pirate radio sets that are "pure hardcore" - so i'm not saying it wasn't out there. but straight after "that set" on the radio you might hear another on a slightly different tip that wasn't subBase/shadow and might have been more housey etc.) you'd also find techno or house djs playing tunes that nowadays you would class as hardcore. 93 was when it became much more ghettoised/segregated imho.

my 5 cents strictly.

sufi said:

this was the maddest thing we ever heard back in C89-90
been a while since i heard it and i'd be interested in hearing what you all make of it

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that's a bad tune sufi.

they ended up making almost-but-not-quite-rave music like "nice one boy" and "magnet" - almost techno.

and they kinda straddle the disco era because this was a fave of mancuso's!

Corpsey said:

Cheers Woeb

Do you know of any records that were big back then which haven't made the canon?

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ooh i think it's been strip-mined pretty exhaustively!!! but there's a staggering amount of stuff isn't there...

most of my personal faves are in here:

I "was there" for some of it, around '91. I'd been too young and lacking in transport etc. to go to any of the early illegal M25i parties like Biology and Sunrise (which feel a bit consigned to a historical footnote these days but were massive at the time). They'd been happening for a fewu years but a few of us managed to get it together to go to big legal raves in the summer of '91. I did make it to one of the illegal ones, after the Freedom to Party demo in Trafalgar Square but that was the only M25 party I got to. I remember hearing Adamski as the first tune and spent the rest of night spinning out on acid (couldn't afford a pill, that night). The legal raves were immense in size and in the eternal way of youth culture, I probably didn't appreciate how fucking amazing they were, was too busy looking over my shoulder at what'd preceded it. A key memory/impression for me is basically that this shit was as good as you've read about. At it's best, it was amazing. I remember hearing "Strings of Life" come on at 6am at Raindance (last tune) and 6000 people just fucking JUMPING. That smell of dry ice and sweat, lights up and everyone shouting their fucking heads off. Real collective euphoria.

I supoose the other things was that it was was fucking everywhere. I was living in Ilford at the time, and I remember going to a pub in Dagenham to get a draw (The Chequers IIRC - they used to keep it on the doorframe and sell it as you walked up) and was struck by how suddenly flourescent everyone was - bright colours, liliacs, peaches. I worked in a clothes shop for a while before i got to to the parties and I remember all the Chipie and Joe Bloggs gear being influenced by the mood of the time - Peace and Love slogans, tie dye. I even got punched in the face at a house party by a lad wearing purple kickers! Very common to hear Fantasy and Centre Force pumping out of cars. It kinda dominated youth culture completely - all of my friends were into it, listening to the music and there wasn't really room for much else. I kinda think that's why UK rap never really took off, all that energy went into raving. Berwick Manor out in Essex and Dungeons on Lea Bridge Road were two clubs I never made it to, but we did end up driving alll over the country to massive raves. It was one of those 60s moments - just as pyschedelia probably only happened for a handful of people at the time, but acid and the music would've hit thousands in the following years, things like the Shooom club were closed off to us, finished by the time we got to it, but thousdans and thousands people would've gone mental of their first E at one of these big nights.

Another forgotten memory - Vicks Vapor Rub! No one talks about that these days!

Tunes-wise, we always liked Bukem, and used to go and see him play - sure you can find sets online. But it was a real mashup. I've forgotten the names of so many of the tunes, but Belgian stuff like Beltram's "Energy Flash" would sit alongside Italo influenced tunes like Bizzare Inc "Playing with Knives" alongside UK stuff like Altern 8, early Prodigy. I really remember the diversity of the music. Fun times.

This is a big tune I remember from back then:


Hard to know where to place this now but I remember hearing it out all over that summer.

here's another one from back in the day that was MASSIVE - I wouldn't listen to this now in a million years but it still sparks a smile.


So I guess what I'm saying is there were a few of these pop anthems that still survive in pop culture memory, with that euphoric vibe, alongside the more trainspotter R+S releases. This was all a bit bit before hardcore. I remember hearing quite a few proto-jungle tunes and not being that into 'em.

This was a personal anthem for me and a mate (who is still DJing - Ben Sims). I remember us hearing it at one of the Perception do's and going crazy. It felt to us like we'd kicked off the subsquent night of madness.


It's weird being old. I can't believe this was 30 odd years ago.

DannyL said:

... was struck by how suddenly flourescent everyone was - bright colours, liliacs, peaches. I worked in a clothes shop for a while before i got to to the parties and I remember all the Chipie and Joe Bloggs gear being influenced by the mood of the time - Peace and Love slogans, tie dye. I even got punched in the face at a house party by a lad wearing purple kickers!

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It was such a big deal when jeans started to be available in colours other than blue (& maybe black), i remember a random girl coming up to me and giving me a smooch at my first rave - mind-boggling

I also went to a few Perceptions, & lots of west country raving legal and illegal, and occasional excursions to e.g. chippenham golddiggers or the zap in brighton

as woebot says, some of the tunes now sound very cheesy, but as far as i can remember we had no sort of reservations about adamski black box etc, even the eventual indie overlap - e.g. fools gold was ginormous at the time cos it had that beat

DannyL said:

This is a big tune I remember from back then:

Hard to know where to place this now but I remember hearing it out all over that summer.

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that's saint etienne, that is.

DannyL said:

This was a personal anthem for me and a mate (who is still DJing - Ben Sims). I remember us hearing it at one of the Perception do's and going crazy. It felt to us like we'd kicked off the subsquent night of madness.


It's weird being old. I can't believe this was 30 odd years ago.

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ben sims, wicked behind the turntables. top techno dj if you sometimes like it a bit disco-y or a bit groovier, which i do.

Corpsey said:

I don't get why anyone would have reservations about 'Ride on Time' tbh it's amazing.

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not really it's not london or sheffield. it's all so shrill and high end, all so designed to accentuate the happy go lucky tripe of the E rush, rather than fuck it up. I've always liked the rave tunes that bring out the latent jangly feeling in E's. it's basically in its own way a prelude to claxons. ravehouse/techno/hardcore is crack den basement music, not stadium music.