d23

Member Since: Jan 07, 2005
Rank: 20
Rated 14 releases, average: 4.14
Location: Hardcore ravers retirement home
Profile: In the mid to late 80s I was about 15 and listening to 70s and early 80s punk. A good night out was to go to various punk rock gigs - The Damned, Stiff Little Fingers, UK Subs, Exploited, GBH, Culture Shock etc. But however much I went to these punk gigs I couldn't help notice that the punk scene had definately peaked.

I distinctly remember attending a Citizen Fish gig at a squatted dole office in Peckham and not only looking alot younger than most people there but not really being into the whole Special Brew 'falling over to really hard music' type of vibe. I wanted something else. Not just music but a whole new scene.

A few weeks later I went to a club called Rage that had just been opened and I took extacy for the first time. I walked in as a wannabe punk and I walked out as a full on raver. I attended Rage pretty much every Thursday night for the next year and I started going to other clubs like Orange, Fun City, The Temple etc.. along with big legal raves like Raindance and Perception. I loved it!

After about a year of solid raving and buying tunes later I found myself sitting in a pub in Weybridge (Surrey) on a Saturday night in the early summer. A woman came up to me and, judging me by the way I was dressed (i.e raver!), asked if I wanted directions for an illegal rave taking place that night in the New Forest. Of course I said 'yes!' and off I went. After a convoy and getting lost I finally arrived with my buddies. The party, which I believe was a very early Spiral Tribe rave, had all the anarchic energy that I looked for in punk, but rather than Brew Crew crusties leering at one another this crowd was pure pilled up shiny eyed hardcore ravers of my own age. busting moves top some of the ruffest hardcore of all time. I was home!

I pretty much stopped going to clubs and pay raves from then on and instead I went to free raves - Spiral Tribe, Bedlam, Circus Warp, Techno Travellers, Fear Teachers, Circus Normal and others. It was the greatest time of my adult life. The parties just got bigger and better as more and more people caught wind of the free party vibe and by summer of 1992 the free party scene was absolutely massive. I thought it was going to last forever. Life had so much potential.

Then it all started to go wrong.

But by the end of 1992 Hardcore (the music I so loved) started to get cheesy and the beats got all skittery and over technical. Pills got really crap and the free party scene was in a terrible state due to a heavy clamp down by the old bill after Castlemorton. By early 93 Spiral Tribe - the sound system whose raves I most frequented - left for mainland Europe and although I respect how big they got out there I never felt the same vibe when I attended their various early technivals in France.

Despite the fact that things were getting messy on the rave scene and in my own life I kept going to warehouse parties in London week in and week out - somehow hoping for the scene to find its feet once more. But, for me at least, that never happened.

By 95 the free party scene had become like the punk scene that I had witnessed so many years before - dirty and jaded with people stumbling about hardly even listening to this really hard and relenteless music.

The wheel had turned full circle.

It was time to move on.

Reviews & Discussion:

Son'z Of A Loop Da Loop Era* - Far Out / Higher Feb 06, 2005 (edited over 4 years ago)

During the famous Woodstock concert in the 60s a woman gave birth to a child. This birth was announced to the audience by some one on the stage with the words:

"THAT KID'S GONNA BE FAR OUT!"

Most importantly this very vocal sample was used in one of the great rave tunes of all time.

Tune!

(And if you sit through the Woodstock video you'll hear the sample!)

Destruction Production - Best Mindfuck Yet / What A Rush Jan 16, 2005 (edited over 4 years ago)

Best Mindfuck Yet with its wicekd bendy bassline is one of the best tunes Moving Shadow ever released in my opinion. You can't help but nod your head to this track and the sample Best Mindfuck Yet from the film Total Recall sums it up perfectly.

After going onto Bogwoppa Hellfish formed the well known gabba/hardcore label 'Deathchant'.

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Friends Of Matthew - The Calling Jan 16, 2005 (edited over 4 years ago)

This is a wicked tune by Mike Gray and a follow up to the equally brilliant 'Out There'.

In fact, as far as I am aware, the 'Matthew' in question was a mate of Mike Gray who passed on and these records act as an informal tribute to him. RIP. This is definately one of those tunes that make your close your eyes and your jaw going funny. Wicked chilled out hardcore bizniz...

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Automanic Josh - Criminal Jan 11, 2005 (edited over 4 years ago)

This track features the crazy voice of none other than Macic Josh who DJ'd for Spiral Tribe and features in the video for 'Forward The Revolotion'. Persons Unknown were are production duo whose real names were 'Huggy and Jay'.

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Signs Of Chaos - Crackerjack EP Jan 11, 2005 (edited over 4 years ago)

This is a brilliant EP by the genius dance duo of 'Newman and Wells' that got played at pretty much every traveller festival of 1992 and always got the whole place going for it. In fact the wierd bell type sound on 'Crackerjack' makes my head tingle just thinking about it.

Proper hardcore for the free rave underground.

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Friends, Lovers & Family - Childrens Stories / The Lift Jan 10, 2005 (edited over 4 years ago)

Wierd and dark, trippy and wonderful.

This is a totally original breakbeat hardcore tune from 1992 that is bordering on unique. 'Childrens Stories' got alot of play at the big traveller raves of 1992 by the likes of Spiral Tribe, Bedlam and Circus Warp - but it was certainly a day time tune to totally spin out the troopers still on the dancefloor.

Interestingly 'Freinds, Lovers and Family' released a record under the name 'Eze Ozo' on a label called Beatfreak in late 1991 that is equally unique and equally brilliant.

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EZE OZO - How To Stay Alive Jan 10, 2005 (edited over 4 years ago)

This record was way ahead of its time in my opinion - it has more in common with the 'intelligent' drum and bass of 1995 than the mental hardcore of late 1991 when it was released.

Ruff sampled breakbeats roll out over spaced out sounds with wicked vocal samples to boot. This was a tune that got dropped at half past one on a sunny Sunday afternoon at a proper traveller's rave. Nice.

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Dee Patten - Who's The Bad Man Jan 10, 2005 (edited over 4 years ago)

This track was first released on a white label and it did virtually nothing. Then it was picked up by the Leftfield owned 'Hard Hands' and proceeded to destroy dancefloors all over the place.

Quite simply this has one of the fattest examples of the Apache breakbeat you are ever likely to hear and one of the best 'dubby' bass lines ever.

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Magnox - Ragamanic Jan 10, 2005 (edited over 4 years ago)

Ragamanic is seriously under rated and one of the finest examples of mid 1992 hardcore that you could own.

Wicked breaks and with an amazing drop sound before it kicks in that did people's brains in.

This one got dropped on the Bedlam sound system at an illegal rave called 'F**k Glastonbury' on Smeatharpe Airbase during the Glastonbury weekend of 1992 and tore the place to shreds.

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Lennie De Ice - We Are i.e. Jan 10, 2005 (edited over 4 years ago)

This massive tune that blew up raves up and down the UK in 1991 was certainly a ground breaking track that opened the door to a whole new style of hardcore rave music. It is also often cited as the first hardcore dance track to incorporate the amen breakbeat.

This is in fact wrong as the amen was being used in other tracks at the time and the first hardcore tune to feature the amen was 'Father Forgive Them' by Holy Noise (Hithouse) which was released in 1990.

Saying that We Are Ie is still one of the greatest tunes of a great era.

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