by Dave Haslam
That Soul II Soul would one day record and release their own tunes was always on the cards. A demo of ‘Fairplay’ featuring Rose Windross led to a recording contract with 10 Records. At the time, Soul II Soul had a regular gig at the Fridge. They’d press up an acetate of songs they were working on and test them at these gigs. In 1989 they had massive commercial success with the singles ‘Keep On Movin’’ and ‘Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)’, both featuring Caron Wheeler on vocals. The songs were included on their debut album, which reached Number One in the UK charts and in the American R&B charts, where it went double platinum. The Fridge was where they first performed as a bona fide live act (there’s even a plaque on the building commemorating this event).
Among the Bristol contingent, Smith & Mighty were signed to FFRR and worked with the Fresh Four to produce ‘Wishing on a Star’. One of the Fresh Four, DJ Krust, later hooked up with Roni Size and in 1999 released the album Coded Language on Talkin’ Loud, the label started by Gilles Peterson in 1990, which evolved from a night he hosted at Dingwalls. Neneh continued hanging with the Wild Bunch, namechecking them on her huge-selling ‘Buffalo Stance’ single and providing studio space for them during the recording of their album Blue Lines, released in April 1991.
Hyeonje and I sit in a back room on the ground floor of Surakhan and I start telling him about Mark Stewart – you must meet him, I tell him. Moving on from trying to explain Massive Attack, I give him a rundown of what Nellee Hooper’s been up to in the last thirty years. I tell him about how Nellee served an apprenticeship here, in this building, and has gone on to pick up awards, including a Brit, a BAFTA and a Grammy, and to work with the likes of Björk, U2, No Doubt, Paloma Faith and Madonna.
Hyeonje knows about Madonna, we talk about ‘Like a Virgin’ and he tells me more about Korean food and his restaurant. Surakhan was established by Mr Oh and his wife four years or so ago. Before that it was a Thai restaurant, and before that a Chinese restaurant. He says he thinks the building has the same landlord as it did in the 1980s, a man from Hong Kong. It was the owners of the Chinese restaurant that stripped out the last of the club fixtures and fittings and gave the building a refurbishment, establishing the kitchen and new toilets.
Surakhan has a narrow frontage but it goes back a further distance than you’d imagine. Mr Oh takes me downstairs to the basement, a surprisingly big space, with plenty of headroom. I tell him Daddy G is tall, taller than me, and I make to recreate the scene, Daddy G DJing at the Dug Out, and I pretend to be Daddy G and – taking my cue from a photograph I’d seen – stand where I think the DJ box would have been, in a cramped space under the stairs. I suggest a Dug Out reunion should be organised. ‘OK,’ says Mr Oh, and laughs.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Police raids, the Prodigy in a bingo hall, an MC in a cupboard
Shelley’s Laserdome was broken up and buried in 1994 during the building of the A50 in Longton, the southernmost of the six towns that make up Stoke-on-Trent. The demolition was the end of the story for the Laserdome, but it had lain empty since October 1992 after pressure from the local authorities and the police, concerned about the amount of drug use in the venue, forced it to close.
Every town has a venue, probably three or four, possibly more, where local lads gather in their dress code-approved apparel with not much more in mind than a piss-up and a punch-up. Shelley’s had been one of those places, although there had been sporadic attempts to stage live music (the Fall played there in October 1985). But up until the middle of 1990, businessman John Matthews – who owned the venue – had never made much money, so he made Shelley’s available to a new breed of clubbers and DJs: the ravers. Mr Matthews pitched in, doing what he could to make his venue acceptable to the clientele. ‘If you go into a scene, you go all the way. We relaxed the dress restrictions – there was no need to wear a tie on a Friday, and trainers were quite acceptable.’
Shelley’s became a prime example of a wave of ultra-hedonistic, full-on venues that emerged as electronic dance music and ecstasy spread nationwide, including Quadrant Park in Bootle (three miles from Liverpool city centre), the Sanctuary in Milton Keynes and the Eclipse in Coventry. Some of the subtlety of the early acid house scene was lost but the intensity didn’t drop; at these venues you could expect lots of looping bleepiness like Psychotropic’s ‘Hypnosis’ and the high-octane piano-driven Italo sound of tracks like ‘Think About It’ by DJ H feat. Stefy. In their rolling and unfolding euphoria, the crowds would respond with airhorns and whistles. There’s a clip on YouTube of the moment a DJ plays ‘Anthem’ by N-Joi at Quadrant Park. It’s bedlam.
In the era of the pioneers, no one knew that the dance music scene would have such huge monetary value and no one knew what a superstar DJ was. Among the changes in nightclubbing through the 1990s would be the increased status of DJs, including Tony Humphries, Sasha, Fabio and Grooverider, and Paul Oakenfold, and the rise of the profile of Pete Tong on the radio and Fatboy Slim in the charts. No one knew what a superclub was either. We discovered this during the 1990s via the likes of Cream, Ministry of Sound, ‘Renaissance’ and ‘Manumission’.
By the mid-90s, nightclubs like Cream weren’t just venues with flashing lights and dancing – they became ‘brands’ with major commercial clout. The clubs talked the talk. This is from a Cream press release in 2001: ‘Cream now boasts one of the most instantly recognisable youth brands in the world’s entertainment and leisure industries. The slick and innovative marketing campaigns devised by the club are a key factor in the brand’s success.’
We’ve seen many times how the first signs of music revolutions are often to be found in nightclubs and venues. The first place to hear the music and meet its adherents, and the first place to glimpse the new look. We’ve seen how often a venue getting critical acclaim or helping achieve critical mass can go on to have a much wider impact. The rise of rave influenced our language. Top one, get sorted.
In the early days of his career, the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen would identify raves as one of his major influences, which McQ, the younger sibling of the Alexander McQueen men’s line, still demonstrates. Journalists at Women’s Wear Daily joyously described the spring 2015 collection from McQ as ‘underground raves and travellers in layered looks with a lived-in feel’. And close to the other end of the garment trade, I remember a conversation with Anthony Donnelly, one of the two brothers who founded the clothing company Gio-Goi. Anthony and Christopher were raised in Benchill, Wythenshawe – a large council estate on Manchester’s south side. They were the characters behind various activities on the scene including organising the raves ‘Sweat It Out’ in Manchester and Joy at Stand Lees Farm. Anthony told me their formative years were spent in the Haçienda: ‘It was our university.’
The first days of Shelley’s rave reincarnation had taken place in the summer of 1990 when a promotion team from Birmingham called Logical Promotions began to host weekly ‘Sindrome’ nights there every Saturday, attracting a local audience but also people travelling from Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Manchester. The venue came to the notice of a team of promoters in Manchester, who took over the Friday nights, calling them ‘Delight’. Launching on the Friday of the Bank Holiday weekend in August 1990, the first Delight featured DJ Sasha.
At Shelley’s Sasha was playing full-on piano anthems like FPI Project’s ‘Rich in Paradise’ mixed with dancefloor favourites like Young MC’s ‘Know How’. ‘It had a real innocent energy,’ says Sasha. ‘The big thing for me was holding the crowd back; they’d be gagging to hear a record they knew, and as soon as they did the whole place would go mental. From that point onwards I had to completely go for it. I knew that as soon as I put that one record on the airhorns would go off and that would be it, I’d have to completely hammer it.’
The Delight (Friday) nights and Sindrome (Saturday) nights ran concurrently for several months before ‘Amnesia House’ took over on Saturdays in February 1991. Local DJ Daz Willot was installed as resident. Ra
ve was mutating into hardcore, and it was happening at Shelley’s. The opening night featured an impressive line-up including Grooverider, Stu Allan, Doc Scott and a live PA by N-Joi.
Sasha left on 27 May 1991, partly out of frustration that the crowd resisted any deviation from the formula he’d developed. But the Delight nights continued in his absence; the new Friday residents were DJs Dave Seaman and Ralphy. Guest DJs would feature too, among them Frankie Knuckles and Laurent Garnier. Amnesia House was still a feature at Shelley’s on Saturday nights until the Laserdome’s licence was lost and the club opened for the last time on Saturday 31 October 1992.
Quadrant Park was another home of full-on rave madness. The resident DJ was Mike Knowler. The State had been closed at the end of 1989 after pressure from the police (although it was to reopen later in the 1990s), but Mike secured DJ work at Quadrant Park every Thursday, starting mid-January 1990. Making a success of this midweek gig, in March 1990 Mike was given the club’s Friday and Saturday nights too.
James Barton and Andy Carroll got involved. Quadrant Park was the perfect place for an audience that liked to throw itself into an evening’s entertainment with headless enthusiasm, a destination venue attracting people who’d picked up on rave culture in places like Formby, Southport and Preston. It went up yet another level near the end of 1990, when the venue obtained a six o’clock licence, and James and Andy took on the task of running the after-hours event; when the main club closed at 2 a.m. the back warehouse would open until the early hours of the morning. Barton and Carroll booked Sasha for this space (and other DJs, including Steve Williams). ‘For a while it was really good,’ says Barton. ‘But a combination of numbers and everything meant it was madness, it was so huge, thousands and thousands of people. It was a struggle to keep it together and to keep the lunatics at bay because anything big means you’re going to get an element in there.’
You couldn’t buy alcohol in the venue but quite tasty fellas from Liverpool would turn up with crates of beer and just walk past the doormen. There would be thirteen- or fourteen-year-old scally kids waiting near the toilets on the lookout for hammered or vulnerable clubbers to demand cash with menaces from. The police had a presence in there, whether covert or not. ‘They knew fully what was going on,’ says James. ‘The final straw for me at Quadrant Park was DJing one night and seeing a full-on fight moving right across the central area, a pitched battle, and I just thought, this is finished.’
James Barton had other things on his mind apart from Quadrant Park. His view was that Liverpool nightlife was still underachieving and yet to stake a claim to be part of this new, national scene. Whether it could be called house music or rave music or acid house, it was time for the city to ditch the ties and shiny shoes and get onboard. After the Underground he had high hopes for the 051, a venue just behind the Adelphi Hotel, but Barton lasted less than a year there before resigning. There were a few issues mostly with the venue owner, who had a different vision to James. ‘The scallies and the nasty kids got in and turned it into something we’d never wanted, that was a shame. I’d got it on its feet. I’d booked them great DJs but they wanted to run it their way, another way.’
In other towns and cities a number of determined characters were establishing venues that had a different ethos and soundtrack to high street clubs and catered instead to the rave generation – like the Eclipse, an all-nighter in a former bingo hall in Coventry. The prime mover was Stuart Reid, a local lad whose brother-in-law was involved in the Amnesia organisation. He found an old Granada bingo hall on Lower Ford Street and spoke to the owner. ‘It was difficult to speak to anyone regarding “acid house parties”,’ he later recalled. ‘Everyone assumed you were all mad drug-taking lunatics and I think this guy did too, but the money was attractive to him, so we made a deal.’
Teaming up with Barry Edwards, Stuart opened the 1,500-capacity Eclipse, running through the night. There was no alcohol served and a private membership scheme was put into operation. These measures gave them plenty of autonomy and meant neither the council nor the police were able to step in and close the Eclipse, although they blocked every application made for a drinks licence. Local DJs Parks and Wilson were installed as resident DJs.
At the Haçienda in the late 1980s there hadn’t been guest DJs; it was residents-based. Every week, the same DJs would play uninterrupted for five hours, 9 p.m. until 2 a.m. Continuity had its advantages. It also had the fortunate effect of keeping marketing costs down; there were no guest DJs, no acts, nothing to advertise, nothing to put on flyers, so few flyers were produced and there was virtually no press advertising. By 1991, at least away from the Haçienda, all this had changed, certainly among the other big clubs. Every self-respecting promoter was collecting a Filofax full of contacts and phone numbers for DJs and their agents. For their part, clubbers, while staying loyal to local or particular venues, were also looking out for, and following, the most talked-about DJ names. For example, ‘Kaos’ in Leeds booked Laurent Garnier for a night at Leeds Poly, and Leeds Warehouse went on to have some huge nights featuring Sasha and Steve Williams – for these guys, people would travel from all of Yorkshire and over the Pennines too.
Good residents and name guests – this became the prevailing model. In a reflection of how dance music was beginning to build an international network, the Belgian label R&S made a big impact in 1991 and the likes of Joey Beltram and Frank De Wulf guested at the Eclipse that year. In addition, several of the emergent live or semi-live acts performed short PA-style sets (two or three songs, usually, but not always, restricted to a DAT playback of their hit songs with live vocals or MCing). Among those who took to the stage at Eclipse were SL2, Altern 8, Leftfield, Moby and Shades of Rhythm. On one notable occasion, the first ever live appearance by the Prodigy took place there. Stuart remembers they were paid £60.
Despite occasional bargains, DJ fees were creeping up and the marketing spend was increasing. Stuart Reid took out advertisements in the dance music press; in 1992 this included Mixmag and DJ magazine. He used fly-poster crews and local flyering teams including Oracle and Turbo Promotions and, because he had instituted a membership list, he had addresses for the regulars, so worked on a primitive form of direct messaging, posting out a newsletter each month.
Pete Waterman was originally said to have dismissed rave music as ‘blips and blops’ but was won over, apparently, after hearing a track called ‘Stakker Humanoid’. After his time DJing at the Coventry Locarno, Waterman had gone on to A&R, and music production with Matt Aitken and Mike Stock. Together they scored Number One singles by acts including Kylie Minogue and Rick Astley. By the end of the 1980s he was co-presenting a TV show called The Hitman & Her with Michaela Strachan late on Saturday nights into Sunday morning. Broadcast each week from a different venue, the show featured some of Waterman’s own releases, including ‘I’d Rather Jack’ by the Reynolds Girls, as well as premiering new dance records and playing the current best-sellers, while Waterman and Strachan invited people onto the stage and the cameras panned across the clubbers at the Ritzy in Leeds or the Mall in Stockton-on-Tees doing their best to get their rave on.
Waterman made a trip back to Coventry in April 1992 when The Hitman & Her descended on the Eclipse. There are suggestions that while filming there Michaela Strachan had a drink spiked with ecstasy, but there are also reports this happened to her when The Hitman & Her visited the Haçienda in January 1989. The ‘Michaela Strachan getting spiked’ story is Generation E’s equivalent of Jimi Hendrix knocking a hole in a low ceiling.
By 1991 dance music was filling the charts, and the kind of sounds that just a year or two before would have been of limited interest were heard everywhere. In October 1991 Moby performed ‘Go’ on Top of the Pops – an almost lyric-less six minutes and thirty seconds of fast beats, atonal bleeps and melodic keyboard lines echoing the theme from Twin Peaks, plus thirty-seven shouts of ‘go’ and twenty-three of ‘yeah’. Also in 1991 Pete Tong took to the airwaves on Radio 1, as presen
ter of Essential Selection, the station’s first dedicated dance music show of the house music era.
There was an active dance music press but, as rave culture fragmented, in the northwest of England a string of particularly hectic, mostly working-class, rave nights opened with more in common with the Thunderdome or Shelley’s than the Haçienda. They didn’t, however, quite get their share of media coverage. When I spoke to her about how punk audiences differed in various parts of the country, Viv Albertine reckoned that the further north the Slits toured, the less restrained the crowds became. It often appeared the same was true in the rave era; at the Hippodrome in Middleton, Angels in Burnley, Legends in Warrington, and Maximes in Wigan, for example. The clubs were packed, sweat would be pouring off the ceiling and you’d hear Bug Kann & the Plastic Jam’s ‘Made in Two Minutes’.
DJ Welly made his reputation hosting the Pleasuredrome, down a side street in the middle of Farnworth in Bolton. Formerly known as Blighty’s, the club was transformed from yet another half-empty regional discotheque – boys getting drunk, girls dancing round their handbags – to a rave venue packed with well over a thousand people every Saturday night. The Pleasuredrome was closed in 1992 after undercover police were sold drugs by bar staff.
DJ Welly became a resident at ‘Life’ at Bowlers Exhibition Centre, on Longbridge Road in Trafford Park, one of a number of rave venues on the edge of towns or hidden away on industrial estates. At Bowlers, tops-off hardcore raving survived through the 1990s, turning Welly, Stu Allan, Bowa, John Waddicker and others into cult DJs on the circuit. Another example is DJ Nipper. He’d guarantee a crowd, guesting at Shelley’s, Konspiracy, Thunderdome, Bowlers or the Eclipse. Nipper also worked behind the counter at Eastern Bloc in Manchester and released a handful of tracks, including the extraordinary ‘Nightmare Walking’ under the name Kid Unknown, put out by Warp Records in 1992.
