It was inevitable that Helter Skelter would feature at some point and here it is, the first one of the year. By the end of the decade Helter Skelter was pretty much the biggest rave out there, but at this point in time it played 2nd fiddle to Dreamscape and it could be argued there were other raves which were bigger.
1995 was what you could call my learning year about all things rave. Once I got past The Prodigy and co I learned about Dreamscape and it's tape packs. You couldn't buy them in Our Price or HMV though which were the only record shops in my local town. I did however learn there was a clothes shop you could buy them from.
One day I went into said clothes shop and asked if they had any Dreamscape tapes. They hadn't, but they did have Helter Skelter tapes. As I was still learning and knew next to nothing about the rave scene I had no idea who Helter Skelter were so I was vary about whether it was the right thing to buy or not so I declined.
The tape pack in question was highly likely this event. Fortunately I did end up on the Helter Skelter mailing list and bought this tape pack at a later date. In fact this was the earliest possible tape pack of theirs I could buy by that point.
Helter Skelter did gain a reputation for booking the same DJs every time, but in the main arena at this event it features 2 DJs who are yet to feature in the raves we've looked at so far, Mixmatt and DJ Dance. The latter was a Helter Skelter resident DJ until 1997 and I don't ever recall seeing him on a flyer at any other event. I always thought his tune selection was good but his mixing was a bit dodgy.
Mixmatt was making his Helter Skelter debut and would only appear once more. His set is a mixture of happy hardcore and drum & bass so that's why I've featured it.
We also have DJ Destruction and Phantasy who have not featured since Dreamscape on new years eve.
It is more or less the usual suspects beyond that, with Ramos, Dougal, Slipmatt and Seduction doing happy hardcore and Hype, Randall, Grooverider and DJ Rap doing drum & bass.
What is perhaps a bit of a surprise is there doesn't seem to be so many new for 1995 tunes played at this night. These are the happy hardcore ones:
DJ Destruction - Digital Storm
Cut & Run - Building Shaker
Sunset Regime - The Fire This Time
Motiv 8 - Break The Chain
and the drum & bass ones:
Lemon D - This Is L.A.
Hot Steppers - Volume 1
Andy C - Roll On
DJ Rap - Roughest
DJ Monk - Dance Hall Style
DJ Phantasy - Ruff & Ready
Melodious - Bongo
Sub Sequence - Everyday
Da Intalex - I Like It
Mack Brown Featuring R. Craig - Slow Down
That all said, maybe the DJs were playing tunes for the first time at the smaller events and picked the ones which worked best to play at Helter Skelter. DJ Hype said on a Helter Skelter video that it sticks to the tried and tested formula and meant that as a compilment.
No tune was played in more than 3 sets and there are quite a few tunes which featured in 3 sets but it's not worth naming them all.
There is also a technodrome tape pack. I've not seen a tracklisting for these, but one tune of note that appears in a Scorpio set which certainly hasn't featured in any of the tapes I've listened to so far in 1995 is "I Want To Be A Hippy" by Technohead which became a Top 40 hit the following year.
Once I became educated on all things rave my opinion was that Helter Skelter would take priority over any other rave, so it will definitely feature again.
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