This week we're at the 4th and final Helter Skelter of 1995. That doesn't sound like that many, but Dreamscape had only had 3 events in 1995 to this point and Helter Skelter had just 3 events in 1994 and 2 in 1993.
When I first tried to buy the tape pack for this event from Helter Skelter themselves it had sold out. Then in 1999 they mentioned in a newsletter that some of the older tape packs are back in stock so I tried again and succeeded this time.
Had I managed to buy the times when I first tried there would be no doubt I'd have listened to it a lot, but by 1999 I was listening to lots of different music and as a result I didn't listen to this tape pack much.
This was the penultimate event to just use The Sanctuary without The Rollers and was geared more towards hardcore than drum & bass with Hype, Grooverider and Jumpin Jack Frost the only drum & bass DJs.
I've posted the DJ Vibes set which I feel is setting the scene for 1996. It features MC Live Lee which was the future of DJ Vibes sets. Also featured MC wise was Magika who was celebrating his birthday and Charlie B.
Unfortunately Rolldabeats which is my main source for tracklistings is currently not working so I'm unable to find the new for 1995 records or see which tunes are being played the most.
One tune I do know is new for 1995 from this night is "Hold Me Now" by The Highlander which appears on this set.
DJ Destruction played at this night which was his final Helter Skelter. Not only that, but I've not seen any evidence of him playing any other rave after this night.
In the technodrome the Loftgroover and Music Maker sets are getting madder.
For the 3rd time this year we go to Helter Skelter at The Sanctuary in Milton Keynes.
As mentioned previously Helter Skelter made up the bulk of my tape pack collection in the 90s. At some point in 1996 I made my way onto their mailing list where I could order tape packs directly from them. There came a point maybe a year or so later that I decided to start backfilling my collection as opposed to just ordering the latest one.
Not all of them were available though and this particular event was one of those. Some time later Helter Skelter put on their newsletter they had some older tape packs back in stock so I tried again. This time I succeeded in getting all of the tape packs I order except this one, so I'm in new territory here.
It was the main area tape pack I tried to get as opposed to the Technodrome one, yet the set I've decided to post comes from the Technodrome one.
The Music Maker was a DJ who pretty much only played at Helter Skelter in the Technodrome. His sets were basically anything goes as long as it was hard and fast. You would also hear the words "The Music Maker" frequently throughout his set. I found this typically crazy Music Maker set very enjoyable so decided this should be the one I post, particularly as we're unlikely to find him at other raves.
Also in the Technodrome was Brisk and I remember seeing that and questioning whether he played a techno set for the occasion. The answer is no, it's a typical Brisk set that starts with the Dutch and Scottish records and ends with the English ones and starts in typical Brisk style with "Jiiieehaaaa" by Diss Reaction. The music was more closely aligned in 1995, but what you'd hear in the main arena vs Technodrome in later years would be completely different.
The main arena was mainly happy hardcore with 8 sets vs 4 drum & bass sets. A notable thing about the previous 2 Helter Skelters was the lack of new for 1995 tunes. This time however there are many more.
These are the hardcore ones, many of which appeared in the Ramos set:
Happy Tunes - Fantasy
Juicy Cuts - Vol.1
Terrible Twins - Cained & Able
Love Nation & Justin Time - Music Is Ecstacy
Happy Tunes & Billy Daniel Bunter - Raging Desire
Suburban Delay - Regenerator
GBT Inc. - Burn Mother Fukka
Supreme, Sunset Regime & Mr. Hyde - Breakout
D-Zyne & Fury - Sing It
Ramos, Supreme & Sunset Regime - In The Place To Be
Ramos, Sunset Regime & Jammin - Nothing But Living
Hixxy & Bananaman - Forever
Highlife - Is This Happiness?
Alk-E-D - Home
Sonicdriver - Died In Your Arms
Eruption - Don’t Stop
Ultimate S.T. - Momentum
Genaside - Mutations
Suburban Delay - Alpha Buzz
The Beatsquad - Roll The Drum
DJ Waxweazle vs. Guitar Rob - Spread Your Wings
Jee-Beat Squad - Rythum
Genaside - Nuclear
DJ Hixxy & Lady Trixxy - One Spliff
Hixxy & Lady Trixxy - Attitude
One of note here is "Juicy Cuts Vol.1" which is a reworking of "Love You More" by Paul Elstak. I would speculate this will be what we're hearing from now on as opposed to the Paul Elstak record in sets.
The most played record is "On Top" by A Sense Of Summer which appears in 4 of the 8 sets.
These are the new for 1995 drum & bass tunes:
Shy FX - This Style Relick
The Dream Team - Watch Out
The Ganja Kru - Bring The Horns
Missing - Rewound Riddim
Basic Influence - Still Waters
Souljah - Down With The Lites
Renegade - Eastern Promise
Lemon D - Wu Tang
Pascal - True Grit
Timebase - Funky
Ed Rush - What’s Up
Roz - U Can Be My Lover
Daz - Liquidizer
Tango - Understanding
Dr S Gachet - Remember The Roller
Although we are seeing hardcore and drum & bass in the same arena, you do sense a bit of friction between the 2 scenes when Magika says they play drum & bass on Radio 1 but not hardcore and they should do because hardcore is just as big.
He had a point at the time, but I don't find it amusing in a way because I recall at a Helter Skelter in 1999 he said during a hardcore set that it isn't just about hardcore, it's also about drum & bass now. He's basically been a drum & bass MC ever since and has also since stated how he didn't like the direction hardcore had taken by the time he left. Again though he had a point.
One more Helter Skelter to go this year and I'm sure it will feature.
Even though we've now passed the halfway point of 1995, this was just the 2nd Helter Skelter of the year. In fact it was just their 7th event since they moved to The Sanctuary in September 1993. To put that into perspective, at their previous venue at the Old Cinema in Telford they had 8 events in the space of 2 months.
The event was called "The Best Of Both Worlds" which I would take to mean the best of happy hardcore and drum & bass. The 2 genres were mixed together in the main arena, but just 3 of the 12 DJs were drum & bass ones so definitely leaning more towards happy hardcore.
The drum & bass DJs playing were Fabio, Grooverider and Jumpin Jack Frost. No tunes appeared in all 3 sets, but there were 3 tunes that appeared in 2 sets which were "Sing Time" by The Terrorist, "Some Justice 95 by Urban Shakedown and the ever familiar "Hearing Is Believing" by MA2.
Just the 3 new for 1995 drum & bass records which were:
Skanna - Find Me
Jonny L - This Time
Intense - Breathless
Happy hardcore wise I've posted the DJ Vibes set. The reason for this is the first record in the set "Pump Up The Noise" by Marc Smith. It's a tune you need to listen to all the way through to see how good it is, and this is the only set I've heard it in full.
Like with the previous Helter Skelter it's somewhat lacking in new for 1995 records with these being the happy hardcore ones:
Omar Santana - Shake that Ass
El Bruto - Watch me Dance
Omar Santana - Come On
Brisk vs. Rebel Alliance - Party Pumper
Hixxy - Saturday Night
DJ Seduction - Imagination
Dougal & Eruption - Party Time
DJ Ham - Break It Down Like This
DJ Hood - Dance With me
Ramos, Supreme & Sunset Regime - Higher and Higher
The first five of those records appear in the Brisk set. "Saturday Night" by Hixxy is a rip off of the Whigfield record and is an early example of why people started to regard happy hardcore as a joke. Also upping the cheese factor and sort of following the "Toytown" formula is "Party Time" by Dougal & Eruption, but this is a record I like.
Despite this being the period that Force & Styles were starting to establish itself, it's a previous group they were in who have the most played tune on the tapes. The tune is "On Top" by A Sense Of Summer which had been remixed by Hixxy.
There was no Hixxy, or Force & Styles for that matter playing at this Helter Skelter. Neither of them would make their Helter Skelter debut until the following year after which they were at pretty much every Helter Skelter for the rest of the decade.
There were also tape from the Technodrome, the smaller upstairs rooms at The Sanctuary. No tracklists are available and it seems a bit of a mystery what the DJs used to play there.
Interestingly the DJs included The Destroyer from Italy, and Warlock and Madness both from Holland. It's strange to think they travelled all that way to play in such a small room. That said the size of the overall venue probably gave Helter Skelter the funds required to get them to travel all that way.
It's rumoured that these tapes are actually studio recording as opposed to live sets from the night. I used to have the video which included Technodrome footage and I have to say none of the tapes are ringing any bells so they probably were.
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.
After turning the clock back 25 years at the end of each month I realised it's 25 years since I first discovered Helter Skelter. Then it got me thinking it was also 20 years since I was at the Millennium Jam which was the last Helter Skelter so maybe I should do a post about it. Then I realised the Millennium Jam was in-fact 21 years ago, not 20 as it was new years eve 1999.
In 1995 I had only just made the transformation from grunger to raver and therefore my music collection was a bit thin on the ground. It consisted of the 2 Prodigy albums, the "Set You Free" single and a 4CD Best of Jungle compilation. The big rave at the time, or more specifically the first big rave I'd heard of was Dreamscape.
I heard there was a clothes shop in a nearby town you could buy Dreamscape tapes from. When I went there they told me they didn't have any Dreamscape tapes in but they did have Helter Skelter. Being new to the scene I had no idea whether Helter Skelter was any good or not, so I left it.
It turned out the Helter Skelter was in a lot of ways like Dreamscape and they were both held at The Sanctuary in Milton Keynes. Unfortunately that clothes shop closed down shortly afterwards. I can't remember what my first Helter Skelter tape was, but it was a copy. I then purchased a Helter Skelter tape pack from someone who had moved on to house music. On the tape pack there was an address where you could sign up to their mailing list, so that's what I did.
After a rave had taken place, I'd receive a newsletter, a flyer for the next rave and a list of tape packs available to order. It would take 28 days for a tape pack to be delivered, so by the time I'd get to hear music from an event it was almost time for the next one. That was just normal back then.
When I'd receive the tape pack I would always listen to the Vibes tape first. By the turn of the millennium I owned a tape pack from pretty much every Helter Skelter event from 1995 onwards. One I didn't own though was the Millennium Jam, not sure why.
Although a Helter Skelter rave would be better known by its actual name rather than number, the events were numbered HS1, HS2, HS3 etc. What struck me was that HS1 was in 1993, but Helter Skelter first started in 1989. It was therefore always a bit of a mystery what happened between 1989 and 1993.
At the Millennium Jam we all were given a video exclusively for attendees that night which had the story of Helter Skelter on there. It's on YouTube now, but from watching it I learned that the first Helter Skelter was an illegal rave in 1989 with a lot of big names on the lineup which they ended up losing a lot of money from because people thought it may have been fake.
Then they went legal and started off in Banbury, then moved to Milwaukee's in the countryside north of Bedford, then to Oxford, then to Telford and then HS1 was their first event at The Sanctuary.
Lots of Helter Skelter flyers can be easily found on the internet these days, but I've found absolutely nothing about their time in Banbury. The only reference I've ever had to that is owner Dave Pratley saying they had events in Banbury after their first event, so what happened between their first event in September 1989 and their first Milwaukee's event in May 1991 is still a bit of a mystery.
Helter Skelter did come back in 2001, but it wasn't really Helter Skelter in my book. It was more Sidewinder and Compulsion using the Helter Skelter name and it gradually fizzled out after the closure of The Sanctuary in 2004.
The set I've posted is the Vibes set from Helter Skelter Odyssey in 1996.
