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.
So far this year we've visited Dance Planet in Cornwall, Dance Planet in Birmingham and now we have Dance Planet at The Sanctuary in Milton Keynes.
It wasn't the first time they'd held an event there, the first was in 1993 and was actually before the first Helter Skelter event was held there.
We've seen the end of an era for several things in 1995, but I would say this event was heading towards the end of an era for Dance Planet. This was their final event of 1995 and they had big plans for 1996 including a big outdoor event. That never happened though and they only did 3 events in 1996. They started a weekly club night in Wolverhampton at the start of 1997 but by February they were finished.
When I looked at the tape pack and it's track listings I saw there was a set from Carl Cox in there and he was playing hardcore. I thought did they manage to bring him out of retirement one last time to play a hardcore set. It turns out they didn't, it's a set from 1994.
The set I've posted is the DJ Vibes one because I just think it illustrates how the music has changed throughout 1995. The breaks haven't gone completely but it certainly feels more of a kick drum led set.
Most of the tapes are hardcore ones, just a DJ SS tape, a Mastervibe tape with a couple of hardcore tracks and a part Groovrider set provide the drum & bass.
As a result not too many new for 1995 drum & bass tunes which are:
D-Power - Beef
Apollo 13 - Wobble
Phyzix - Down Wid Da Lights
DJ Rap - I Can't Stop
Maldini - Wake Up Call
Plenty of new for 1995 hardcore tunes though:
Ultimate Buzz - Rock Da Bass
Casio Brothers - Partytime
GSI - Power Up
Two Ruff - I Want You
Piano City Productions - Set Me Free
DJ Isaac & Pagan - Up, My Way
DJ Isaac - Pump Up The Party
El Bruto - Heaven
Ferocious - Listen To Me
Jack D - Get Down
JDS - Rock The Disco
Ultra-Sonic - Make That Move
Bill & Ted - Rhythm
DJ Ham - So Damn Tuff
Renegade & Static - Scotland Is Rockin
Force & Styles - Fireworks
DJ Demand - 31 Seconds
Force & Styles - Get On Up
High Flyers Feat DJ Fade - Take Me Higher
High Flyers Feat DJ Fade - Can You Feel It
DJ Ten - Turn Up The Music
Happy Tunes - Volume 7
Jack Speed - Everybody Here Tonight
The 4 Beater - Let Go
DJ Ten - Rock The Discotek / You Make Me Happy
One of note is "31 Seconds" by DJ Demand which is essentially a hardcore version of "Valley of the Shadows" by Origin Unknown. Not the only time something like that has happened, but it doesn't work for me.
It's the last visit to Dance Planet for the year, but not the last visit to The Sanctuary. More on that when the time comes.
One thing I've mentioned many times throughout the year is the number of Scottish and Dutch records being played vs English records. For the first time though we actually find ourselves raving in Scotland.
As far as Northern/Scottish events went Rezerection was pretty much as big as it got. An estimated 16,500 people attended this particular event which started at 12 noon and finished at 8am the following morning.
Scott Brown, the producer of a sizeable number of Scottish records was on the line up. Paul Elstak who I guess you could call the Dutch Scott Brown was also on the line up. Unfortunately neither appeared on the tapes so I can't comment on their sets.
The only Scottish DJ (to my knowledge) to appear on the tapes was Marc Smith. Scotland leads the way tune wise plus there's a notable number of Dutch tunes, but he also plays tunes from USA and Austria plus a couple of English ones
The only other set where Scotland leads the way tune wise comes from Bass Generator who comes from Newcastle, so not too far from Scotland. Again a notable amount of Dutch records in there, but we also see German and American records as well as a solitary English one.
Speaking of America, Lenny Dee was playing at this event and played the same number of Scottish tunes as he did American ones, but it was Dutch records he played the most of. There were also a couple of English records plus and German and Italian one.
Just the one Scottish record played by Brisk, but plenty of Dutch ones and as seems to be the way in many of his sets he starts playing the English tunes towards the end.
Marie Chantal played an equal number of Scottish and Dutch tunes plus a solitary English on and German one, though there were some unidentified tunes in there too.
I've gone with the Vibes set though which is mostly Dutch and the rest being a mixture of Scottish and English records.
Finally from the south coast of England we have Ramos & Supreme who play a 100% English set.
Plenty of new for 1995 tunes, but some of these could just be Scottish records that never got much play outside of Scotland:
Gordon Tennant - I'm On Fire
Omar Santana - Cologned
Infernus - 7 Ways
Sonicdriver - Mind On The Beat
Gordon Tennant - Jump Jump
DJ Paul - Rainbow In The Sky
DJ E Rick & Tactic – Now Is The Time
Da Beatblower - Fuck Your S Off
DJ Jeroen Flamman - Fucked In The Ass
Shrillness - Keep The Hands In The Air
Scott Brown & Omar Santana - Drop The Noise
Nasty Django - Hardcore Motherfucker
DJ Isaac - Party Is Mine
DJ Gizmo & Delerium - Don't You Ever Stop
The Director - Somebody Scream
Wedlock - The Tower
DJ Isaac - Bad Dreams
Omar Santana - Hype The Funk
Buzz Fuzz - Countdown
Temper Tantrum - I Get The Coke
Temper Tantrum - Destroy the World
The Destroyer - You Fuckin' Mutha Fucker!
Twin Terror - Get Up And Party
DJ Weirdo & DJ Sim - Go Get Busy
DJ E-Rick & Tactic - Bring the Noise
G-Force - Out There
Sons Of Ilsa - Pulsingers Nacht
Ultimate Buzz - NR Gize
DJ Alex - In Control
Marc Smith - Nexus
Force & Styles - Pump it Up
Bass Shakers - E Motion
WE 3 - Groovy Dimensions
Menace & U.S.D. - Hardcore Vibes
Evil Maniax - Bang!
Druid vs Rebel Alliance - Kick Some Ass
Spy vs. Spy - Dance With Me
Pagan & Petrov Feat DJ Dobbit - Feel So Good
Mc Loud - Untitled
I'm surprised that "Rainbow in the Sky" by DJ Paul has only just featured as it would be in the Dutch Top 40 the following week.
The tune that gets the most plays is unsurprisingly a Scottish one which is "Pump up the Noize" by Marc Smith, a tune I've always loved but never knew what it was called until I started doing these posts.
Whether we'll return to Scotland or not before the end of the year remains to be seen. Based on this event it would be good, but then we were spoiled for choice in 1995.
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.
Dance Planet previously featured in March down in Cornwall. This time we see Dance Planet return to where it all began for them in Birmingham.
Given the location perhaps it's no surprise to see this event was predominantly drum & bass in the main arena and on the tape pack too. Admittedly I would have probably avoided a predominantly drum & bass event in Birmingham at the time given the violence you'd get at such events, but let's not let that get in the way of this make believe 1995 raving journey.
We don't quite have as many new for 1995 drum & bass tunes as the March event, but still a decent amount:
Special K & Ruff Kut - Chopsticks
Firefox - Bonanza Kid
DJ Rap Feat. MC Hooligan - Hooligan
Cutty Ranks - Limb By Limb
L Double - Mad Funk
The Specialist - Garbage DJ
Dream Team - The Ride
Jazz Vibes - Lucky
Dillinja - Hoes & Tricks
The Specialist - Twisted Amen
Beenie Man- Gimmie Di Gal
Tarzan - Informer
S.O.S. - Space Funk
Alex Reece - Pulp Fiction
Q Project & Spinback - Rikers Island
Krust - Maintain
H.M.P - Runnin's
DJ Fallout - Major Respect
The Spice - Dimension
DJ SS - Niceness
Noise Gate - Noise Gate
Danny Breaks - Rollin
Shy Fx - Who Runs Tings
DJ Hype - On That Dust
Just Jungle - Very Last Drop
The most notable of these was "Pulp Fiction" by Alex Reece which would be a pretty big record of its time. The most played drum & bass tunes were "The Lighter" by Sound of the Future and "Hearing Is Believing" by MA2 which both appear 6 times. Not the first time either have been the most played and unlikely to be the last.
I've posted the only happy hardcore set to be both in the main arena and on the tapes which is Dougal & Vibes. The notable thing about it is that it's the first recording to my knowledge to feature MC Live Lee. The DJ/MC combination of Vibes and Live Lee became quite legendary in the late 90s and this is where it seemingly all began.
Amongst the hardcore DJs is Mastervibe who was also a drum & bass DJ. I read in an interview that he only played hardcore to bulk up the bookings and would have played drum & bass all the time if he got enough bookings for it. There is also DJ Bunjy who would be better known as a drum & bass DJ in later years.
Scorpio and Producer played a back to back set which really shows an ever widening gap between hardcore and gabber. I can't find a tracklisiting for the set. Likewise the Clarkee set shows a widening gap and tracklist has many gaps though does include "Love U More" by Paul Elstak so not completely separate yet.
Unsurprisingly the new for 95 hardcore tunes are much thinner on the ground, but there were a few:
Sensi Tize - The Anthem
Sub State - Take Me Up
Happy Tunes & Hixxy - Feels So Good
Knightvision - The Realm
El Bruto - Hypnotizing
Smile - Cut The Midrange
Lockjaw - In My Brain
Helix - N.D.E
Justin Time - Lose Control
Alchemist & Fade - Kick Your Legs
DJ Bass D & DJ King Matthew - Damn The Deejay
There is no tune that's played more than twice, no surprise given the mixture of DJs pulling off in different directions that we have.
The fact we could still have this variety in Birmingham of all places is one of the big reasons I look back on 1995 so fondly. OK for all I know the main arena could have completely cleared out when Vibes & Dougal came on, but if we let the tapes do the talking which is all we can really do then that's how it was.
As mentioned in the Bonkers 5 post, the happy hardcore scene wasn't in a good place going into 1999 and something needed to change. I was therefore encouraged by the change in DJs for Bonkers 6. Hixxy and Sharkey were out and DJ SY and DJ Vibes were in.
As I was yet to hear Bonkers 5, this seemed a positive change based on Bonkers 4. At the time I hadn't been impressed with the Hixxy mix and I just couldn't get into the freeform music that Sharkey was playing.
Despite this, Bonkers 6 was the only Bonkers to be released in the 20th century that I never listened to at all in the 20th century. Not sure why as I was starting to buy new happy hardcore again around this time, I bought the Helter Skelter "Lost In Music" tape pack as soon as I could which would have been April 1999, the same month this came out.
Dougal has now been promoted to CD1 and his mix gets off to a good start with "Shelter From A Dream" which is labelled as "Captured". He also played this tune in his back to back set with Hixxy at "Lost In Music" after they dedicated the set to a Helter Skelter regular who'd recently passed away and I instantly liked the tune. Decent follow up with "Sitar" by TKM but then it starts to go somewhat downhill.
The tune "Higher Ground" by Innovate is irritating. But it does come back to life with "The Chant" by Dougal & TKM. Just 8 of the 18 tracks in this mix are from Essential Platinum, the fact there were very few tunes coming out on the label by this point may have had something to do with that. Oddly the stand out tunes later on in the mix are the remixes of "Eye Opener", "See Me Climb" and "Space Invader".
Overall the Dougal mix is a mixed bag which I guess is to be expected. Generally speaking it's the tunes that got played at the raves which are the better ones.
Onto the DJ SY mix and if there was ever any evidence we were running out of tunes in 1999 then this is it. There are 16 tracks and 11 of them are remixes. We also have the tune "Movin On" by SY and Demo which was never released but I suspect it's older than 1999 because Demo had seemingly left the scene by then. I do think it's the best tune in the mix though.
What I will say is that despite it being so remix heavy, the overall mix isn't bad. I've found the first part growing on me with "Flowers In The Rain" being the highlight. The middle bit is the best bit, but then it goes down hill from the "What Is A DJ?" remix before slightly redeeming itself with the last track.
The Vibes mix as one would expect is unashamedly cheesy. In an era when DJs started going more trancey and trying to be taken more seriously, Vibes stuck to his guns. For me this was a welcome addition but at the same time if you want happy hardcore to get taken seriously by the masses then a Vibes mix probably isn't the best idea.
Overall it's an enjoyable mix and includes an unreleased Dougal track called "Look At The Stars" but I can see how it would suit a Vibes mix more than a Dougal one. I do however draw a line with "Clearly Now" which is followed by a remix of "Techno Wonderland" which has always been too cheesy for my liking.
A common complaint about DJs who mix compilations is the fact they predominantly play their own records. You can't have that complaint with the Vibes mix though with only one record credited to the man himself which is "Techno Wonderland". One could say even that isn't by Vibes as the original is by Steve Smeeth, someone nobody seems to know anything about and who only made that record which itself is just a sped up version of "Techno Wonderland" by Zoee.
This reached number 10 in the compilations chart which was pretty good for a scene that was dying. By this point people were saying they remember happy hardcore like it was a thing of the past. There were clubs hosting rave nights that took you back to the early 90s. I wasn't having any of it though, I was determined to prove that happy hardcore was still alive and well.
I couldn't deny the old nemesis that was commercial house and commercial trance was getting better. I'd previously complained it was too slow, but it was certainly getting faster on the trance side of things. The hard trance of Mark EG and M Zone at Helter Skelter had become a big attraction and wasn't really much faster than the commercial trance. But first and foremost I was still a raver.
Towards the end of the year something happened which I used as a point to prove that happy hardcore was still alive and well. Bonkers 7 was on the listening post at Our Price. More on that next week.
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