Forever Sanctuary

20 years ago The Sanctuary in Milton Keynes closed its door for the last time after 13 years of hosting rave and was demolished to make way for a new Ikea. Part of that same development was the MK Dons football stadium.

An event was put on this year by MC Magika in the Marshall Arena which is next to the football stadium called Forever Sanctuary. It's line up was DJs and MCs who played at The Sanctuary and the music policy was music from the Sanctuary years of 1991-2004. Once I heard about this it had sold out, but a 2nd date was added which I went to yesterday. 

Originally it was supposed to be 12pm - 11pm which for me meant just missing the last 10 minutes or so to make my train back to London. Then it changed to 2pm - 1am which meant missing a larger chunk of the event. Still plenty of hours there though.

One has to go back longer than 20 years since I last made the walk from Bletchley Station to The Sanctuary but I recall it taking around 20 minutes. There was a train getting in at 13:38 which seemed perfect for getting there for 2pm.

The train was slightly delayed and walk was much longer than expected. From the point of seeing Ikea to getting to the venue was 20 minutes in itself, a combination of navigating the Milton Keynes walkways to then getting past Ikea to then walk through the car park of a huge Asda and then through the stadium car park. 

We arrived just in time for Vibes and Live Lee to start playing in the main arena. Not too many people had arrived yet but it was still early. It was exactly the sort of set you'd expect from them and great fun. There was a bit of sad news though when Live Lee said that DJ Magical has passed away this week before playing "Rush Hour".

Next up was Ray Keith with just one of the Ragga Twins, the other was in hospital. The rave scene clearly not being the youthful scene it once was. Only caught the first part of his set but liked what I heard.

It was then up to the Technodrome to see Mark EG and M-Zone wih MC Ribbz. I loved those sets at Helter Skelter and anticipated the room to be busy. It was hot, but had enough space for everyone who wanted to see it. Mark EG is still as mad as ever and was a truly entertaining set.

Back down to the main arena to see DJ SS. He was playing The Prodigy when we entered the room but then went onto jungle and playing a lot of the tunes you'd expect such was "The Lighter". Slipmatt came on next, starting off in 1992 and then making his way up to around 1996. He inevitably played "On A Ragga Tip" and his SMD tunes, but later he played "Sunshine" which I'd forgot he'd made. All the DJs played that at the time, but I never liked it.

Next up was The Top Buzz Experience. The original Top Buzz was DJs Jason Jay, Mikee B and MC Mad P. Mikee B never returned to Top Buzz when they returned to the old skool circuit and Jason Jay sadly passed away recently. Behind the decks was Ratty, it was a great jungle techno set and Ratty was playing vinyl.

Then came Swan E with MC Magika who started with "Lock Up" by Zero B which got the crowd going. The set was a decent mix of anthems and more obscure records and it was quite possibly the set of the night.

As we were yet to go to room 2 we decided to go there next to see Dillinja playing jungle. I was thinking how good it was to hear jungle out loud without fearing for my safety given the trouble you used to get at jungle events.

Conscious that we'd have to leave earlier than first anticipated to catch our train we knew we'd miss the bulk of Mickey Finn and Aphrodite. The question was do we leave now or do we see Dougal & Hixxy before we go.

This depended on whether they were going to play 90s tunes or 00s tunes. From what I'd gathered, both were playing 90s the previous week. 

They began with "Elysium", a 1999 tune but was played a lot in the early 21st century. Then came "Fly Away" by Visa, another 90s record so I went to the bar to buy another beer. The moment I bought my beer was the moment they played a 21st century tune. Fortunately it was "24-7" by Eclipse, which is one of the tunes I like from that era.

Sadly they stuck to the 21st century from then on. Having paid £7 for my beer I was going to at least stay until I'd drunk that. The tunes I was hearing were a good illustration of why hardcore went shit in the 21st century. I did notice the room getting emptier too so I wasn't the only one who thought that. 

Once I'd finished my beer they were playing "Eye Opener", a 90s tune but what sounded like a 21st century remix. We then left. I guess you can't fault them for playing what they did, it was part of the history of The Sanctuary. It's just not my thing and the reason why I stopped going to upfront hardcore events in the first place.

Overall it was a good event and whilst the world has changed too much to truly recreate the 90s, it was as good as can be expected. 

MC Junior

After I made a post about Force & Styles recently I thought I should make a post about MC Junior. I can name a number of people in music who made a big impact in such a short period of time and MC Junior most definitely fits that category.

The first time I came across MC Junior was on a tape which taught me the guy who sang "Pretty Green Eyes" was also an MC. I'd heard other MCs sing along to the tunes or just sing randomly, but MC Junior would sing along to the tunes with his vocals on them and unlike other MCs he was actually a good singer.

One thing I liked about hearing him MC was the contradiction between his singing and his rapping. Whilst he was singing love songs like "Pretty Green Eyes" he was quite the bad boy MC with his rapping. He swore so much that some started calling him MC Fuckin Junior.

One of the great moments of him on tape was at the end of the Dougal set at Helter Skelter Strings of Life with Force & Styles about to start. He tells the crowd to "keep it fuckin down". Once the crowd quietens down he tells them to make some noise for Dougal. The whistles and horns blow and then Junior say's "he ain't that fuckin good". 

Although he'd been MCing for a number of years prior to meeting Force & Styles, the oldest Force & Styles tape with him on it that I've found is from United Dance on April 19th 1996. No "Pretty Green Eyes" on that tape, though it's not the complete set. It appears the first time "Pretty Green Eyes" was played at a rave was a couple of weeks later on May 3rd. 

In April 1997 we had the United Dance 6 album which had "Cutting Deep" on it, the last track Junior sang on for Force & Styles, so all the tunes with him singing on came within the space of a year. At some point between Helter Skelter String of Life in June 1997 and Helter Skelter Energy 97 in August he went to prison.

The first sign of him being released from prison was in June 1998 when he appeared on the flyer for Helter Skelter Human Nature. This was the first time his name was on a Helter Skelter flyer. However, when I received my Helter Skelter newsletter following the event it said that Force & Styles ended up not playing that night.

It was around this time I went for a period of not buying any new tape packs. I knew someone at the time who was into the rave scene though I always questioned whether he really knew anything about it and whether he just made stuff up. He told me later on in 1998 that MC Junior was on trial for murder but was then found not guilty.

I was skeptical about that story, after all he'd presumably only just got out of prison at the time. Also, in the likelihood it was a bullshit story it would have to be a not guilty verdict to explain why he would be MCing at future raves.

The first new tape pack I'd bought in a while was Helter Skelter Lost In Music in March 1999. I played the Force & Styles tape which began with Junior saying it was nice to be back and ended with Magika pointing out Junior had been away for a while. That's not to mention Junior mentioning his jail time in his lyrics.

This confirmed to me the story I'd been told had been bullshit because at the time he'd not yet got out of prison. As both me and this person weren't really friends and had since moved on to other things, I was no longer in contact with him to point out his bullshit.

What's considered the most legendary MC Junior moment was him MCing over "Braveheart" at Helter Skelter Nightlife in May 1999. Force & Styles said in an interview that he'd just got out of prison that morning, but they're getting their wires crossed because MC Junior was clearly there at Lost in Music and does quite a performance over "Braveheart" there. What's quite astonishing was that was just his 4th Helter Skelter.

He would appear at all the Helter Skelters in 1999 and the way I saw in the 21st Century was the Force & Styles set at the Millennium Jam with MC Junior.

As mentioned in the Force & Styles post, they went their separate ways at the start of the 21st century and as a result it seemed MC Junior had moved on himself. 

A couple of years later came the commercial dance versions of happy hardcore from the likes of Flip & Fill and Ultrabeat. One of those was "Pretty Green Eyes" but Ultrabeats Mike Di Scala was singing it rather than Junior. Then one day in 2004 I was in a pub with music channels on and the new Flip & Fill tune "Irish Blue" came on. Not only was this an original tune, it also had MC Junior singing on it.

I'd stopped following up front hardcore by this point so can't really comment on how active Junior was during this time. The next I heard of him was on new years eve 2011 when I was at Moondance, an old skool rave, and it was announce that MC Junior had sadly passed away that day. They played "Pretty Green Eyes" as a tribute.

Following that news I found out that his real name was Leroy Van Brown, something I'd not known before. This lead me to a news article from 1998 about a prisoner called Leroy Van Brown. On the day he was supposed to be released from prison he killed his cellmate with a single punch. He was found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter and had his jail term extended as a result.

Suddenly the events of 1998 were making sense. He was due to be released from prison in 1998 and play at Helter Skelter, but that incident happened and so he wasn't released and could be a reason why Force & Styles didn't play that night. Then came the trial for murder this person told me about which turns out not to be a bullshit story at all. I just wonder how the fuck did he know given that even in this era of the internet it's not exactly common knowledge.

The impression Force & Styles gave of Junior on their podcast is that he was a loveable rogue and that what you hear on the tapes reflects what he was like as a person. That's good to hear.

Hardcore Line Ups

In August 1997, Helter Skelter put on their biggest event: Energy 97. They were already considered by many as the biggest raves in the country and this event really established them as the biggest.

There were 11 happy hardcore DJs playing in the main arena that day: Slipmatt, Sy, Brisk, Vinylgroover, Vibes, Dougal, Hixxy, Force & Styles, Seduction, Billy Bunter and Demo. For your biggest event it would be logical to book the biggest names and these DJs were just about the biggest happy hardcore DJs of that moment.

Following this event they returned to The Sanctuary for the majority of their remaining events of the 90s before calling it a day on New Years Eve 1999. One of the things that made Helter Skelter seem like a bigger rave than others was having the big names on the line up every time. 8 of those 11 DJs were booked to play at all their remaining events at The Sanctuary, Seduction played all the events up to Energy 99 before retiring, Billy Bunter only missed 1 event and Demo called it a day some point in 1998.

To put this into perspective, it was the happy hardcore equivalent of hypothetically putting on a Britpop festival a few times a year and having Blur, Oasis, Pulp, Suede, Paul Weller, Elastica, Supergrass, Manic Street Preachers, Ocean Colour Scene, The Verve and Cast on the line up virtually every time. For many Britpop fans that would be their dream festival.

By the same token these Helter Skelter line ups seemed like almost a dream line up for happy hardcore fans but once Helter Skelter was done and dusted and internet forums became popular I learned this wasn't the case for several fans. The issue here was the line ups were always the same and closing the door to up and coming DJs.

As we entered the 21st century the popularity of happy hardcore was at an all time low. As mentioned, Demo and Seduction had already called it a day. Vinylgroover moved on to hard house, as had Billy Bunter. Slipmatt also decided the new "UK hardcore" sound wasn't his thing so he moved on. Force & Styles went their separate ways with Force going back to the day job. 

This gave room for up and coming DJs to get themselves on the line ups, the internet forums were full of these DJs trying to get there. In the end though, once hardcore had grown in popularity again the only new DJs to truly establish themselves were Gammer and Recon. Gammer got his break because Dougal was a friend of his family and Recon already had commercial success on AATW records as part of Ultrabeat.

The internet forums were full of angry DJs who never made it. The established DJs they once admired were now the enemy who closed the door to their success. The DJs who went away but then made a comeback were slated even more. The view of those on the forums was that they should be made to play at the smaller raves and work their way up rather than go straight back into the main room line up of a big rave.

Hixxy had become a promoter of the HTID raves which were the biggest hardcore only events. On a rave podcast in more recent times he was asked why only Gammer and Recon had established themselves, but many others hadn't.

His response was that all he could do is book a DJ for his event, but the rest is up to the DJ themselves. What he implied is that these DJs who didn't make it didn't do enough to make enough of the punters want see them on the line up.

Going back to those 11 DJs at Helter Skelter I can think of a reason why all 11 of those DJs were on the line up. They had either made a significant contribution to the direction happy hardcore had taken or they had a DJ style unique to them. The problem is that making a big music contribution doesn't translate to having a distinctive DJ style and that's why some DJs sets were interchangeable and could have almost been mixed by anyone. But then the question is will a relatively unknown DJ do something different or would it be more of the same? If the latter you may as well have the big name, if the former then that's where you have to convince the punters it's what they want to hear.

The biggest event these days to my knowledge with an upfront hardcore arena is Westfest. I looked at the line up of their last event and counted just 2 DJs in the hardcore arena who also played at Helter Skelter in the 90s. Looks like more DJs have established themselves then, though I suspect the size of the audience they play to these days is considerably smaller than it used to be.

Bonkers Part 19

 

The reboot of Bonkers never went beyond one album. What came next was the next chapter which also never went beyond one album.

It had been 2 years since the last Bonkers album had been released. Over that period it's fair to say the popularity of dance music commercially had dwindled to it's lowest point. In 2009 though we were seeing what would become known as EDM. I'm not going to pretend that dreadful cheesy commercial dance music didn't exist before EDM because it did. EDM did take that aspect to a whole new level though.

Bonkers was now owned by All Around the World records and when it comes to commercial dance music that label was more or less as big as it got. 

This album was 3 CDs with Hixxy and Sharkey joined by Chris Unknown who was mixing his first Bonkers album. A notable difference is that Sharkey was CD1 and Hixxy was CD3.

The Sharkey mix is probably the cheesiest Sharkey mix I've ever heard. I'm not sure whether this is still supposed to be freeform but amongst it's tracks are a couple of Scooter remixes. The final track is titled "Freeform will Never Die" but I dare say from the perspective of a freeform fan from back in the day that it already had died if this mix is anything to go by.

Chris Unknown was once simply DJ Unknown and had been in the shadow of DJ SY for years. This takes cheesiness to another level, Sharkey's mix is much more serious in comparison.

The Hixxy mix is largely a history of set but keeping it all 21st century. A bit pointless in a way but if the music on the Sharkey and Chris Unknown mixes are the best 2009 had to offer then it's most welcome.

It had been 10 years since the dark days of 1999 when Bonkers 7 looked to be the last ever Bonkers. The 10 years that followed had it's moments, but the UK hardcore that happy hardcore evolved into generally speaking isn't my cup of tea.

There have been no Bonkers albums since but as far as I'm aware it never officially ended. Since then some of the DJs involved have kept going and others have moved on.

Hixxy has kept on going though his Raverbaby records seems to be no more with the last release coming in 2011. I got the impression from his interview on the 90s rave podcast that he's more involved in the business side of things these days.

Sharkey retired around 2011 to become a teacher as did Kevin Energy with Nu Energy coming to an end at the same sort of time.

Dougal still seems to be around but Essential Platinum records appearing to come to an end in 2012.

DJ SY stopped playing upfront hardcore in 2012 but still does old skool sets. His Quosh records ceased to exist but Chris Unknown then started UKN records which hasn't seen a release since 2014.

DJ Vibes has been seemingly semi retired since the 90s and still seems to be the case now.

Scott Brown is still going and his Evolution records still looks active albeit no 2021 releases are listed on discogs.

Darren Styles, Gammer and Recon have all moved on to EDM with Recon being one half of Camelphat who have had Top 40 hits. 

Brisk founded a sauce business and moved to Australia and Ham is still active in music but no longer makes hardcore. Next Generation records is no more.

What appears to be the case here is that hardcore scene completely fell apart around 2011/2012. Bonkers has been inactive for nearly as long as it was active for.

There are talks about a come back for Bonkers and that it won't be a nostalgia trip. Quite how it would work I don't know.

This brings us to the end of the Bonkers story so far. I'd say the best way to describe it is as the happy hardcore equivalent of Top of the Pops. It spanned different eras. Some like myself were there at the beginning but grew out of the newer music somewhere along the way. Some will have been there nearer the end and the beginning may have been before their music memories began. Some kept on going from beginning to the end.

We have our era of Top of the Pops but when we watch an old episode we find there's never one where we like every single record. Much the same with whatever our era of Bonkers was. But it's something we'll no doubt continue to go back and visit.

Bonkers Part 18

 

The Best of Bonkers album didn't get a number therefore the 18th Bonkers album to be released was Bonkers 17. More accurately it was called "Bonkers 17 Rebooted" which could be to do with the fact it had been over a year since a Bonkers album with new material had been released.

By late 2007 when this album was released the new hardcore I was listening to was hardcore breaks i.e. new music being made early 90s style before the kick drum came in. One of the main DJs doing this was Luna C who had been asked to mix on this but would have had to change his style so he refused.

When it comes to 21st century Bonkers albums the highlight more often than not is the Next Generation tunes. Now for the first time we have Brisk & Ham who make the bulk of these Next Generation tunes doing a mix.

In theory this should be a welcome change, but I'm also aware that there came a point where Next Generation tunes started to become more like the other modern hardcore tunes. I also was told by someone who knew Brisk personally that he no longer liked the tunes he was making but had to make them in order to make a living. This became evident when he started a sauce business and stopped making hardcore.

I think we've reached the point here where Brisk no longer liked his tunes. It is an improvement on the likes of Raverbaby but nowhere near the standard of the tunes they were doing a few years prior. But maybe it was making tunes like these that enabled them to mix a Bonkers album.

Sharkey was joined this time by Kevin Energy, the owner of Nu Energy which accounts for a big chunk of the freeform records of the 21st century.

If freeform was the type of hardcore music you were supposed to take seriously then they're not doing a very good job of it on this mix. It includes a remix of "Techno Wonderland" which is one of the cheesiest hardcore records ever to be made.

Scott Brown is joined by Marc Smith who had previously mix a Bonkers with Sharkey. The result is less Scott Brown records than there would likely of been had he mixed on his own. Judging by the actual Scott Brown records on here though that can only be a good thing.

Scott Brown had been a breath of fresh air compared to Raverbaby and co but these records now wouldn't have sounded out of place on Raverbaby. A stand out example of this is the irritating vocals on "Hold You In My Arms".

In theory because of this line up this should have been the best Bonkers of the 21st century. The reality was that happy hardcore has always been seen as kids music. As I was a kid when I first got into it I can't really argue with that. By the time this Bonkers came out I was nearer to 30 than 20. Around the same period I was at a wedding reception where I saw a kid who was probably 12 listening to happy hardcore on their iPod. I was no longer the target audience.

It would be another 2 years until the next Bonkers was released. During that time the ownership of Bonkers changed to All Around the World records. This was the label responsible for much of the commercial dance music and the Clubland albums. More on that next week.

Bonkers Part 17

 

Having a best of compilation to me means one of two things. Either things are going so well that enough people are willing to buy an album they don't really need to complete the collection or there isn't enough decent new material to put on the compilation so you release a best of to keep the momentum going.

The title "Best of Bonkers" was a little misleading though as it would imply every tune that appears on it has appeared on previous Bonkers albums, but they haven't. I guess it's a bit like a bands greatest hits album which includes a couple of unreleased tracks to give the incentive to buy it to those who already own all the albums.

The majority of tracks on the Hixxy and Recon mix hadn't appeared on any previous Bonkers albums. Some of the tracks also date back to before Bonkers existed. All of the tracks on there are from the 20th century.

As a result this is actually a pretty good mix. What's perhaps a little surprising is that the second half of the mix is predominantly Dutch. We've had records from Holland appearing on many of the previous Bonkers album but perhaps not in that sort of quantity.

Joining Sharkey on his mix and making his Bonkers debut is Druid. He was one of the DJs who went down the trancecore/freeform route in the 90s. He also wrote "Bonkers Anthem" with Sharkey, which appears on this mix.

As this is a best of though it's not strictly a freeform set with the opening track being "Toytown". It's a bit of a surprise to see it in the Sharkey mix rather than the Hixxy one, but then it was written by Hixxy and Sharkey.

Without looking back through all the Bonkers track listings, it looks like the bulk of the other tunes previously appeared in Sharkey mixes.

Finally we have a Scott Brown mix which sees him on his own again. As a result we get a mix of mostly Scott Brown records, all of which appeared in previous Scott Brown mixes. 

What became apparent was that this Bonkers album was marking the end of an era because the next Bonkers to come out was called "Bonkers 17: Rebooted". A bit strange given it came out the same year, but I'll take a look into how exactly it was rebooted next week.

Bonkers Part 16

 

When Bonkers went from 3 CDs to 4 it was presumably because things were looking up. After all why would you pay that extra cost to sell at the same price if you don't expect to sell more copies.

Bonkers 16 did the opposite, it reverted back to 3 CDs. We still had Hixxy and Recon on CD 1. Sharkey was mixing CD 2 alongside CLSM and Kutski instead of Marc Smith. CD 3 was basically a merger of the previous albums CD 3 and CD 4 with Scott Brown mixing with Gammer, out went Neophyte and Dougal.

The Hixxy and Recon mix is once again very remix heavy, with 9 of the 15 tracks being remixes. It's also very Raverbaby heavy as expected. Basically it's cheesy vocal stuff that's not my cup of tea.

The significant thing about CD 2 is that CLSM was the composer of "John Peel Is Not Enough" in protest that there wasn't a hardcore show on Radio 1. Kutski then got a show on Radio 1 that played hardcore music.

Traditionally the Sharkey mix has been very much a freeform mix, but as time went on it started to get more similar to hardcore of the non-freeform variety. By the time of this mix it more or less sounds like a hardcore mix.

The inclusion of CLSM and Kutski may be a factor here. Having 3 DJs on a mix seems a bit excessive but there are 22 tracks in the mix. I find myself enjoying "Motion Maker" by Sharkey and AMS in the middle of the mix, but aside from that it doesn't really do anything for me.

I liked the Scott Brown and Neophyte mix on Bonkers 15 for being gabber throughout, but pairing Scott Brown with Gammer means we don't get a completely gabber mix this time. In fact it takes an hour for the gabber to come in. 

I would say this is the poorest Scott Brown mix on a Bonkers album so far. The best bits are the remixes, but even they just sound like inferior versions of the originals. Even the small gabber section at the end isn't great.

As previously stated I had long stopped listening to modern hardcore by the time this album came out in 2006. Therefore this is educating me as to what exactly hardcore in 2006 was like and on this evidence I wasn't missing out on much.

It was the only Bonkers of 2006, but the next Bonkers to come out in 2007 won't be an education because it was Best of Bonkers. 

Bonkers Part 15

 

By the time Bonkers 15 came out all the DJs who had mixed a Bonkers album to date were the wrong side of 30. This may have been a factor in altering the line up by making all 4 CDs back to back mixes.

Gammer was by factor the youngest big name DJ at this point having only turned 20 that year and he was paired with Dougal. Recon was aged 24 and the other big name DJ to break through in the 21st century and he was paired up with Hixxy. Marc Smith and Neophyte were older and had been around longer than any of the other DJs but they were paired up with Sharkey and Scott Brown respectively.

Although I was still in my 20s myself I was finding myself more drawn towards the more mature sounding house music. Buying this Bonkers album was never even a consideration.

The notable thing about the Hixxy and Recon mix is seeing 2 labels I'd not come across before, Definitive Dance and Electric Euphoria. Turns out they were labels started by UFO and MC Marley respectively so basically music that would have previously been on Raverbaby.

The main question is would this mix have been any different if it was Hixxy by himself and the answer is probably not. It's a mixture of cheesy vocal stuff, hardcore remixes of commercial dance tunes and awful MC tunes courtesy of Storm and Wizzkid who themselves seemed to be the stars of the raves rather than the DJs by this point.

Onto Sharkey and Marc Smith, once again I would say if Sharkey did this on his own it would probably be the same. One thing I recall from around this time is that freeform was popular enough for there to be a freeform event called Freeformation.

It sounds like this was a result of it sounding more and more like regular hardcore and probably only sounds a bit more serious because it follows a Hixxy set. Around mid-way through the set I hear a tune that grabs my attention and surprise surprise its a tune off Next Generation in "Working Up A Sweat" by Ham.

Things did change somewhat when Neophyte joined Scott Brown. Instead of the usual 2/3 hardcore 1/3 gabber it was 100% gabber. This was a positive move in my opinion as whilst hardcore went downhill in the 21st century, gabber didn't. This was mainly because it never really changed.

Finally there was Dougal with Gammer. This was unlikely to alter too much given that many of Dougal's 21st century tunes were done with Gammer. By this time though Gammer now had his own label called Muffin Records for the material he did by himself.

The mix sounds like a Cludland advert from the word go. Having Gammer on the mix does give it a slightly harder edge, but overall it really sums up what I don't like about more modern hardcore music.

This album meant there had now been more Bonkers albums in the 21st century than there had been in the 20th century. It didn't stop there either, but more on that next week.

Bonkers Part 14

 

I could tell you the first upfront hardcore event I went to, but I honestly can't remember what the last one was. What I do know is that the first one was Helter Skelter at The Sanctuary and the last one would have been some small local club hosting a hardcore event.

Basically when I started going to upfront hardcore events again, I liked it enough to go to an event that wasn't too much effort but I didn't like it enough to travel to Birmingham for HTID or Shepton Mallet for Slammin Vinyl. The Sanctuary wasn't too far away, but by the time this Bonkers came out it had been closed for almost a year.

The fact of the matter was that I never consciously decided to stop going to upfront hardcore events, I just realised one day that I'd stopped going to them. I would still go to old skool nights though which makes it a bit more difficult to remember, but by the time Bonkers 14 came out I'm pretty certain I'd been to my last upfront hardcore event.

I also considered buying Bonkers 14, but I looked at how many remixes were on the track listing and decided no. Around the same time the Clubland Xtreme Hardcore series had started. I thought maybe that would cater for the cheese to appeal to the kids and Bonkers could be for those of us who had been around a while. I never listened to one to find out, until now.

Hixxy was the biggest culprit in terms of remixes with 8 of the 16 tracks being remixes. This included yet another remix of "Set You Free" and "Pretty Green Eyes" which definitely put me off buying it.

The opening track marked a return to Bonkers for the first time in the 21st century to Ramos and Supreme. They were doing the trancecore/freeform thing in the late 90s before disappearing for a few years. This comeback was very much down the cheesy route though. The same could be said for the opening few tracks. The GEOS track is one with MC Marley demonstrating once again why MCs shouldn't appear on tunes.

We then get a load of remixes until a track with MC Storm also demonstrating why MCs shouldn't appear on tunes. The final two tracks weren't that cheesy, but I didn't think much to them either.

Onto the Sharkey mix, and it a funny way it starts off as a refreshing change to the cheese fest that was Hixxy's mix. But if the Bonkers albums only ever consisted of the Sharkey mixes I would never have bought them.

A reviewer on discogs sums up the Sharkey mix when they say: well it's not bad, but after listening to it a few times I don't remember any of it.

The CD that's most likely to dictate whether I missed out on not buying this though is the Scott Brown one. The opening track sounds like a Clubland advert and is followed by 2 remixes. The latter grabs my attention until I realise it's an inferior version of a track on an earlier Bonkers. The same can be said about track 6 "Rock You Softly 2005".

It then turns into a bit of a cheese fest on tracks 9 - 11 including a remix of the god awful "You're My Angel" by Styles & Breeze. It then redeems itself with track 12 with a remix of a tune I'd never heard before. Then it's into the gabber section, which is definitely the best bit of the whole compilation.

Finally there's the Dougal mix. Lots of Essential Platinum records on there as expected. There's also an AATW record which is a hardcore mix of the commercial dance version of "Shining Down" by Force & Styles by United in Dance who are Dougal, Gammer and Styles.

Also on the mix is the only Next Generation record of the album which isn't a remix which is "Getting High" by Brisk & Ham. Unfortunately it's a rip off of "Higher Love" by Steve Winwood and a bit rubbish.

Appearing on Bonkers albums for the first time in the 21st century is Seduction who had come out of retirement, started a label called Maximum Impact and an event called Uproar. Also making their 21st century debut is Vibes who never went away but has never been very prolific at making records.

The interesting one is track 4 by Transit who are Chris Brown & Brad Carter. In the 90s Chris Brown was best known as Eruption and Brad Carter engineered lots of hardcore tunes. Away from hardcore they formed Ruff Driverz and Transit is noted as being an alias of theirs. However I'm not sure whether this was them returning to hardcore or this is a remix of an old track or a non-hardcore track. I've never read anything to suggest they did return to the scene at all.

The fact we had all these DJs/producers of yesteryear returning to the scene and that AATW had their own hardcore compilations would suggest hardcore was doing alright at this point in time.

In a way though, that was part of the problem. Look at any style of music that's had a degree of commercial appeal and you'll find it's the cheese that sells. Therefore they way to capitalise on that success is to make cheese.

All that said, Bonkers 14 was not that well received. I've seen some internet discussion saying Bonkers 15 was a big improvement. I'll find out whether it was next.

Bonkers Part 13

 

After the disappointment of Bonkers 12 there were 2 things that gave me a bit more confidence in Bonkers 13 before I'd even listened to it. First of all the Hixxy mix was an old skool mix where I knew almost all of the tracks. Secondly there was no Breeze & Styles this time, instead it was a return to Bonkers for the first time this century for Dougal.

The Hixxy mix was basically a journey through the years beginning in 1994. Overall it's an enjoyable set and in a way proof that the music was a lot better in the 90s. It was quite refreshing for example to hear "Hardcore Fever" by DJ Energy before he became Kevin Energy and became one of the key figures in freeform.

The end of the Hixxy mix brought the realisation that the years were now flying by with a couple of 21st century records which were still modern in my book. But I guess in 1994 a record from 1990 would have very much been old skool.

Onto the Sharkey mix, and one thing that seemed to be getting more apparent was that the difference between freeform and what was known as UK hardcore was becoming less obvious. 

As previously mentioned the Sharkey mixes have never had many listens from my so I'm basically educating myself by listening to it now. I ended up skipping track 4 though which is a hardcore mix of "Adagio For Strings" which I remember annoying me at the time.

It's generally not a bad mix without being spectacular but then a tune appears that does stand out as being good. I look at which one it is and surprise surprise it's a Next Generation record in "Jump 2 Da Groove" by Ham. 

The Scott Brown mix is your usual 2/3 hardcore followed by 1/3 gabber that consists most of his own records from Evolution. It's an improvement on his Bonkers 12 mix no doubt, but in some ways it's starting to get a bit predictable. 

Going back to the "Big 6" record labels that were around though, it made perfect sense for Scott Brown to basically represent Evolution. We have Hixxy on Raverbaby, Sharkey on Nu Energy and Dougal on Essential Platinum plus Next Generation had their own compilation out. There was still Quosh plus the smaller record labels but I'm honestly struggling to think of tunes from around the time on those labels I would have preferred.

Finally we have the Dougal mix which I can say straight away was a big improvement over the Breeze & Styles mix on Bonkers 12. As expected it's heavy on the Essential Platinum records, the most we'd had on a Bonkers album in the 21st century having been the dominant label on the compilations in the 90s. The fact that this was Dougals first 21st century Bonkers and Hixxy no longer being on the label would have had something to do with that.

What seems apparent about Essential Platinum of this era is it's definitely on the cheesier side of things but not to the extent of Raverbaby. With Hixxy on old skool duty though, it's up to Dougal to include a few Raverbaby records.

We've now reached the point where my knowledge of modern hardcore ends. This was the last upfront hardcore compilation I bought and the last time I went to an upfront hardcore rave was either in 2004 or early 2005.

However I feel that as we're covering the history of Bonkers I shouldn't stop just here. Therefore I've decided to listen to the newer Bonkers albums for the first time, beginning with Bonkers 14 next week. 

Bonkers Part 12

 

I bought Bonkers 12 when it was the newest Bonkers album so there shouldn't be any going back and forth with dates this time.

At the time of release we had just had the Hixxy & Sharkey show on Radio 1 and Hixxy was about to launch the event Hardcore Till I Die. Hixxy had also done a mix for the John Peel show which John Peel said was the best thing on the show in a long time. All tunes in said mix appeared on this Bonkers album.

Furthermore for the first time we had a fourth CD on a Bonkers album which was mixed by Breeze & Styles who were about to hit the Top 40 for the first time with a commercial dance version of their record "You're Shining". The scene was in a healthy state it seemed.

At the same time we were starting to see some of the things that started to drive people away again. With 2 CDs mixed by Raverbaby artists it should in theory give room for smaller labels to get a look in. However 10 of the 14 tracks on the Hixxy mix were on Raverbaby. Just one of these tunes actually got a Raverbaby release, something that would become a familiar theme.

From my perspective though, the Hixxy mix was probably the worst Bonkers mix I'd heard from him so far. I've owned this for 17 years and listened to it earlier today and I'm still struggling to think of any stand out tracks on it.

The Sharkey mix has one stand out track on there with "Hugger Mugger" by VAGABOND which is on Next Generation records. The final track is yet another hardcore version of "Punk" by Ferry Corsten.

The Scott Brown mix as always is better but I would say not as good as his 9,10 or 11 mixes. Once again it's a Next Generation record that's the stand out tune in "Crazy Love" by Brisk & Ham. What was becoming more apparent is that Next Generation and to a lesser extent Evolution were the labels with the decent tunes. The tunes to my liking on the other labels seemed few and far between.

Unfortunately the Breeze & Styles mix was the worst of the lot. It was mostly their own tunes or their remixes of vocal trance records. Even their remix of "Before Tomorrow" by Eclipse just sounded in every way inferior to the original.

This was definitely the worst Bonkers to this point in my opinion. I did however own other hardcore compilations from around this time such as the Next Generation one which was excellent. Therefore I wasn't giving up on modern hardcore just yet. Later on that year Bonkers 13 came out and I bought it.

Bonkers Part 11

 

As I said in my previous Bonkers post, I don't remember if I bought Bonkers 10 or 11 first but I did buy them around the same time. Of the two, it was Bonkers 11 that got more listens.

With the first 3 Bonkers albums of the 21st century by this point I've not been overly keen on the Hixxy mixes, though they all get better towards the end of the mix. With Bonkers 11 though he finally has a mix that I can enjoy listening to from beginning to end.

I'm not going to pretend it's anything other than the cheese fest it is. The opening track "Heavens Above" is incredibly cheesy and at the start I'm thinking here we go again, but at the end I'm singing along. The best track though is the 2nd one "24-7" by Eclipse aka Ham. 

The next track is from Recon who was a member of Ultrabeat, one of the acts responsible for commercial dance versions of hardcore tunes. This is him doing a hardcore tune though. 

The inevitable blip in the set comes courtesy of Ultrabeat - Feelin Fine (Darren Styles Remix). Basically Styles makes a hardcore tune, Ultrabeat turn it into a commercial dance track then Styles remixes it back into a hardcore tune. I can understand why it got included though.

In the Sharkey mix a track of note is "John Peel Is Not Enough" by CLSM. The record is about how Radio 1 had plenty of dance music shows but the only DJ to play hardcore is John Peel and his show wasn't even a dance music show. This ultimately led to Hixxy doing a mix for the John Peel show followed by a one off hardcore show on Radio 1 presented by Hixxy and Sharkey.

The highlight of the Sharkey set though is "Sounds Legit" by Brisk & Ham. Aside from that it just sounds like a typical freeform set that doesn't really do it for me.

Onto Scott Brown who's set has now extended to 19 tracks with the first 13 being hardcore and the final 6 being gabber. The stand out track in the hardcore section is the last one "Fly With You" by Scott Brown. I remember thinking what a tune the first time I heard it.

Aside from this the stand out tunes in the hardcore section are the two Brisk & Ham ones, "Angel Eyes" and "Taste The Rainbow". On that basis I shouldn't be picking a DJ who has the best set, instead the glory should go to Ham for having stand out records in all 3 sets.

Whilst I don't remember when exactly I bought Bonkers 11 I do know that the newest Bonkers at the time was Bonkers 12. Again I don't remember if I bought Bonkers 11 or Bonkers 12 first, but more on Bonkers 12 next week.

Bonkers Part 10

 

Bonkers 10 had been out for around a year or so when I purchased it. The scene seemed to be in a healthy place and I had started going to upfront events again. That said, it seemed nowhere near as big as it's 90s heyday and if an event had an old skool room I'd probably spend more time in there.

The opening track on the Hixxy mix is a spoken word piece called "Thou Shalt Not Forget" which was basically a dig at those who had previously written hardcore off but have changed their tune now it's popular again. In some ways I was one of those people, though I did stick with it up to it starting to get popular again.

The first actual tune is a Hixxy remix of "Bullet In The Gun" by Planet Perfecto. Then comes "Punk" by UFO which I'm surprised wasn't labelled Ferry Corsten - Punk (UFO Remix) because that's basically what it is. Then it's "The Beat Kicks" by Breeze & Styles which sounds like it should be a hardcore version of a Ferry Corsten tune but it isn't. You can see what angle the Hixxy mix is taking though with these tunes.

A slight change in direction for the next track, it's UFO and MC Marley with another tune that makes me cringe, "Underground". It doesn't really sound too different to "Connection" from Bonkers 9, just different lyrics with a bit of autotune. Then it's the Hixxy, Styles and Breeze remix of "Pretty Green Eyes" by Ultrabeat which seems a bit strange given Styles was one of the original composers.

For the 3rd time in a row "You're Shining" by Breeze & Styles makes an appearance as part of a mash up with "Future Set" called "Future Shining". We also have a remix of "Tekno Harmony" which itself is a rip off of "Sweet Harmony" by Liquid. 

For the first time since Bonkers came back there is a tune in the Hixxy mix which isn't on one of the big 6 hardcore labels or one of the bigger non-hardcore labels which is "Ultimate High" by Stargazer. The fact it's the Breeze & Styles remix probably helped get it on there. But after what I find quite an uninspiring mix up to this point, it suddenly comes to life with this tune. 

The next track is "Starlight" by Dowster which is the best tune in the mix. The last 2 tracks are also a big improvement over the earlier tracks in the mix. For the 3rd time in a row the Hixxy mix gets better at the end, the challenge is getting that far.

The Sharkey mix is the opposite. It begins with 3 breakbeat tunes from Ham which are all decent. The trouble is once the kickdrum comes in on track 4 I'm just wanting more breakbeat tunes. It would have probably alienated the freeform fans though if Sharkey did an entire mix of breakbeat tunes.

Once again though the best mix is the Scott Brown one. Like with Bonkers 9, it's 15 tracks with the first 10 being hardcore and last 5 gabber. Track 1 is what I think of as being the warm up for track 2 which is "Commence" by Plus System aka Scott Brown which has one of those great riffs.

I'm also a big fan of track 3 "Sunrise" by Deejay Bee & Overflow ft Vision, one of just two non-Evolution tracks in the first 10 with both being on Essential Platinum. The fourth track "I'm In Heaven" by Scott Brown sounds like I've heard a similar tune without the vocals. It's cheesy but I find myself singing along to it so it must be doing something right.

The rest of the hardcore part has a lot of what I would call evil voice type samples which can be a bit "what the fuck?" but at the same time the great thing about hardcore is you're not supposed to take it seriously. 

Maybe this was done on purpose to warm us up for the gabber section. Again no stand out tracks as such but good to have a bit of gabber in the mix.

Along with other newer Bonkers albums at the time, I found myself listening to the Scott Brown mix more than the Hixxy & Sharkey ones. But in the case of Bonkers 10 I would say I prefer the end of Hixxys mix and the start of Sharkeys mix to the middle of Scott Browns mix. 

I honestly can't remember if I bought Bonkers 11 before or after Bonkers 10, I did buy them close together. More on Bonkers 11 next week. 

Bonkers Part 9

 

When Bonkers 9 was released at the end of 2002 I'd more or less given up on modern hardcore music. I'd conceded that the 90s was my era and in the 21st century it was all about rap and R&B for me.

In 2004 when I gave the music another go, this was the only Bonkers album of the 21st century that I didn't buy. The reason was simply because I'd not seen it for a cheap enough price and there was some overlap in tunes with this and the new Hardcore Heaven compilation which came out shortly after this which I owned. Thanks to YouTube though I've been able to listen to it.

First up as always was the Hixxy mix. What stands out on the track list is 4 remixes which are clearly on there with commercial appeal in mind. The opening track is a remix of "Set You Free" by N-Trance, a tune pretty much everyone knows.

Then there's remixes of "Heart Of Gold" by Kelly Llorenna and "Field Of Dreams" by Flip & Fill. The notable thing here is that it's not the Force & Styles versions being remixed, it's the commercial dance versions being converted back into hardcore.

Finally at the end of the mix is a remix of "Wonderful Days" by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo which was a big hit in Holland in the 90s.

In terms of new original material it's very Raverbaby heavy with all bar 2 of the remaining tracks coming from the label. The first of these is "Connection" by UFO fr MC Marley. If ever you needed proof you shouldn't have an MC on a hardcore track then this is it. 

The only one of these I find half decent is "Fire In The Sky" by Dougal & Gammer but even that seems to be missing something. The "Wonderful Days" remix is the best track on the mix by far.

The Sharkey mix on the other hand is actually a big improvement over what we'd been used to. The music was starting to sound more interesting than the sped up trance sounding music we'd previously been introduced to as freeform. 

Despite this though, I reach the end of the mix wondering what I'd just listened to. It's good in small doses but if it's a whole mix I switch off somewhere along the way.

The final mix came from a Bonkers debutant, Scott Brown. He was arguably the biggest hardcore DJ from Scotland in the 90s and was also successful in Holland. Although his tunes were well known, he never played at the likes of Helter Skelter or Dreamscape. However, in the 21st century he was regularly playing at the likes of Slammin Vinyl.

There are 15 tracks in the mix, the first 10 are hardcore and the last 5 are gabber. To me this is by far the best mix. As expected a lot of it comes from Evolution records, but that's basically why I like it. There is some cheesy vocal crap like a remix of "You're Shining".

But on the whole, the hardcore section is more fun and less cheesy than the Hixxy mix and the gabber part shows that it's not changed much since the 90s which is no bad thing.

Whilst Bonkers 8 was more of a statement that hardcore was back, I'd say Bonkers 9 was forming it's identity for the 21st century. The Hixxy mix is the cheesy commercial sounding mix with mass appeal in mind, the Sharkey mix is freeform for those who want something more serious and the Scott Brown mix shows that its not all cheese and freeform and that gabber still exists.

Next up is Bonkers 10 which I actually own.

Bonkers Part 8

 

In 2001 I went into a random record shop and the nearest they had to happy hardcore was a United Dance 92-97 anthems record. I did however get chatting to the owner and one of his regular customers and they were optimistic that happy hardcore was on it's way back with Hixxy starting a new label called Raverbaby.

By the end of the year I'd more or less lost all interest in the scene but then in 2002 it was growing in popularity which led to the return of Bonkers. When it was released I was very much out of the loop. I'd not been to a rave for around a year and it had been even longer since I'd bought my last tape pack. I therefore saw Bonkers as an opportunity to get back into it.

What we now had what was a big 6 of record labels. The longstanding ones were Evolution which was run by Scott Brown, Quosh which was run by SY & Unknown and Next Generation which was run by Brisk & Ham. All things freeform were on Nu Energy which had several labels within it. Hixxy had Raverbaby and Dougal relaunched Essential Platinum. 

The Hixxy mix had 14 tracks on it, 11 on Raverbaby and 3 on Evolution. The opening track was a remix of "Get Into Love" which just seems pointless. The 2nd track tells us Force & Styles are no more with Styles now collaborating with Breeze with "You're Shining" which is basically a "Heart Of Gold" for the 21st century except nowhere near as good. 

The mix doesn't really come to life until track 4 which is a remix of "Elysium" called "Elysium Plus". It was now starting to remind me of the most recent raves I'd been to where "Elysium" stands out head and shoulders above the rest despite being played in pretty much every set.

Speaking of which, we have "Just Accept It" by MC Storm. I was at the Slammin Vinyl where this tune made it's debut with MC Storm himself MCing along to it. Doesn't work for me though, MCs should stick to MCing at raves.

The next tune to grab my attention was "Black Magic Bad Magic" by Styles & Breeze but we're now 3 tracks from the end of the mix. But these 3 tracks are the best in the set except perhaps "Elysium Plus".

Onto Sharkey and given freeform isn't my thing I didn't have great expectations about this set. It was filled with mostly Nu Energy records. Freeform had evolved from just sounding like sped up trance, but was still a bit on the boring side.

The final mix came from DJ SY which was an old skool set, or more precisely a set of tunes which appeared on the first 2 Bonkers albums. It was because of this that DJ SY never mixed another Bonkers album, he wasn't happy about the fact he didn't get a choice in what tunes he played.

I think this shows, despite this being from my era it was a bit disappointing. The inclusion of "Toytown" and "Steam Train" obviously didn't help.

What had become apparent from this album was that the new era of happy hardcore, or UK hardcore as it was now known wasn't really for me. The fun had been taken out of it but tunes like "You're Shining" showed it was still as cheesy as ever.

After a handful of listens this album sat un-played for almost 2 years. Then in 2004 hardcore seemed to be rising in popularity again and was getting played by John Peel on radio one. I also went to my first up front rave in years so dug out this album to listen to as a warm up to that as it was the newest hardcore I owned.

The Hixxy mix started to grow on me and I bought some newer Bonkers albums. One I didn't buy though was Bonkers 9, but thanks to the internet I've now given it a listen. More on that next week.

Bonkers Part 7

 

It's October 1999 and things weren't looking good for happy hardcore. Demo was long gone as were events such as Vibealite and Pleasuredome. Eruption had moved onto more commercial dance music with Ruff Driverz and had sold United Dance to Slammin Vinyl. Seduction had recently played his last set at Helter Skelter before retiring and sold Hardcore Heaven to Slammin Vinyl. Billy Bunter was still around but now playing hard house. Slam was still around but had played a drum & bass set at his last Helter Skelter. Dreamscape had gone from the huge Shepton Mallet venue to The Pleasure Rooms which had a capacity similar to Milwaukee's which was the venue they outgrew in 1991. 

If all that wasn't enough, it had also just been announced that the Helter Skelter on new years eve will be the last. There was one silver lining though, Bonkers 7 had just come out and it was there to listen to on the listening post at Our Price. 

In reality though it was another nail in the coffin. I listened to it at the listening post and decided it wasn't good enough to buy. What I remember more than a lot of the music from that experience was noticing that there was less hair on the Dougal picture on the cover than usual. Then I went to Helter Skelter to see he'd had a haircut.

Hixxy was back instead of Vibes and it was the Hixxy mix which drew the most criticism. The track list may have implied several previously unheard of artists were getting tunes in the mix but the man behind all of these aliases was Hixxy, either on his own or with UFO.

What Hixxy and UFO had done was make a bunch of brand new tracks for the album which were deliberately different to previous efforts. Given what had been happening at the time, this didn't seem a bad approach because clearly something needed to change.

The problem was it was essential a trance mix. I personally like trance and I don't think this is a bad set. However, at the time happy hardcore was on it's last legs whereas trance was massive. To try and save happy hardcore by doing a trance set is a bit like trying to save Porsche by buying a Ferrari and sticking a Porsche badge on it.

I do however think it was a bit harsh to aim the criticism of Bonkers 7 to Hixxy when you consider the other 2 CDs. At least the Hixxy mix is trance and the music doesn't sound like it's trying to be anything else. Both the Dougal and DJ SY mixes on the whole sound like trance being done happy hardcore style or vice versa.

9 of the 16 tracks in the Dougal mix are on Essential Platinum, but only 3 of them were released. Most of them were poor but I do like "Night Breeze" which was one of the released ones and the last Essential Platinum release before the label went on hiatus. The stand out track though is "Lost Generation" by Scott Brown, not the first time one of his tunes has burst a Bonkers mix into life.

No such luck with the other Scott Brown tune "Healing Mind" which is Binary Finary sped up. It's not all trancey though, we have "Sunshine" by Force & Styles which was unreleased and "Another Day" by Frisky, but they're both irritating. The latter is followed by the surprise inclusion of a remix of "Shooting Star", the same one which appeared on Bonkers 5. What that did though was illustrate how poor the rest of the set was.

11 of the 16 tracks in the DJ SY set were either by or remixed by the man himself and the majority of these did get released. But again the only redeeming thing about the set is another Scott Brown tune "Basic Nature". 

Elsewhere in the set we have 3 tunes that feature MCs which is a big no no for me. Generally speaking I'm pro MCs at a rave if they know when to shut up, but recording a crowd hyping line on a record is just awful. Then we have a rip off of "Beautiful Stranger" which is one of the worst happy hardcore rip offs I've ever heard. The following track "We Can Do This" samples "No Scrubs" and is also a bit crap.

After Bonkers 7 came out the final Helter Skelter happened where Vinylgroover made the transition from happy hardcore DJ to hard house DJ and Slipmatt played his last hardcore set at Hardcore Heaven before moving onto house.

Although they continued to play happy hardcore, SY and Unknown started doing garage as Trick or Treat, Brisk and Ham started doing house as Stimulant DJs and Vibes did garage under his own name Shane Levan. 

Dreamscape dropped happy hardcore from it's raves and at Slammin Vinyl and United Dance they would have hard house and trance in the same arena as happy hardcore. Then came the news that Bonkers was no more.

But once something has ended the next thing that happens is a comeback. Bonkers would return in 2002 after a 3 year absence. To reflect this, these posts will return in 3 weeks time.

Bonkers Part 6

 

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.

Bonkers Part 5

 

One soppy love song too many amongst other things meant that towards the end of 1998 I was completely disillusioned with happy hardcore. I was still listening to other styles of dance music and had started listening to non-dance music too.

I did however think this was just a blip and that things will change and it will get better again. Fast forward to 1999 and having encountered one stuck up twat too many who listens to house music I started to get back into happy hardcore again.

That's how I ended up purchasing Bonkers 5 which I bought 2nd hand on cassette from Cash Converters. The problem was that this was from 1998 which I still considered a bit of a dark period, but more importantly it was 1999 and I was more interested in what was happening at that moment in time. A year really made a difference in those days.

As a result this never really got much of a listen. The fact I had it on tape rather than CD didn't help as if I was going to listen to a tape I was more inclined to listen to one from a rave. 

A decade or so later this was the only cassette I had which was also available on CD. I tried giving it away to a charity shop but they no longer accepted cassettes. I ended up giving it away to a Cash Convertors equivalent where the person behind the counter thought it was a computer game initially.

Onto the music then and once again we have the Hixxy, Sharkey and Dougal line up. This time though Hixxy was no longer on Essential Platinum. Instead he had a label called Legendary Music and 6 tracks in his mix were from that label. The only one of these records to get released was "Back In Business" by Hixxy & UFO which ended up coming out on a different label.

Also amongst these 6 tunes was a vocal version of "Legends" from the Bonkers 3 album which naturally wasn't as good, but not bad. The record "New Day Dawning" on the other hand is cringeworthily bad.

Having rarely featured on any of the Bonkers albums to this point, there are 3 Vinylgroover records in the Hixxy mix with 2 of them as part of Elevate. Me and a mate used to call him Mr Cheese and the tunes "Bright Eyes" and "Together Again" certainly live up to the name but are amongst the better tunes in the mix. The other is "Virtual Dreams" which is a fantastic record and gets the balance right of being not too cheesy and not too freeform.

Speaking of freeform, the Sharkey mix is somehow a big improvement on his previous 2 efforts. The tunes "Warped Reality" by DJ Energy and "Distant Dreams" by Sharkey himself are the standout records in the mix. I still wouldn't buy it as a stand alone mix though.

Dougal is very much flying the flag again for Essential Platinum in his mix with 9 of the 16 tunes coming from the label including 8 of the first 9 tracks. Of these, 4 are remixes of older records and to me they illustrate how the music had changed in that time. Confusingly there is also a tune called "Back To The Future" by Dougal & Mickey Skeedle which is a different tune to the one of the same that Dougal & Mickey Skeedle released in 1996. The best one from Essential Platinum in the mix in my opinion is "Peace Of Mind" which features Jenna on vocals, but this wasn't released until 2002 and was seemingly never played at raves.

Outside of Essential Platinum it's really the good and bad of cheesy vocal tracks. There's the Unique (aka Styles) remix of "Shooting Star" which I think is better than the original and I do like "Higher Ground" by Unique. I get irritated with "Better Day" by Faber though because of the autotune vocals that Cher was doing around that time on it.

Bonkers 5 had to battle with the fact this wasn't a good time for happy hardcore. I quickly became obsessed with all things rave in the mid-90s and it was a big part of my youth. As a result I grew to like some of the cheese that came out later on that perhaps I wouldn't have otherwise. If this album was my introduction to happy hardcore I probably wouldn't have ever got into it.

It was clear that something needed to change and by the time Bonkers 6 came out something did change. More on that next week.

Bonkers Part 4

 

It was the summer of 1998, the exams were over and Bonkers 4 was out. I went to Loughborough for the day with the intention of ending my hiatus of buying new happy hardcore. Bonkers 4 seemed likely, but I was open to anything. In Andy's Records there were several compilations old and new to choose from, but what stood out was a new one called "Wow...What A Rush" which was mixed by Jimmy J who was my favourite DJ at the time and it was just £1.99. Needless to say I bought it. Bonkers 4 would have to wait.

Next up was a trip to Leicester and my mate (not the one with Bonkers 1 and 2) had already bought Bonkers 4 and we listened to it on his discman. 

There were 2 things on that day in Leicester that would suggest happy hardcore was in decline. We went into a record shop which had every dance music genre you could think of in their except happy hardcore. When we asked if they had any they laughed. I also picked up a flyer for the next Hysteria event and there was no happy hardcore there, room 1 was drum & bass and room 2 was garage.

We listened to the Hixxy mix and I have to say I was not impressed. My memory of it was crappy vocal track after crappy vocal track. We didn't bother with the Sharkey CD, he too was not a fan of trancecore/freeform and even wrote a letter to Dream magazine complaining about it along with complaining about MC Magika. It never got published, the fact Magika was one of the people running the magazine might have had something to do with that.

It was all on Dougal to deliver. Unfortunately that seemed a pretty poor mix too. A few listens on my mates discman to both Hixxy and Dougal CDs made me decide I wasn't going to buy this album. 

Fortunately I now have the benefit of being able to listen to it on YouTube at my own leisure. First up the Hixxy mix. It didn't start the way I expected, the first 3 tracks are hard trance records from Germany as opposed to happy hardcore and they're all decent. Track 4 was by OMG which was another alias of Hixxy & Sunset regime and I was expecting this to be a crappy vocal track, but no this one sounds more hard trance than happy hardcore.

Track 5 on the other hand is where we go into vocal happy hardcore. This is how I remembered it and they were the sort of tunes that made me think happy hardcore was going down the pan. Then suddenly the mix bursts back into life with "Equazion Pt.9" by Q-Tex. The momentum is kept by "U & Me" by 2 Without Heads and "Don't Go Away" by Visa, admittedly both cheesy vocal tracks but great fun. Then it gets bland again. It ends with "Better Days" by Devil Licious (aka Hixxy & Sunset Regime) which is a vocal version of "Happy Days" by Antisocial (aka Hixxy & Sunset Regime) which I'd probably like more if the instrumental didn't exist.

Less than half the tracks on the Hixxy mix are from Essential Platinum and whilst I only really like half the tunes I do think there's a good variety on there.

The Sharkey mix is predictably another trancecore/freeform yawn fest. I've listened a few times but I'm still struggling to remember any of the tunes, so we'll move on.

The Dougal mix is very much flying the flag for Essential Platinum with 11 of the 17 tracks from the label. There's also "Shooting Star" and "Sailaway" by Bang!, "Eye Opener" by Brisk & Trixxy and "Feelin Fine" by Unique which are all records I liked but were played to death at raves at the time. But I'm starting to understand why, there was little else of quality to play.

A remix of "Zurich" is the only non-vocal record on the entire Dougal mix. It's not all bad outside the anthems though. Towards the end of the mix we have "My Dreams" by Sub Ace & Aura, "Sweet Thing" by The Projek and "The Universe" by Innovate.

The latter is one of several tunes on both Bonkers 3 and 4 by Dougal plus others with Jenna on vocals, who was Dougal's girlfriend at the time. Jenna had previously been the female vocalist on a number of Force & Styles records including "Funfair" which may be the only record I prefer the vocal version to the instrumental. Jenna is a singer I've always rated, but "The Universe" is the only one with Dougal from this era that's really worked in my opinion. 

As 1998 went on I started to broaden my horizons outside of rave. By the time Bonkers 5 came out later on in the year I'd more or less stopped listening to happy hardcore so buying it wasn't even on my radar. Yet it was the first Bonkers album that I went to the shop and bought in it's entirely. More on that next week.

Bonkers Part 3

 

As mentioned in my previous posts, I didn't know about the first 2 Bonkers albums until they'd both been released. With the 3rd one though I knew about it in advance. I'm pretty sure Dream magazine had something to do with that. 

For the first time Bonkers would be 3 CDs with Hixxy and Sharkey being joined by Dougal. I was quite excited by this and intended on buying it the week it got released. For some reason though I didn't.

One possible reason is that the 2 worst tunes on the first album were "Toytown" and "Steam Train" and there were remixes of both tunes on here. 

I did end up acquiring the Dougal CD only from a second hand shop. What struck me about the Dougal mix was how similar it was to his set at "Helter Skelter - Strings Of Life". But then I guess the whole point is to play something that reflects what you're currently playing at the raves.

Whilst Dougal was a very welcome choice to join Hixxy and Sharkey, on reflection it was perhaps a bit of a strange choice because Dougal owned "Essential Platinum" records along with Hixxy so both DJs would have wanted to include a bunch of tunes from their own label which doesn't really add the extra variety it could have.

There were 17 tunes on the Dougal mix and 11 of them were from "Essential Platinum" and 8 of them were by Dougal including the Innovate ones. The only one he did by himself was "Tranquility" which is another tune I detest. The singing on it is so bad that it's unlistenable. The tunes outside of "Essential Platinum" on his mix are pretty good though, the two Triple J tunes probably being the best of these.

The Hixxy mix is even more "Essential Platinum" focused with 12 of the 16 tunes coming from the label. My main complaint about the Hixxy mix on Bonkers 2 was that I had every tune elsewhere. It wasn't the case this time. There were 2 "Essential Platinum" tunes from Daydream, an Australian DJ who I'd never heard of and had never heard his tunes outside of this mix. No bad thing though, they're not very good.

We also have a trio of Antisocial (Hixxy & Sunset Regime) records later on in the mix that I've never heard elsewhere and have also never been released. The last of these "Happy Days" is the best one and no it isn't a rip off of the TV show theme tune. 

Like with the Dougal mix, the tune selection outside of "Essential Platinum" is pretty good with "Fly Away" by Visa being the stand out tune.

Onto the Sharkey mix then. This has gone down in history as being a freeform masterpiece and the inspiration for many future freeform producers. As previously mentioned though, I'm not a fan of freeform and I can really take or leave this mix.

The opening track on the Sharkey mix is called "The Beginning of the End" which is quite symbolic for the period we were in. Although happy hardcore was loathed by many, it was still in it's peak in terms of popularity. The decline was just round the corner though.

This was pre-internet as we know it, but Dream magazine had its fair share of letters complaining about the scene and by early 98 Dream magazine was no more. By this point I was in my own hiatus in buying anything new but that was more to do with being tempted by the discounted older tape packs that Helter Skelter were selling.

By the summer of 1998 my buying new happy hardcore had resumed and Bonkers 4 came out, but more on that next week.