How did you get into dance music?

[alboot]

i had a bizzaro hatred of all dance music untill i hit about 16 -17 then i started going to test in glasgow, an listening to dave tarrida, neil landstrum, tokyo bitches spin wonky techno and i was hooked. i wouldnt say im purley into electronic music thought, i love all music an any genre i say i hate, god fucks with me by showing me some music from that genre i love the very next day. bastard.

[mr.digs]

Funnily enough, the only time Ive enjoyed myself at a Psy Trance night was when we'd been doing shrooms all wkend and went to Tribe of Frog at the Blackswan.lol.

Yeah, funny that - you enjoyed PSYchedelic trance after taking PSYchedelic mushrooms! Seriously, to all psytrance haters I'd say this: you aren't listening to the right psytrance, in the right place (outdoors), with the right substances (or philosophy/mystic practices).

I accept that a lot of it sounds samey with the same monotonous rythms and drum patterns, but that's because you're listening to it on the same wavelength that you listen to other types of dance music - if youre not trancing then youre not hearing it.

I notice how many stories go "i hated the dance music i heard on the radio, but then I (went to this club/took substance x) and it changed my life...

Personally, in a nutshell, I hated the dance music I heard on the radio and in my local cheesy clubs (apart from a brief early obsession with acid house in the late 80s - too young/naive/square to actually have taken any acid), then one night had some acid and it changed my life.

This was about 1990 in a non underground club so it was prodigy - charly says, outta space, hyperspeed - you know the era ... thank you thank you thank you whoever was playing experience one night at glade last year!

[baldmosher]

Erm.... in rough order....

Beatles / Manfred Mann / Leonard Cohen / Simon & Garfunkel / random poppy gospel type bands, via my parents

Whitesnake were rockin in 86

Jive Bunny was my first love (see above)

1990-1 Smash Hits, never did like Madchester much tho. Jesus Jones stood out. (As did KLF)

Queen

....

random rock n roll bands, e.g. Def Leppard (I WAS YOUNG OK)

....

summer of '94.... Green Day's Dookie > Metallica > Cannibal Corpse >>> exponential spread 1, metal

Prodigy

....

summer of '98.... started smoking weed a lot more
NIN > Skinny Puppy >>> exponential spread 2, industrial
>>> Leftfield, Orbital, The Orb >>> exponential spread 3, dance music

Trance was proper good in 1998, DJs playing the trancier elements of house music over the years. Got bored of that pretty quickly though. "Trance Nation" was a rubbish compilation.

Up until Autumn 2000, I was spending £100+ a week on CDs from eBay, Vinyl Exchange, CDNow, etc., and buying music faster than I could listen to it.

Industrial/dance expanded into minimal electronica (Pan Sonic etc.), and slowly into glitch, so by 2002 I'd fallen for Afx and Squarepusher.

By 2002 I'd tried mdma and was starting to get into breaks (sounds a lot like Prodigy, doesn't it!) and had fallen in love with Bjork, and rekindled my fondness for Jesus Jones (again) and James.

Got into "proper" 4/4 over the next year or so, can't say I'm a big fan of any genre except breaks and DnB though.

July 2005 - fell for psytrance

Still there or thereabouts but I'm lovin the abrasive jungle like DJ Scud atm.

[railway raver]

I knew the bouncer.....

[Amber]

Actually my Mum was quite a heavy influence, I remember going to lots of festivals as a child and she was always playing dance music, even taking me to Ibiza at 14.

[wheeter]

My parents had the most abysmal music taste imaginable; a monstrous combination of 'classic' stars such as Phil Collins, Neil Diamond, Sting etc, with a large dose of 80s power rock groups, namely Toto, Mister Mister, Foreigner etc, and, more recently, the more vacuous end of the modern pop market, such as Anastasia, Cheeky Girls, and Coldplay. Occasionally, and largely by accident, there would be something of worth amidst all this dour tripe, a few diamonds in the rough (Abba, Bob Dylan, The Police), yet, more often than not, any car journey of length was a torturous experience, for I would be subjected to a variety of mix tapes which could - and would - contain both Julio Iglesias and Wings. In this respect, quite how I came to like the music I do is a total mystery to me.

Admittedly, the early signs weren't good - I think the first music I ever bought was Slam Jam by the Superstars Of The WWF and the theme tune to Streethawk on 7" (although this was recorded by Tangerine Dream, so could possibly be viewed as a rather sophisticated purchase for a preteen). However, my teenage years soon cultivated an obsession for American indie bands, most of which I still like to this day; while the others in my year at school were listening to Blur, Oasis, Stereophonics, and Dodgy, I was meanwhile listening to Sonic Youth, Pavement, Pixies, and The Flaming Lips. Subsequently, I regarded most electronic and dance music as some kind of sterile, soulless affront to the badly and noisily played music which I held so close to my heart.

Then, when I was about 18, something happened - I don't know what it was, but I lost my taste for guitar music completely. I even stopped playing guitar. And I had an urgent desire to listen to electronic music. I began to listen to almost nothing but Aphex, Squarepusher, Autechre etc, and I even started going to clubs, which I would've sneered at before - techno, drum n bass, heck, even breaks (though I quickly grew out of that). I did my first pill at an Underworld gig, which was a suitably enlightening experience. I think a lot of the reason I took to this side of things so quickly is because at indie clubs, as opposed to dance clubs, you never spend huge amounts of time on the dance floor - it's always "oh cool, joy division, i'll get up and dance", swiftly followed by "oh shit, kula shaker, i'll go sit down". But gradually, my tastes levelled out and expanded to the point where I listen to pretty much any genre, so long as it's good (except R&B or metal, both of which i've never managed to like), and these days I listen to everything from Finnish folk music to early electro-acoustic experimentation, music concrete, noise/drone music, psychedelia... you name it. Except R&B and metal.

[dance dissadent]

Actually my Mum was quite a heavy influence, I remember going to lots of festivals as a child and she was always playing dance music, even taking me to Ibiza at 14.

[buzzingtalk]

loved all the cheesey old skool when i was young, remember having a smurfs tape that was happy hardcore and loving that too. luckily by the time i was 13 my mum was listening to jungle, trance and drum n bass, i took to it and still love it now. got into hardcore 4 years back through a freind, same with electro, no stoppin me now

converted my mum to IDM and electro, gave her a squarepusher album to listen to, went to see him last year and shes nearly as keen on comming to glade as me!!
hardcore is taking more time though...

[maternal buzzin]

in reply to you buzzingtalk - looking forward to glade almost as much as you?
more so with bells my love xxx

[buzzingtalk]

Beware, she likes to say she listens to good music, but when no one is in the house she digs out the crooning LP's and has a boogie

but i would like to say my mother did very much influence my musical taste, even get to go raving with her yay

and no one ever beleives she is my mum, ill keep a counter at glade of how many people say "nnaaaa thats not your mum...look at you your gurning, like people would do that in front of their mum...fancy a sandwich...etc etc'

[Sperge]

Beware, she likes to say she listens to good music, but when no one is in the house she digs out the crooning LP's and has a boogie

Careful, mate, or she'll start listing all the embarrassing music you ever owned.

[maternal buzzin]

i was in love with donny osmond at that age for christs sake!

[Sperge]

And you admitted that on a public forum too!

From Donny Osmond it could have been a slippery slope into the Bay City Rollers. Have you no shame, woman? There was me thinking buzzingtalk had such a cool mum too, but it was all a cruel deception.


Edit: OOPS! I hit the Edit button instead of the Quote button when replying to your post maternal. I'm afraid the rest of your post is gone now.

[Smiffy1001]

I first got into dance music when I was 14 (1997) when a mate brought round a tape recorded live at the sanctuary March/April time 1995. Ramos and Marley (Dreamscape) I think it was. I then bought loads of different tapes packs of Helter Skelter and Dreamscape. Then Slammin vinyl really took off and I started going to loads of their events.
Met loads of wicked people who I started going out with who introduced me to 3parties.

These days though, its mainly just clubs that I go to. The main festivals in the summer and the occasional 3party if the'yre reasonably near by.

What a wicked journey....which I'd like to think is by no means over....
Have met some of the coolest people I know along the way too!

[missmorbid]

Can't actually remember much of a musical influence in my life when I was very little. My background was one that meant I wasn't really allowed to explore much of my own taste, kinda had a taste forced upon me.

So it all started when driving with my mum. She'd always listen to hard house, and I'd detest it. I was all into my Cradle of Filth, Korn, Metallica etc.

Got a little older, decided to explore the Prodigy a little further than just Firestarter and Breathe. Learnt that Aphex Twin is more than just windowlicker.

My younger sister was listening to old school dance albums all the time and I kinda learnt to love it.

Drifted away from the metal quite a bit, started getting into my punk and my old stuff (Adam Ant, 80's Electro, 70's classics) and moved towns.

Started college, discovered "a different state of mind" and dropped out of college, started listening to drum and bass, a lot.

Met a very funky lot of people, started heavily partying and began getting different genres suddenly appearing infront of me.

Went to slamming vinyl, rebirth, clash of the titans and other official music events. House parties pissed all over them though. (except seeing the Prodigy, that was a rite of passage for me)

I've got a good mate that has educated me very well with music, and inspired me to educate myself in it.

Throughout the different parties I was flitting to and from, in the brain-melting haze this, what I assumed was background noise, became more and more apparent. That was my introduction to psytrance.

More parties, more self-education.

Then one day my good friend happened upon me with a compilation he had constructed for me....

THE WHORES OF GABBALON.

It kinda completed me in certain ways that I cannot describe.

BRAIN SEX.

...

Also living in a pub which is mainly European orientated, I've grown an appreciation for Buddahbaresque tunage as well as native and cultural music. Hense my love for Amon Tobin also. GOTTA LOVE THE VIBE-MUSIC MAN!


The main thing I have to say about the worlds musicalistical offerings that I have sampled though is that it IS my blood. Without it I would not be.

I'm sure I've missed out loads of my musical life story but that's the jist of it that I can remember now....

[trebor]

I remember the exact moment I discovered electronic music:

I was 15, and my mate played me a CD he had just bought: Orbital's Insides. To this day I can still remember the feeling I got when I heard the opening sounds of 'The Girl With The Sun In Her Head'

[fabricated]

1988, beach party in sunny cleethorpes, around dawn: royal house, can you feel it
tune changed my life forever!

[Aadomm]

In rough order:

Hawkwind
Ozric Tentacles
Caravan
Camel
Hawkwind
The Orb
Gong
Planet Gong
Steve Hillage
System 7
Magic Mushroom Band
Astralasia
The Orb
The Grid
Wooden Baby
Psychic TV
Psychic Warriors ov Gaia
Eat Static
Megadog (oh my)
Orbital
Future Sound of London
Leftfield
Underworld
Trbal Drift
Aphex Twin
I'm about there now I think.

[megadaisy]

Started going to Festis in the early 80's - lots of dub and 2nd generation punk at that time. Speed, mushrooms and LSD were what kept us all going back then. Glastonbury 1985 was first proper big festi and was a right eye opener in many ways. Hawkwind featured a lot around this time.

1989 came across acid house at a festi in Cornwall and couldnt work out what the hell that was all about. Hawkwind played.

early 90's Eat Static came onto the scene and warehouse parties in South London which had house music and bands and i was much more into the bands side of the scene until around 1993 when someone gave me a little fella and woosh that was that. Hawkwind seemed to be starting to play dancey stuff too around then.

Glastonbury 1995 introduced me to minimal techno. Plastikman, Carl Cox, System 7, Eat Static etc etc all played; oh my the dance tent was amazing. Around that year we got into Goa, RTTS, and that sort of stuff too. Met my partner that year too Hawkwind release their best album ever around now (titled "it is the Business of the future to be dangerous" or something).

95-2004 got into trance, techno, dnb, everything basically - I was a dance music slag, I would have any of it (apart from garage). Went to many clubs, parties, festivals. Hawkwind seemed to disapear.

2004 - Glade #1 we went just for the amazing trance lineup - didnt have a clue what breaks was though so had my first breaks experience on the saturday dancing to Atomic Hooligan. Got into breaks. Couldnt believe just how good the Glade festi is.

2005 - Glade #2 went for the breaks and the trance and anything else, just amazing. Went to Beautiful Days too which was just wicked.

2006 - still loving festis and all dance music. Maybe Hawkwind will play Glade? lol

Thats me.