How did you get into dance music?

[Sperge]

Everyone's musical journey is very different and it's always interesting to see how people followed their own individual path to what they like today.

This is a potted history of mine, it would be interesting to see all of yours.

I bought my first pressing of New Order's Blue Monday on the day it was released, after having taped it off the John Peel show a few weeks earlier. I still have it, in its "giant floppy disk" sleeve. I moved on to the first house records that came into this country from the US in the mid-80s, things like Raze's Jack The Groove and Farley Jackmaster Funk's Love Can't Turn Around. So I feel I can justifiably say I was there at the start in this country.

By '87, acid house was emerging but I didn't touch any of those dodgy chemicals going around at the time, was way too square for that (sigh). Started at Manchester Uni in 1988, so yes I used to go to the Haçienda in its heyday. Amazing place - the most up-for-it crowd I've ever experienced anywhere! Justin Robertson was a contemporary of mine in his final year at uni, I knew him reasonably well - he was working at Eastern Bloc records (run by 808 State), he usually had grazed knees from falling off his skateboard and was already DJ-ing at the Haçienda.

But by around 91-2, I'd actually got bored of 4/4 dance music. All the clubs were playing nothing but house (in its various versions) and it was starting to get monotonous. This means that I missed out on most of the illegal rave scene. Doh!

Started drifting back into indie and then (blush) Britpop. Then in the summer of '96 a DJ saved my life. I was dragged kicking and screaming to a free festival in South London where Orbital were headlining. It was like I'd never been away. I bought In Sides, and it all took off again from there, although it all really took off big time when I started going to Glastonbury again in 2002.

Of course now that guitar music is back in a big way, I'm more into electronic dance music in all its forms than ever before. Always was one for going against the trend.

The Chemical Brothers are currently my number one favourite live mainstream dance act, now that Orbital have split. Underworld, Moby and of course the Prodge are up there too.

Going to the Glade has been a further musical education for me, introducing me to the likes of Squarepusher, AFX, Ceephax, Shitmat, Breakfastaz etc, while NWDNB nights (including the infamous NYE party in Manchester that had Grooverider & Fabio, Bailey and Sappo as well as old skool techno) got me into DnB.

Now how about the rest of you?

[Hardcore Queen]

I always hated dance music, grew up listening to stuff like Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Greenday and all that jazz.

Then I got to the age where I wanted to start going out in town with friends etc and ended up in a really cool underground club that was playing hardhouse and I just totally fell in love with it and started going there every weekend, but none of my friends were into it so I started making new friends when I was out and started to feel like I really belonged for the first time in ages. I then started getting into Old Skool which I totally love, until that point I didnt even know the scehe existed, but as soon as I discovered it I knew that I wanted to become a part of it. I developed a really sound group of friends, one of whom was into happy hardcore, so I went out and bought a happy hardcore CD and have loved it ever since. I still love Old Skool and some DnB but my heart will always be with happy hardcore.

My current group of mates are really into Techno and harder dance but I cant really get into it, I just love the cheesey happy hardcore, standing with your arms in the air, singing along to the cheesey happy lyrics and hugging the stranger next to you.

I know its cheesey but I loves it I do

Generally I am very open minded when it comes to music and can enjoy myself anywhere really....as long as there's vodka

[N2O]

I got into dance music through my brother. He was always playing helter skelter & dreamscape stuff when i was younger. I liked the sound of it and started listening to it myself. Then from there I guess I got into comercial dance music (looking back it makes me cringe!!).

I got some decks when I was about 17 and started trying to mix, again a lot of this was pretty commercial stuff. I sold the decks but still have all my vinyl, then from there I can't really remember.

Now i'm into psy trance, drum n bass and....well lots of stuff really.

[fraser_hunter]

Cos im only 19, i was prob stil dancing round in nappys during the 80's surge of new music but my uncle and aunt were very much into that scene (the Liverpool Cream) which would influence me. I always loved different music when i was growing up such as Hendrix and The Beatles cos of the fast guitar sounds and this prompted me to learn how to play at about 13. I reckon it was a cd that my mum got me of Mauro Picotto (the lizard man) when i was about 15 that converted me to a more electronic taste and at the time i loved the idea that a DJ could build a mass audience into a euphoric 'hands in the air' state just before kicking a chorus in. (Moved on from trancey style house but it can still make me tingle when you hear an Ibizan oldie!)
I was only ever interested in hearing the latest commercial chart dance acts such as 'The launch' (I apologise) and new sounding stuff like Benny Benassi but only when i turned about 17 and was venturing into the Liverpool nightlife did I come across more underground DJs that i learned to love. Nights at chibuku shake shake and seeing live acts like The Chems introduced me to more than beer if you know but this led to me calming down a bit and staying out of the trouble that I used to get in as a 16 year old. Sasha convinced me I wouldnt move from House but then Danny Howells and Steve Lawler added more of a darker tech edge to what Sasha had shown and eventually after seeing Dave Clarke and Rich Hawtin i felt and feel now that a tech house style is what i most enjoy.

[razor]

Ive awlays hated dance music. I sill do. I hate Breaks/Trance/ sasha type dance and Psy Trance. My god there is nothing that i hate more than Psy Trance, cant believe soooo many people/hippys/students are into it, its crazy!!! sory for the rant but there you go. I don't mind the rips and stab sounds, just that the beats are wrong. to me, every psy trance tune sounds like 'i feel love' by donna summer. honestly, it does.

Anyway, my 'dance' interest prolly started with 2 Unlimited and THAT song lol. Then i was a hiphop freak (still am) as i neared the end of primary skool, and naturally prrogressed into jungle and dnb through to my teens. Mainly cuz i suppose, the beats are the same ratios as hiphop and if u speed hiphop up to 180 bpm, it still sounds phat. Esp also cuz When i used to tape the Westwood show (yes it was actually a quality hiphop show back in the mid 90s!), the one in the jungle show would be on afterwards, and so i'd listen to westwood and 1 in the jungle back to back. Guess the junglist element grew on me.

Only after had i gone to my first rave did i realise that my 'clubbin' nights would be solely to dnb and jungle. Its the only beats that'll get me to rave and bounce. First lineup i ever saw; Hype, Roni Size, Krust, Mickey Finn, Zinc, Nicky B, and Goldie. It was (now that i look back on it), one of the sickest lineups ever to be introduced to dnb. I'd never been to/ heard anything like it before; the contrast of the deadly deep, rumbling, resonant basslines with the incredible sounds and hooks of the trebles. And then the rewinds just to get your breath back and drop the sick intro's again. And then the MC's who were there to keep you bouncing. (Yeah they mostly chat shit nowadays, but back then it was cool!) The reason i still rave and still dont feel 'too old' to go to the dnb nights is because I always have as much fun as i did at the very first one i went to.

In the last few years, esp. since the likes of aphex twin, squarepusher, shitmatt and the wrong music mentalists came about, ive been stomping along to hardcore gabba techno. I dont mind hardcore or hardcore house, thats pretty mad too. Rather that than psy trance!!!

The most fun ive had in a while actually was at the Monkey Knife Fight night in Bristol, Friday just gone. Ceephax did a blinder with his Atari and I-Pod at the controls, then Shitmatt came on and played the most insane gabba mixed with broken junglecore it was just....Wrong!!!

and thats my two cents.

Look out for my anti-psy trance flag at the glade. Im non-conforming to the non-conforming hippys. and how much more shit can i chat

[razor]

have u errd that long housey playboy mix he did a while back? its nice and cool

[Sperge]

Anyway, my 'dance' interest prolly started with 2 Unlimited and THAT song lol

[razor]

when ur 9/10 years old and not taking drugs yet and had never had a concept of what the fuck techno actually was.

[Hardcore Queen]

there is nothing that i hate more than Psy Trance, cant believe soooo many people/hippys/students are into it, its crazy!!!

Although my music tastes are quite wide spread and I can enjoy pretty much everything, I have to agree with you, psy trance actually makes me angry and makes me want to take up self harming. Each to their own and all that but its defo not for me

[skipz]

For me it was when I was younger and listening to older siblings Happy Hardcore collections including some greats from the likes of Hixxy, Sharkey and Dougal and then getting into it a bit with mates. As I got older there were people around me at school that liked Drum and Bass which when I heard it I thought, hhhmmm I could boogie to that! Another greast influence for me was John Peel. I'd listen to his show late and night and hear some outstanding new things which I would furiously try to remember or jot down.

As I got older, went to uni and met more people my eyes were opened more and there were more nights to venture to. Now there is not much I don't like and I pretty much can dance to it all.

razorruck wrote:
there is nothing that i hate more than Psy Trance, cant believe soooo many people/hippys/students are into it, its crazy!!!






Although my music tastes are quite wide spread and I can enjoy pretty much everything, I have to agree with you, psy trance actually makes me angry and makes me want to take up self harming. Each to their own and all that but its defo not for me

I totally thought this as well (and to a great extent still do - it is one of my favourite genres to mock) but at the past two Glades I have become more accepting to it. And you have to admit the hippies that like it are pretty dead on people. If it wasn't for all of them at Glade the festival wouldn't be so chilled and friendly.

[Hardcore Queen]

And you have to admit the hippies that like it are pretty dead on people. If it wasn't for all of them at Glade the festival wouldn't be so chilled and friendly.

I couldn't agree more. The psy trance crowd are brilliant and defo my type of people. They just have shit taste in music

[razor]

Yeah they are a sound bunch, most of the free partys in Brizzle now are mainly psytrance, the crowd are wicked and the visuals at the tribe of frog nights are insane!!!

But yeah, shame about the music...

Guess i dont do enough Ketamine or mushrooms

Esp. mushrooms, i could see myself getting a bit tribal after lots of psylocibes

[Hardcore Queen]

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.

[stinko-paralytico]

I was at the reading festival in 2003 and a mate gave me a pill, I think to myself why not, come up in the middle of the afternoon during weezer's set (?!!), and that was it for the weekend... I'd always been into punk and hard rock before then but I found myself glued to the dance tent all weekend. 3 days, way too many little 'uns and an aphex set later, and I was 'a changed man'...

Psytrance.... I love it, but almost hardly anyone I know can stand it. Odd.
Although I doubt K is the key to unlocking a love for it. Waaay too much flaming poi going on for that....

[Hardcore Queen]

Although I doubt K is the key to unlocking a love for it. Waaay too much flaming poi going on for that....

LOL!!!!

[razor]

after talking to a few random 'liberals' shall i say, in a st pauls pub, they were on about some new upper under the label 'BCP'. Apparently its a proper/newey chemical and lots and lots of peeps were on it at the last tribe of frog (coupla saturdays ago). The visuals these guys were getting were incredible, almost in a filmscape..

any1 errd of that?

[Hardcore Queen]

No but Ive heard of 2CB??

The fact that they were in a pub in St Pauls is slightly off-putting tho

[Sperge]

You never know who's reading, folks. There are better places to discuss these things.

[Hardcore Queen]

[TommyKc]

i think i'm like quite a lot of peeps my age.. used to like all the cheesy ministry of shite topten dance when i was too yung to know any better. in my teens developed a more critical ear but for rock/indie stuff, loved the chilis (stil do: hopin to hear some from eddie tm this year) and coldplay, feeder etc..

To my credit i never totally gave up on dance, always liked the good mainstream: chems, prodge, leftfield, fatboy (progressively less, i do like palookaville tho) but i was never really aware of anything outside the charts til i started goin to Slinky nites at the Opera House at 17, after a nasty breakdown in my life where i just wanted somethin different. i'd been taking pills and stuff for about a year but just staying in on them, makin braincakes. My first nite at slinky all my mates got IDd but i decided fuck it, i was staying (even though we're from soton and the club's in b.mouth)

that was my first rave experience, and i understood myself, my mind and my drugs so much more after that nite on the dancefloor.. i'm glad to say my taste in dance music has broadened and matured a bit since then (it was a pretty commercial hard house nite), but the essence of the rave still burns strong inside me. (cheesy but true)

its like maxijazz said: 'this is my church, this is where i heal my hurts'

..realised just how true that is while trippin on the stained glass window at tranz-mission the other weekend



(hehe.. havn't read that for a while.. emo semi drunken comedown writing )