Hardcore til I die

October 14th, 2008 catnip

I never thought I’d see the day when I could listen to hardcore rave on Radio 1 (apart from the occasional track that John Peel used to play). I’ve been listening to Pete Tong on Radio 1 since he started (1990?), but I used to have to turn to local stations to hear any hardcore rave. The scene was huuuge back in the early 90s, but I’m guessing due to some sort of snobbery, Radio 1 would never play it. I suppose it’s now seen as cool in a ‘retro’ kind of way.

Anyway, whatever the thinking behind it, I’ll be eagerly listening to Kutski every week, or rather I’ll be recording it or listening on demand as it’s on at 1-3am on a Sunday morning.

Although I have extremely wide taste in music, I sort of see hardcore rave as my ‘pet’ genre. I think this is probably because none of my friends were really into it. I used to spend many a Sunday night listening to and taping Stu Allen on Key 103, then Meeting of the Minds on Signal (anyone remember that?) and making up compilation tapes of my favourite tunes. Because I got a lot of tunes from the Meeting of the Minds show and it was a continuous mix, I never knew and still don’t know what a lot of the tracks were. I keep meaning to digitise my old cassettes, if I can find them and they haven’t disintegrated! I’d love to know the details of each and every track. I’m hoping that Kutski will play some of them on his new show.

I was always desperate to go to the rave clubs, but could rarely find anyone else who would go. I do remember dragging my friend to The Hard Dock in Liverpool three times. One time was Stu Allen DJing, the other was Carl Cox and the other there was a PA by The Prodigy. I also saw the Prodigy do a PA at a rave I went to in Chester at the leisure centre (!). That was when the Prodigy were hardcore, actually Moby was also hardcore, still love his old hardcore tunes :). Didn’t manage to get to Club Kinetic in Stoke until towards the end of the rave explosion when things were turning more jungly, but it was still amazing. Also went to one of the hardcore nights at Wigan Pier. A lot (probably the majority) of people at those clubs were on drugs, but I didn’t need them, I love this kind of music because it is energy giving. I used to be able to dance for 4 hours non stop.

Anyway, I have high hopes for the Kutski show on Radio 1, to remind me of all those great noisy, rolling, squeaky-vocalled, manic, euphoric, often silly tunes; and to introduce me to some new ones.

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