INTO THE NINETIES

Into the early ‘90s, the UK club scene is feeling the early waves of Acid House, which had been kicking off all over the UK- but this style didn’t impress me much. By 92/93 the rave scene was blowing up throughout the UK. At first I was very sceptical about getting involved, simply because the majority of the music I heard didn’t do anything for me at all. However, I heard a tape from a rave in England featuring DJ SS and Stu Allan, and noticed the style they played really appealed to me – Breakbeat. I had been playing a few similar tunes for a while, but this was a full tape of it. So many of the Hip-hop drum breaks I had been listening to over the past five years were being fused with Belgian Techno sounds, and the sound of UK breakbeat became my sole musical passion almost overnight.

As the rave scene continued to grow in Scotland, I found it increasingly difficult to find an opening for myself, playing things here and there but nothing very special, which spurred me into organising my own event – Megabass. <Pictures> <Hear Set> Although the night was a great success, a huge fight broke out after only the second event, and the venue wouldn’t let me run another one. Luckily, a guy got in touch with me who was looking for DJs for a night he was putting together in the function hall of an ice rink. After meeting him, I decided to help him organise the event. Pandemonium became one of Scotland’s leading underground rave events. I constantly pushed the Breakbeat sound whilst the other DJs played underground Techno. Over the three years it ran, we had various live stage shows from the likes of Dream Frequency, Eskimos and Egypt, Shades of Rhythm, and regular DJ sets from London’s DJ Reckless alongside local residents Mr Mix, DJ Kaos, DE - V8, Mc Gavzie and last but not least my old spar the man like MC Crime a.k.a. DJ Trixter. Pandemonium was very special to me, as it helped me cement my DJ name within the Scottish rave circuit. <Pictures> <Listen To Live Mixes>

As I continued to grow with the UK Breakbeat scene, the large majority of Scottish DJ's swung towards more piano based uplifting anthems, which seemed to go hand in hand with the now massive drug scene. There was only a small pocket of people who appreciated the music I was playing, and I was bewildered because everybody loved the Prodigy, but anything else with fast drum breaks they would dismiss. I remember one guy saying to me “why are you playing that speeded up Hip Hop shit – nobody likes It.”

When Pandemonium started to lose its edge, as well as attract major attention from the police I finally left after clashing with one of the resident DJ's over our ideas on the musical direction of the club the night stopped shortly after my departure.

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