I'd like to dedicate this section of my blog page to The Old Skool - it seems that everyone wants to move forward and leave the 'real' shit behind all too quickly - with REAL rave musicians & DJ's being replaced by a newer, much less talented breed of musicians whose focus is on 'how they look' rather than 'how they sound'....many PROPER original ravers have been put off the whole scene altogether by all this, which means the original set-up is inevitibly gonna be replaced by a not-so-opened minded, stuck up crowd whose intentions are the opposite of what the original ravers were all about .....back in the day everyone was equal no matter what...and if I remeber rightly the music had much more imagination too...
Remember the original pioneers of the scene? Just to name a few we had the likes of Parks & Wilson, Dobbo, Tintin, Bomb the Bass, Vibe Tribe, Stu Allen, Prodigy, 'evil' eddie Richards, Sucks and not forgettin off course the guys who actualy survived the scene and still DJ right up to this very day - Slipmatt, Ray Keith, Jumpin Jack Frost, Carl Cox, Grooverider, Jason Kaye (aka Top Buzz) and LSD.
The Eclipse nightclub was first decent underground rave that was legalized by the government - your always hearing about people going on about the Haciencda but you never seem to hear about the Eclipse nightblub in Conventry that put everything about the Hacienda to shame....
Dreamscape @ The Sanctuary took the rave scene to a whole new level, for the first time in history, a purpose built rave would house thousands of clubbers under one roof in a massive metal frame warehouse with rip roaring thousands of watts of thunderous bass carrying junglistic & hardcore sounds...only the lucky 'chosen few' would've been lucky enough to catch the last glimpse of the original vibe - long before it later turn into a commercialy popular event - as we all know its commercialism that inevitibly kills the magic in mint nights like these.......
After the popularity of Dreamscape, other popular nights would stage events here, including the likes of Helter Skelter, Hysteria, Purex and much much later (when the scene got inevitibly dry) Slammin Vinyl, Hardcore Heaven & many more.
The scene would inevitibly come to a grinding halt much later than expected - in 2004, to be honest the scene died in 1995, but DJs and ravers alike would refuse to acknoledge this fact and try and carry on the dream for as long as possible. Its a real unfortunate thing that the whole rave thing became such a commercial thing with every tom dick and harry gettin onto it - its exactly this that killed of the whole scene - basicaly the wrong people got into the scene, thus ruining it for the true ravers - greedy people who just wanted to make money out the scene, as well as drug pushers and trouble makers who just wanted 'somewhere to go' the original ravers would be put off by all this bull - it always comes down to one thing in the end - money.
One thing that sticks in your mind about proper raves back in the hey day was the skill and hard work put into the flyers that advertised the nights that were put on. They used an interesting array of colourful designs, some of these designs are classic pieces of art that are highly sought after, even 10-15 years later!
PEZ was probably one of the best flyer design artists out of them all. The flyers of the day were a true reflection of what the music tastes, and the no expense spared nights were all about - unlike today, where the focus is put purely on taking the money of the ravers and putting absoloutly no thought whatsoever into the design of the flyers, or indeed in some cases - the music.
1991 was probably the peak of it all, the popularity of the scene and the intensity of the music was reflected in its best run of flyers in history! Some of the art pieces were based on original popular folk art from the psycadelic era.
The eclipse flyers were probably the best ones ever released, at a time when raves and flyers were pretty much unnoticed by the average public; lets face it only people in the know realy knew abot raves then - people liked to keep information about raves and stuff pretty quiet back then in order to retain the magic that these nights were all about - remember - it wasnt about making loads of money back then like it is now, it was purely for the enjoyment of the experience and the music, 100% FOR the raver...no expense spared entertaiment - a powerful lesson something that todays promoters and rave organizers realy need to learn from.
