Defining Tunes n 1991/2? Hardcore or House or Hardcore House?

[Art Awreet]

How would everyone define the sort of music played at Life at the Pleasuredrome, Bowlers (in 1992), Sequins and other places such as Shelly's in the north west in 1991 and 1992? Used to always think of it as uplifting house, but then again some tunes were in between House and Hardcore, or even hardcore played slower

It seems true that the further South of Warrington you went, the more hardcore the music got, with being almost completely jungle south of Coventry by late 1992

How would you define example tunes like Terrorize "It's just a feeling", Evolution "Can you feel it", Blow "Cutter"? House or Hardcore?

 

[dodgymix]

How would everyone define the sort of music played at Life at the Pleasuredrome, Bowlers (in 1992), Sequins and other places such as Shelly's in the north west in 1991 and 1992? Used to always think of it as uplifting house, but then again some tunes were in between House and Hardcore, or even hardcore played slower

It seems true that the further South of Warrington you went, the more hardcore the music got, with being almost completely jungle south of Coventry by late 1992

How would you define example tunes like Terrorize "It's just a feeling", Evolution "Can you feel it", Blow "Cutter"? House or Hardcore?

them 3 are rave, hardcore rave.


"Life" was basically House played at +8 mixed in to this type of hardcore Rave


at one point Bowlers used to have a -16 / 16+ turntable

 

[anthonyf218]

How would everyone define the sort of music played at Life at the Pleasuredrome, Bowlers (in 1992), Sequins and other places such as Shelly's in the north west in 1991 and 1992? Used to always think of it as uplifting house, but then again some tunes were in between House and Hardcore, or even hardcore played slower

It seems true that the further South of Warrington you went, the more hardcore the music got, with being almost completely jungle south of Coventry by late 1992

How would you define example tunes like Terrorize "It's just a feeling", Evolution "Can you feel it", Blow "Cutter"? House or Hardcore?

bit of a difficult one this aint it.

If you take The Pleasuredrome or Shelleys as an example, I don’t think you could define the music into one category as they played all sorts around the 125 – 130bpm mark from Italian / US / UK vocal piano to euro techno, but they would never (or rarely) go down the ‘hardcore’ in its (most dodgyest) sense. There was some very breakbeat stuff, plus some harder stuff (eg Visa was a big Pleasuredrome track), but at that point the proper hardcore fast crap (imo lol) was already knocking about and was laughed at / looked down on as for the mad psychos who wanted to dance fast! ; (I can only speak of the way it was with the people who I knocked around with though, and perceptions change over time).

But from a general term, I can remember calling the stuff i used to buy and love then as house (as apposed to hardcore). Obviously as the years have gone by the word ‘House’ means something else, or incorporates so much more anyway, so its all changed.

Re: Terrrorize and Elevation, I remember them as being top tracks when spannered, but they eventually got caned in the normal dodgy niteclubs (eg. Applebys!) so they soon got consigned to being dodgy rave tracks. That’s what it felt like at the time anyway, sure theres different slants on it.

 

[Art Awreet]

bit of a difficult one this aint it.

If you take The Pleasuredrome or Shelleys as an example, I don’t think you could define the music into one category as they played all sorts around the 125 – 130bpm mark from Italian / US / UK vocal piano to euro techno, but they would never (or rarely) go down the ‘hardcore’ in its (most dodgyest) sense. There was some very breakbeat stuff, plus some harder stuff (eg Visa was a big Pleasuredrome track), but at that point the proper hardcore fast crap (imo lol) was already knocking about and was laughed at / looked down on as for the mad psychos who wanted to dance fast! ; (I can only speak of the way it was with the people who I knocked around with though, and perceptions change over time).

But from a general term, I can remember calling the stuff i used to buy and love then as house (as apposed to hardcore). Obviously as the years have gone by the word ‘House’ means something else, or incorporates so much more anyway, so its all changed.

Re: Terrrorize and Elevation, I remember them as being top tracks when spannered, but they eventually got caned in the normal dodgy niteclubs (eg. Applebys!) so they soon got consigned to being dodgy rave tracks. That’s what it felt like at the time anyway, sure theres different slants on it.

Good Post
I think those clubs you mentioned got it just perfect with a nice mixture of Italian/US/UK Progressive House plus slightly harder belgian techno or UK Breakbeat/hardcore (i.e. with a techno beat behind the breakbeat). For me Manix, 4 Hero, MK II, Dreamfinder, were the limit of the jungle/hardcore/jungl techno with any faster sounding like a noise

I had moved to London in late summer 1992, and the scene there was dominated by what seemed to be very heavy/fast jungle, way to fast for me bar one or two. There also seemed to be little techno if any behind the breakbeats (pure jungle?)

I always found it odd that the rave scenes in the north west and London could be so completely different music-wise

 

[Elate]

As Dodgy has said I remember a lot of folks bundling quite divergant styles under the name rave. And by 94 it became old school. For me 93 was the pivotal point where people started to be more fineky about what catagories the music they listened to belonged in. I know that there was such a thing as house/techno/acid/hardcore etc etc before then but I think that the unity that existed before 93 meant that no one realy gave a flying ducks ass.
How ever I vaguely recall there being some people being a bit more up tight but they tended to be fans of techno.
Diferent people have diferent views, I'm from the country and only ventured into the city to go clubbing so wasn't as involved in the scene as some others were. When we went out it didn't realy matter what kind of night it was because the clubs we went to held nights where all diferent styles were catered for.

 

[Steve RH]

Good Post
I think those clubs you mentioned got it just perfect with a nice mixture of Italian/US/UK Progressive House plus slightly harder belgian techno or UK Breakbeat/hardcore (i.e. with a techno beat behind the breakbeat). For me Manix, 4 Hero, MK II, Dreamfinder, were the limit of the jungle/hardcore/jungl techno with any faster sounding like a noise

I had moved to London in late summer 1992, and the scene there was dominated by what seemed to be very heavy/fast jungle, way to fast for me bar one or two. There also seemed to be little techno if any behind the breakbeats (pure jungle?)

I always found it odd that the rave scenes in the north west and London could be so completely different music-wise

Being from "Landan" originaly meself I can say that the early 90s raves in London were defo all Hardcore and then in to Jungle and as far as the raves were concerned there was a north south divide with the North being more Techno but i have to say a very valid point thats seems to get overlooked is that anyone over the age of 19 in London at the time didn't really like Hardcore and Jungle and London has always supported proper House music and I think in House clubs we were all dancing to pretty much the same tunes across the UK with the exception of synth Italo in the north west which has been a learning curve for me since living up here.

In London clubs Like Ministry of Sound were booking the likes of Frankie Knuckles,Morales and Tony Humphries back at that time and most london clubbers kinda looked down thier nose at Hardore n Jungle,that was only the kiddie Dance music of the time,everyone else was House.There were great club nights suppoting the Glam side of House in London like "Love ranch" where girls tuned up in high heels a fur scarf and not a lot else and if you turned up looking like a Hardcore raver you probobaly wouldn't get in and again by the mid 90s I think the UK were all dancing to the same tunes again.North,south,east or west we all knew and still love tunes by the likes of Nush,Rockford Files,Eve Gallagher,Chrisie Ward,Stonebridge etc .My record collection doesn't seem to be that different to any of my Northern born and bred DJ mates so the scenes couldn't have been that differnet.

There is what I would call northern bounce and southern dub though where more bouncy tunes exemplified by stlyes like Scouse House and happy Hardcore are more popular up north and Drum & Bass and Garage are more popular down south but this is a good thing as it gives us all more variation.But good old House music as far as I can see has always united the 4 corners of the UK (and the world)with the same tunes.London,Manchester,Birmingham etc have always danced to the same House music,which is one of the many great things about House that no matter where you go you can find people just like you who love the same music and it brakes down them old bullshit divides of north against south,Black against White,young against old etc etc.

As for the original point though it's that age old argument of "Are Techno and Hardcore forms of House music or different styles of music altogether?" Well there's no rule book to say for definate wether they're House or not so I suppose it's a matter of opinion.Personally i would say that the oldskool Hardcore is just speeded up House with hip hop breakbeats used in a way that was an Expriment within House music not hip hop so therfore Hardcore is a form of House music.And in Detroit in the 80s they did the same thing as Chicago and New York but added thier own influences from the city therefore Techno really in my opinion is also House.But you could say that for instance Drum & Bass removed all House keyboard work,vocals and samples and became just the speeded up hip hop breaks and basslines therefore it's not House but it still came from the House scene and those rave sub bass's and speeded up breaks are House techniques so it's still House.as I say it's a matter of opinion as to what you think about those genres,my opinion is that they are all sub genres of House even they though as Anthony said in a post above House is now viewed as something else mainly the Funky or Elecroey stuff.I think it's all House,which is another great thing about it that it comes in so many different forms and flavours .Thats wot I reckon anyway