 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2021) |
| Raindance | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Electronic dance music |
| Location(s) | United Kingdom |
| Years active | 1989–present |
| Founded by | Raindance |
Raindance are British rave event organisers. They were one of the best known rave names on the rave scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The first event was held at a circus tent on 16 September 1989 at Jenkins Lane, Beckton in east London. This was Britain's first legal all night rave. [1]
DJs such as Carl Cox, Dave Angel, LTJ Bukem, Mr C, DJ Rap, John Digweed, Kevin "Reece" Saunderson, Slipmatt, Fabio and Grooverider started out at Raindance. Live acts such as Shades of Rhythm, N-Joi and The Prodigy have all played at Raindance.
From 1989 to 1993, Raindance went on to hold large-scale events across Essex, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, [2] Oxfordshire, Somerset and even Spain. The venues Raindance used held up to 10,000 ravers. DJ Slipmatt's brother, Paul Nelson, was one of the original promoters. The original idea to hold a rave came from Slipmatt himself. [3]
But, by 1993, with pressure from the authorities (Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994) and the rave music scene splintering into different dance genres, Raindance took a break from holding mass events. Between 1993 and 1998 there were one-off events, then the promoters returned hosting regular indoor events in clubs around North and East London.
In 1999, Raindance started hosting raves at The Drome, an unused car park underneath London Bridge railway station. They would get regular attendances of over 2,000 people at this venue. In 2002, The Drome was renovated and seOne was born. Over the next eight years, SeOne would be Raindance's home and with a 3,000 capacity with seven different arenas (Jenkins Lane 89-90, Old Skool 91-93, Jungle/Drum & Bass 93-10, Hardcore 95-10, Hard House, Breakbeat, House & Trance). Raindance continues to put parties on all over the UK.
Breakbeat hardcore is a music genre that spawned from the UK rave scene during the early 1990s. It combines four-on-the-floor rhythms with breakbeats usually sampled from hip hop. In addition to the inclusion of breakbeats, the genre also features shuffled drum machine patterns, hoover, and other noises originating from new beat and Belgian techno, sounds from acid house and bleep techno, and often upbeat house piano riffs and vocals.
A rave is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance music scene when DJs played at illegal events in musical styles dominated by electronic dance music from a wide range of sub-genres, including drum and bass, dubstep, trap, break, happy hardcore, trance, techno, hardcore, house, and alternative dance. Occasionally live musicians have been known to perform at raves, in addition to other types of performance artists such as go-go dancers and fire dancers. The music is amplified with a large, powerful sound reinforcement system, typically with large subwoofers to produce a deep bass sound. The music is often accompanied by laser light shows, projected coloured images, visual effects and fog machines.
A free party is a party "free" from the restrictions of the legal club scene, similar to the free festival movement. It typically involves a sound system playing electronic dance music from late at night until the time when the organisers decide to go home. A free party can be composed of just one system or of many and if the party becomes a festival, it becomes a teknival. This typically means that drugs are readily available. The word free in this context is used both to describe the entry fee and the lack of restrictions and law enforcement.
Happy hardcore, also known as 4-beat or happycore, is a subgenre of hardcore dance music or "hard dance". It emerged both from the UK breakbeat hardcore rave scene, and Belgian, German and Dutch hardcore techno scenes in the early 1990s.
The Second Summer of Love was a late-1980s social phenomenon in the United Kingdom which saw the rise of acid house music and unlicensed rave parties. Although primarily referring to the summer of 1988, it lasted into the summer of 1989, when electronic dance music and the prevalence of the drug MDMA fuelled an explosion in youth culture culminating in mass free parties and the era of the rave. The music of this era fused dance beats with a psychedelic, 1960s flavour, and the dance culture drew parallels with the hedonism and freedom of the 1967 Summer of Love in San Francisco. The smiley logo is synonymous with this period in the UK.
Miss Moneypenny's is a house music party club, founded in Birmingham, England in 1986 and is hosted at a purpose-built venue in the Hockley area of the city.
Matthew Nelson, better known as DJ Slipmatt, is a British electronic music producer and DJ. He was one half of breakbeat hardcore group SL2, who had a 1992 UK hit with "On a Ragga Tip".
Helter Skelter is one of the longest running dance music promoters in the UK. It is one of the few remaining rave music brands which promotes early underground styles of electronic dance music, as opposed to the more mainstream house music clubs that followed during the 1990s.
Top Buzz were a British breakbeat hardcore and jungle DJ/MC crew.
The Sanctuary Music Arena was a 22,000 sq ft, 3,500 capacity music venue in Denbigh North, Milton Keynes in the UK, and most well known for its connection to the rave scene.
Sterns was a nightclub located at Highdown Towers on Highdown Hill in Worthing, West Sussex. It was situated off the A259 road just north of Ferring on the South Downs. It became known as a major centre of UK rave culture in the south of England during the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was a rare example of an early UK club boasting 4 separate rooms with DJs playing house, breakbeat hardcore, jungle music, techno, progressive house and hard house.
The Perth Dance Music Awards highlights the year's major accomplishments in Electronic music by Western Australians. It is an annual event, with the first awards held in 1998. The Perth Dance Music Awards aim to provide recognition and reward to those who are the best in their chosen fields with in the Perth electronic music scene. The recipients of the awards are voted for by the public.
Tribal Gathering is the original British electronic dance music festival that between 1993 and 2004 catered for different types of dance music cultures such as techno, house and drum & bass. After 18 years, Tribal Gathering returns in 2023 for a two-day event to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
SL2 are an English breakbeat hardcore group from London, England. They also recorded, remixed or produced under the names Slipmatt & Lime and T.H.C.
Fantazia was a rave music promoter and organiser based in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1991 by James Perkins, Gideon Dawson & Chris Griffin, and held a number of seminal raves at the height of the breakbeat hardcore scene in the early 1990s.
Stu Allan was a British dance music DJ and producer who worked for Piccadilly Radio and Key 103 in Manchester in the 1980s and 1990s. His hip hop, hardcore techno and house music mixes ranked him the world's No. 3 DJ by DJ Magazine in 1993 and his performances influenced significantly the music scene during this period. Allan continued to remain a major contributor within the UK hardcore scene..
Bang Face is an electronic dance music event that has been taking place at various venues across the UK and Europe since 2003. Starting as a monthly club night in London, it has grown to include an annual four-day weekender, a boat party on the River Thames, as well as guest shows at festivals such as Glastonbury. In 2013 Bang Face celebrated its 10th birthday with DJ Mag stating Bang Face [maintains] "the perfect blend of old skool rave and the finest contemporary leftfield sounds". In March 2015 Bang Face reached the milestone of 100 events by hosting the Weekender at Southport Holiday Park. Resident Advisor asked the question "Is Bangface the most unique rave out there?" and described it as a "Neo-rave utopia". In 2023 Bang Face celebrated 20 years of events with the 2023 Weekender headlined by Orbital.
Shelley's Laserdome was a night club in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England. It was at the heart of the house and rave scene in the early 1990s, helping to launch the career of DJ Sasha and featuring regular appearances from Carl Cox. It was eventually shut down by Staffordshire Police.
David Michael Beer is an English music mogul who came to notice in the 1990s as the promoter of the UK's longest running club night Back To Basics. In the early days, his passport occupation read "purveyor of good times" and he went on to be nicknamed by music Mixmag as the "King of Clubs". With his Leeds based club night Back To Basics, Beer features as one of the youngest men in Leeds City Museum's exhibition chronicling the popular culture of Leeds.
UK garage, abbreviated as UKG, is a genre of electronic dance music which originated in England in the early to mid-1990s. The genre was most clearly inspired by jungle, but also incorporates elements from dance-pop and R&B. It is defined by percussive, shuffled rhythms with syncopated hi-hats, cymbals, and snares, and may include either 4/4 house kick patterns or more irregular "2-step" rhythms. Garage tracks also commonly feature 'chopped up' and time-stretched or pitch-shifted vocal samples complementing the underlying rhythmic structure at a tempo usually around 130 BPM.
