At the turn of the nineties techno had become a catch-all term denoting anything less traditionally soulful than house music. Hardcore techno was the first fully fledged genre of European rave music. Almost as soon as it was produced and imported DJ's like Fabio & Grooverider conducted experiments with house music records that employed breakbeats and sped them up to similar speeds of 200 beats per minute. They did this with records that had noticeable breakbeats such as music produced on the "Shut Up & Dance" record label and songs like "Humanoid" by Stakker. This sort of experimentation help pave the way to the rise of UK Hardcore.
Hardcore became popular in Europe in 1991 and was influenced by groups like Prodigy who put out such anthems as "Jericho" and "Charly." Acen produced the 1992 anthem "Trip To The Moon" and the music had become a fusion of pounding, fast-paced broken beats. Often this was complemented by piano riffs and pitched up vocal samples.
This new style of music served as the introductory rave sound in many North American towns. Cities like Chicago, New York and San Fransisco were influenced by house music but in suburban areas and rural towns, hardcore was the first "techno" heard by most people. By spring of 1992 raves cropped up all around the United States, including cities like Pittsburgh, Dallas, and Milwaukee. In Canada, Toronto took on an "all hardcore" personality, doing their best to copy what was taking place in England.
By 1991 groups of teenagers had begun to explore the house-based lineups of Toronto's warehouse scene. The warehouse scene was a very mature crowd who's aphrodisiac was alcohol. These groups of kids eventually grew disenchanted with the warehouse scene and started their own event called Exodus at an afterhours club called 23 Hop. This is where Mark Oliver began playing alongside Dr. No. While this party did not last more than six months it breathed life into the Canadian underground hardcore scene.
In 1992 Alex Clive, who had been throwing parties for a year prior threw his fourth installment of a rave called Chemistry. They became ranked as one of the best-known rave promotion circuits in North America. Naturally someone had to take things to the next level...
The promotions team responsible for doing this was called Nitrous which was formed of seven partners, one of which was a notable commercial DJ named Don Burns aka Dr. Trance. As Nitrous this crew hosted parties in the Ontario Science Museum and the CN Tower.
With the rise of hardcore came an influx of drug use in the rave culture. The whistles and toys that were first seen in England at Danny Rampling's Shoom events became prominent everywhere hardcore was represented. Children's party accessories like glowsticks were suddenly also very popular and dancers began wearing excessively large T-shirts, wooly hats and children's bookbags. Luckily police had little worry around this time about raves. Up until this point they had remained safe as well as successful.
In the winter of 1993 the fun started coming to an end for some. The period in general was very dark. Pills had deteriorated in quality, speed was being sold as ecstacy, and overdose rates increased. To mirror this there was less traditional hardcore being produced and a divide had soon grown that seperated the hardcore scene in general. Happy hardcore was one side of the rift with darkcore on the other side.
In 1994 the Criminal Justice Act was passed which led to the crackdown of many illegal raves, outlawing them and preventing a large number of massives from taking place. This law also increased police powers of unsupervised "stop & search" along with an entire section that covered collective trespass & nuisance on land as well as a dedicated section to raves.
This episode is a look at some vital hardcore tunes that were released between 1991-1994.
Tracklisting:
Prodigy - No Good
Codene - Hilton Park
Vol 2 - Turbo Sound
Ramos & Supreme - Crowd Control
Prodigy - Out Of Space
Subdoh - Seduction
Yolk - Bish Bosh
Unknown - Mayday Anthem
Tyrrany - Off Me Head
Unity - Unity (FSOL remix)
