Simon asks: Is it too early for Big Beat nostalgia?
Hmmm! Circa 98/99? Sounds good to me. Certainly this was the last time I went out to clubs in a serious/regular manner – getting ready, going out all night dancing off my nuts and getting home about 7:00am to spend the rest of the day listening to dub and watching the patterns in the carpet.
I used to love the Big Beat Boutique nights they did at The End. I had some of my best times out there ever, in fact. Of course if you tell people that now they don’t believe you because it’s impossible to untangle the reality with the the subsequent downward spiral into celebrity weddings and half arsed attempts to make self-consciously wacky breakbeat music.
My affair with Big Beat started during one of the Essential Festivals in Brighton. We queued up for ages and ages and when we finally got in, there weren’t many people about. All the tents were empty and playing music which went doof doof doof and boom tish boom tish and not much else really. It was crap.
But then one tent had steam coming out of it, so we barged in to find Cut la Roc mashing up an all-time classic selection of party tunes. Scratching the fuck out of “Night of the Living Bassheads”, chucking about a minute of the Prodigy’s “Everybody in the Place” into the mix – and then onwards. Mr La Roc was having the time of his life, and so was everybody else. After a quick raised eyebrows to say “Aha! Here we are then” we proceeded to Get On Down.
At that time it seemed possible to just play a load of great records, mixed really well (but still messily) and for it not to be a cliche.
Other highlights:
Hardknox – every time I ever saw them, ever
Steve Proctor (who made some great drum ‘n’ bass as Immortal Minds and Skycutter) and Lindy Layton (yes, that one). A great combination. Their records were MASSIVE noisy breakbeat monsters, with hooks – sort’ve like a poppier version of breakcore.
The DJ sets were another kettle of fish. Each time I saw them they did something different. One time they were on in the main room of The End and played fantastically funky and industrial jungle with some great dubplates which I don’t think ever came out. It was so well put together you kept thinking “ok, if it gets and harder than this, I’m out of here” but then they just pulled it back into total funk.
Another time Lindy took control of the decks in the main room (in a rubber dress iirc) playing outrageously hard breaks, whilst Stevie P did the business in the back bar playing jump up.
We also saw them to do a great set in the Dogstar down in Brixton before Carnival – loads of JA ragga pre leading into some pure funk drum ‘n’ bass. There were rumours of PAs with trannies and strippers as well.
A major deal with Jive beckoned with a great (but not as good as it could have been) album and much talk of a second, – and then nothing. Last rumour I heard was that Lindy was now a compere in a Spearmint Rhino somewhere. Steve was doing sample CDs…
Fatboy Slim in the back room
“Special Guest”, indeed. Norman Cook on the decks all night long in the back room of The End. No idea how he managed it, but we were there with him all night as well. He went through the whole gamut of dance music, perfectly sequenced – disco bleeding into acid house, soul classics following techno. He was jumping up and down like a loon with everyone else, only stopping during the brief interlude of technical difficulties: “Norman’s blown the speakers, Norman’s blown the speakers, la la-la LA!”
One of those occasions where complete strangers give you a look as if to say “I can’t quite fucking believe something this amazing is happening to me – can you?”. I imagine the chances of ever seeing the bloke again with this sort of atmosphere are… slim. We left about 10 minutes before knocking-off time to avoid the queue for coats. We went to say goodbye and he was bouncy and smiley and genuinely interested in if we’d had good time. We, uh, had!
Fatboy Slim in the main room
Obviously. Towards the end of The End sessions you would get people coming who just wanted to see chart act FBS and who would leave after they had. But there were some great sets before then. Hearing his remix of “Brimful of Asha” for the first time ever on The End’s soundsystem was great, ditto “Everyone Needs A Carnival” and “Rockafella Skank”. Perhaps repetition hasn’t treated any of these tracks well, but that’s pop music for you. Herr Cook always pulled off some really audacious mixes – I remember one where he pitched down “Da Funk” to a crawl and then zipped some hyper breakbeat track over the top of it – in perfect time. He also chucked some stuff in the mix to horrify the spotters (certainly an incongrous sight there!), like Reel 2 Reel’s “I Like To Move It” (featuring the Mad Stuntman, lest we forget).
Low-Fidelity All-Stars
There were about 5 of them behind the decks. One to play records, the rest to skin up and make faces at the crowd. Much more fun than you would imagine. I think they re-jigged their set at The End of the “Out on the floor” mix CD they did, which is excellent. In fact those mix CDs are the best intro to people who scoff at “Big Beat”.
There were countless others, some guests, some vague attempts at going to similar clubs when we weren’t off on a drum ‘n’ bass mission, but the nights at The End were where it was at. I remember the better half telling me about a conversation she’d had with a guy there. He was a house-head and wasn’t really enjoying it: “I like music that’s the same vibe, that peaks and troughs, y’know? This is… it’s all over the place. It’s WRONG, man. It fucks you up”. And she replied “That’s exactly why we come here!”
and so to a quick, off-the cuff, not remotely comprehensive, round up of some records:
v/a – Mockers
Brilliant mixtape from the cover of Jockey Slut. One side Mr Carter mashing up the Wall of Sound back catalogue, one side of Mr La Roc doing Skint. With lotsa Quadrophenia samples. Ace shit from when dance mags meant something to me.
Monkey Mafia – Shoot The Boss LP
When Jon Carter got off with Sara Cox it was like Norm ‘n’ Zoe all over again. This, however, is great ragga breakbeat biz with lots of samples from Babylon and Coughing Up Fire.
Midfield General – Devil in Sports Casual 12″
The sample of a christian street preacher in New York (recorded by Hardknox whilst being wooed by Jive) is perhaps one of the best examples of the type: “Damien, The Omen, Rock ‘n’ Roll, you say they make the beat go back you hear satan speaking”. Over a crunching massive breakbeat you can’t go wrong. Also “Go Off” with it’s “Bad Motherfucker on two turntables go OFF” sample.
Scratchy Muffin – Got Beef EP
Purely because of the last track – Thee Untitled One (Strata 3 Mix) which is great, downbeat mellow breakbeatery. Big doesn’t have to be boshing.
Now, I realise that Big Beat is in many ways unsalvageable, the ultimate student disco music. But some of these records and some of my memories were seriously alright and I am not about to apologise for them. Somewhere, there is another blog entry to be written about why it’s OK for Congo Natty to make mad cut-up records which sample pop hits, but it is less OK for Aphrodite and less still for Norman Cook.
It isn’t cool, but I worry about people who worry about that stuff. Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke. Get messy.