Posted - 2016/01/16 : 12:44:06
Just read Claxton's "Slump or Surge" blog and I thought that maybe a way to get non-hardcore friends into hardcore would be introducing them into the same artists/tracks that originally got us into happy hardcore.
Elipton Advanced Member
United Kingdom
1,268 posts Joined: Apr, 2013
Posted - 2016/01/16 : 12:50:29
Lime wire.
When I was 15 or 16, Lime wire was a great instant access to individual tracks. I started with Trance and eventually found harder and harder styles of music. My path led from classic late-90's melodic trance, through hard dance, hard house, a bit of Lisa Lashes on the way, and then finally I discovered commercial Hardcore.
Darren Styles tracks like 'Come Running' and 'Save Me' were the first I heard, along with individual tracks from the Bonkers series.
Captain Triceps Advanced Member
United Kingdom
2,184 posts Joined: Dec, 2011
Posted - 2016/01/16 : 13:08:03
In the mid 90s, aged about 13. I hated it at first, not so much because of the music, I barely actually heard it but because at my school it seemed you had to be an utter cunt to be into this stuff called 'hardcore' I assumed I wouldn't like it. I was aware of it because my uncle used to go to Kinetic every week and would bang on about Vibes and Livelee, trying to get my dad to go with him.
I used to love Ridge Racer Revolution and the soundtrack (in particular one called Rotterdam Nation '94), and used to play the game disc in my stereo, and decided this rave stuff wasn't so bad after all, in fact it was bloody good fun, and when we went back to school after the holidays a mate had bought The Sound Of Happycore '97, insisted I have a listen and that was it. I took it home, copied it to tape and my obsession began. I hadn't really heard 'mixing' as such, and I then decided that I wanted to be a DJ. I pestered my parents for some decks, eventually got some Technics 1200s (spoilt kid, I guess!) and I still have them to this day.
Triquatra Moderator
United Kingdom
12,635 posts Joined: Nov, 2003
Posted - 2016/01/16 : 13:21:04
Being from an island just off the UK (with no CD store) my "journey" is somewhat disjointed.
John peel on national BBC Radio 1 in 1996 played Force and Styles - Fireworks and GL2 and Selecta - Incognito. on a sidenote this lead to an absolutely rip-roaring hilarious mistake where my mum bought be Incognitos album "100? And Rising" and left me confused.
the next year (1997) I was on holiday in the lake district and some kid, James, was staying in Skelwith Fold Camp Site and he was listening to a cassette "Hardcore Heaven Volume 1".
Like most other UK kids in the early/mid-90s I was into dance music anyway, but I liked this "new" faster sounder. He told me what to look for in CD shops. I still only had Fireworks and Incognito recorded off the radio on cassette.
Whilst on holiday in Scotland in 1998 I picked up a copy of M8 magazine with an Off Yer Nut 2 sampler CD (still got it!) then a few weeks later picked up the best CD that Arcade Music ever released "Happy 100" for 10 guilders in the second part of our family holiday, in Holland.
Then I had dad buying Bonkers albums for me whenever he visited mainland UK until I had all 5 of them.
Stage One (100) started advertising their albums in DJ Mag, which I bought and then I was on the mail order list for them and bought their hardcore cds WOW What A Rush, Just 4 U Hardcore Happiness, Hardcore Alliance etc etc.
By the time I moved to mainland UK in 2001, hardcore had died down. Then I moved to the states in 2003.....just as hardcore was picking up....Then I moved back to the UK in 2007...guess what. LOL
danielseven Senior Member
Italy
350 posts Joined: Jan, 2010
Posted - 2016/01/16 : 14:55:35
Happened randomly. I was browsing through Hands Up releases back to the 2009, and accidentally I found a release which had both Hands Up and Hardcore mixes.
Since then, I was searching for UK Hardcore releases and ways to discover new hardcore, so I found the Clubland Xtreme Hardcore series first and Kraftyradio after.
But the thing that made me get really into Hardcore was the Hardcore Underground Volume 4 CD, at my advice one of the best compilation CDs released by that label. In the end of 2010 I tried making Hardcore myself, sent the track to a few friends that motivated me in doing this style, and then Blessed Loneliness was signed and released on the next Hardcore Underground volume in the 2011. In the same year, I decided to experience the UK rave experience by myself, and so I went to UK, where I met Fracus, Darwin, CDJay and other cool people.
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Daniel Seven - Italian Hardcore DJ/Producer - Soundcloud
Alert moderatorEdited by - danielseven on 2016/01/16 14:56:02
GrahamC Advanced Member
United Kingdom
589 posts Joined: Dec, 2007
Posted - 2016/01/16 : 17:02:30
A mate brought round the original 1997 Hardcore Heaven 2 as he needed it taped for his Walkman and his stereo did not record tapes for some reason.
I listened to it, loved it and went down to Woolworths the next day and bought my own copy. Never looked back. The same mate directed me at Bonkers 1 & 2, 3 came out shortly after, Hardcore Heaven 3 early on in 1998.
Getting the first Hardcore Heaven was a nightmare, had to take several 90min trips each way to Edinburgh to HMV at the weekend- they kept ordering it in for me but selling them through the week to other people, eventually impressed upon the manager what my situation was and he made sure it was there the next weekend.
Good thing about the repeated trips was that I started and kept buying vinyl from there & Virgin Megastore. Sill got my Vinyl Bonkers 2 & Hardcore Heaven 4 :)
The Stisk Junior Member
United Kingdom
130 posts Joined: Mar, 2013
Posted - 2016/01/16 : 17:34:23
I started senior school in 1995 and coloseum and afterdark tapes were doing the rounds and pretty much everyone was lending and re-recording them, but the big push for me was listening to Hixxy's mix on Bonkers 1 at hmv in 1996, thats when my 12 year old self became amazed with hardcore and DJ'ing as a whole. I miss the 90's
Posted - 2016/01/16 : 19:11:54
In the late 80's or very early I herd Adamski's Killer, I would have been around 9 or so.. Then I saw an advert for rave 92 and asked for that for christmas, played it to death whilst playing on my Commodore 64 ;)
I was hooked on pianos and uplifting rifts even at that young age... My mum used to do some kind of mail order music club and I stumbled across a tape mixed by Dr S Gachet - it was a green cover with a graffiti kind of art work but can't remember what it was called.
I remember the 1st tune and it's flowing synths but didn't know it as jungle, although it was my first taste of the Amen break and that really got me interested in that kind of early jungle sound but I was more into the harmonies rather than bass etc...
Fast forward to a summer holiday when I was 13 and a local market selling copied mix tapes and thats where my 1st 2 early hardcore tapes came from, It reminded me of some of the early rave I herd but faster and more intense but either way I was hooked... that summer consisted of those 2 tapes and white lightning cider ;)
The 1st tape was Vinylgroover and SY (I think the event was Pandemonium) and the other was Dreamscape 20 Vibes and Dougal.
This would have been 1995 and thats where the love of Happy Hardcore was born and even though my days of going to events hadn't started my collection grew rapidly and thankfully most of it remains in my 'Studio'
I must confess I never really ventured pasted 1998 or so even though I continued to buy albums and vinyl and to this day I spend most of my hardcore listening in the 94-96 era. I closely follow what Luna-C is producing and still love 'that' sound that he releases.
In amongst all that I became a DJ and tried to produce but never followed either through fully although I still dabble when time allows.
Andy :)
Alert moderatorEdited by - oldskool.andy on 2016/01/16 19:13:30
Guest Advanced Member
United Kingdom
1,511 posts Joined: Feb, 2015
Posted - 2016/01/16 : 19:56:57
got bonged up to all the fusion in bath pavilion tapes too much
__________________________________ youtube channel / soundcloud and mixcloud suck
Guest Advanced Member
United Kingdom
1,511 posts Joined: Feb, 2015
Posted - 2016/01/16 : 20:23:46
they were in they`re own little world back then, its was all 100% cheese happy hardcore and dreamscape and helter, fusion was all the stomping darkside
bit like your gabba of today with a happy hardcore kick
__________________________________ youtube channel / soundcloud and mixcloud suck
Samination Advanced Member
Sweden
13,073 posts Joined: Jul, 2004
195 hardcore releases
Posted - 2016/01/16 : 22:29:35
quite a weird story actually. Other than listening to Scooter around 96-99, I got the 2 first Off Yer Nut!! 1 and 2 around 2000. I fell for the DJ Demo CD (funny, considering the stuff that appears on Brisk's mixes are what got me into hardcore later on).
But it wasn't until after I started using software to illegally download tracks I actually got into it through the Happy2bHardcore series
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Samination, Swedish Hardcore DJ
Happy, UK Hardcore, Freeform, Makina and Gabber http://samination.se/ ---------------------------------------------
Warnman Advanced Member
Germany
2,676 posts Joined: Jun, 2010
Posted - 2016/01/16 : 22:48:28
I grew up being surounded with all the commercial music that which played on the radio: Synthie Pop, Electro Pop in the 80s; Hip House, Eurodance and Happy Hardcore in the 90s. I did miss the overkill in between 96 and 97, because my family had lived in the US and I was totally shocked after our return to Germany how music had developed itself. Thankfully Trance was successfull enough to get played on the radio so I got interested in it and have never lost my touch to electronic music. My teen life had been tough times, because everyone was into Hip-Hop or other music and all of them were disgusted by anything that could be connected to Rave. It was the time when I started to buy albums and listened to music on the internet. After good Trance died in Germany around the millenium I got interested to the Dutch progressive Style of this genre, but always keeped on listening to old Eurodance and Happy Hardcore. My first touch with the modern UK Hardcore genre was back in 2002 when I listened to "Dougal & Gammer - Fire In The Sky" and was totally amazed by it. My mistake back then was that I thought only a handful of nerds were trying to remember the older Happy Hardcore sound, so I turned away.
I think it was back in 2007 or 2008 after I had bought my last Armin van Buuren album, I found a link to DJ Ravine and he got me hooked on his mixes. From thereon I quicky travelled over to DJ Cotts and in 2009 I finally found this forum. After having read the posts for about one year I developed the balls to register.
Considering my talent in finding a scene in its contemplation of death, I shall better start to rename myself Scooter instead.
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Ravers unite!
"Happy Hardcore: Love it... hate it... it's fun!" (Matt Stokes)
jordesuvi Junior Member
United Kingdom
143 posts Joined: Feb, 2014
Posted - 2016/01/17 : 11:06:11
I love finding out about how people got into a genre they love.
Around late 2007ish:
My younger brother had a phase where he was really into roller coasters. Always playing games like Rollercoaster Tycoon and Thrillville. He was in my room on my laptop showing me a video of a POV rollercoaster ride made on some simulator/constructing game on YouTube that had Groove Coverage's club mix of "21'st Century Digital Girl" playing.
I really liked that track, so after a bit of digging I discovered hands up, nightcore, happy hardcore and AMV's/anime.
Side note: I grew out of nightcore tho... and I haven't watched anime in years.
How did you get into Hardcore?
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Posted - 2016/01/16 : 12:44:06
Posted - 2016/01/16 : 19:11:54
