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Alant1000
Starting Member
United Kingdom
6 posts
Joined: May, 2020
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 Posted - 2022/09/20 : 14:42:43
Dear all,
Given that there are so many wonderful hardcore fans here, I thought I'd share some behind the scenes stories and insights from when I worked at Dance 2 records in Guildford (and I worked at their Brighton shop once, too!).
I was a regular customer at the shop, aged around 14 /15, this would have been back in 1994, before landing a job there in 1994, initially at weekends, but then going on to work there 2-4 days a week for about 2 years. For those familiar - dance 2 has had 4 different locations in Guildford - I worked in the single unit on Bridge street, followed by an expansion to a double unit at the same location, then we moved opposite the bus station in a rather small hidden shop, and it eventually moved to its current location on the corner of North Street.
It can't be stressed enough how much hardcore was changing between 93 and 95. I was working in store when SMD 1,2,3 were new, along with Pure White 4AM, Edge 1 rmx, early Slammin' Vinyl hits, early Impact records etc and our mailbox was awash with promos. If 92 was hardcore and jungle techno, 93 was a solid split to hardcore and drum and bass, and 94 jungle got a bit more "ragga". Consequently, our customer base was changing noticeably in a short space of time.
The staff at the time where great, all with their own tastes and expertise - Hans Vind (prefers to be called Hans Peters) was the very chirpy owner who still runs the business today. I landed a job by handing out shop flyers in town, then moving on to washing the Dance 2 transit van, before eventually being allowed "visible" in the shop - but, rather unfairly, not allowed to operate the decks!! Not that this mattered though, as I had great company - Jon Skinner was "head honcho", he was producing house records at the time and has gone on to run a remarkable music talent agency. Jon always had a sense of fun - which inevitably involved ripping the piss out of me but he knew his stuff, even about hardcore, and he just about put up with my childish pranks around the shop. He was very much a business-focused staff member who was great at networking.
Also working was "Dave", who's last name slips my mind, but he was more of a jungle expert and had some semi-success as a DJ on local pirate and southern-based raves. He was an absolute delight to work with and I often lent him some of my records for him to play at gigs. I remember I was the person who helped him "discover" the name of DJ Mayhem "Cold Acid" - he swiftly "borrowed" it from me - he still has it almost 30 years later! A couple of fun memories were a time he was on the phone to Amato (a distributor) doing an order - back then they would literally play the record down the phone, and we would place an order - usually 5, but sometimes up to 15 for a good record - anyway, i was on the step ladder filling the record racks, and as i climbed down, bumped his cup of tea straight in to his face and tea went down the phone as he was mid-conversation! I looked at him, tea all over his face, and he said "you F**KIN K**B" and Jon Skinner was stood there in hysterics. Another time, a rather aggressive "junglist" with 90s pony tail came in and demanded the following "I WANT DUB PLATES, NOT THIS RUBBISH", to which Dave replied "we haven't got any DUB PLATES" and threw him out. He was banned from the shop for being constantly aggressive.
Finally, Chris Sergant, AKA DJ Unknown worked there for about a year whilst I was there. A thoroughly nice man, mild mannered, and very friendly. He often bought DJ Sy in to the shop as they were working on their Sy and Unknown collaboration on Homegrown Records. I remember asking Sy to scratch the drop on Edge 1, which he duly did, in return for me buying him a Burger King for lunch - it seemed a reasonable trade. DJ Unknown spotted me in the crowd whilst DJing at Fusion (around 95) and invited me up on the stage, this was just an example of the sort of person he was. I'm somewhere on the Fusion video, from that gig at Farnborough.
Another one of my jobs was to do the mailers for our promos, we had a house record label, so i would stick the 12" info label in the middle of the records, then put them in the mailer envelopes. Hans, being the ever frugal shop owner, used to re-use pretty much every envelope possible for these mailers. Everyone was on the promo list - Carl Cox (who Hans personally knew), Sasha, Jon Digweed etc, so i was writing their addresses on the envelopes!
Business was certainly quite "tight" in those days - opposite us was Pyramid Records, in a tiny unit on a second floor above a comic shop, and they once took just ?7 on a Saturday.
Another bonus of working at Dance 2 was inevitably getting my hands on the flyers (all the Sterns ones, especially), which were plastered all over my bedroom wall, but also being there at the very era when tape packs were a "thing" - I recall "new" stock of Dreamscape 6 and 7 tapes, plus the videos, and various other videos from Kryptonite which we played on the screen in the shop. Getting a discount on the slipmatts and merchadise was another bonus - I had a nice NASA reflective jacket with fake fur trim and a World Dance record bag. I remember being blown away at the Tribal Gathering flyer - I was created like a comic book! This was the same mega-rave era as Dreamscapes ill-fated Woodstock 2, and riding off the back of the Fantazia success. So many of these gigs had people gate-crashing, and the police and local councils were tightening up. Selling rave tickets was another one of my fun jobs - I loved it when tickets were on sale for the first day and piles of people would come in to buy them.
A lot of the "revenue" for Dance 2 came from equipment hire, and another one of my glamorous jobs was to wash-down the equipment / cables / mixer / speakers etc after it had been hired out - usually covered in beer.
We had some fantastic regular customers in the shop and got to know them so well that we would usually automatically put aside certain records for the regulars so that when they came in on a Saturday, a ready selection was already waiting. The record index "process" worked by them handing us the sleeve for the racks, we would then find copies for sale in the unit behind the decks, most of which had messy hand-written index labels by yours truly. We had the odd euro-house record / old R&S records stuff from '91 which NEVER seemed to shift! I particularly enjoyed it when people came in with their walkman and new Dreamscape / Obsession tapes for track ID.
Another final memory was when a regular customer parked his BMX outside the small unit hidden opposite the bus stop, and it was stolen. I was walking to Guildford strain station when I saw some little scrote on the BMX on platform 2, so i legged it back to the shop, we all RAN back but the train had gone, so we asked the staff where the train has gone, and when, and they radio'd ahead to the next stations - the BMX was intercepted and we got it back!
These days were never to be forgotten, I have pics in the loft somewhere. I was paid around ?20 a day - or payment in tape packs / records!
I hope you enjoyed some of the memories of this special era, and no doubt you all have yours too.
Alan
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silver
Admin
Japan
12,548 posts
Joined: Feb, 2001
894 hardcore releases
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Posted - 2022/09/21 : 04:56:50
I need to add a like button to the site now :)
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Mickey Init
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
764 posts
Joined: Oct, 2012
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Posted - 2022/09/21 : 23:24:13
Yeah great stories, thanks for sharing.
Was saying only today how special the record shop era was.
It will never be repeated.
__________________________________
"Like bread to marmalade... Vinylgroover with the crossfade!" - MC Freestyle
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possys2
Senior Member
United Kingdom
256 posts
Joined: Mar, 2021
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Posted - 2022/09/22 : 23:57:13
vinyl shopping day was the best day of the week, always happened on pay day as well!
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Alant1000
Starting Member
United Kingdom
6 posts
Joined: May, 2020
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Posted - 2022/09/27 : 19:18:29
quote:
Originally posted by Mickey Init:
Yeah great stories, thanks for sharing.
Was saying only today how special the record shop era was.
It will never be repeated.
Thanks yes it was so special back then, a real event going record shopping!. Typically many of our customers had heard the new releases on tape packs when released and we would do the track IDs in the shop, others bought on the basis of the record label alone, for example anything on formation or reinforced sold out straight away, and others would attempt to describe the songs which could be quite a challenge!
And in addition to buying the records, it was collecting the flyers and saving up for the merchandise. It was like a complete package.
We were always happy for customers to just chill in the shop and chat, we made cups of tea for the regulars at Dance 2. It was not unusual for a customer to be in the shop for at least an hour, sometimes much longer!
I was working there far before even CDs became a threat to vinyl, the only real competitors we had were HMV who had a small dance section, mostly with Fantazia content and Kaos Theory compilations. I dread to think how it would have felt working there when MP3 became more mainstream for DJs. I just about remember when clubs started to use CD mixers instead, mostly at the request of DJs who didn?t want to carry round large record boxes!
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Alant1000
Starting Member
United Kingdom
6 posts
Joined: May, 2020
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Posted - 2022/09/27 : 19:19:58
quote:
Originally posted by possys2:
vinyl shopping day was the best day of the week, always happened on pay day as well!
I remember the days well! It was sometimes a jingling act to prioritize the UK releases for ?4.50, imports for ?6.50, or albums for ?12!
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My memories working at Dance 2 - 94-96
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