Harum Records, stuck on an awkward limbo between a zebra crossing and Enfield Town precinct was an unlikely a place as any for an epiphany. 7” singles, still high in the charts, could be grabbed for 25p a pop; new 12”s, and even not-yet (and occasionally never-to-be) available promos, could be grabbed for a quid and, on days when I’d just been paid for my paper round three new albums could be grabbed for about a fiver. Looking back it must have been a chart rigger’s dream: Crammed to the rafters with promotional material and with more cheap vinyl being added to the racks ahead of every school break.
This was 1989. I was 15 and had been well brought up on a diet of fish fingers and The Human League. I was well placed to forgo a proper lunch when there was the promise of new singles each day and with lurid newspaper headlines warning of the dangers of ‘raves’, well: I was all smiles ☺
But by the end of the year I’d never managed to get close to a proper rave. None of my mates had either I suspect. Despite living within a mile of an M25 teeming with convoys of our peers we merely caught the vapours of the last genuine explosion of youth culture. When the kids in the years above were able to drive round the suburbs looking for lasers in the sky and ‘a thumping bass and a smiling face’ we were playing records at home. Alone. We may as well have been into The Cure.
Had it not been for the radio, and the last golden year for the charts we may well been.
Earlier generations have spoken of seeing Bowie perform ‘Starman’ on ToTP, The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, even Greg Wilson on The Tube as seismic moments in taking youth movements into a wider arena; commentators now talk of 1989’s famed ‘Madchester’ episode of TOTP as if it had the same impact on ‘my lot’ but, no, not for me, instead there a handful of memories that shaped my musical destiny.
Inner City and Soul II Soul reaching the charts for the first time at the same time – that was what listening to the top 40 was all about; hearing Lil Louis’ “French Kiss” on daytime radio one when fishing with my dad and trying to pretend I wasn’t listening; Todd Terry on TOTP with Royal House; everyone at school going round shouting ‘acieeeeeeeeeeed’; trying to smuggle my mate’s cassette copy of De La Soul’s ‘3 feet high and rising’ so I could copy it without him noticing (sorry Dre!!); nearly getting mugged after our first visit to Busby’s on Tottenham Court Road; pirate radio… ah, the summer of rave indeed.
A number of these acts went on to sustain decent careers: Jazzie B’s Soul II Soul spent most of the very hot summer at number one with Back to Life; Kevin Saunderson’s Inner City gave us some of the finest house music anthems of all time over the next few years; Lil Louis remained a consistent producer of top quality house music; De La Soul and Public Enemy remain potent touring hip-hop acts even if their records don’t have me waiting for record shops to open these days.
Looking back on the tracks on this mix (thrown together on three decks in one take – as you’ll notice!) it really shouldn’t flow at all. I mean there are even English rappers, women, and a Dutch redskin (!!), rapping on it and these days that really is a no-no. It harks back to a more innocent time when DJs would play hip hop and house together, certainly on the radio; when Italo and Balearic weren’t dirty words; when English rappers weren’t universally derided; when hip-house was still, er, hip.
This mix is dedicated to Andre and Dan.
And, in true 1989 pirate radio style, it’s goin’ out to DJ Mark Sterling from City FM (104.4) who through his evening shows put me on to more records than any other DJ at any time. At one point I rang in for a shout, as you did, and offered to send him a mix I was working on - even though I only had one turntable and was attempting to mix using cassette decks. He said he’d play it on air. I never did send it in… maybe this will make up for lost time! Only 20 years late.
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