Gateways not Gatekeepers

Gateways not Gatekeepers

written by DJ Trev

What’s your earliest memory of Jungle? I’m old,  if you don’t believe me, I can prove it: my back really hurts. Being so old that every movement is agony, I was lucky enough to see some Jungle legends relatively early on. I saw Micky Finn in the back room at some Gabber rave in Amsterdam in 1994, saw Tango at the Digbeth institute on New Years Eve 93/94, saw in my 18th Birthday to Kenny Ken at Vibealite in Mansfield and saw “someone” (presumably several “someones” because it was an all-nighter) at the Coventry Eclipse.

But I’m a Northerner; sending myself to Coventry for one of the myriad styles of music I liked was like venturing to the South Pole for a pretty good sandwich. Thus, my memories are few and increasingly far between. There were also other things in play that make my memories of those nights, let’s say, “less clear” than they otherwise might be. For legal reasons, let’s just say I’m pretty sure some people in the car on the way were smoking Banana skins, officer. So whilst I kind of remember those nights, really, the memories are vague and misty watercoloured. Details stand out: my Turquoise Air Max trainers, the taste of Consulate cigarettes, or Micky Finns really fucking massive Puffa Jacket despite the fact that everyone else in the venue was sweating like a cheese; but I can’t remember anything with the clarity of my gran’s full phone number plus area code from 1987, or the second name’s of every single person I went to school with. Real memories involve more than just the time and the place, and a rough approximation of what was going on, who was on, where I was from and what I was on. Real memories involve emotions, smells, feelings and textures. And my first REAL memory of something tangibly “Jungle” involved sticky floors, and more than a whiff of vomit.

I was in a Nightclub called Josephine’s. Whether or not the name was actually rendered in Neon, it should have been. Whether or not the venue was described as a “Nite-Spot” (sic), it should have been. And whether or not it said outside that it had “Top Djs”, it should have, because they really were well top (bomber jackets and a single gold hoop earring, everyone). I wasn’t wearing my Turquoise Air Max, because you had to wear shoes to get in, and I can confidently claim that they were indeed my old school shoes because who exactly is going to check?

It was a Monday night, and it was 10p a pint. That alone deserves spelling out like on the classified rebuts with James Alexander Gordon when a football team scored an unlikely amount, because it seems mental: YES 10p (T.E.N. P.E.N.C.E.) a pint. Now, I was a relatively sensible raver and when I went to aforementioned raves I wasn’t massively off my head, so you’d be forgiven for wondering if I can REALLLY remember one particular moment of Jungle music, from a night where a pint of liquid memory tippex was 10p; better than when I was at a rave and had just snorted a lungful of brain medication in powder form. But the reason I remember it is because it wasn’t in its natural environment.

Around the time of “the split”, we weren’t really thinking in terms of “Techno”, “Jungle” or the slightly scarier (to us Northerners at any rate) “Darkside”. It was still just rave music. We didn’t call it that; it was all still “hardcore”. Mainly, I expect, because it felt like “our” thing. But the split had, erm, splut, and there was a growing awareness of terms, sub-genres and indeed cliques… And there I am, in the centre of “up town”, sticky floor, sticky beer in hand and suddenly the DJ plays some… some… wait… is that? Jungle?? What???

It was like going to Burger King and them giving you a pizza, seeing a Polar Bear in the Arctic.

Now, it didn’t work. It absolutely killed the dancefloor. I don’t mean like in the modern vernacular, where Calvin Guetta “kills it” for the kids with his latest cover of a Now That’s What I Call Trance 98 tune; rather, it emptied the dancefloor. The DJ had clearly been trying to work towards it and had had some success with The Prodigy and  N-Trance beforehand, but Harrogate wasn’t ready for it. I’m a commercial DJ myself and, within 2 years, would be playing similar venues in the same town, and can tell you that Harrogate remained in a critical state of unpreparedness for Jungle for another 20 years. But that’s not what matters, the fact is, Jungle actually GOT played… in my town!

It’s time to tell you what song it was; ’94 was a big year for tunes after all, wasn’t it? But yes, OBVIOUSLY it was M-Beat and General Levy “Incredible”. You’re probably not that shocked by that; that tune crossed over wildly: I heard it at Stompy Hardcore Techno Raves like the BYO at Doncaster Warehouse, and at the increasingly Gabber-oriented raves like Rezurrection in Scotland. The re-issue, a few months later, got to number 8 in the charts. But in North Yorkshire, in Town Centre clubs, let’s own it and call them “Towny” clubs – still referred to as Sharon and Tracey Clubs at the time (hey, it’s OK, some of my best friends are called Sharon and Tracey), this was a dramatic new development.

As a commercial DJ, that moment was at least as influential for me as my NEXT proper memory of something tangibly Jungle, two or three weeks later, when John Peel played a Jungle Record on BBC Radio 1. Sure, we listened to Jungle at Jungle raves, but we didn’t go around saying “ooh, look at me, I’m listening to Jungle”. But at Josephine’s Nite-Spot, Top Djs every Nite, and then again 3 weeks later, sitting in my Blue Fiat Uno, it was very definitely “hang on a minute, this is Jungle… Other people are listening to this too?”

Obviously, Peel playing “Dred Bass” alongside Nirvana, Sugarcubes and Pavement was cooler and probably culturally more important than someone who was firmly a Bedroom DJ, realising you could be a town centre DJ and sometimes play the stuff you loved. I doubt highly that my mind articulated it as such at the time, given that my thoughts were mainly along the lines of whether or not someone would give me twos on their cig – or if I would ever need to shave properly – nevertheless, at some point I relised that in the unlikely event that Detroit never called me about going over there and re-inventing techno, I might be able to do some of that Djing in more exciting and commercially lucrative venues than my mates cars who had working tape players. And, as importantly, it made me realise that rather than it just being “our” thing, something bigger was happening. “Jungle” was a thing.

As I said, the dancefloor emptied. Whilst it’s definitely not related to that track, the club shut down later that year (come on, it WAS 10p a pint, what did they expect?). But how many town centres across the country had that moment? How many places played it and had it work? How many budding DJs followed a similar thought and career path to me? Because I can tell you this much: I’ve played a shit load more Jungle, Hardcore, and all the other genres in Harrogate, and yeah, usually emptied dance floors with it too. Whilst a lot of people cite Goldie “presenting” (whatever that means) Metalheadz and “Inner City Life” as a bigger moment for Drum n’ Bass (none other than Pete Tong said it was when “Jungle came in from the cold”). That’s the cooler tune after all, Mixmag probably rate it more – it’s too cool to dance to on a sticky floor in your school shoes innit? Yes, Metalheadz might be the equivalent of a perfectly preserved bottle of Chateau Margaux, albeit of the slightly later 1995 vintage, whilst in comparison “Incredible” is a Cardboard Box of Blue Nun, but what would you rather be necking behind the bikesheds at 16?
Depending on your tastes or how old you are (you can check by seeing how much your back hurts), you might either view “Incredible” as a timeless classic, or a piece of sell-out-over-played-cheesy shit. I seem to recall Mixmag describing it as “embarrassing”, but then, they’d already told us “Charly” had killed rave, and have always decried music that makes things more accessible. Hey, if you are still actually going to Jungle raves and keeping it real and underground, and you feel anything that sells more than 1 (O.N.E.) copies is a corporate sell-out, all power to you; but for me, scenes need all aspects. Yes, we need the nose-bleed so underground stuff that the 7th circle of Hell seems cheerful and upbeat by comparison, but people tend to go out raving for about 2 years, and if any scene doesn’t get new people coming into it, it won’t be underground – but it will be dead and buried.

This isn’t just the case for electronic music. Hardcore Punk needs the Green Days of the world, supercool artsy indie needs the occasional “Mr Brightside”, the Shadows were shit without Cliff Richard; every aspect of music needs new people to get into it and actually listen to it, otherwise it’s just a bunch of noise someone made, be it on a C90 cassette, DJ Friendly triple-vinyl, a freshly burned CDR or “what the hell is going on” tik tok video… and, you know what? Artists need to eat. ”Incredible” will have paid Renk Records electricity bill for more than a few weeks, one would imagine, probably leaving a bit left over to put some biscuits in the tin at the studio.
So I’m not asking you to love gateway moments, music is subjective, and you’re into what you’re into, but don’t begrudge other people them.

If you have an “M-Beat moment”, be it to “Bricks Don’t Roll”, “Slam”, or Rita Ora shrieking her way through a Dj Fresh tune, you don’t have to think it’s as important as Beethoven’s 5th, but don’t tell the kids, (for whom this might well open new doors, new horizons and new opportunities) that you were into this stuff before it sold out. Instead, perhaps, tell them about something else they might like; encourage them, engage them, and maybe you can help things keep going for another 32 years.
My earliest memory of Jungle was one of its most commercial tunes, but I still buy Jungle Music today. That kid who’s super excited about “Baddadan” might still be supporting underground artists in 2098.

Dj Trev

Dj Trev is a writer and full-time DJ, and is a fucking sell-out bastard at Bangface, Field Maneouvers, and in the last town centre place you were in, he was over in the corner, DJ’ing off some stacked up beer crates.