Category: Rave Scene

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“You saved my life”

A recurring theme through the raver letters in Requiem for My Rave, and even now in the reviews for my book, are a very similar message: You saved my life.

I never shirked from this responsibility. I always knew the stakes were high. That was why I did what I did.

Looking back, I admire that young-self version of me. All that responsibility thrust onto the shoulders of an early 20-something. In many ways seen as a father figure, even though just a young kid myself.

I did the best I could with what I had, and I’m proud of what I accomplished.

I’m proud to share those memories today.

I’m extremely proud to hear your stories.

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Memorabilia on my walls

In my home office where I spend most of my day I have a handful of pieces dedicated to my rave career.

This was a gift given to me by the Friendship Crew at the final Hulla event in 2005. It features a record that was brought to the UK and signed by all the major UK hardcore DJs of that time and the rest signed by Hulla DJs and the Friendship Crew. There is a group photo taken at the pre-party and an engraved inscription that says “Hullabaloo! June 21, 1997 – July 9, 2005”. This is a very special gift.

This is a famous photo that was shot by a fan and photographer named Brian Sparano. He gave me the high quality print which I had framed.

My framed collection of the Happy2bHardcore series, with a designation from Nielsen Soundscan of selling over 400,000 copies.

This was a gift from a fan photographer named Megan Wong shot at Hulla in 1999. She actually included it in a photo exhibit she held, then gifted me the very large frame and pic (movie poster sized).

These are all very special and hang prominently in my office.

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Revisiting my memoirs

In 2009 I took a month and wrote all day everyday to capture my memoirs of my rave career.

I then saved the file and 10 years passed.

A few weeks ago I re-opened the file for the first time and was hit with the power of the words on the screen. No wonder it took all of this time, 10 years later and 20 years after the events portrayed in the book. There was too much trauma for me to deal with. It’s taken 20 years to be able to tell my story.

I’ve committed myself to finish my memoir project and finish it now. I’m about finished the second draft. After that it gets handed to an editor. Some time after that it will be published.

The thing that I asked myself now was the “why?”. Why did I do it? Why would someone go through everything I went through? I had the answer – you. The ravers. You inspired and motivated me at every point.

And I have an amazing tool to pull from – all of my emails dating back to the mid 1990s. I started to go through them. Your voices will now be in the book. Why what I did mattered to you, how it affected you.

I’ve often said these memoirs will be my last contribution to the scene. I’m going to be proud to share such a document. An honest review of an incredible time. No one knows what it was like to experience those intense highs and intense lows that I went through.

Please keep an eye on my page for further updates about this.

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Rush Hour 1998 live video

Hullabaloo’s Rush Hour in 1998 was when Hullabaloo officially became a rave juggernaut. It was the 8th Hullabaloo, and everything that had come before was distilled into 1 perfect rave. Logistical issues with crowds were handled by it being the first Hulla that sold all tickets in advance and none sold at the door (first of many sold out events). It was the first time we re-used a venue, which let us build on what we learned the first time. The fan base was growing more and more, “Hulla Ravers” were more defined. I consider Rush Hour the first perfect rave we had, with more to come.

I also reflect on how young I was then, and what I had built at such a young age. It’s pretty humbling to look back on.

I’m also reminded how “new” everything we were doing was. New types of events, new type of music, new experience. We weren’t recreating “disco” from 20 years prior. This was a brave new world.

Here is some live video from my set that night:

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Hullabaloo! Big Top 1999 footage

This is a capture from VHS of my historic set at Hullabaloo! Big Top, February 1999. Over 5000 ravers packed a sold out International Centre just outside Toronto, Canada. This was a kick off of the rave era’s “Summer of Love”, the arguable peak of the rave scene in 1999.

Something about the quality (from VHS), the washed out colors, makes it seem just as much the dream as what is in my head.

The entire audio recording of this set is available by clicking this link.

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When Chris proposed to Robin

I just pulled out a tape from a box in my garage and posted it on Youtube. It was shot at the 2002 edition of the World Electronic Music Festival. It really captures the energy and magic of my sets of that time, but this recording is even more special because it captured when I proposed to Robin on stage in front of everyone. I remember someone telling me they thought the tent was going to explode from all the PLUR.

It’s special now to reflect on this. Until now, this only existed in the memories of everyone there. I’m glad I have the tape to share now.

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Featured Live Mix: Anabolic Frolic Vs Vinylgroover 1999

This was a special event. It came on the heels of the rave scene simultaneously experiencing its peak and also terrible tragedy with 3 separate drug related rave deaths at Toronto events during the last half of 1999.

It didn’t feel right to me at the time to just proceed business as usual and pretend none of this had happened. It was a hard time for me, personally. Only decades later do I recognize my own trauma of having to deal with all of that at the time.

I felt the scene was too important to just give up on and I knew I didn’t want to quit because this was bigger than me and meant so much to so many people. I was committed to staying strong even though I was dealing with my own unchecked stress of the weight of all of it.

My idea was to do our next event on a more low profile. To this end we did not print any flyers to promote it, which was unprecedented at the time for a large event, early into the internet and a decade ahead of social media. It was called “For Those Who Know“. In addition, $1 from every ticket would be donated to the local harm reduction outfit (TRIP – Toronto Raver Info Project), which received a cheque for $2200.

Even with no flyer, the event immediately sold out the capacity of the venue.

I wanted to do something special and different in light of this and came up with the concept of having our most frequent headliner, Vinylgroover, and I do an unprecedented back2back set we called “UK Vs Canada” with the addition of MCs Magika and E-by-gum.

The atmosphere was like no other that night. The same importance that our scene was worth saving weighed on everyone in attendance.

I present this set in all its glory, all 2 hours and 20 minutes of late 1990s happy hardcore spun by 2 of the biggest names of that era. Enjoy.

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I feel complete

I still get DJ requests, even though I haven’t spun now for over a decade.

I feel fortunate that I’ve found some new and different things to pursue, things that I’m happy to be doing with my life now.

Some people ask me though, why not just spin… like… one time? For old times sake.

If I ponder this, the real answer is I feel my DJ career is fully satisfying and complete. If you look back at it, I was at the forefront of new music, new experiences, new everything. My CDs always had the latest new tracks, I had a radio show where we promoted new music, I put on events featuring new music and new experiences. For a good long time what we were doing had never been done before.

It was never about nostalgia. I believe now, if I were to play, it would be for nostalgia. I’d rather let some other people keep pushing things forward, instead of looking backwards.

Creatively, I accomplished everything I ever wanted. When we did the 10-year Hullabaloo reunion in 2007, I felt I had a few bits of unfinished business. One was to shoot a concert film to capture what it was all about. The other was I really wanted to rave with everyone on the dance floor one time. I got to do those things. It was great. And it was OK to just move on after that.

Thank you for your continued interest in me by visiting this page. As I come across historical stuff, like sets and videos, I will post them, but I think that will be it for me, and not to get on stage again.

It was a pleasure and an honor to be involved with the scene as I was back in the day and I will always cherish it.

Keep Smiling.

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Anabolic Frolic Live DJ Set Collection

I’ve begun the process of uploading every live DJ set I have to soundcloud. As far as my DJ work goes, these live sets are what I’m most proud of. In the end, the music I played was created and made for raves. And then throw into the mix that these weren’t just recorded at any rave, but most captured at Hullabaloo, which to this day is debated as the greatest of rave experiences. The energy, love and appreciation from the crowd that is captured on these live sets make them a completely unique listening experience.

As the years passed, we got better and better at doing the live capture, and making the crowd just as important as anything that was happening on the stage.

Considering how little of rave was captured live, before the era of Youtube and Facebook, I’m glad we made the effort to capture as much as we did.

Enjoy.

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The Island of Misfit Toys

Something I loved most about our early rave scene, was that how it allowed a bunch of us “misfits” to find one another. We drew comfort in that.

Raves were about celebrating who you were, not what you weren’t, or trying to be something you weren’t. Oddballs who had their own fashion, culture and certainly unusual tastes in music at that time.

In my case, I was a nerd. Was before I was a DJ, was during my DJ years, and certainly now am a nerd.

Being a nerd gave me the skills to use the early internet to make contact with people overseas who could buy me happy hardcore records. I used the usenet group alt.rave to reach people, far before there were message boards or any type of social network.

I never had any clothing style. Some ravers adopted the candy fashions or whatever, for me though what I was most comfortable in was jeans and a t-shirt, and that’s how you saw me.

My nerd skills also allowed me to set up my Anabolic Frolic website, which happened to be the first ever “Happy Hardcore” website listed on Yahoo at the time. Then people found me.

But I could be a nerd, and be a raver. And later a famous rave DJ and promoter, who was still a nerd.

A nerd amongst my people, whomever they were, we were all together. It was awesome.

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More oldschool vid fun

This is footage from the Hullabaloo 2-year event June of 1999. This is as classic a rave as it gets. A sold out crowd of 5000 in a gutted old bingo hall in the middle of nowhere, and no one had any idea what we were up to. I refer to the summer of ’99 as our “Summer of Love”, the peak of the rave scene before it fell in on itself. We honestly thought we might change the world.

It’s kind of crazy to see the size of this crowd and compare it with the other vid I posted below, in less than 3 years time we had blown up from next to nothing to a huge juggernaut. Our string of Hullabaloo events from the end of ’98 until summer of ’99 I consider the best raves in the history of the planet, just perfectly executed, huge budgets for production, a fresh audience with no “krusty raver” element that didn’t exist yet, and the dark side of the scene had not crept in yet. It was some good times.

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Old School Frolic vid

Found an oldschool video of me spinning in 1996. No one knew what happy hardcore was back then, but it all has to start somewhere!