Old Mixtape: Jason DaGroove Live On Air on 3RRR's Rhythmatic, 1990.

An old tape of Davide Carbone's Rhythmatic show on Melbourne's independent radio station 3RRR, sometime in mid 1990 - I think about September, but who knows.

Davide was an early convert to acid house, in the late 80s he and his good mate Steve Robbins were DJing this new sound on Thursday nights at ZuZu's (in Exhibition Street where Bobby McGees now as - along with Prahran's Checkpoint Charlie's it was the best designed club space in the city - both are sadly long gone now). Apart from DJing, Davide was also one of Melbourne's first techno entrepreneurs - he ran a record shop (Rhythm Records) out of the front room of his house, and put on some of the earliest raves - Lunatik Fringe. Later still he formed Future Sound Of Melbourne with Steve and Josh Abrahams, then moved to the UK to become a jungle don. Now he's back in town, running a recording studio and working with the likes of Carl Cox.

If I remember correctly, Davide's Rhythmatic show was on every Wednesday from 10pm-midnight, and it was just about your only chance to hear underground dance music on the radio (no not the station, I mean the whole of the FM dial) for the whole week. We'd look forward to the shows each week, record them and share tapes with our friends - it was pretty much the only way you could hear fresh music without going to a club. Kids these days will never understand how hard it was to hear underground dance music in Melbourne when it first arrived...

This tape is a bit of a choice one, because the whole show features a guest mix by Jason DaGroove (Jason Rudeboy) who at that time was one of the organisers and DJs at Melbourne's greatest underground club night, Maze (Commerce). He'd later go on to start a record shop, Octave Records, with Terry (H2O) Ho and ran Melbourne's longest and most adventurous techno club night, Filter, from 1992 to 2003. Jason was a UK import, and was about to head back home the next day - he would of course be back.

There's a bit of talking and shoutouts - 'got any disco biscuits?' - which will bring it all back for some. Jason also announces a new DJ at Commerce that week, Brother Willy (none other than Will-E-Tell, later Melbourne's first DJ superstar). It's also the first time I heard Mr. Monday's "Future" and there are heaps of other class tunes in the mix too.  The tape quality is okay - back then I never had money for rent, but somehow managed to get good quality blank tapes. Please excuse bad spelling on cover - don't know what I was doing there.

75 minute cassette recording _192kbs MP3 ...mediafire

Classic Pure Closers By Steve Robbins

Pure was my home; every Friday I was there - I can't remember how many nights I missed, but it wasn't many. Did miss the final night at Dream nightclub because I thought nobody would go and it'd be too much of a downer, but Will-E rang me as soon as he got home to let me know what a great night I'd just missed. Apparently the floors were shaking because there were so many people rocking till the last track. Oh well.

It started out in the rear room of St. Kilda's Palace nightclub, I think in May 1991 - but it's all a bit hazy. It was Melbourne's first straight up rave techno night, although Maze @ Commerce had previously championed techno alongside underground house. Run by DJ Mark James, this was the club that made Will-E-Tell a star, yet what I remember 20 odd years later are the end of night sets of DJ Steve Robbins (later of techno group FSOM). He was older than the rest of us, and, shall we say, more learned in the art of getting off your head, but he'd been DJing since the first days of electro and had a fantastic record collection that leant heavily towards the 303 acid end of the spectrum. Steve didn't like to mix his records too much, so you got to hear great tracks in their entirety, and he always brought the night gently down towards close (none of this banging to the end and then tell the punters to fuck off nonsense).

Steve in the box at Pure after it moved to Dream Niteclub in late '91.
(Scotty working the lights)

So, with that I present two of his best closing tracks, both house, and both out of New York: Chapter 1's "Unleash The Groove (E-Funk Mix)" on Strictly Rhythm and The Sound Vandals' "On Your Way (Deep Mix)" off Nu Groove. Really fantastic tracks that deserve to be played in their entirety to the munted at 6am.
And they still sound great two decades later.

Discogs

A1 Unleash The Groove (E-Funk Mix)
A2 Unleash The Groove (Love In Sheffield Mix)
A3 Unleash The Groove (Blips In Heat)
B1 Unleash The Groove (125th & Lenox Mix)
B2 Unleash The Groove (Screamin' Pipes)

Vinyl Rip _ 320kbps MP3 ...mediafire




Discogs

A1 Tonight's The Night (Club Mix)
A2 Tonight's The Night (Bonus Beat)
B1 On Your Way (Deep Mix)
B2 On Your Way (Bonus Beat)

Vinyl Rip _ 320kbps MP3 ...mediafire





1990's "Unleash The Groove" is a particularly strong release; "Blips In Heat" is a piece of blissful beatless bleep, and the b-sides are completely insane organ workouts. "Tonight's The Night" on The Sound Vandals' 1991 release is a quite annoying bit of New York sample house, but the bonus beats are good.

Selected tracks by The KLF

A little while ago I posited that Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond might rightly be considered as true pioneers of electronic trance. For the most part, The KLF owned all the rights to their own music, publishing it through their label KLF Communications. According to Discogs, in May 1992, they officially ended their music careers to pursue new artistic endeavours; they also deleted their entire catalogue of releases. I've checked Beatport and Juno and there was no KLF to purchase, so it seems that the two remain committed to art over profit.

I thought I would post a few select tracks only - there are extensive tribute site here and here and both have plenty of downloads available if you want to delve further...

First of all, "What Time Is Love?" in its two best forms - "Original Pure Trance" (1988) and "Live At Trancentral" (1990). I've said it before, but the Pure Trance mix is just so way ahead of its time that I can only think of one other track to compare it with, Humanoid's "Stakker" - both from England, both released in '88, both completely rewriting the dance floor template, both glorious mind fuck inducers.

The original mix of "What Time Is Love?" is very bare, has a slow tempo and a haunting sci-fi bassline fusing its melody and subtle kick drum. A Dr Who-like 'ooooooohhh' runs throughout to massive effect.

In 1990, the boys updated their tune (with a bit of help from others such as New York's Lenny Dee), totally transforming it into a high energy rave monster that pioneered the transfer of stadium rock excess to dance music. Everyone from The Prodigy to Underworld and 2 Unlimited took notice.

Discogs

What Time Is Love?
(Pure Trance Version)

CD Rip _ 320kbps MP3 ...mediafire

Discogs

What Time Is Love?
(Live At Trancentral)

Vinyl Rip _ 320kbps MP3 ...mediafire

"3am Eternal (Pure Trance Version)" (1989) is taken from the excellent Warehouse Raves 4 compilation - it's also got the Pure Trance Original of "What Time Is Love?" and a heap of other hard to find goodies (I'll probably post that too at some point). It's quite blissful, with a laid back vocal and a hypnotic groove. A few years later, it too got a stadium update leading to commercial chart success - The KLF had embraced cheese once more.

Discogs

3am Eternal 
(Pure Trance Version)

CD Rip _ 320kbps MP3 ...mediafire

Cauty and Drummond didn't leave the underground altogether though, at the end of 1990 they reverted to a previous moniker, The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu, and put out the apocalyptic techno of "It's Grim Up North" in a limited release of 350 single-sided 12 inches on grey vinyl. No label text, no obvious artist identification - just a plain grey inner label.

In Melbourne, only one person had it - Mr Terry "H2O" Ho, and he DJed at the massively influential Maze underground night at The Commerce Club.

People waited all night to hear The Grey Record and embrace it's locomotive techno as it stormed out of the speakers and through the smoke machine across the dancefloor and into our shattered minds. It too got remixed and re-released (with new vocal and an awful guitar break), but the original was by far the best.

Discogs
A1 It's Grim Up North
(Original Club Mix)

Vinyl Rip _ 320kbps 

MP3 ...mediafire