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25 parties that changed dance music forever
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6 Shoom
Fitness Centre, Southwark Street, London Danny Rampling was one of those London lads. He and fiancée Jenni set up a sweaty 300-capacity event called Shoom in autumn 1987. They had no idea their attempt to recreate the Ibizan experience would become the seeding place for dance culture. Within a year their smiley face logo was synonymous with the newborn "acid house" movement. Shoom devotees tied together clattering proto-house with utopian weekend escapism in an idealist haze of MDMA. Soon everyone else would too.
See also: Spectrum at Heaven; The Trip at The Astoria; RIP at Clink Street Studios - all London
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7 Nude
The Hacienda, Whitworth Street, Manchester Decades before he was part of Kasabian's creative team, Mike Pickering was a key figure in Manchester's nightworld. The Hacienda had scraped a living since 1982, propped up by New Order, but when Pickering started the Friday electronic night, Nude, in 1986, he pre-empted the zeitgeist, dropping early house amid his electro/industrial funk sets. Once E arrived in 1988 a phenomenon was born amidst the Hacienda's black, yellow, concrete and steel décor. Dance music hypnotized the city and a wave of guitar bands blossomed – Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, et al. Madchester was born.
See also: Hot at the Hacienda
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8 Rage
Heaven, Charing Cross Road, London Rage opened in 1989 and was a successful rave night with headline DJs Colin Faver and Trevor Fung. When second room residents Fabio & Grooverider took over the main dancefloor in 1991 something happened. Their mix of British breakbeat hardcore, R&S-style techno and ragga/dub-flavoured tunes led the scene in a new direction, especially, circa 1993, when the beats sped to twice the speed of the basslines. Jungle – later known as drum & bass – was the first club sound of solely British origin.
See also: Metalheadz at the Blue Note; Speed at the Mars Bar - both London
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9 The Omen
Junghofstraße, Frankfurt By 1988 Sven Väth was already a pop star with his electro-pop band OFF. However, a trip to Ibiza had opened his eyes to DJing. He invested in a club with fellow producers Michael Münzing and Mattias Martinsohn. It became the test tube where techno mutated into trance. Visitors such as Casper Pound – AKA The Hypnotist – took the sound back to Britain while Münzing (as SNAP!) and Martinsohn (running the Eye Q and Harthouse labels) spread it across the world, as, of course did Väth. The Police let them party in the streets at Omen's closing party in 1998.
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10 Trade
Turnmills, Clerkenwell Road, London Trade was the debauched weekly party where gay after-hours culture collided with techno to form hard house. The idea for the club was promoter Laurence Malice's. He envisioned and, for a while, achieved London's ultimate afterparty, running from 4am Sunday morning until 1pm. In the early '90s the DJs played techno-rave, but their sound melded with classic gay hi-NRG. Tony de Vit (who died in 1998) was the most-loved resident but Fergie and Smokin' Jo also started here, as did the popularity of mixed, gay UK clubbing.
See also: FF at Turnmills