Categories
site news

Please Donate to Help Keep Sonicrampage Awesome!

money

After four years of running Sonicrampage, after having done dozens of mixes and written all kinds of essays, and after having never asked for anything in return, I would now like to make a small request. If you are someone who has used and enjoyed the site – whether fir the music, the essays, the pictures, or the whole package – I would greatly appreciate it if you would consider making a donation to help me keep running the site.

For the last four years I have paid for this site out of my own pocket because, well, it’s my hobby, but it has become more expensive as the site has gotten more popular and more people have come to download the mixes … which is obviously a good thing! However, it does cost money to pay for the server and for my Soundcloud account, and as I am a family man I would really appreciate a contribution to help keep this site a fun, non-profit musical enterprise, based around exploring old and new dance music.

At the moment, Sonicrampage offers dozens of hours of underground electronic music entirely for free, which is something that I am proud of, and I have plans to make the site even better and offer even more content, however I will need a little financial help to make it a reality.

One thing that I can promise you is that that the donations would be used purely for the upkeep of the site.

How would I spend the donations? Initially, I would like to upgrade my Soundcloud account from Solo to a Pro account on Soundcloud, so that I can continue to provide a Soundcloud option on all new mixes (see here for more info on the various account types). Then I would like to put money towards paying my annual hosting fees, which doubled this year after my hosting company Inmotion forced me to upgrade to a Virtual Private Server to better handle the amount of traffic and resources that it was using. As I would be surprised to get even that much money, I haven’t thought about what I would do once the hosting was paid for! I wouldn’t spend the money on myself or my family, as the donation button is purely for the upkeep of the site – I would just put it against future hosting costs.

Thanks for reading this far, and please consider donating if you can afford it:





Eurotrash 4 is coming very soon, and my acid mix for The Seven Dimensions of Euphoria will be available sometime later this month!

Categories
Guest Mixes Interviews

Mejle’s Sonicrampage Guest Mix

Mejle

Mejle’s Sonicrampage Guest Mix

right-click on the title and save as to download

Mixed in Copenhagen, July 2012
(52:16, 119 MB, 320 KBPS MP3)

Click to read an interview with Mejle!

Cue file
Zip pack (split into individual tracks)

Style: UK Bass

Categories
site news

Who’s Up Next? Forthcoming Guest Mixers on Sonicrampage

London rainbow

Although Sonicrampage is primarily a website devoted to my own mixes, I also love asking other dj’s to contribute their own guest mixes to the site, and by now I’ve got a nice collection of mixes from other dj’s, covering genres as disparate as dubstep, techno, old skool ardkore, hard trance/hard house, and freeform hardcore. Personally, I’m always listening to mixes and checking out new dj’s, so I thought it would be nice to give you guys a little introduction to some of the dj’s who will be contributing guest mixes this year.

First up (since I am doing this in alphabetical order), is Dubloke, a bass music dj from London that I first encountered on DSF; I’ve asked him to contribute an instrumental grime mix similar to my own Drop The Hammer 8 and, well, this:

Categories
Uncategorized

Trade – The All Night Bender (Documentary)

Here’s something interesting to watch: a 1997 Channel 4 documentary about Trade, the infamous gay after-hours club night that used to run from 4am to mid-day (and beyond!) at Turnmills in Clerkenwell. As far as the development of the UK’s hard dance scene goes, Trade was probably one of the most important clubs, if not the most important – it’s dj resident roster, including Steve Thomas, Ian M, Pete Wardman, and, of course, the almighty Tony de Vit, was pretty much a who’s who of crucial figures in the development of hard house. I never went personally (I’m straight and at the time I was into the acid/hard trance sound being pioneered at nights like Pendragon and Escape From Samsara), but Trade’s musical influence is hard to overstate. So from that perspective this is a fascinating look behind the scenes of one of London’s most important ever clubs, as well as being an interesting time capsule to 15 years ago, which, although it doesn’t really seem that long ago, kind of is.

In particular it’s quite amazing to think how quickly the popular acceptance of homosexuality has advanced over that time!

The documentary of course covers the scenes at Turnmills, but also shows the Trade tent at Gay Pride, as well as Trade’s tour events in South Africa and Mallorca. Plus the documentary also includes interviews with Trade clubbers, such as the gay fireman who celebrates his marriage to his (straight, female) best friend with a night out at Trade, and a couple hoping that the New Labour government would give the South African half the right to stay in the country, plus a few younger guys, including a teenage boy from working-class Braintree, Essex, who is struggling to come to terms with being gay. Needless to say, the documentary also features some vintage killer tunes, including ‘Underrave’ by The Disciples and ‘Let’s Rock’ by E-Trax. How often have tunes like that gotten an airing on British television?!?

A must watch!

Other Trade stuff to check out if you’re interested in finding out more:

Andy Farley talks Trade – An interview with legendary Brummie hard house dj Andy Farley about his memories of Trade as a punter and dj
Andy Farley’s Trade Memories and Andy Farley’s Trade Memories 2 – Two amazing sets of tribute mixes to Trade by Andy Farley, each containing eight (!) full-length mixes, building from funky US house through to pounding nu-nrg. Over 16 hours of incredible music. Don’t miss out!
Us Boys Together Clinging: One Night in a Gay Club – 1994 feature about Trade from Gay Times, reproduced on the DJHistory.com site. An excellent read!

Categories
site news

The Seven Dimensions of Euphoria

7D The Seven Dimensions of Euphoria 6

So, a bit of exciting news – I will be contributing a banging acid techno mix to the next edition of the mighty 7D – The Seven Dimensions of Euphoria! To check out the previous mixes in the series, visit the 7D website (also, make sure you like their Facebook page too). There’s an almost comical abundance of awesome free mixes to check out. You won’t regret it!

Look for my mix a little later in the year, but for now here are a few of the acid bangers I’m thinking of including …

What say ye?

Categories
Interviews Mixes

Pearsall presents Rampage Turbo 12 + I Love Hard Beats 2 Preview Interview

Tate Modern Turbine Hall

Pearsall presents Rampage Turbo 12

right-click on the title and save as to download

Click to go to the I Love Hard Beats 2 interview!

Mixed in London, June 2012
(58:37, 134 MB, 320 KBPS MP3)

Large cover
Cue file
Zip pack (split into separate tracks)

Style: Classic freeform hardcore

Categories
Uncategorized

New Girdler Synthetic mix: tribute to Pendragon & Escape From Samsara

The one and only Girdler Synthetic is back with another awesome hard trance tribute mix, this time to the amazing Pendragon and Escape From Samsara club nights that were such a big part of the London scene back in the day. Check it out!

Categories
site news

Krafty Radio: Freeformaniacs this Thursday the 21st

Yes, it’s that time again!

Nova ScotiaI’m back on Freeformaniacs this Thursday, where I will be very proudly premiering Rampage Turbo 12, which I whacked together in one frenzied hour of high BPM mania over the weekend (of course, being over thirty and a middle-class family man, I made sure to do so while my wife was out with my daughter at Gymboree, natch). The mix goes from M-Zone’s magical trancer Subsonic Mass to DJ Eclipse’s gabbatastic Energize in just under an hour … reach for the lasers territory, for real.

If you’re interested in my mix from the last round of Freeformaniacs, go grab Rampage Turbo 11, and you can grab the rest of the Round 3 mixes from the Freeform Forum here. To grab the Round 4 downloads (or at least some of them), go here. I’m going to try to have Rampage Turbo 12 up for download here by the end of the weekend, but no promises!

As ever, the show will be kicking off on Krafty Radio at 10am on Thursday morning.

In other Freeformaniacs news, the Freeformaniacs album Freeformatted is now available for free download from the Ruff Beatz site – check it out here.

Enjoy!

Categories
Interviews

Running a record store back in the day: An interview with Jay Equinox of Elite Records

Elite Records Victoria
The first incarnation of Elite Records … Jay Burgess at the far right

I love vinyl, always have, and I’ve always been a fan of record shops. In my teens and early 20’s I whiled away many happy hours in record shops digging through crates, listening to new tunes, and chatting with the guys behind the counter (see my discussion of record-buying memories here for more on that topic). Sadly, over time I have had less time and less disposable income to devote to record shopping, so to the extent that I still buy vinyl it is mostly online, and predominantly through Discogs.

One of my favorite record stores back in the day was Elite Records in Victoria, which I used to frequent for its excellent selection of new and back catalogue freeform hardcore, hard house, and hard trance, as well as for the laid-back vibe that was fostered by the two guys who ran the shop, Mike and Jay. Elite was open from 1996 to 2002, and was set up by Jason Burgess (aka Equinox) from Bromley, South-East London. As someone who spent many a pleasant afternoon at Elite (as well as a very healthy sum of money!), I thought it might be interesting to catch up with Jay about what it was like to run a specialist dance record store in the 90’s/00’s, back in the days when vinyl ruled the roost, way before digital downloads became the de facto standard for club dj’s. Happily, Jay has agreed to answer my questions, so read on for a fascinating insight into the ways of the old skool record shop:

(Obligatory internal marketing pitch! Check out some of Equinox’s tracks on my mixes Dreadnaut, Twist & Shake, and The One Last One, as well as on Tyssen’s Pendragon Tribute and Girdler Synthetic’s Frantic Classics … ok, you can carry on now)

Pearsall: To start with, when did Elite Records open, and where did the idea to open a record store come from?

Jay Burgess: I opened Elite Records in February 1996, a couple of years after I’d started casually running over the idea. I was a keen record buyer for many years, and, like many, I would do the rounds of various record shops in London and the South each week. I couldn’t walk past a record shop without going in – I’m sure others can relate to that!

Haha, I definitely can!

In essence, I thought having my own shop would be perfect.

Was there any significance to your opening in Pimlico/Victoria, or is that just where you found a space?

Absolutely. I had worked in Victoria for about six years managing a relative’s video rental business when a large chain store opened on the same street. While it wasn’t too damaging, it did make us question the long-term viability with such a rival close by and of course the changing media format at that time. It was decided that the video store was to close which then enabled me to take on the lease of the existing premises. It definitely made the transition more fluid in terms of having to search for the right premises. As much as it was an exciting prospect it was in equal measures a very real and daunting commitment at 21.

Categories
site news

Two weeks to grab them, two weeks to grab them all …

okonomiyaki
An okonomiyaki (Japanese omelette) bought from a street stall on Leather Lane, Clerkenwell … a little weird for my tastes, if I’m being completely honest

(Forgive me the cheesy Lord of the Rings reference, my wife and I spent last weekend re-watching all three movies)

So, as it turns out, I need to clear some room on my server in order to continue serving you up with fresh chunks of delicious, delicious electronic music. Given the huge number of mixes this site now hosts, I suppose I shouldn’t have been too surprised, but, well, I was surprised.

Obviously I don’t want to delete any mixes completely, so what I have decided to do is to delete some of the mixes in zip pack form, leaving only the single mp3. I’ve talked before about my preference for listening to split mixes, but a recent Facebook poll I conducted showed that I was pretty much alone on this one. This being the case, I’ve therefore decided to clear out some space by deleting the zip packs that accompany my old Rampage series of mixes. To give those of you who haven’t yet grabbed them a chance to download them, I’m going to keep them up for another two weeks, deleting them at around lunchtime on Sunday the 17th of June. Can’t say fairer than that, right?

Of course, you’ll still be able to get them as individual mp3’s.

Anyways, here are the mixes that I will be removing the zip files from: