Always used to wonder about the people who went along to the big mentalist raves like Fantazia but out of the choice of "three rooms of pulsating power" they went for the lowest-wattage option - the house room (in the case of Fantazia NYE 92/93, the Love Lounge line-up above). Rather than the main room with the big-name deejays and live rave acts. Or the techno room, where you could get could get proper cabbaged and sledged courtesy slamming sets by the likes of SS and Shaggy & Breeze.
Presumably in the Love Lounge you'd be hearing things like this
or this
or maybe this
or perhaps even this
Go to 5.05 in this for a Fantazia NY's Eve 92/93 advert with the "three rooms of pulsating power" described in full
There is barely a trace of info out there about Kieran the Herbalist.
Always wondered what Shaggy & Breeze sounded like.
they're having the time of their lives
Kieran The Herbalist was still playing out as of 2008
ReplyDeletehttps://www.skiddle.com/news/all/A-Dirty-Great-Big-Rave-Up-1204/2268/
"Legendary rave DJ" might need to be referred to the Advertising Standards Agency though.
It's amusing how amateur the Fantazia ad is compared to the professionalism and commercialism of the actual dos. Could be an ad for any old all-nighters at the local leisure centre.
ReplyDeleteI always got the impression that a fair amount of people at the raves in those day were brought along my partners or friend groups whilst not being particularly into it themselves. Certainly there were lots of people there for the drugs and not the music. So I reckon alot of those may have ended up in the house room. At Roller Express the garage room always felt a good 3 years older crowd wise than the main room. So friends of the promoters, friends of dealers and djs, was the impression I always got.
that's a good point
ReplyDeletepeople would go for social reasons often rather than musical fanaticism.
conversely despite vastly preferring hardcore and jungle i would find myself in house clubs of varying types rather often in 92--93 cos that was increasingly the preference of my particular gang - and the point of the going out was as much having adventures with your friends as it was the specific music. also did a fair amount of checking out different scenes - progressive house, hard techno, crusty megadoggish stuff.
also even the most committed mentalist might want to take a breather for a bit and go in the more clement atmosphere of the house room, probably less packed and hot too
well Kieran the Herbalist is a legend in this household - partly because my son is called Kieran so i've been chanting "Kieran the Herbalist" at him for years, to his utter mystification - but yeah i think it's definitely rather an exaggeration, the "legend" bit. i came across that 2008 listing too but that is like literally the only trace of him on the internet.
ReplyDeletethis seems like it might have served the same purpose as the "chill out/ambient" rooms that were de rigueur at SF Bay Area events in the 90s. Basically a place to hang out and get away from the mental atmosphere of the main room (in the mid to late 90s SF Bay Area case, catering various flavors of 150 bpm hard trance). A place for people that were too, er, "tapped out" for to keep up and catch a breath. At least in that context, the side room was often the most interesting place to be as the DJs could be quite mischievous - I remember one rave chill room where the DJ dropped snippets of the "Disco Star Wars" LP into the mix.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if this of any interest to any of you but I had a mix tape which was from Fantazia Love Lounge, Littlecote House, NYE 1992. It was labelled as being Kieran The Herbalist and Mike C. The Mike C part of the tape is easy to tell as he is introduced on the mic. So I guess the part that's not him is Kieran.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.discogs.com/Mike-C-Kieran-Fantazia-Takes-You-Into-1993/release/5617977
Some years later I bought the CDs and ripped them. I listened through and found Kieran's set. I have uploaded it as I am trying to ID the tracks.
https://soundcloud.com/boofont/kieran-the-herbalist-fantazia-love-lounge-littlecote-house-nye-1992