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Last Updated on Tuesday, 16 June 2009 06:18 Written by Crossfire Thursday, 11 June 2009 06:15

Ever wondered what the hardcore scene was like back in the day? Intrigued by the rise and fall of harder electronic music styles in South East Queensland?

HCM Records has had the privelige of receiving the following article prepared by the elusive 2Styliztik about the development of the local hardcore scene - thank god someone's got a decent memory here!

If you didn't already know, 2Styliztik is one of the most prolific hardcore DJs in Brisbane who has played at every single Thrillseeka party, was a major drawcard at System6 as part of the Pressure Squad, and has DJ'd at pretty much every major harder dance party for the past decade including Advent*jah and Mayhem.

Let the history lesson begin......

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This information is based on the rave/hard dance point of view and I can't really comment on the house/breaks/dnb scene since I didn't participate in their culture.

From what I've been told the rave scene in Brisbane started in the early 90's when underground electronic music was growing rapidly in Europe and slowly slipping into Australia. There was the Metropolis nightclub that used to be in the Myer Centre, that was quite popular. The Beat was a seminal part of the rave/club culture in Brisbane, many ravers over the years started at the Beat. Another club which was very popular was The Site. It used to be across the road from The Roxy (The Arena) and is now a Chinese furniture store. Erazor, Painfool and Fuzzy Logic have told be great stories about the parties at The Site. They got a number of well known djs, like Lenny Dee, Carl Cox and Prodigy, I think. It got shut down in 1995, just before I started going out, damn! The other club of important is The Tube. When I started clubbing I went there every Saturday, even though they played house it had a great vibe. They too got big international djs, I remember the rivalry between The Tube and The Beat. Another club of note is The Tunnel, it was the Gold Coast's version of The Beat. I never went there but I always heard good stories about it.

The big djs of the early and mid 90's were Edwin, Angus (RIP), Kesson, Thief, Jen-E, Darren Briais, Mark Briais, Ken Jensen, Kazu Kimura, Darren James, Rousey, Gracie and some others who I've forgotten.

The big rave parties were normally held at The Roxy (now called The Arena), the Roxy parties were the best!!! There was a big rave party on each month at the Roxy, Brisbane has always been a monthly city, unlike other places that have big parties every week. The parties that were huge in Brisbane were Adrenalin and Blackout (Edwin and John Hannay's parties), NASA, Discovery, Thunderdome, Advent'jah, Recharge, Strawberry Fields, Creation, Fantasia.

There was one NASA party at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre in Boondall with Hardfloor and a relatively unknown live act called, Bexta.

Strawberry Fields were legendary! I believe there was 3, one with Carl Cox and one with K-Klass. The parties were held in the Tambourine Mountains, but the locals started complaining about sound and after 1996 they stopped doing parties.

Creation was Peter Mogg's parties. Peter was the host of the legendary 4ZZZ Dance Show, which was on 3pm-6pm on saturdays and moved to 6pm-9pm saturdays. I listened to this radio show a lot, it was the only way you could hear underground dance music in Brisbane. One of the greatest moments of my dj "career" is hearing Peter Mogg saying my name to plug the first Thrillseeka party! Like most of the other rave parties, the music was mainly hard trance/hardcore, which I was very happy with! It went more trance orientated in the late 90s. I remember one of the Creation parties being filmed by MTV Europe, that was hella cool!

The Thunderdome parties were part of the golden age of hardcore in the mid 90's, when hardcore was being played by all the big djs and some of the tunes even made the Australian charts, most notably Here's Johnny, I Wanna Be A Hippie and Forever Young! I totally missed the first Thunderdome parties because I was still in high school. It was held at The Tube and featured all four members of The Dreamteam. The people who went to that party reckon it was an awesome party, I think it was also held out the back of the tube carpark, the police tried to shut it down, apparently Buzz Fuzz kept saying "fuck the police" to the crowd! The second Thunderdome was at the Roxy, Easter 1996. I didn't goto this parties because on that night my friends wanted to stay at fucking City Rowers and try to pull chicks, FUCK! I swear to god, every person that went to this party can't remember much of it, I desparately wanted to know about the party, but apparently everybody was wasted! It was headlined by Bass D and King Matthew, Pavo and Public Domain. Apparently Pavo played a brutal set with turntablism. The Roxy was absolutely packed. I regret not going to this party. I got some joy when Pavo played on JJJ's Mix Up and played one of the best sets I've ever heard, so at least I got to hear what the punters heard. I still have the flyer for this party, must get a scanner.... Six months later they put on Digital Overdose at the Roxy, headlined by Buzz Fuzz, Gizmo, Dano, Lady Dana and The Bezerker live. I went to this party and its THE best party I've ever been too! Roxy was packed and was rocking all night long. Ahhh the memories. The last ThundAdome party was in November 1996 with Paul Elstak. This was actually held at Festival Hall. The party was even advertised on B105! Generally speaking it was a shit party, my friend left halfway through, and the party was all ages, and the security were wankers. Paul played for two hours, first half was crap happy hardcore (and I like happy hardcore), the other half was straight up Rotterdam Gabber, it was ok. Jen E played an awesome set, basically Jen E was awesome and I learnt to mix from her mixtapes. I used to think Thief was a god, his sets and mixtapes inspired me to become a dj.

Around 1996/1997, most of the aforementioned parties and their promoters left the scene. Advent'jah did their first party at The Tube in 1995 with an Indiana Jones theme, don't think it was huge success. In 1996 they did Access 2 Advent'jah with Misjah from Dyewitness, I don't remember Misjah playing any Dyewitness, which was quite disappointing. 1997 was the year Advent'jah took off big time, in that year they booked Ultra-Sonic twice at the Roxy, both parties were seriously packed, I mean sweat dripping off the wall, packed. I was (still am) a big fan of Ultra-Sonic and everybody knew their songs, awesome nights indeed, especially when they played Annihilating Rhythm, OMG! Because both these parties were very successful, this set up the platform for them to do more parties, and basically they took over the rave scene doing semi regular parties like Advent'jah, Recharge, Circus X, Peace, Time Tunnel-I miss raving on a Tuesday night!! Their parties were so big that The Roxy now called The Arena wasn't big enough so they went to The RNA Showgrounds. The first one was in 98 with Ultra-Sonic, but at the last minute they could come so we got Ultimate Buzz with MC Bee, they weren't too bad although MC Bee kept saying "Aussie Aussie Aussie", of course we screamed "Oi Oi Oi", haha! I think Flashy is right about 2000, that was their biggest year, from 1999 hardcore died off and this new style of music call hard house or hard NRG became huge in Brisbane. And I mean HUGE! Advent'jah realised this early and rode the hard house/NRG wave through much of its time in the scene. They booked all the big hard house/NRG djs from the UK, I hated hard house, having to put up with it at parties was depressing. Although Captain Tinrib live in the main warehouse was cool and Karim wasn't too bad either. Unfortunately Hard House became the new "hardcore" in Brisbane, and was one of the main reasons why Advent'jah was so popular however the promoter did have a wide taste in music and some Advent'jah festivals (yes it got so big they didn't do parties, but festivals!) had 5 odd rooms, trance, house, chill out and eventually in the smallest room, hardcore. They also had bedroom dj rooms, Flashpoint started playing out in one of these rooms. By 2002, Advent'jah started going downhill and as such the popularity of hard house waned. The Advent'jah with Fat Boy Slim was an expensive exercise and i don't think they recovered after that. It was good while it lasted.

Thief and Jen E were basically THE hardcore djs of Brisbane. They started doing their own parties called Overdrive at The Roxy and were quite successful. At the time I was aware of them they also had a Wednesday residency at The Tube called Hard Drive. I actually went to a Hard Drive and there was 5 people, the music was awesome though and Bezerker did a dj set which was really good. Funnily enough three days later I went to Digital Overdose and there was 3000 people at The Roxy going off to the same music, weird huh! Eventally Hard Drive stopped and they moved their parties to The Roxy, and they changed their name to System 6. I actually went to the first System 6 party in 1996. They tried to do System 6 on a weekly basis but it didn't work and died badly in winter. During 1997 they realised hardcore wasn't working and changed their music policy to hard NRG, Jen E and an upcoming dj called Ricemeister pushed this style, while Thief played hardcore. Also other locals like Miss Tracey and Hakka made guest apparances playing Hard NRG. They also got interstate djs, most notably Paul Holden. Paul actually played good happy hardcore, I enjoyed his sets. They also got people like Daydream who played fucking god awful chesse infested happy hardcore, it was painful and during this time (97-98) there was only Thief playing hardcore like once a month so you kinda had to enjoy this or waiting another month. They realised that once a month was the best way to do System 6 parties, and it was a successful decision. The Overdrive crew hooked up with the Advent'jah crew and did the Recharge parties. These two organisations became good friends and dominated the Brisbane scene from 98ish-2002, riding the success of hard house and Hard NRG. Like Advent'jah, System 6 brought out all the hard house NRG djs from the UK, I met most of them, decent people. I remember System 6 bringing out Jon Langford from Knuckleheads about a million times, the guy should have bought a place in Brisbane! System 6 was always at The Arena, and was always pulling around 1000 people at its height. The main room was hard house, spiky room was the Hyperspeed hardcore room and there was either a house room or the fucking Tech Trance Troop upstairs, they soooo didn't deserve that room. In 2002-3, hard house died off and there was a resurgance of hardcore but mainly UK hardcore, and while Advent'jah went downhill, System booked guys like Scott Brown and Hixxy, thus giving System 6 a new life to continue. However, people eventually got sick of System 6, Thief was getting rid of popular djs (Ricemeister!) and although he tried to take System to the Gold Coast it just didn't work. System 6 was a great club and I spent some incredible times there as a punter and a dj.

As I've mentioned hardcore was dying badly in Brisbane in the late 90's, however some of us punks wanted to play hardcore and not sell our souls to hard house. Thief got rid of DJ Hurricane (Paul Briggs, the (kick) boxer) who played hardcore and Thief needed someone to play hardcore at the end of the night at System 6. Erazor had been part of a hardcore dj crew called the Armageddon Crew. They had done hardcore parties in The Attic, which was the upstairs room of The Site. The crew had long since broken up, but Erazor was still buying records. Thief asked Erazor to fill the hardcore spot at System 6. Erazor was an instant success, and immediately became part of the System crew. I first met Erazor at a Creation party he was playing at in 1998, he was playing all these hardcore records which I had myself (everybody went to Central Station back then!) or Rotterdam gabber that sounded cool. I introduced myself to him that night and complemented him on his set. I told him I was a budding hardcore dj, and asked me for a mixtape. I did the tape and he was impressed with it. We eventually hooked up for mix up sessions and became good friends, wow its been 10 years! Through a mutual friend I met Whiplash, he too was a bedroom hardcore dj, we had similar tastes in hardcore and became very good friends after that. A year later Whiplash won the 1999 Central Station DJ Comp at Viva (in Paddington!), and became popular from that. At some point in 1999 me, Erazor and Whiplash hooked up and discussed what we could do to save hardcore in Brisbane. Erazor's 4am sets at System 6 became so popular that Thief asked Erazor to acquire other hardcore djs and start a second hardcore room at System 6. Thief knew Whiplash before his win at Viva, so when he won Thief instantly wanted him to play in this new hardcore room. the room was first called the Gabba and Jungle Dungeon, because Static and Lincoln and DJ Jedi (top bloke) were playing dnb beforehand. However Whiplash had double booked himself that first night, he had a gig in Darwin (!) so naturally he did the interstate gig. They needed a replacement and both Erazor and Whiplash recommended me to Thief. Thief knew me as a punter so I played my first big gig at the Halloween System 6 party in 1999. And it was a glorious night!! We played in the Mezzanine Room, but because it was successful, Thief asked us to play at every System 6. He changed the name to the Hyperspeed Room and the three of us had a three year residency in the Spikey Room at The Arena from 1999-2002, we were the only ones playing hardcore in Brisbane, it was a great three years and I feel very lucky to have been a part of it. Erazor named the three of us, The Pressure Squad. Since we did well at System 6, we played at most of the big parties including a number of Advent'jah parties. Very good times indeed!

n 2002, Advent'jah was going downhill and basically something had to change. There was a young punter who enjoyed The Pressure Squad called Harley. He would speak to me about how he could do better job then Advent'jah, I thought he was talking crap, but himself, DJ Menace (a hardcore dj who we all knew mainly played 190 bpm H2OH and Gangsta, good mixer though) and Menace's girlfriend were taking out a loan to finance a party. They got some advice from the Advent'jah Crew and somehow gained the services of Omar Santana, Rob Gee and Buzz Fuzz! This turned out to be the first Mayhem party. I thought the party would flop because hardcore wasn't big enough for the main room of the Arena, but I ate my words, the party was packed! In particular Buzz Fuzz played a damn good set. I got to meet all of the djs and they were good people. The party was a success, due to very good production values and Harley was well known person and the fact a raver was doing the party seem to work. This party single handedly took hardcore to a larger scale in Brisbane. We wanted to play at the party but Thief wouldn't let Pressure Squad play, Harley REALLY wanted me to play at the party, but we felt that Thief had been good to us that we should repay the favour, this didn't last long. Due to the success of this party Harley put on more Mayhem parties, all of which were successful, so much so that he too went to the RNA. I think the height of Mayhem was the party he did at The Convention Centre in 2004 with Dyewitness, one of the best parties I've played at. Because of Mayhem parties we got to see Evil Activities, Predator, Endymion, Panic, Tommyknocker, Tha Playah, Catscan, Outblast, Art Of Fighters, Rob Gee and Angerfist, which deserves respect in itself.

In 2000, Pressure Squad had become fairly popular for being the only ones playing hardcore in Brisbane. We had a small but dedicated crowd, and every month we got to play our new records out to awesome people. One person was an older guy, apparently he was an ex-raver from the mid 90's, he loved his hardcore and approached Erazor about doing a small hardcore party. This led to a party called Hardcore Uproar at Souths Leagues Club where Thrillseeka 666 was held. Hardcore Uproar did OK, but this guy was determined to do more parties. In 2000 or 2001 (can't remember) he did a party called Thrillseeka, the track Thrillseeka had recently came out and was quite popular when Whiplash played it at System 6. The party was headlined by a Sydney DJ called Reflux, he played Frenchcore, I didn't even know France made hardcore! Really nice guy. Pressure Squad played with Fraktour, Fraktour did the ill fated Club Dilate nights, weekly hardcore night at The Shmrock, remember weekly never works! I believe the last 30 minutes of Thrillseeka was a massive back to back by all the djs, top night and the turnout was good. Eventually I found out that this guy's name was Damien and so changed his name to DJ Crakt. Thrillseeka 2 took place in 2002 upstairs at The Arena headlined by Sydney dj Kemiks. He too played Frenchcore but he had a typical "Sydney attitude", once again another top night although the turnout was ok. I forgot who played, I've got all the flyers, I'll have to scan them sometime, but Pressure Squad played, I think that was Crakt's first gig. Thrillseeka 3 took place in 2003 at the aptly named Gabba Hotel with the legendary Paul Elstak. Since the party was in Woollongabba we thought this would be a disadvantage. Pressure Squad played on 3 or 4 decks, that was interesting. I think that was Fuzzy Logic and Warpdrive's first gig. I think we got a below average turnout but I had a great time. Me and Harley had a drinking competition which lead to me passing out and vomitting behind Paul Elstak!! Thrillseeka 4 was in March or April 2004 and was headlined by Chosen Few and Endymion which was pretty huge for us! The party was split between Heaven nightclub and Morning Glory or Rise (can't remember) which in retrospect wasn't a good idea. Once again we got an ok turnout, but it was an excellent night, Chosen Few and Endymion played good sets and were excellent people in reality. Some of us still have the t-shirts from the party. Generally Crakt has done Thrillseeka purely for his love of hardcore, he's lost money on almost every party, that's dedication. Even though Thrillseeka parties didn't pull the huge numbers, the people at the parties had a good time and they were an important part of hardcore in Brisbane, I'm very proud to be a part of Thrillseeka.

Other parties of note:
In 1998, there was a hardcore party at The Roxy called Psykacore. It was headlined by The Speedfreak and Bazooka. I swear they played 250 bpm for two hours! Completely cleared the floor and everybody went upstairs to the House Room, haha!

In 1998, System 6 helped do a party called Hellraiser. It was headlined by Predator and Tellurian. Small turnout, but I loved it, they played live, and when they played Jiiieehhaa live, I went nuts!! The Immortalz (aka 911 and Tymez 2) also played. 911 played the first new style tracks I'd heard, and Tymez 2 played the most brutal Industrial Strength set at 4am, awesome night.

And that ends the history lesson for today.

- By 2Styliztik July 2008

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