Chase & Status ft. plan B, Pieces

I know I am late with this one as it is number one in the UK dance chart. But I gathered that many readers of this blog are from outside of the UK, so I'd like to share it anyhow. This track already blows my mind when I listen to it at home, so I can imagine the impact it would have when you hear it booming out in a club. F*****g brilliant!

The return of a legend, Grooverider is free!!!!

Dego from 4Hero and I had been writing backwards and forwards to each other through MySpace about the fate of Grooverider. Dego kept posting the words 'Free Grooverider' on MySpace and, seeing as I had been wondering about how Grooverider was doing (see an older posting), I contacted Dego and we started talking about what we could possibly do for 'the Rider'.

Lucky enough, we didn't need to do anything anymore as Grooverider got his well-deserved pardon earlier this month during Ramadan.

See this from Music News.com:

Grooverider is back in the UK after serving seven months of a four year sentence in a Dubai prison. The 'Rider, real name Raymond Bingham, was arrested in November 2007 at Dubai airport on charges of possession of 2.16 grams of cannabis.

In February, he was sentenced to four years in prison. After his lawyer, Mohammad Al-Reda, was unable to get the charges dropped during an appeal, Grooverider’s only hope of returning to England was during the religious festival of Ramadan, when 700 Emirati and ex-pat prisoners are traditionally pardoned.

In August, Grooverider heard his name was on a list of potentials, but it wasn’t until Monday 1st September that he heard he was being released.

Grooverider finally returned home on September 4 and we can now all breathe a collective sigh of relief.

To celebrate, Lock N Load Events have teamed up with Groove Connection and Alchemy to put on the party of the year with a stellar line up selected by the main man himself!

Joining Grooverider at KOKO on his return to clubland will be an all-star supporting cast of friends and special guests. First up is of course the long-awaited 2 hour B2B set between Grooverider and partner Fabio. Alongside them will be Shy FX, Dillinja, Bailey, Mickey Finn and Jumping Jack Frost, with MC’s GQ and Fats on the mic, with more DJs to be announced.

This party is going to blow up big time! Get down there if you can. It's on Saturday the 11th of October at Koko. Good to have the Rider back!

Another meditation rave clip

The man who rocked the house that night (all those years ago)...DJ Hype. Still one of the best sets I have seen in my life. Together with his 'partner in crime' DJ Zinc. Lovely boys, great music. They were definatelly some of those who really made drum and bass exciting for me.

Meditation V @ Halle 101, Speyer (19.10.1996) Pt. 7

Big up to Grooverider! He's such a lovely guy. I can't believe he got sentenced to four years in prison for posession of a small amount of grass at Dubai airport. Unbelievable! Does anyone know how he is doing? My thoughts go out to him...

Meditation V @ Halle 101, Speyer (19.10.1996) Pt. 8

Oh my God, how cool that this is on Utube. This party was so bloody amazing. It was one of the best night I have ever had in my life. Watching DJ Hype tear up the place was legendary. And the crazy laughing-gas balloon stands were something I had never seen before and have never seen anywhere since. Brilliant, brilliant night. Great Partyzone moment...

You've come a long way baby!

I've always been a sucker for Drum n Bass. There's nothing like the full body work-out you get when dancing at a good DnB night. When the DJ was really good, I didn't even want to intoxicate myself in any way as it could get in the way of my dancing (you never know how things might 'fall' from time to time, know what I mean?)

Some of the most memorable club nights I have ever attended have been DnB nights, with a vibe that is impossible to explain to anyone who wasn't there. It was a mix of danger, decadence (at a later stage) and explosive devotion from its followers. Instead of putting their hands up in the air, people would throw flames up or just hold up their lighters on the highest setting (DJ Hype told me that on some nights people were even firing guns in the air, although that would have been a bit too much danger and excitement for my liking). The crowd on the dance floor and around the DJ booth would just go insane on some tracks, demanding several 'rewinds' to keep them happy.

The Partyzone was around at the early days of Jungle, which over time became Drum and Bass. I remember interviewing the likes of Goldie, Roni Size, DJ Krust, DJ Hype, Zinc, Fabio, Grooverider, etc. on a regular basis. Now, it took a fair while to get accepted by those in the jungle/ Drum and Bass scene. Many were very anti media and thought that we (James Hyman and I) were just jumping on the bandwagon. So some of my hardest interviews have been with DJ's and producers from that scene. My God some of them were moody. Although none of them ever beat Rebel MC. He was the biggest s**t I've ever had on the show.

Still, like I said, I did love the DnB scene. And the best set I ever watched was by DJ Hype. I can't remember the name of the night, but it was somewhere in Germany. When Hype played the stage was full of other DJ's, producers, etc. Normally people would leave after their set was done, but here they had nowhere else to go, so everyone stayed and watched Hype. And they all just freaked out when they saw him play. The guy is a bloody genius & he mixes with an ease that I have not often seen in anyone else, he even looks slightly bored or disinterested whilst doing it. It's such a turn-on to see such a genius in action. So I did end up have a slight crush on him back then. Not that the guy was particularly good looking, but just because he was so cocky and talented. I never told him or anyone else, though : )

I've always had a soft spot for geniuses. I can't help it. It's just so bloody sexy to see that kind of confidence and skill. Guess that's why I ended up marrying a genius myself (no, not a DJ, but a man with many talents including football, search engine optimizing, other 'nerdy' computer stuff, plus an outlook on life that's genius in itself ; )

Anyway, I'm digressing...back to DnB.


The minute I moved to another kind of jungle (the one here in Central America) I stopped looking at what was happening in the DnB scene. I literally haven't looked back since that November in 2001 when we moved away from London. I still listened to my old DnB music when working out, but that was it. But recently I decided to take a quick peek at what's been happening in that world.

And it's great to see things like DnB TV , to see all the old faces still doing their thing & to see the talent that has emerged since I disappeared from the scene, like Logistics and of course Pendulum. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!

Oh, I do miss a good dance now and then.....