The Mill did some proper tenacious journalism there
Snap! The only one I ever bought.
On paper a lot more of their work should appeal to me, just not enough to spend money on it.
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There isnt a lot of blame you could land at Heavenly’s door step but Big Beat maybe one
I met my wife at Nottingham Heavenly Social ( Weatherall playing upstairs to a sparse crowd) / Daft Punk ( pre Da Funk) played one earlier / Psyconaughts one after were amazing
wont comment on Skint era as not my thing but I do like what FBS achieved - 200k people on Brighton beach
It was a lot shitter than house but we ( well me) were like the Soul Boys hearing Acid at Caister
A friend from school ran a Big Beat night in Sheffield ( NY Sushi) and they had brilliant lineups
You had to be there I guess
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I was at University in Sheffield. Big fan of NYSushi - it kept me sane!
I remember a date; we agreed to meet at NYSushi, she was with about five friends, I was on my own.
She thought I was weird to go to a club on my own! NY Sushi was one of the places I learned to trust that the DJ makes the night.
You meet people, you dance, you go home. It’s all good.
(Later Plastic People was a similar feeling, turn up any night on your own and it will be fine).
Anyway, that day I had bought some Acupuncture shoes (remember them anyone?) they were so cool and so new - but the shop only had 9s.
I wanted them so much I bought them anyway.
Wore them to the date. My feet killed me so I took them off, hid them behind a speaker, carried on dancing in my socks.
She definitely thought I was weird after that.
We dated for a year so she got used to it.
Happy days. The Leadmill, Devonshire Street, Music Box (? on a corner I think?)
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Leadmill 
I lived there 89 - 92
Not here to defend Big Beat’s legacy by any means, however…
The fact that the writer’s exposure to the genre was experienced in the USA via film and game soundtracks rather than living amongst the culture as it appeared, evolved then died up it’s own arse doesn’t really lend itself to be a true representation of it’s place in the grand scheme of things. By the time it hit his ears, it was bastardised beyond belief, the soundtrack coupling nu metal groups with big beaters being a prime example.
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I do remember the excitement of hearing the first big beat tunes on the radio and feeling some pride!
And also seeing someone like David Holmes (not officially Big Beat, but deffo Big Beat adjacent) do real film soundtracks for Steven Soderbergh and the soundtrack CD selling well. (The era of great soundtrack comps!)
Trip hop and then big beat was my generation, via gangsta rap and being too young for jungle but loving the music.
Big Beat got formulaic fast, then there was Jump Up (D&B) if you wanted to go back underground.
So, the UK experience was a lot more fluid.
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I have a massive soft spot for big beat/big beat adjacent music. There’s a lot of dross, but there’s also gold in them thar hills.
I feel like some of the more thoughtful Skint and Marine Parade releases still sound great at the right time. Those big dubby breaks tracks that Tayo made in that era will drive a lot of modern dancefloors wild at the right time.
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the Wall of Sound Summer Sizzlers at 93 Feet East were always a good laugh. Estelle was the compere if i remember correctly
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my fave from that era was probably ‘the magic carpet ride’. Weirdly I first heard it late night in a Spanish taxi during my year out and wondered what the hell it was and then kept hearing it over the next few months until eventually tracing it back to Cook. By the time I returned to England, he’d gone stratospheric.
Wall Of Sound is the label I associate most with Big Beat, along with Mary Ann Hobbes’ Breezeblock radio show, it was just a fun period until it became a formula, like a lot of scenes, no one was treating it with the reverence of Jazz or Detroit Techno lol
DJs and producers who were teenage b boys moved into House/Rave and then got bored with that & went back to breakbeats.
Theo/Touche from the Wiseguys was a wicked party DJ, mixing up current Big Beat stuff with classic Hip Hop, AV8 tracks, Steinski… still got some tapes of his mixes.
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Exactly that. A well-written piece from someone who, well, just wasn’t there.
I remember it bringing some fun and punky anarchy back to the dancefloor when everything had got boring. As musical movements will.
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Still listen to the Monkey Mafia Heavenly Social mix, still sounds great.
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I think that’s what they’ve missed completely, the humour of it. Even something like Wiseguys Ooh la la, it’s just a silly poppy tune, they weren’t trying to push boundaries!
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Yeah, Jon Carter was a good party DJ around that period, mixed up the big beat/breaks with a lot of Ragga and Jamaican stuff.
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I had a lofidelity allstars mix which might have been the same series as monkey mafia. had silver bullet 20 seconds to comply and les rhythmes digitales. fun at the time but too hectic now
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The No Tags podcast on Big Beat cinema is quite an amusing listen. Short version, it sound tracked some awful films and has not aged well.
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I remember seeing Jon Carter and he played some Doors track that was beefed up and it was amazing.
I looked for it for years, no idea what it was. In the end I gave up and decided it must be his own thing. It was about around ‘96-‘98
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I was in middle school in the US when it broke here - mainstream radio was in the post-grunge doldrums and the energy of Prodigy, the Chems, (and Daft Punk) was kind of like a shot across the bow on mainstream radio. I remember buying the “Live at the Social” mixes on import ($$) from Tower Records here in Seattle and it was like a whole new eclectic world opened up - I still throw em on every once in a while when I’m cooking…
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True- and there were some great pre big beat records that got co opted by that scene to some extent and were cheapened by the dross around them even though they pre- dated it:
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