Party Vibe

Mine was a old barn up the back of where I live in 2001. But if you mean a pay rave it was NYE 2003/4 at the sanctuary milton keynes. Night was really good. In fact it was a banger. I was well into hardcore old and nu so I was in my element. I remember DJ Hixxy played like 6 of my fav HH tunes when he opened his set and then moved onto the newish stuff. I’m not really a fan of todays hardcore so much but I didn’t mind the Nu energy stuff and other bits back in the early 2000’s

Here’s the link nuttypuffer sent me, I thought I would add it to the thread. Sounds like a right banger.

Milwaukee’s – Interview 1993

Milwaukees was one of the first legal rave club in the UK with a late license and was succesful and popular for a number of years. Several well known acts and DJs got their big breaks at the rave nights held at Milwaukees. The following is a short piece about the club from back in the day:

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I was really looking forward to my Friday outing at Milwaukees and on leaving home I knew I was in for a good one, well what else would you expect from a “Premier Rave Venue” in the Midlands!!! Having made it through the wilds of Bedfordshire, I’m driving up the A6 and there it is bright as a star. I drove into the car park and there is Frank (the God of parking).

He gets all us ravers parked in such a way that if you decide to leave before chucking out time you ain’t got to get one of the MC’s to interrupt the music asking ravers to move their cars, respect to you Frank….

Up to the door I go and there to greet me is Floyd. He is one of the 6 guys who make up Milwaukees “Safe as Houses Security”. There’s a quick but thorough security check and I’m in. Respect to the security.

I pay my £12 and away I go. The first thing I notice is how loud the music is. For those of you with an eye for these technicalities and it’s all double dutch to me, the sound system is a 25k Cerwin Vega + 5k Sub Base. All I know is that when your out on the dance floor your surrounded by an amazing wall of sound that makes yer ears bleed. Oh yeah I must mention the two fabulous young ladies that also work the front of the house. Firstly let me introduce you to the lovely Cheryl. She collects your entrance fee. She has always got a smile and friendly word or two for everyone. Then there is the just lovely Natasha. She does the security checks on all you lady ravers and also runs the cloakroom, which is a staggering 20p per item.

Now the reason I am mentioning all these people is because in my humble opinion this is where the backbone of a club is made. I think that we the ravers are the heart of the club. The DJ’s are the eyes and ears and the brain is the guvnor, who at Milwaukees is a jolly decent chap who goes by the name of Des to one and all. More of Des later. Now lets get back to the backbone. As I said it’s the staff of the club that work really hard at making Milwaukees the jumpin, pumpin, kickin club it is. Obviously I am unable to mention everyone by name, but to all of the staff who make the night kick – respect to you all.

Right, let’s move along. Milwaukees has the capacity for a crowd of 500 ravers. Most Fridays the club is filled to capacity and though you may have to queue, you will get in. Occasionally latecomers have to be turned away. The reason for this is because of the top class line-ups booked to appear every week.

Now is a good time to introduce you to Des. As I said before he is the Guvnor and brains behind this club. Des has had his name over the door for just under 2 years. He is very proud of what he has achieved in that time and rightly so.

I went into his office to pick his brains at around 4.30am. Now I wasn’t sure what he would be doing, maybe have his feet up enjoying a well earned beer. What he was doing I would never have guessed. Like most clubs Milwaukees has a membership scheme which is free and open to anyone who takes the time to fill in the form. Now every 4 weeks every member receives through the post a flyer giving full details of the line up’s for the next 4 weeks. All the DJ’s are booked and are then listed as to which night they will be appearing. So what you may ask yourself, what is so special about that.

Nothing really. Here’s Des putting a few flyers in to envelopes. Except it’s not a few, not even a few hundred. At the last count Milwaukees had around 12,000, yes twelve thousand ravers on their mailing list.

IN his office are boxes and boxes of envelopes ready to go out to the membership of this club. That’s a hell of a lot of licking sticking.

Well I cleared my self a space. Got me trusty notebook and pen out and spend the next half an hour putting various questions to him.

As we enter into 1993 do you see the £12 admission fee rising?

Well as you know I always try to book the very best line up available, and as you know top quality costs the most. So an increase would depend on the outlay I have to make to hire the best DJ’s. Milwaukees has built up a reputation for having the best of the DJ’s appearing every week. There is no increase planned for the foreseeable future, but like all businesses I’m subject to market costs. If DJ’s don’t go up in cost, there is no need for an increase.

At some other clubs I’ve been to, the DJ line up has been very good but I haven’t enjoyed myself because of the attitude of the crowd in the house, yet here week after week this place kicks and the crowd here are like best friends. Is this just luck or is this party atmosphere a sort of imposed policy in the way you influence the club?

Yes, I get a great deal of satisfaction from attracting the regular crowd we get here every week. We have supporters who travel from as far away as Birmingham, Coventry, Oxford, Leicester, Cambridge and London who come every week. I take this as a compliment and want to make sure that everyone has a great night. Therefore I would sooner have 100 genuine party people inside and keep out 400 morons. It has taken a lot of hard work to achieve what we have here and to give credit to all our supporters, in my time here I have never had to call the Police and there hasn’t been a single arrest here. The crowd we get here are the very best and that’s the way it’s going to stay. I want people to come here and do their own thing so long as it doesn’t spoil the night of anyone else.

Des, the music here at Milwaukees has always been more than tilted towards hardcore, with a lot of clubs now tending to go down the garage path, do you have any plans to change the style of the music here?

I have never influenced the style of music played here, if there is a change of style it would be a natural progression, Evolution not Revolution.

Well I could see Des was dying to get back to all those envelopes, so I thanked him for his time and disengaged myself from the boxes. On entering the offices apart from all the boxes I noticed a large pile of cassettes. As I was about to leave I asked Des what they were. He said they were sent to him from up and coming DJ’s. He said that he listens to them and if he thinks that there is talent in what he hears, then he gives the sender a ring. Des likes to give new acts a chance to get up and show their stuff.

I now made my way to where it was all happening. Right up to the 1 & 2’s. Earlier on I had asked MC Juice Man if he had time for a chat. Well it’s just after 5am and the house is kickin. I can hear Juice Man doing his stuff. Top Buzz has taken over the decks for the last hour and he is rippin it up. Nearly everyone in the house is up on their feet. I wave at Juice Man, it’s too loud to even attempt to talk. He sees me and points towards the door. We start to make our way out to the front of the house, but it seems everyone on the floor wants to touch hands and show their respect to the Juice Man. Milwaukees has two X1nt resident MC’s. Juice Man and MC Hooligan. Tonight though Juice Man is here on his own. He’s been doing stuff since 10pm last night and looks like he wants to go on for another 7 hours. We make it out into the lobby and we start to chat with me making notes.

Juice Man is the ripe old age of 20. He has had a mike in his hand since he was 14. The first thing that struck me about MC Juice was how quietly he talks. Anyway Juice Man has been MCing at Milwaukees for the last year. He tells me he loves the buzz and atmosphere here and says that with the line up of DJ’s and the crowd in the house here, for him there isn’t any other club to touch Milwaukees. I did point out to him that as one of the MC’s here, he was a very important part of the buzz.

We then went on to talk about the DJ’s he works with. I asked him if there were any particular DJ’s he enjoyed working with. Juice Man said he enjoyed working with all the DJ’s here, but he really gets a kick when he’s alongside Ellis Dee, Jumping Jack Frost and Phantasy. I could see Juice Man wanted to get back to his mike. So I said I only have 1 more question. Do you have a favourite style of music you enjoy MCing over? Jungle he replied and was gone.

So what sort of DJ line up do you get for your hard earned £12 on a Friday night. Here is a just a few DJ’s that attend Milwaukees:

Grooverider Mickey Finn
DJ SS Ratty
Swan E Ellis Dee
Phantasy Carl Cox

As well as everything else, Milwaukees boasts two bars (licensed till 2am), a mouth-watering menu of hot and cold food and drinks served all night, ice-lollies, sweets, snacks and various munchies. All served to you in a flash by very nice people at a very fair price (which is nice to know). Well that’s yer belly sorted.

On to yer eyeballs and ears:

They got: Terrastrobes, Arcline Quasers, Flavoured Smoke, Projectors, Roboscans, Robozaps and lots of other amazing lights and music loud enough to make yer ears bleed.

Finally, the most important thing to make your night kick. The absolutely best bunch of Hardcore Ravers I have ever met.

The Present Day

Sadly Milwaukee’s is now derelict and will never again be host to any parties….

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Damn man, there’s so many legendary places from back in the day that either no longer exist or look completely different (and have totally different clientele) to what they did back then. Depressing shit, but they’ll never take our memories – if the drugs ain’t wiped ’em, fuck all will!

Haven’t been to one yet, time hasn’t been right for it.