So, having suddenly realised that I’d been missing out on the whole dance music culture thing for years, and, moreover, some great dance records, I did what any self-respecting man in his early thirties would do to try and play catch-up.
I bought a Ministry of Sound The Annual CD.
2 CDs, no less.
One mixed by Judge Jules, the other by Tall Paul. As time passed, I came to realise this was more of a warning than a selling point.
I had some friends round before a works-do once, and popped CD1 on. I think it lasted for about three songs, before my stuck-in-the-90s indie kid mates (unlike me, for I had evolved) insisted I changed it for something a little more guitar-centric.
But not before one of my mates checked out the CD case and pronounced tonight’s choice to be “a tune”.
It’s not the first memory that comes to mind when I hear this record, to be honest.
Whenever I hear it, I’m transported back to Friday nights, when me and three other mates (who shall remain nameless), having sat in our local pub all night suddenly felt the need to go to what I’m reliably informed was called ROAR in The Astoria on Cardiff’s Queen Street.
I can only assume the ROAR was meant in the Katy Perry way, as opposed to the Right of Access Reserved way that I knew it from my days of putting gigs on at college.
Make no bones about it, me and my mates were almost certainly the oldest people at ROAR, an underground trance night (and I mean underground literally, not metaphorically) attended by gangs of feral youths squeezed into boob tubes and furry moon boots who had managed to sneak out of the house without their parents seeing what they were wearing.
To add to my general feeling of being a bit too old to be there, I would, without fail, bump into at least one of the teenage girls who used to work on Saturdays in Boots the Chemist when I was (sort of) management there.
Despite me and my little gang of four being generally a bit pissed up or, occasionally, arriving at “off it”, having necked a pill each on the walk from pub to club, I don’t remember any of us ever dancing at ROAR.
But I do remember this record playing the first time we went there, as we walked down the staircase to the bar/dance floor. Hearing it, we were convinced we were in for a good night, only to find that they played nothing else we liked and we spent the rest of the night standing to the sides, clutching our bottles of beer to our chests, looking forlornly out onto the dancefloor, just as we’d done when we were actually teenagers.
This is the tune in question, still an absolute banger:
Azzido da Bass – Dooms Night (Timo Maas Edit)
S’all about the bass. Someone should write a song about that.
More soon.
A History of Dubious Taste 