Rave Heritage - The Ratpack Story

This article is about Kiddfectious presents Kiddstock England - The Mystic Peaks @ Thimbleberry Farm in Durham (UK), Sat 08 Aug

With a reputation for taking pride in a policy for the most original, underground and inventive line-ups, Kiddstock continues to showcase the freshest artists from far and wide.
Kiddstock England brings to the hills of Stanhope something extraordinarily special for 2009...not only the most hedonistic party of the summer, but a little piece of dance music heritage.

The Ratpack Story - Rave Heritage

Way back in 1985 was where the Ratpack story began. Back in the days when the underground music scene was one of soul, hip hop, reggae and rare grooves a young beatboxer going by the name of Lipmaster Mark was making waves. At the tender age of 15, Mark's sounds and phrases were already getting radio play courtesy of the likes of Tim Westwood and Mike Allen. He was a regular on the beatboxing battle circuit and was introduced to Locomotion Soul Sound DJ Evenson Allen, who after hearing Mark for the first time requested he beatbox over his DJ set.

Following this first meeting and subsequent gigs with Locomotion, the Ratpack Soul Sound was then formed in '86. Cutting their teeth on the scene as Ratpack, playing house parties and the occasional bar or club round London, Evenson and Mark along with the rest of Britain were oblivious to the dance revolution that they were standing on the brink of.

That revolution was......Accccciiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeed!!!

The Acid House craze was something that grabbed the dance scene of London and then the rest of the UK by the balls, swung em round, chewed em up and then spat em out, creating with it an entirely new culture - Rave Culture.

Ratpack Promotions were among the first of countless warehouse parties, squat parties and illegal raves that began to pop up all over London and then the country. The Ratpack parties were christened 'Trip City'.

"Basically, we knew some guys who would squat in unused warehouses. They were, in theory, protected by a law more commonly known as 'Squatters Rights' which allowed them to reside there. Of course, they would allow us to have the odd party there...how very nice of them!" Says Mark.

Evenson was one of the main DJs of Trip City nights, and although it was generally frowned upon for anyone to get on the mic, Evenson used to sing and toast (MC) over the records he played. MCing was clearly Evenson's key skill because the crowd loved it, singing along and interacting with him. This just went further to shaping him into the obvious highlight of the night.

Throughout this time, Mark had been steadily building up his own record collection and reputation as a DJ, so one night when Trip City were a DJ short Mark and Evenson filled in playing back to back. The rest seemed to be a natural progression to how they still operate today - Mark spinning the tunes and Evenson hyping the crowd on the mic. An obvious recipe for success that would claim them the achievement of being 'the first DJ/MC team on the whole of the scene'.

It wasn't long til the big promoters started to sit up and take note, winning the Ratpack boys bookings at gigs such as Labyrinth, Telepathy, Dance 91/92, Rapido and the legendary Rage at Heaven, London. They were soon playing alongside Kings of the Scene such as Carl Cox, Fabio, Grooverider, DJ Rap and Kenny Ken to name but a few.

Moving into the 1990's, it wasn't long before the guys were longing to create their own sound and start producing their own tracks. Their first break was in the form of a tune entitled 'Jaffa Cakes', apparently so-named after a late night trip to the service station for munchies!!
The next release 'Ooh Ooh Ahh Ahh' was an early breakbeat tune using samples of Blondie's 'Heart of Glass' reinforced the guys producer ambitions and sold around 7000 copies.

youtube.com

No one could have predicted the success of their next release however, which went on to become one of the most recognisable Old Skool tunes ever! Despite the controversial lyrics and blatant representation of the scene at the time which was such a huge concern to the police, government and authorities at the time, the track went straight in to No1 of the UK singles chart!
'Searchin' for My Rizla' beat the likes of Madonna and Kriss Kross to the coveted spot despite Radio 1 and most other broadcasters refusal to play it.

Loading, please wait... If this fails to load, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Macromedia's Flash Player. Click here to get the latest flash player.

This massive accomplishment as well as the also anthemic 'Captain of your Ship' catapulted Ratpack to the bigtime, hooking them up with gigs at Fantazia, Rezerection, Amnesia House, Perception, Pure Organisation and Interdance. The international bookings soon started flying in too from Australia to Canada, Japan to the USA and all over Europe.
They got record deals all over the world with some of the biggest global labels such as BMG, EMI and Sony which kept them touring the world until around 1996.Nowadays the Ratpack are still rocking the Old Skool / Nu-skool Breaks sound from their own label Ratpack Music and have released a massive battalion of hits over the years, some of which are amongst the most seminal Old Skool tunes of all time.

They continue to rock the stages of the UK's biggest events such as Global Gathering, Helter Skelter, Slammin Vinyl, Raindance and Ministry of Sound as well as the holiday destinations of Ibiza, Corfu, Mallorca and Crete.

Not only have Ratpack truly pioneered the rave sound and inspired many many more genres, they have also proved one very important thing - that the original rave sound really is timeless.

DSI EVENT PAGE >> Kiddfectious presents Kiddstock England - The Mystic Peaks

FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE >> facebook.com

CHECK OUT THE FOLLOWING CLASSIC RATPACK MIXES >>

RATPACK - FANTAZIA CLUB TOUR (DEC 1992)
mediafire.com

RATPACK LIVE SET - "SUMMERTIME" FANTAZIA (1993)
mediafire.com

RATPACK @ STEPBACK, MANCHESTER UK (1999)

Loading, please wait... If this fails to load, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Macromedia's Flash Player. Click here to get the latest flash player.