In a new weekly series, we’ll be fishing out premium video gold from the dusty archives of YouTube’s lesser explored corners
We’ll be turning the baggies inside out, scraping out left over debris from the corners, and analysing what remains from mid 90s rave culture.
To coincide with the demolishing of Cream’s first home- Nation club in Liverpool- our first video analysis is of the time Grenada TV sent someone to investigate what was going on in “just a big warehouse in the middle of Liverpool, with an average soundsystem, selling over priced drinks”.
Taking the loose format of following a group of people on a night out, hapless roving reporter Trevor takes his cynicism with him to Nation on a Saturday night. The soundtrack: Baby D’s ‘Let Me Be Your Fantasy’, a track that bangs just has hard today as it did in 1995. The vibe: black negligees and half a bottle of pinot before in the words of Trevor “it’s goodnight to mum and off to the bright lights”.
The bright lights seem to be shining out of the eyes of everyone interviewed at Cream. Everyone’s tuned into the fact that it’s the place to be, these beaming faces who’ve travelled from Cardiff and Bradford because they reckon it’s the best club in the country.
Outfits are dictated by a bouncer with the voice of Cilla Black: no gold medallions, no sequins on the front of frocks. Were sequinned frocks considered naff in ’95? Or was the thought of ill advised sparkles caught in the hair of a fellow raver too much to bear?
The thought is offset by Jimmy Saville’s face swinging into action, a vague reference to ‘hanging the DJ’. What did he have to do with Cream in 1995? The image is jarring, a reminder that Britain’s thrown away as much as it’s kept of its past cultural history.
One person who has stood the test of time is James Barton, sporting ginger curtains and a wide smile. An original founder of Cream, he has since been called one of the most influential people in electronic music around the world, currently holding the title of President of Electronic Music at Live Nation.
A true started from the bottom type of guy, he’s here to eulogise vinyl and say that DJs are the new rockstars. Fast forward to 2015 and he's a fan of cashmere trousers; what a difference 20 years makes.
