Monroes Remembered...
1989 - Summer At this time things were stirring and Dave Griddle and myself were out clubbing doing your clubbing thing and listening to there was this 'new' sound to some of the tunes that people that knew told us was house music. A crowd of people from 'runshaw colledge' came to 'Park Hall' for a bit of a dance on wednesday and the dj (phill meredith) was playing the usual club music of the time ( not reallly my thing - but there were some nice girls (Joanne and Alex; Manj and Narindo you know who you are! :) ) Dave and I heard that there were things called 'convoys' that took you to outdoor parties and we tried in vain to find one... A very personable young lady told Dave "You should go to the Hacienda in Manchester and eventually we went one day. Phil, who after all had a job, spinning club drivle, to do had not really prepared us for what was about to happen. People were being admitted to Fac51 (The Hacienda) and Dave and I were dancing away in our clothes (Me in a suit!!!!)and then , after what seemed like 30 minutes, the lights came on; the music stopped and people started to leave. I thought it must have been a fire alarm and started to head towards the door. Dave checked his watch and we had been in the club for 7 hours! What!??**&&? no really 21;000 - 04:00 REALLY IS 7 HOURS! Well that was it for me and home to Preston to spend most of the following week absolutly shell shocked. It became known, at work, that dave and I were going out to 'Acid House' parties and we fell in with Sophie guinne pig and Mary. Black
1990 We continued goig to 'The Park' and then Andrea Cullin told us that a friend of her's was going to start DJing at ' Monroes Country Club' in Great Harwood. Gilly (Simon Gill-less) had quite a following and on Wednesday nights had arranged with the owner of the club to bring some much needed revenue to the club, bringing in as he did, some 200 or so fans of his music. Dave and I went to see what Andrea was talking about and after a bit of a hunt found the door to a small club and, arriving early, went for our first visit early in january 1990. As was my wont, I started helping clear up n the mornings, became a friend of the owner, and his son Simon. Dave and I went about becoming 'Acid Heads' - although Dave and myself adopted a ' no Drugs' policy. To my knowlege, Dave and myself did not take anything. I know Dave tried ecstacy a couple of times but neither of us needed to regularly - the music completly 'blew our minds' and we became devoted followers of Gilly - going to Hebden Bridge Labour lub' and other strange places to fill our ears with trance music and such. Back in 1990 the dance music scean had not fractured as much as it has today - I was only vaguely aware of 'Trance'; 'Garage'; 'Hard Core' and so on. It as all just 'House' and people who were unaware of the scene mockingly called out "Aceeeeed" to us in the streets.
We had tried to find 'sundance' and failed and then 'Set End' was closed and 'Monroes' took off. Fontunately for Dave and my self I had got to know Simon Really well as we both were Scuba divers and I was able to get into the club through the hundreds of 'party goers' outside the club - trying to get in.
Random links I have found
The scene down in london around the time
Live the dream
Messages on the net
Blackburn Parties
Hardcore Uproar
Leeds scean
