South West of England Club Promotion/Dj Collective CULTURAL VIBES came into being on Saturday 3rd October 1992 at the Quay Club in Plymouth Devon. Back then most of the S-West was Hardcore raving mad, with the speed of the music increasing in BPM almost by the week. The emerging Rave scene had found a true spiritual home down in the S-West of England and Plymouth seemed to "have it" particularly well with 2 huge world-class venues, The Academy & The Warehouse. However by mid 1992 the heady days of earlier Rave Promoters like Extreme, Wasp Factory & Alpha had been replaced by a much harder, faster and darker sound as S-West crews like Essence and later Revelation took the emerging Jungle/Hardcore sound to the masses with huge success. During the spring & summer of 92 Nottingham's renegade Free Party Collective DiY had made a big impression on local boy Dave Green. The full DiY crew played at a string of events in and around Exeter and Bath that summer culminating in the free party scenes finest hour, Castlemorton. The music the DiY DJ's played was still underground & trippy, but was slower, groovier and much more House Music orientated. Very similar to a born again moment Dave Green realised this was the future for him, and set about trying to get involved. After first dabbling in designing & producing Rave clothing he took the very first money from the clothing venture and headed off to the big Universe Rave on September 11th 1992. There the DiY team had their own separate tent for 12 hours and that night a very nervous & wasted Dave Green asked his favourite DJ, Simon DK if DiY would come to Plymouth and play for him. The answer was in the affirmative and 4 weeks later Cultural Vibes was born and a promising clothing venture was dead and buried.

On the opening night @ the Quay Club 285 curious people crammed into a tiny forgotten little club on Plymouth's historic Old Quay and proceeded to tear the roof off. Timing was certainly one of the reasons for Cultural Vibes immediate success; it just seemed to be the right time for change. It also helped that the all-new British House explosion was just underway with labels like Guerrilla, Boys Own, Limbo and Cowboy all starting to release some top notch home grown records, gaining lots of valuable press. Add to this an incredibly healthy US House scene with labels such as Strictly Rhythm and Murk, and Italian labels like UMM and Creative plus a large measure of original House and Acid classics and the Vibes musical cocktail was complete. From the outset Cultural Vibes went off in a massive way. During the 8 crazy weeks @ the Quay club numbers went as high as 358 which was actually quite dangerous in a club licensed for 200. After all the great music it's the intense heat that most people seem to remember. The free frozen fruit also sticks out along with the pretty young girls that shared it out at midnight. But it's the photographs taken at the Quay Club that really show what an influential club it was. Pictures from the nights show the dance-floor packed full of soon to be Dj's, Club Promoters, Musicians, Music Writers, Club Wear retailers, Record Shop owners, Video Game designers, Photographers, Film Directors, and future SW Scene leaders all wide eyed with broad their sweaty smiles. It really was a seminal time for everyone that went there. For sure something special and unique had happened in Plymouth, but no one could have predicted then, just how far it would all go! (The original Quay Club Photo's can be found @ "The Cultural Vibes Appreciation Society" page on Facebook)

During the Quay Club run Cultural Vibes was entertained by Dj Haze ( Joe Waterfield, played every week) and Dj's Phil Jubb, Geoff Van Dyke, Ian Smith & Will & Johnnie from the Lazy House sound system, Mr Dee, Pad e & Barry from Happy Shopper, Scottie and Dan Rayner with the last tune @ the Quay played by Dave Green. Another full time resident for the run was Andrew Chinn who would remain the door picker/greeter/friendly face/man to know, forever. Eight weeks of absolute mayhem would sadly have to stop, as the numbers were way to big for the venue. Watching the ceiling drip sweat and condensation continuously onto the lighting system was scary as was the queue for the toilets. Also a fractious relationship had developed with the Quay Club management over Cultural Vibes split of the door and this also helped spell the end of the Quay Club run. Once the decision was made there was only one place Dave Green wanted to take Cultural Vibes, and that was to his favorite club in the world, The Warehouse on Plymouth's infamous Union St.

Quite possibly one of the best club venues on Earth the Warehouse was a huge converted 1930's Art Deco cinema. (Once the largest cinema in the south of the UK) Pretty much a white elephant for years due to its immense size, it had been reborn as Rave venue in 1989 and for those that went there regularly it was truly hallowed ground. However due to a rising amount of drug related violence (then called taxing) the venue had seen better days #as the masses that traveled from all over the S-West to Plymouth for the big raves had suddenly dwindled. By Dec 92 The Warehouse was completely up for grabs on Saturday's and thanks to some canny behind the scenes maneuvering with the help of Happy Shoppers Fleur and Plymouth dance legend Lee Reynolds Dave Green found himself about to run the club of his wildest dreams. One major hurdle remained though, how to put 300+ people in a venue that could hold 2500 and make it feel both comfortable and still look good. A great meeting of minds created the solution as Dave Green and Dan Thompson from Kaos Design trialed a few failures but came up with a total winner in the end. By stitching together a hoard of white army camouflage nets and utilising the 3ton-ceiling winch and later the underused Dj Egg/Booth they created the perfect indoors party venue. Finally just like their beloved free party scene, (which the Thatcher government had only just outlawed) Cultural Vibes had a giant legal tent of their own. All they needed now was DiY.

The DiY crew really did put the icing on the Cultural Vibes cake as Jack, Pezz, Simon DK, Digs & Woosh, Emma and Pip made regular monthly missions to Plymouth throughout 93 to help create the Cultural Vibes ethos and sound. Unlimited help and support also came from Mark & Jess Darby who ran the highly influential Mighty Force Record Shop/Label in Exeter. As well as supplying all the Resident Dj's with their vinyl, Mark & Jess helped immensely with the early bookings, enabling Dave to find his feet as a fledgling promoter. Phil Jubb was one of the staff at Mighty Force and the shop would go on to introduce Dave to a host of future Vibes Dj's. One of these was Exeter resident, Mighty Force regular and future dance music superstar Tom Middleton. As well as playing Tom designed a string of catchy Cultural Vibes flyers throughout 1993 and his quirky, humorous take on the flyer genre seemed to catch the zeitgeist. As the weekly numbers steadily grew, so the giant camouflage net was raised to yet another level, opening up more of the vast Warehouse venue up to the public. This continued regularly right up until the first Luv-Dup night when 750 people finally saw the whole venue opened up and Cultural Vibes shift into yet another gear.

Resident Dj's for 1993 @ The Warehouse were Dj Haze, Phil Jubb, Duncan Parks, and later Verdi (Dave Green) and Mr Dee.

Guest Dj's that played throughout 1993 were: Jack, Pezz, Simon DK, Digs and Woosh, Pip, Emma, Shane and Jamie, Clinton, Choci, Ian lazy Smith, Will & Johnnie Lazy House, Mike Shawe, Mike C, Jon Dasilva, Nero, Andy Finnie, Danny Ayres, Mark & Adrian Luv-Dup, Froggy(RIP), Jay Baker, Tigger, Dj Rush, Richie Rundle, Tom Middleton, Mr Mullatto, Sonny, Steve Proctor, Phil Asher, Noel Watson, AJ, Charlie Hall, Hazel B, Geoff Van-Dyke, Gary Marson, Matt Perry, Bongo Pete Isaac, Roy The Roach, Judge Jules, Gordon Kaye, John Kelly, Lee Fisher, Pascals Bongo Massive(RIP), Girls on Top, Kelvin Andrews, Justin Garrett, Andy Roberts, Patrick Smoove, Al McKenzie, Phil Gifford, Mc/Dj Ribbz, John Mcready, Chris and James, Ashley Beedle, and Iain McKenzie.

The Chillout Room - During the 2nd half of the year The Fruit Bowl played host to the newly formed Freestyle Collective (Bloodshot, Kooki, Pes) Bongo Pete Isaac, and Children Of Kaos Dj's (Andy Compton, Ritchie Piggot, Dj Flex (Chris Hart) and Paul Honey) to be continued ................