Rick H.

Born in Fulham in 1965. Rick moved to the Kingston upon Thames area (Berrylands) in his early teens. His DJ history started in the late 80s with the Acid House scene but he was always a prolific collector of rare 12" imported dance tracks in his formative years. This passion took the form of making tapes for friends and meeting up for the infamous 'tune-offs' with other dance music adepts which became known as the 'Thursday Club'. Eventually this style of playing mainly instrumental, dub and remixed versions of underground dance music morphed seamlessly into the emerging Electro scene of which major influences would be artists like Afrika Bambatta and the soul sonic force, planet patrol and man parrish etc. With the eventual emergence of acid house, Rick then started his Dj incarnation as well as a punishing almost nightly clubbing regime in the early London rave scene. It was at this point that a chance meeting with Belgian New Beat Producer and artist DJ Krimson led to a relationship with seminal Belgian Label 'Subway Antler' which was to make him at that time one of possibly only 3 DJs in London to be playing Belgian New beat, Hardbeat and Skizzo. He then formed the 'Perfect Beat Club' in London and started playing small venues and even organising events himself, one of which was at his beloved Craven Cottage, where he can still be found on alternate saturday afternoons following his other main passion, FFC. After forging a reputation as a unique and always uncompromising underground Dj at a local level he was set for an undoubtedly meteoric rise to superstardom. However, his unflinching loyalty to the european style of techno that he now played meant that with the destruction of true rave culture in '91 by Maggie and the Beer lobbies (know your rave history), the british public were duped into believing that the abomination that was DrumNbass was the way forward (where is it now?), and genuinely talented and original Djs were unable to find raves to work at. And so, the style that now pervades virtually every aspect of modern dance music, and even the charts, moved back to europe and to a handful of very very exclusive London clubs. At this point all seemed lost, but due to another chance meeting with 'React records' owners James Horracks and Thomas Foley during a night out with Dj Krimson, Miss Nikki Trax and Praga Khan of 'lords of acid' fame, he was put on the guest list for Heaven on a friday night and eventually found, along with myself, an oasis of decent dance music in the sea of appalling breakbeat nonsense, at nights such as Garage,Troll,Trade and FF. Here Dj Favourites such as Daz Saund, Trevor Rockliffe and later Tony Devit were pioneering a new style from the ashes of european techno. This later became known as Nu energy. As a Dj, Rick H is without doubt the best I've ever heard. He was just too far ahead of his time. But I thank him all the same. Another unsung Hero of the scene. A TRUE LEGEND! (source- Dj Die bisher 95)