STAY UP FOREVER - BACKGROUND

Stay Up Forever's creators - Chris, Julian & Aaron Liberator, came together in 1991 when Aaron moved into a North London squat. He was a techno DJ hanging about with punks and travellers and soon met Julian and Chris after hearing about their parties and similar taste in music to his. British techno was in it's infancy and even though the Liberators modestly claim to have played only a small part in it's evolution, the meeting of these three was set to change the scene forever.

With the abominable Criminal Justice Act still a twinkle in the Governments eye, the Liberators were (and still are) dedicated to the squat and free party movement and attended such festivals as Lechlade, Castle Morton & Sodbury Common and parties including Spiral Tribe, Bedlam & Armageddon. It was this underground scene that they were inspired to create music for initially and so Stay Up Forever was born.

Utilising some equipmeny he co-owned with engineer Paul Harding (the 4^th person involved with the label), Chris Liberator set up a studio. The first release, Hardcore Disco EP, was unleashed on the public in 1993, but attracted minimal interest in the UK, although it was better received in Germany. Not disheartened by this, everyone invloved pressed on and were even known to try and sell records themselves at parties. A year later, with several more releases under their belt including the first offerings from A&E Dept and Star Power, they obtained major distribution from Truelove Label Collective and SRD.

As the label became better known for it's quality output, the Liberators went from strength to strength. The gigs were coming in, the records were going out and things were looking good. Secret Hero, Cosmic Trigger and Rebel Yelle had since bolstered the release catologue, together with tunes such as D.O.M.'s 'Acid War', Star Power's 'Nothing Can Save Us, London' and A&E Dept's 'The Rabbit's Name Was.' adding more noteriety to the Stay Up Forever legend.

Soon enough, with the back catologue growing, it became apparent that there was scope for some of the older tunes to be updated and so a Stay Up Forever Remix label was created. After several releases including the absolutely storming remix of 'Acid War', the Liberators issued Lochi's 'London Acid City' (originally released on a Routemaster double pack) and the media went crazy. 'London Acid City', with it's Jon The Dentist remix, gave the label it's best selling 12" to date (over 10 000 copies at last count) and encapsulated the energy of the London underground acid trance/techno scene. Mixmag update honoured it with Single Of The Week and gave it front page coverage and everybody climbed aboard the underground bandwagon.

But the Liberators were already one step ahead and had created Cluster Records. This gave them space to explore other musical offshoots in the shape of 'tribal' techno (or 'acid techno without the acid' as the inscription says on Cluster 10). The sounds were more 'sparse' and the BPM's slower, but immediately the label started hitting home and on only their second release, they gave us Temperature Drop's glorious epic 'What is Soul?'.

In the meantime, the Liberators had also put out a mixed CD and cassette entitled 'It's Not Intelligent And It's Not From Detroit, But It's F**king 'Avin It!' to allow the people who didn't buy vinyl to hear their music. The public's response towards it outstripped their initial expectations, but the original artwork caused some problems. Cigarette paper manufacturers, Rizla, were unhappy at having their product seen on the cover and adverts for the album and took offence to being linked with 'foul language' and 'suggestive drug references'. The original artwork and sleeves were destroyed and new ones with the Rizla name deleted were made, all at the Liberators expense.

Yet all this hard work and expense has paid off and the Liberators are very much in demand. Their ground breaking work with the likes of D.A.V.E. The Drummer, Lawrie Immersion, Guy McAffer, DDR and Paul Harding has stretched over onto other labels, most notably Routemaster and Smitten. Also, alongside numerous gigs in the UK, the list of countries they have collectively played is increasing and includes France, Spain, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Croatia, Serbia, Czech Republic, Russia, Canada, USA, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Slovenia and Brazil.

In between jetting all over the world, they somehow found the time to put together a European underground techno CD on Input records and also compile and mix a second collection forTruelove. 'It's F**cking 'avin it.2' picked up where the original left off and highlights how the Liberator sound has stayed abreast of the times.

It's a hard life being a DJ, but as Chris Liberator points out - "it's the odd glamorous gig and the rest..the usual dirty warehouse, crusty muddy fields and dingy clubs with one strobe light - the stuff we've always loved and will continue to love!!". You and me both, Chris.

Written by Mark Tyler