The School Pages

The Party '91

In the summer of 1991, Jeremy, Simon and Lestocq decided to have a party at the house that they shared together. The date was the 24th August, and despite it being seven years after we left school, it would be the last time we saw some of our friends for quite a while.

Simon's sausages on the barbecue

Apart from Simon's dark style of cooking, the one thing I remember about the party was the music. Now that is partly because I mixed all the tracks, but also because Jeremy worked out all the music beforehand. I recently found the music track list for the party, all ten pages worth. The style of music was choreographed from 5:00pm (when the party was supposed to start, but it may have started earlier) right through to 3:45am the next day.

5:00pm - 6:00pm Jazz
6:00pm - 6:45pm Jazz -> Pop
6:45pm - 7:30pm Pop -> Rock
7:30pm - 8:15pm Rock -> Manchester -> Dance
8:15pm - 9:00pm Dance 1
9:00pm - 9:25pm 50'/60's 1
9:25pm - 9:45pm New Wave
9:45pm - 10:30pm Must Have 1
10:30pm - 11:15pm Dance 2
11:15pm - 11:35pm 50's/60's 2
11:35pm - 11:45pm 2 Tone
11:45pm - 12:15pm Must Have 2
12:15pm - 1:15am Dance 3
1:15am - 1:30am Stupid Dance
1:30am - 2:00am 50's/60's 3
2:00am - 3:00am Final Mix
3:00am - 3:45am Slow Mix

Jello shots waiting for the party to start

For each section/music style, every track was listed with the track length and whether it was on record (i.e. vinyl), tape or compact disc. The final length of the mix for each side of the tape was calculated and then when I had all the sources together, I would record each side of the tape. Despite Jeremy and my extensive music collection, we didn't have all the tracks that he had listed, so for a few days we went around Our Price and other music stores and he bought the gaps in our collections.

Chris and Simon happy before the magic tricks

After recording the tapes and labelling them I had a list of all the tracks and just had to listen out for the last track in each mix so I could go and change the tape or turn it over. This meant I didn't get to relax as much as everyone else, but if I had got as drunk as some of the others I would have fallen asleep!

If anyone has any abiding memories of this party please contact me via the email link at the bottom of the page, and check out the video of the event on the videos page.