Quadrant Park

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Quadrant Park was one of the best known nightclubs in Liverpool during the early 1990's. The club originally started as a mainstream venue much earlier than the introduction of the new styles of music through DJ's in 1990. It was located on Derby Road in Bootle away from the centre of the city of Liverpool in a converted warehouse.

Quadrant Park's Main era in Italian house, Rave and Acid house music began in 1990 and survived until December 1991, despite considerable and persistent licensing issues and unfavourable media attention in newspapers.

The DJ's were essentially locally produced, with Mike Knowler being the original resident whom then invited his old partner in crime from Liverpool's original Acid House venue The State,Andy Carroll.All-nighters were 99.9% illegal at this point in time,it was virtually unheard of for a night club or other premises to have a legal rave.Due to a loop-hole in the local licencing law meant that The Quad,which already had a private members club for their Snooker hall,could run a legal all-nighter.With a need for more Dj's , Andy Carroll invited James Barton (Currently a director/founder of Cream) and John Kelly (Co-founder of the infamous Underground club). Gary J was brought in to do the Warehouse (all-nighter) warm-up and continued to play in the club in the latter months of the club. James and Andy had been working on various projects around the city and had a promotions company called Hax,under this banner they worked with The Quad to bring many then,cutting edge DJ's and acts to Liverpool for the first time .These included acts such as N-Joi, K-Klass ,Katherine E, Altern 8, L.F.O. and Dream Frequency to name a few.The guest DJ's included Trevor Fung, Laurent Garnier, Derrick May, Frankie Bones, Sasha, Steve Proctor and Nipper.

The importance of Quadrant Park in the development of house music in the UK cannot be emphasised enough.It was a clubbing phenomenon in itself,blending many different styles,whilst championing the new sounds and can be seen as one of the places to enjoy the arrival of the second wave of the 'House' music revolution.Often quoted in the the numerous publications that flocked to cover the parties held,particularly by the residents as follows .... 'When you drop a big tune on the decks ,the crowd reaction's like someone just scored a goal at a major footie match' .The euphoria and crowd participation that was experienced,attracted clubbers from far and wide.During peak popularity the queue to gain entry started at least an hour before opening and went a good distance around the sides of the building,continuing in a steady flow throughout the night.

The influence this short lived legend had on people's lives is incredible.Groups of that moment would go to test out their new tracks,notably being N-joi who played one of their first ever gigs of many more , K-Klass and Bizarre Inc who went back and remixed Playing with Knives and named the mix 'The Quadrant Mix' . A few later to be aspiring DJ's were regular party people ,one of them being Lottie who used to go along with all the K-Klass and Chester/Wrexham posse .

[edit] External links

• QuadrantPark.com - A community and history of the many famous DJ's of the nightclub

• [1] click the link '1' to goto www.myspace.com/theretrospectiveshow - Former Quad resident Andy Carroll's weekly journey back in time every Sunday from 7-9 pm on Juice Fm.Playing House music classics from 1988-2004 from his vaults of vinyl .

• [2] click the link '2' to goto www.myspace.com/djjohnkelly - Former Quad resident John Kelly's personal MySpace