"You can't spell Leeds without LSD and a couple of Es": Independent promoter memories of dance music spaces in Leeds.

Since the early 1990s, UK dance music venues have experienced a rollercoaster ride, the commodification of rave and DJ culture took the party from fields and warehouses into the high streets of towns and cities. In Leeds legendary brands such as ‘Back2Basics’ and ‘Speedqueen’ were born. With a proliferation of high profile ‘club’ venues and brands in which DJs played a diet of largely electronic music genres to worshipping crowds, entrepreneurs and imitators emerged, keen on taking a slice of the action. In parallel to this, a new free party and rave movement is blossoming unofficially in ‘venues’ as varied as fields, woodlands and houses in student suburbia. Barnes (2018) highlights the emergence of a new rave scene in 2018, which mirrors the original rave scene of the late 1980s, albeit with certain differences, including the music, which tends to be heavier and more bass orientated, with drum'n'bass, being a popular genre, the drugs are different, with nitrous oxide (NOS or N2O) and Ketamine (Ket) being the popular drugs of choice to match the 140 beats per minute (BPM) music. This presentation, which is based on my own PhD research will explore the development of ‘club’ leisure spaces, and how these have evolved in Leeds over the past 30 years, which there is currently no official collective record of.