Paul Oakenfold is probably the most renowned producer and DJ who has emerged from the British music scene in the last ten years. His main influences were progressive rock and disco in the seventies, an unthinkable combination in his time but was slowly crystallizing RAVE scene in Manchester in the mid-Eighties.
It was there in La Hacienda de Tony Wilson where the rhythm of Blue Monday by New Order, Oakenfold began working as a DJ, sound engineer and to roadie for the bands that played there including future luminaries Stone Roses, Charlatans and flagship Happy Mondays. These experiences led to the production of the latest album of the Happy Mondays. The recording of Ibiza Thrills and Belly Aches Pills’N marked not only the time when the English House merged with rock music to create prototypical rave but the emergence of a culture based on and around the dance. As the greatest moment often occurs also mark the decline of this ephemeral genre that forever changed the way thousands of people experienced music in the late eighties. After desbandamiento the Happy Mondays, the decommissioning of the Treasury and the financial meltdown of Rough Trade Records seemed that the dream of uniting the rock with dance music ended forever. Paul Oakenfold reacted to these changes and looking for a more refined and expressive sound was so finished mixing the Cream, a then-little-known club in Liverpool. There, in the most unlikely corner of England the revival of the Rave scene would begin.
