Rough and Rude: Uncovering the Vivid Raver Art of 90’s UK Garage

The fre­net­ic visu­al cul­ture of the clas­sic UK jun­gle and oth­er under­ground rave scenes is pre­served in zine form.

In the UK under­ground rave scene in the 90s, inno­va­tion was as abun­dant as dodgy pills, and jun­gle music is no excep­tion. But while we’re busy get­ting lost in the beats of yes­ter­year, we tend to over­look the fact that the era had a visu­al com­po­nent to it as well.

Before Insta­gram made self-brand­ing acces­si­ble to tod­dlers and sheep herders from Kaza­khstan, the scene had to rely on more prim­i­tive means of expres­sion — like stick­ing a car­toon­ish­ly gar­ish ver­sion of your­self on a fly­er or a vinyl cen­ter label. Sud­den­ly, you’ve got mas­cots becom­ing a sta­ple of the scene. And let me tell you, first impres­sions *are* every­thing.

It’s a crim­i­nal­ly over­looked slice of rave his­to­ry, often rel­e­gat­ed to the vinyls and pack­ag­ing they adorn, nev­er giv­en the spot­light as a com­plete col­lec­tion. But what if that changed? Enter this small, green zine I’ve stum­bled upon, cap­tur­ing that beau­ti­ful col­li­sion between street art and dance music.

It’s a col­lec­tion of doo­dles and sketch­es, metic­u­lous­ly curat­ed by music and design wiz Joe Reil­ly, AKA Resam­pled. Released by the Hong Kong-based label Klasse Wrecks as part of their KFAX series, which sounds like a sketchy local pub­lic radio sta­tion but is actu­al­ly a project ded­i­cat­ed to doc­u­ment­ing the typog­ra­phy, visu­al lan­guage, and over­all design vibes of var­i­ous sub­cul­tures from the era of print­ed phys­i­cal media.

They’ve already done 90s British petrol­heads, UFO enthu­si­asts, com­put­er geeks, thrash met­al bands, and even Venezue­lan par­ty ani­mals from the swing­ing six­ties. Yeah, we could prob­a­bly write arti­cles about all of these things on their own.

Beyond the fun green cov­er, you’re in for a treat. Sev­en­ty pages of pure 90s authen­tic­i­ty, back when the UK econ­o­my was tank­ing faster than a drunk at clos­ing time and self-expres­sion meant tak­ing over aban­doned ware­hous­es for a rave or set­ting up pirate radio sta­tions on your roof. Just as it was in the orig­i­nal scene, in this zine you’ve got the big boys like Dee Jay Record­ings and Sub­ur­ban Base, rub­bing shoul­ders with the under­ground heroes like Boo­gie Times and Ruff Kut.

Now, let’s talk about the art. These quirky mas­cots were the visu­al soul of the scene—a snap­shot of the DIY, who-gives-a-fuck rude­boy ethos and the peo­ple who inhab­it­ed it. Whether slapped on a vinyl label, plas­tered on a fly­er, or scrib­bled wher­ev­er, you’d often find a rudeboy–sometimes the artist behind the music himself–puffing a spliff, man­ning the decks, or just zon­ing out to the beats (or the drugs). Some­times the rude­boy isn’t even a rudeboy—it’s an alien.

Nat­u­ral­ly, this art per­fect­ly cap­tures jun­gle’s ties with graf­fi­ti cul­ture and ear­ly UK streetwear. And of course, there are plen­ty of smi­leys, because those were all the rage in the 90s (along with E).

And you have to appre­ci­ate the sheer ama­teur qual­i­ty of it all. You can just pic­ture some dude, fueled by a cock­tail of ecsta­sy and Lucozade, scrib­bling away in a dingy garage to get his mate’s rave fly­er sort­ed. It’s raw, it’s rude, and in oth­er words, we fuck with it. It’s that same aggro joie de vivre that still keeps us lis­ten­ing to the music in the first place.

Now, I’m not say­ing this zine is easy to come by. Inter­net scans from it are rar­er than a sober raver. So, my advice? Get your hands on a copy while you still can. we copped some for our­selves, and we haven’t regret­ted it. Oh, and if you’re hun­gry for more, Resam­pled’s got a fol­low-up with even more doo­dles from adja­cent scenes. Both are still up for grabs on the Klasse Wrecks Band­camp, but who knows for how long. Get them while they’re hot.