UK hard house

The Tidy brand began in 1995, when Amadeus Mozart and Andy Pickles formed the record label known as Tidy Trax, with its first release was The Handbaggers - "U Found Out", sampling Minnesota R&B band The Jets 1986 release "Crush on You", which peaked at number 55 in the UK Singles Chart. [5]

Releasing music under the pseudonyms: The Handbaggers and Hyperlogic, Amadeus Mozart and Andy Pickles did not officially use the name The Tidy Boys until 1999.

The Tidy brand is known for putting on large-scale events, most notably The Tidy Weekenders. The brand struggled in the late 2000s to keep going financially with dwindling sales (through its Tidy record label) and poor attendance figures to events. During the mid-2010s, however, the brand has had a huge resurgence and revitalized the UK hard house scene putting on huge events across the UK has been possible due to the fans being able to reconnect with the brand through The Tidy Boys official Facebook page and growing social media presence.

Tidy is known for their sell-out club nights and one-off events such as TDV20 – a 20-year memorial event of the death of Tony De Vit – one of the original pioneers of hard house. Also known for hosting "The Tidy Weekender"; three-day parties which were held from Friday to Sunday at Pontins resorts in Prestatyn, Camber Sands and Southport.[6]

Notable events:

• Tidy XX Anniversary - 26 September 2015 at The Institute, Birmingham
• Tidy 21 Weekender - 20–22 May 2016 at Pontins resort, Southport.
• Tidy at The Church - 9 December 2017 at The Church Venue, Leeds
• Tidy Seaside Special - 17–18 August 2018 at The Basement, Newquay
• Tony De Vit 20 Memorial Event - 29 September 2018 at 02 Academy, Birmingham
• Tidy Opera House Reunion - 28 September 2019 at 02 Academy, Bournemouth
• Tidy 25 Weekender - 9–11 July 2021 at Pontins resort, Prestatyn.

Launched in 2000, Storm regularly attracted up to 2000 clubbers in its heyday, and people came from as far as Bournemouth, Edinburgh and Belfast. The remoteness of Coalville made the venue tricky to get to, as there were no buses there which run on a Sunday and no local train station, meaning that the majority of clubbers who made it to Storm each week were usually die-hard ravers and for this reason, the brand and the venue had a cult following and very quickly reached legendary status amongst hard house fans.

Originally held at Pulse in Birmingham, the sheer popularity of the weekly Midlands-based, self-styled "Most Outrageous Club in the World" saw it quickly set up its second base in Leeds – firstly, at Club Uropa from 1998 till 2000 and then Evolution from 2000 till 2005. Known for its cult following by fans who would wear elaborate and often home-made outfits, largely made from red and yellow fluff. Several controversial and tragic incidents kept Sundissential firmly at the forefront of the hard house scene, with several deaths of clubbers,[9] as well as the antics of the promoter, Paul Madden a.k.a. "Madders" which created gossip amongst fans online on Leeds based clubbing forums, biscuitmonsters.com and 4clubbers.net and kept the brand firmly in the spotlight until the doors closed in 2005. In 2016, the brand was relaunched under new management and began putting on events again in Leeds, at the Mint Club and at Church.[10]

From the mid-1990s to early 2000s, club nights included Fish!, Superfish!, and Warriors at Turnmills.

Hard house and hard NRG artists and DJs at these venues included Captain Tinrib, D.F.Q., Ben Javlin, Steve Thomas, Steve Hill, Rubec, Simon Eve, Pete Wardman, Dave Randall, Johnnie "RR" Fierce, Karim, Chris "Drum Head" Edwards, and Weirdo.

Other venues were the Soundshaft nightclub (next to Heaven in Charing Cross) and The Fridge in Brixton.

Scouse house[12][13] (originally known as bouncy hard house or bouncy house[13][14]), also known as UK bounce,[12] donk,[12][14] or more recently as hard bounce, is a style of UK hard house which first emerged around 1999. Unlike other hard house genres, it features an upbeat, energetic sound and heavily focuses on the 'pipe' sample as an offbeat bassline, which usually represents a 'donk' sound. In recent years, hard bounce has come to refer as style far less uplifting trance orientated than the original Scouse house genre, which also utilizes the same sample but takes a slightly more commercial approach.

Pumping house[15] (or bumping) is an intermediate term and a local variant of the early scouse house scene, which was popular Russia and Spain in the late 1990s to early 2000s. The genre takes start when the Dutch duo Klubbheads invented so called bamboo-bass in the track Ultimate Seduction - "A Walking Nightmare (Klubbheads GP Mix)" in 1997. Years later the genre gave the birth to Britain's donk scene and Spain scene poky.[16] Pumping house is used as an interchangeable term for scouse house in Russia and Spain.

Hardbass (Russian: хардбасс) is a development of pumping house, originated in Russia in the early 2000s.

Hard NRG is a genre that emerged from trance and UK hard house that gained popularity on the rave scenes. The genre is distinguished by the offbeat bass patterns that were inspired from Hi-NRG, which were added over darker and more anthemic trance beats and synths. Through lacking the trance melodies it has more of a rhythmic structure.