I definitely started NSB before this (I would say at least a year) but the forum was private so none of it was indexed, I never saved it, and its gone forever. All I've found is an old web.archive.org copy and it was basically launched on this day:
Back in 1998, I was going to a lot of parties in London, one of them was Bedrock at Heaven. I never really like the Digweed stuff in the main room and ended up bouncing around in the Star Bar. I had no idea what I was hearing or who was playing, but I remember hearing some Chemical Brothers type of stuff, some hip hop, some old skool tracks, Higher State of Consciousness. I loved it. I kept going back month after month, all my friends thought I was nuts listening to randoms in this small room while Digweed or Sasha was playing in the main room.
At the same time I was helping run some old skool parties (Epidemik) and I can vividly remember The Ratpack being on our stage at Bagleys. The MC for Ratpack, Evenson Allen was on the mic, and they started playing tunes that I'd heard at Bedrock. I was like "Oh shit, this is that music". Evenson Allen says "This is the new sound, this sound we're calling Nu Skool Breaks". So that's where I first heard about breaks music. I go home, and at the time I spent a lot of time on Drum and Bass Arena, Dogs On Acid and USH.net - internet forums basically - and I thought "breaks needs a place on the internet too" - as I needed more of this music! I looked up the domain nuskoolbreaks and registered it.
Later I realised people were just calling it breaks, and Ratpack spelt it with a Z "nu skool breakz" so really the name I picked was fucking terrible I guess. But it stuck. And 20 years later no-one is here
NSB was so much fun. I used to spend all day on here refreshing, arguing and posting shit. Man I argued with so many people, what a knob! Everyone argued really, because there is no nuance in written text, its just how you read it, so much stuff is just assumptions so its bound to be a disaster with a thousand hungover users on comedowns. Anyway, I must have literally spent/wasted a year of my life on NSB. But it was fun. Actually it wasn't all fun. NSB gave me anxiety, annoyed me when people were dicks, became inconvenient when people looked at me to sort things out at all hours, was horrible to always be the bad guy, shitty dealing with turf wars with breaks fm, or iBreaks, or nubreaks, or breakbeatworldwide or whoever, or putting up with spammers, or bots, or DJs getting annoyed with me that I couldn't remember who they were or getting annoyed with me I didn't book them for parties or did book them and didn't pay them enough, or DJs who wouldn't play at our parties because we said we played breaks, or artists sending me abuse accusing me of destroying the scene single-handedly, or getting emails from James Hyman telling me he is suing me because Jung or someone slagged him off. But did all this fun come at a price? Well yes, I've been paying for all this privilege myself. 20 years, £50-£250 per month, every month, in server costs, taking an average cost thats £36,000. Check my no cheque
Things I sorta remember:
- 2001 Breakspoll at Electrowerkz, not winning an Award but meeting Steelz and Clod and a few others
- 2003? Server meltdown, lost the entire site, had to rebuild just as forum. I was in Ibiza and the only internet I had was dialup from an internet cafe. Spent days and many euros launching the site again.
- 2003? Breakspoll - Winning Best Website Award, amazing feeling after so much work, meeting Annie Nightingale
- 2003? - Bobzilla designing the NSB logo, still love it, thanks man
- 2004? Winning Radio 1 Peoples Choice Award for Best Website on Annies Radio 1 Show
- 2004? 3 day after party in Travelodge Kings Cross after winning, big ups doughnut, kickflip
- 2004? some time maybe, hanging out at Steelz flat or house as he was Essex like me, I vaguely remember him doing a radio show but it could have been earlier than this
- 2004? Starting NSB Radio after users demanded a community driven radio to play on days that Breaks FM didn't
- 2004 - Launching our first compilation CD after a drunken talk with Tom Autobot at Breakfish
- 2004 - Doing tour nights for the CD, went down to Exeter and hung out with Ben and Lex and Biff, don't remember much but I didn't sleep and I got back to Essex I swear in about 120 mins
- 2004 - Collins303 looping me in to an email with Simon Plexus who has done tech for the radio ever since and then the forum too
- 2004? Hosting 2nd room at Air, one of the best London breaks nights, I played first, Janatah DJs played, maybe Clod? DJ Fingerbangmypisshole made an appearance I am sure
- 2005 Breakspoll? Winning Best Website and people laughing at me for saying Top Banana
- Glade 2006? First NSB broadcast, great bunch of people, Speshal Ed, Tony Slackshot, Silas Greenback. 1000 live listeners on a stream from a muddy field over a mobile phone connection!!
- 2006 - NSB Radio at the Key party - still I think my best ever party, great vibes, great club, General Midi, Breakfastaz, Janette Slack, cant remember who else, but it was ace.
- 2006 - NSB Agency? Tony Slackshot I think wanted to do it, or Miffy, I cant remember but well done to them running it and trying to push that forward
- 2006 - London Breaks Allnighter - proper big party at Hidden in London, got to book loads of artists I loved, fat lineup
- 2006-2007 - Monthly night at Inigo Clapham on a WEDNESDAY, leading many people astray with shots and late night shenanigans, big up Dave Minns, a legendary night with Orson off his nut
- 2006? Jack Morphosis designing the NSB Radio logo and splitting that out to its own site
- 2007? Hosting Breaks tent at Glade, or some tent. Not sure. Anyway it went off and people still mention it to me now.
- 2007? Hosting breaks arena at Drop Beats Not Bombs, what a fucking epic night, hats off to Boogie Dave but I know he lost a lot of cash that night. But Darft Phunk were awesome, Precision Cuts, Hexadecimal, damn I can't remember who else but it was great.
- 2008 - Herbal parties in London, wicked nights, but I was proper trying to promote parties then and the need to pay rent was fucking mental and stressing me out. Anyway after parties there were the one.
- 2008 - Glade? The wet one? Basically sat out in my caravan all weekend because mud can do one monkface!
- 2009 - Anam Bar, did quite a few messy sessions there. Finny being finny. MJoogoo.
- 2010 - NSB Radio Awards party at that boat in London, AG nearly blinding me with a popper
- 2010 - Me deciding to stop wasting my life on the internet and make something of my self
- 2011? NSB Xmas Session on a boat with that flyer with the heads on a family, got absolutely battered by the owner on tequila and had to struggle home with all my decks and couldn't find a taxi
- 2014? NSB Dalston party. Ben and lex drawing on me.
- 2015? - 2nd room birthday at Brixton Jam, Mark deckwrecker getting proper messy, being annoying to Rebel MC/Congo Natty
- 2019 - Back to the Noughties NSB BBQ at Camden - wicked to see everyone again, Phat Flava getting chucked out in about 10 mins
- 2020 - NSB Party at the Castle, E1, proper dirty little party right before the country was locked down for COVID. We didn't start the fire...
- 2021 - Lifewire named NSB Radio best party station 2021. PARTY.
Other random things and threads and memories that still come out in my daily speech and in my brain... remind me of some more:
- £10
- Technics Cam Record Bag
- Cheque my check
- James Hyman threatening me for something?
- Eddie Temple Morris being really pissed off with Speshal Ed and Milky Joe after Breakspoll some year
- Steelz and poi
- Some board raids? Dont remember the details
- Hairy Viking (bumped in to a hairy man at Bagleys, it was him, it got weirder after that?)
- nuskoolbreaks_head (although I remember nothing about what he did)
- Breakspoll at Battersea Power Station (its gonna happen 2022)
- AG, just AG, posting non stop
- Steph? Some drama over her
- ELISE!
- 30-50 people from Jurassik
- Asking Adam Gainsborough if something was a joke
- Steelo and pselect
- Nectarios being very ranty?
- Tam Tam, TT
- The fucking day threads FML
- The egg based setup
- Steelz and insomnia
- BK Revolution
- Flange and do me a lemon moites
- DJ Fingerbangmypisshole
- GNSP
- FAO of the X
- Deets saying Jamesy
- Smoke Machine
- NSB curry club at tayyabs
- AG threatening Tayo
I tried searching for NSB gold threads but couldn't find anything, so I am sure there is more shit I have forgotten. But also reading threads from 2005 is cringe, like reading an old diary or a diary you dont even remember writing, which is pretty true for 98% of the shite I posted on here.
I am sure there are so many more memories, but my memory is terrible. I am sure I have annoyed 10% of users on here, but I do not remember what I did or what you did, so chances are you should probably get over it, as I definitely have. If I offended you I am sorry, I'm pretty shy outside the internet, and am pretty blunt, so they are two things that make people who have chance encounters with me think I'm a cnut. And chances are they are talking to me when I am running an event single-handedly, trying to make a few quid to pay my rent as I've spent all my time that month posting on the forum and not working.
PEOPLE - BIG LOVE AND THANKS
Simon Plexus for always letting me wake him up to rescue the server, thanks mate
My girlfriends for putting up with me for many years while someone was wrong on the internet
Tony Slackshot - what a legend did so much for the radio, for the agency, for the live broadcasts, great chap
Richie Balboa - Richie ball bags, whatever happened to him, he just disappeared, ran the radio for ages, great drunk face
Alikat - Ran the radio for ages and did lots of great things when I didn't have time, saved the radio a few times
Clodhoppa - steered the good ship NSB while I was not around for a bit and generally sound geezer, helped out a ton with design work, did the London Breaks Allnighter flyer which I still base virtually all my designs off of now
Miffy - used to help out a ton with the agency and label and things
Bobzilla - for designing the NSB logo, what a legend, now he paints birds, not the page three kind
Morphosis - for designing the NSB Radio logo, legend
The original few DJs who played the first week on NSB Radio - AWE Soundsystem, Janatah DJs, Steelzawheelz - sure there are more but you are all aces in my book
Tim and Mike from Breakspoll for starting that off and ultimately letting me run it for a bit
Ali B - giving NSB opportunities with Air
Biff - for always giving support to the breaks sound and helping me out so much with events and access
Dtism - for his Peckham Penthouse and being a lovely dude
Speshal - for being Speshal, love you mate
Jimmy Mofo - for being a top mate and a geezer and a big supporter of breaks from day 1
Quest - for just being Questicles really, the forum couldn't handle him bless
Shaman - for being a moderator on NSB when everyone else gave up, what a legend, thanks mate
There are many many more people who I've met through NSB, so many friendships its unreal, and its amazing this site has bought all these people together. Relationships, marriages, actual human babies, businesses, festivals, labels, radio stations, shit the bed so much has come from NSB. Fucking unreal.
Anyway, its been emotional, and writing this has been a lot of fun, and I love you all (but not AG) xx
! Clod sent me a screengrab of this post, I just had to jump on here to say something, even though I have no idea where to start or what to say because there is so much to say!
! I suddenly feel very old. A big shout out to all the old guard (you know who you are). Especially my former partner in crime Clod 
. AND a massive thank you to Jimmy for all he's done and is still managing to do 
.
