DJ Jason Bushby – Powerhouse, After Dark and North East Rave History
When looking back at the history of rave music in Teesside and the North East, there are certain names that appear again and again across different clubs, promotions and generations.
One of those names is:
DJ Jason Bushby
Long before the New Monkey became famous for Makina, Jason Bushby was already involved in the North East dance and rave scene.
His story takes us through some of the most important names and venues in the region's underground history:
**Bianco's – Stockton
Powerhouse
After Dark – Sunderland
Blue Monkey / Club Fiesta – Norton
The Colosseum – Stockton
After Dark 2**
And thanks to people preserving old tapes, a surprising amount of that history can still be heard today.
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The Early Stockton Connection
One of the important parts of Jason Bushby's story is his connection with Stockton-on-Tees.
DJ Tony Hall's account of his own career remembers moving to Bianco's in Stockton and later becoming a resident DJ after Jason Bushby brought Powerhouse into the venue.
That gives us another piece of evidence linking Bushby directly with the development of Teesside's dance scene.
This was before social media, online ticketing and streaming.
Promoters built nights through flyers, record shops, word of mouth and the reputation of the DJs and MCs.
And one of the names that became increasingly important was:
Powerhouse
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Powerhouse
Powerhouse became a major part of North East rave culture.
Historical coverage dates its formation to 1994 and describes it as a weekly club night that eventually operated across the North East, including Stockton and Redcar.
More importantly for the WGR archive, many of the original recordings survived.
The archive includes titles such as:
**Powerhouse – 20 May 1994
DJ Jason Bushby & MC G-Force**
**Powerhouse – 1995
DJ Jason Bushby & DJ Tony Hall
MC G-Force**
**Powerhouse – 9 July 1995
DJ Jason Bushby & MC G-Force**
**Powerhouse – 23 February 1996
G-Force Birthday Bash
DJ Jason Bushby & MC G-Force**
**Powerhouse – 1996
Dream Team Vol. 6
DJ Jason Bushby & MC G-Force**
There's even a surviving recording simply titled:
Powerhouse Vol. 1 – DJ Jason Bushby – JAZ Promotions
Together, these recordings show that Bushby's Powerhouse connection wasn't a one-off appearance.
It was a substantial part of his rave history.
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Jason Bushby & MC G-Force
One partnership appears particularly often:
DJ Jason Bushby & MC G-Force
MC G-Force belongs to the early generation of North East MCs, starting long before the later New Monkey explosion.
And Bushby and G-Force can be traced together through several surviving recordings.
It wasn't limited to Teesside either.
G-Force's archive contains:
DJ Jason Bushby + MC G-Force – The Palais, Sheffield – 1994
showing the pair taking the sound outside the North East.
Back home, their Powerhouse recordings became another part of the tape culture surrounding the scene.
One particularly good survivor is the G-Force Birthday Bash from 23 February 1996, featuring Bushby behind the decks and G-Force on the microphone.
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After Dark – Sunderland
Bushby's history wasn't confined to Teesside.
His name is also connected with the legendary:
After Dark
in Sunderland.
Accounts of the original After Dark scene place Jason Bushby among DJs and MCs including Full Effect, G-Force and Adrian Street.
And again, the tapes survive.
The archive includes:
**After Dark 1 – 1994
DJ Jason Bushby & DJ Full Effect
MC G-Force**
and:
**After Dark 1 – 24 June 1994 – The Final Event
DJ Jason Bushby
MC G-Force**
These recordings are extremely useful because they let us hear Bushby during an earlier stage of North East rave history.
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Blue Monkey / Club Fiesta – Norton
Then we come back to Teesside.
A particularly interesting recording from 1994 is:
The Blue Monkey – DJ Jason Bushby – MC G-Force & MC Kaos
This was recorded at the Norton venue also associated with the Club Fiesta name.
The importance of that building becomes clearer when we look at what happened next.
The venue would eventually become:
The Colosseum
The surviving Blue Monkey recording therefore captures part of the history of the building before the famous Colosseum era.
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From Blue Monkey to The Colosseum
One historical account preserves a recollection attributed to Jason Bushby himself about the changing identity of the Norton venue.
Before becoming the Colosseum, the club went through names including:
Monkey Magic
and:
Club Fiesta / Blue Monkey
before the Colosseum name was adopted in April 1995.
That's an important detail for the WGR archive because it helps connect several names that otherwise look like completely separate clubs.
They form part of the same wider story.
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The Colosseum Era
The Colosseum became one of the defining rave venues of 1990s Teesside.
Its music was an unusual North East mixture drawing from:
**UK Hardcore
Scottish Bouncy Techno
Dutch Hardcore
Italian Dance
Spanish Rave
European Trance**
played fast and combined with the increasingly distinctive North East MC style.
Bushby remained part of this scene.
One surviving archive includes:
Jason Bushby & Full Effect – Colosseum – 1996
alongside recordings from other major Colosseum DJs of the period.
By this point, the North East had developed something increasingly different from the mainstream rave scene elsewhere in Britain.
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Before North East Makina
This is why DJs such as Jason Bushby are important when we try to explain where North East Makina culture eventually came from.
Makina didn't create the region's DJ-and-MC culture.
That was already happening.
Years before the classic New Monkey period, North East ravers were already listening to:
**Fast European records
Hardcore
Bouncy Techno
Italian Dance
Trance**
with local MCs performing over the top.
The clubs developed their own music policies.
The MCs developed their own delivery.
And the tapes spread the sound across the region.
Later, when Spanish Makina records became increasingly popular, they entered a scene that was already comfortable with fast European rave music and MC-led performances.
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The Tape Culture
For younger people discovering these recordings today, it's worth remembering how important rave tapes were.
A set wasn't instantly uploaded after the night.
There was no YouTube.
No SoundCloud.
No Mixcloud.
No Spotify.
People collected:
**Original rave tapes
Copied tapes
Double packs
Event packs
Home-recorded copies**
A Jason Bushby and G-Force tape might be copied repeatedly and passed between ravers throughout Teesside and beyond.
Sometimes the writing on the cassette was the only information you had.
Those tapes are now becoming historical documents.
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After Dark 2
Bushby's name also appears again in the later After Dark story.
One surviving recording is:
**After Dark 2 – 2 June 2000
DJ Jason Bushby
MC G-Force
MC Stompin**
That date is particularly interesting.
By 2000, the North East rave sound was changing rapidly.
The later Makina generation was beginning to take shape, while established DJs and MCs from the earlier era were still involved.
So Bushby's recordings provide another bridge between the older hardcore/Colosseum period and what followed.
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Powerhouse Returns
And Powerhouse itself wasn't forgotten.
In 2022, the brand returned for a major rave.
The comeback featured names including:
**Jason Bushby
Full Effect
MC G-Force
MC Stompin**
Skiddle's coverage described Powerhouse as a North East rave brand originally formed in 1994, with a history stretching across places including Redcar and Stockton.
Nearly three decades after the original period, the names were back together.
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More Than One Generation
Jason Bushby's history therefore crosses several chapters of North East rave.
There's the early dance and promotion connection around Stockton.
Then:
Powerhouse
followed by appearances connected with:
**After Dark
Blue Monkey / Club Fiesta
The Colosseum**
and later:
After Dark 2
before the return of Powerhouse decades later.
That's what makes his story particularly useful for our archive.
Instead of belonging to only one famous club, Bushby's name helps connect several different parts of the North East rave timeline.
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Teesside's Place in North East Rave History
It's also another reminder that Teesside deserves a much bigger place in the history of North East dance music.
When people talk about the region's rave culture, Sunderland and Newcastle often dominate the conversation.
But Stockton, Norton, Middlesbrough, Redcar and the surrounding areas had their own clubs, promoters, DJs, MCs and ravers.
Powerhouse and the Colosseum are major parts of that history.
And Jason Bushby appears in both stories.
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The People Who Preserved the Tapes
A huge amount of this history would have disappeared if collectors hadn't kept the original recordings.
Today we can find surviving Bushby sets covering:
**1994
1995
1996
2000**
and performances at several different clubs.
Those recordings allow a new generation to hear what North East rave sounded like before the New Monkey era became dominant.
They're not recreations.
They're the real nights.
The DJs.
The MCs.
The crowd.
The atmosphere.
Preserved on cassette and eventually transferred to the internet.
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Why DJ Jason Bushby Matters
Jason Bushby's story is bigger than one DJ set.
He was part of the North East rave scene during an important period when its own musical identity was developing.
His surviving history connects:
**Stockton dance culture
JAZ Promotions
Powerhouse
After Dark
Blue Monkey / Club Fiesta
The Colosseum
After Dark 2**
and a long-running partnership with MC G-Force.
More than thirty years later, those tapes are still being listened to.
And that makes them worth preserving.
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Do You Remember DJ Jason Bushby?
Were you at Powerhouse in the 1990s?
Did you hear Jason Bushby & MC G-Force?
Were you at the Blue Monkey / Club Fiesta in Norton before it became the Colosseum?
Did you see Jason at:
**After Dark?
The Colosseum?
Powerhouse?
After Dark 2?**
Maybe you've still got something hidden away.
We're looking for:
**DJ Jason Bushby tapes
Powerhouse tapes
JAZ Promotions flyers
After Dark recordings
Blue Monkey / Club Fiesta material
Colosseum tapes
Original flyers
Tickets
Photographs
Posters
VHS recordings
Tracklists
Old rave magazines
Old North East rave website pages**
If you've got anything, don't throw it away.
Even an old cassette with a handwritten date could help us identify another lost North East rave recording.
Get it posted on the WGR forum and help us preserve it.
https://weedygarageradio.xyz/forum?topic=120