In the early 1990s, the town of Romford, Essex, was primarily known for the legendary snooker player Steve Davis and its local dog track. However, for those deeply involved in the underground movement, the town served as a vital center for the trade and growth of UK electronic dance music. This cultural shift is the subject of a new exhibition titled “Mega Mega: Romford’s Suburban Sound Revolution,” which takes its name from Underworld frontman Karl Hyde’s iconic line, “mega mega mega, going back to Romford,” from the 1995 track Born Slippy. Over a dinner of chicken in a basket, it was where people placed bets at Romford dog track. That pedigree was immortalised by Romford’s most famous musical act, Underworld, with frontman Karl Hyde shouting the words “mega mega mega, going back to Romford” at the climax of 1995’s Born Slippy.
The foundation of this scene can be traced back to 1989, when 17-year-old Danny Donnelly used a bank loan to open a record shop called Boogie Times. Born in Stratford but raised in Romford since age five, Donnelly possessed a natural entrepreneurial spirit. He had been buying and selling records during his school years and, by age 14, was already using large speakers to host parties in rented flats across east London, effectively recreating a club atmosphere for his peers. Where hard-to-find jazz, funk and R&B records were selected for the quality of their breakbeats, he loved rare groove. At 14, he bought huge speakers for his bedroom, which he later used to put on parties around east London: “You’d hire someone’s flat, charge at the door and it would be treated like a club for the event.”. Romford and the wider borough of Havering already housed parties by people such as the polymath producer and promoter Mark Ryder – who later became a star in the UK garage era as Mark “Ruff” Ryder – but Romford was still best known for dancing to pop music on a Saturday night with your glad rags on. According to and it does have an innocence that chimed with the family vibe of the Boogie Times shop, which was “like a youth club in a way, with loads of people hanging around listening to music”,, Rachel Wallace, a key member of the Boogie Times tribe. He little knew how he would help revolutionise his town and dance music at large, when 17-year-0ld Danny Donelly got a bank loan to open a record shop and sell dancefloor-filling electronic music. Who had already stepped back from Suburban Base to focus on compiling huge-selling CD compilation series such as Pure Garage and Euphoria, boogie Times carried on into the 2000s after a record seller from the other side of the river in Gravesend decided to buy it off Donnelly. Duggins, meanwhile, had soundproofed an old primary school building in nearby Dagenham to house Rinse FM, and was putting on nights in Romford to showcase garage-era acts that pre-empted the incoming grime explosion, such as DJ EZ, Masterstepz and Pay as U Go Cartel.
The business thrived due to strategic timing and proximity. While Donnelly’s father operated a family corner shop in Stratford, the location placed the family near the pirate radio station Fantasy FM. Donnelly recalls that presenters would often visit the shop to share tea and sandwiches after their broadcasts. This connection allowed him to interact with future drum and bass stars like DJ Hype and DJ Krome, the latter of whom famously praised his mother’s cheese and onion sandwiches. According to the location of Donnelly’s dad’s shop in Stratford was similarly fortuitous: east London pirate station Fantasy FM launched in the block next door in 1989. “They would come downstairs and get a cup of tea and a sandwich after they had done their show,”, Donnelly.
As house music and the rave culture began to take hold in rural fields and industrial sites, Boogie Times became the essential local hub. DJ Tony Grimley, who was also inspired by his own early rave experiences, was tapped to organize nights at the local nightclub, Hollywood. He branded his events “Culture Shock” to reflect the intense musical shift from the town’s traditional disco nights to a high-energy electronic sound featuring DJs such as Andrew Weatherall, Danny Rampling, and Darren Emerson. Building demand for rave tunes on vinyl, boogie Times opened just as house music and ecstasy found their way into post-industrial spaces and farmers’ fields. After being switched on to hardcore rave, Donnelly endeavoured to supply some of the freshest vinyl to a burgeoning local clientele. According to he named it Culture Shock to describe the way the music landed there. “It was a party venue: a very Sharon and Tracy, 80s place,”, Grimley. According to it was a canny way to surpass dance music’s supply-chain gatekeepers by making the music themselves. “We were trying to compete with more established dance music shops in central London that were getting exclusives, stuff that we couldn’t get hold of,”, Donnelly.
The local dance scene relied heavily on a network of pirate radio stations, including Conflict FM in Rainham and Force FM, which operated out of an attic above a sweet shop. Donnelly describes this era of pirate radio, record stores, and flyering as the “analogue version of the internet.” To expand this community, he founded the record label Suburban Base, a name that highlighted the town’s outsider status compared to central London. He broadened that community by creating his own record label, Suburban Base, brainstorming its name in the office above the shop on the day of the Rumbelows Football League cup final on 21 April 1991. Including the relentless and evocatively 90s tune Tell Me Why, she dated Donnelly and recorded her first tracks for the label in a studio in his parents’ garage. DJ Rap, AKA Charissa Saverio, was living in nearby Walthamstow and put jungle tracks out on Suburban Base, and found the scene unusually welcoming. “You saw Black people and white people together for the first time,” she says. “You walked in [to a jungle night] as a girl, and you weren’t harassed by a bunch of men; you could wear what you want, you didn’t have to look sexy, you could just be you.”.
Suburban Base successfully navigated the evolving soundscape, moving from early house to the rapid, intricate rhythms of jungle. The label released significant tracks such as the 1992 hit “Sesame’s Treet” by Smart E’s and “RIP” by Remarc. The label’s influence even reached international markets; Donnelly discovered the Brazilian DJ Marky in a São Paulo shop, helping to make him a drum and bass icon. By 1994, Suburban Base had become the first independent UK rave label to establish an office in Los Angeles. So he used Suburban Base to press small runs of records, “that we could keep exclusive to our shop for at least the first few weeks. It reached No 2 in the UK singles chart in July 1992, released by Suburban Base.
The music community in the region also fostered deep connections that lasted for years. For instance, DJ and former Rinse FM manager Simon Duggins noted how he pivoted from a potential career in football to rave culture after stumbling upon a circus tent event while driving to football practice. Later, in 2003, the DJ EZ returned to Romford to host a landmark New Year’s Day event at the Time & Envy club, featuring the influential US producer Todd Edwards. EZ would return to Romford to put on what might be the town’s most famous clubbing event: Todd Edwards at Time & Envy on New Year’s Day 2003, in which the US DJ and producer, whose style had so influenced UK garage, stared out at his adoring (and very male) crowd with a mixture of shock, fear and delight – scenes that still frequently go viral on social media.
The legacy of this era is now being preserved at the site of the former Time & Envy nightclub, which closed in 2024. The upcoming exhibition will include a replica 90s recording studio filled with original Suburban Base equipment and a reconstructed pirate radio station. Reflecting on his journey, Donnelly acknowledges his role in the global expansion of the scene, while reminding audiences that the reality was far more demanding than the glamour often portrayed.
