The Taste Experience
 
 

Do you have any memories of The Taste Experience ?

We would love to hear from you !
 
 
The Taste Experience

The Taste Experience was one of the Big Three psych clubs that ran in London during the late 1980’s.

The club reached legendary status and it’s creator Dreammaker was responsible for launching it into the stratosphere in his own inimitable style as well as guesting at many seminal psychedelic events at the time.

 

We would like to thank Dreamaker for allowing us to reproduce texts from his own site

 The Taste Experience

 
 
Introduction:

The Velvet Underground's Venus in Furs, Pink Floyd's Interstellar Overdrive, Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit, Iron Butterfly's In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida, the Rolling Stones 2,000 Light Years, the Zombies Time of The Season etc…Psychedelic back drops, oil wheel Projectors, psychedelic slides, a profusion of smoke and bubbles, and the strobe banks on full...The 007 theme plays, then the Dream Maker takes the microphone, 'Welcome Beautiful People to The Taste Experience'.
 
 
The Taste Experience

Taste Experience Billboard
 
The Taste Experience

Taste Experience Flyer
 
The Taste Experience

Taste Experience Flyer
 
The Taste Experience

Taste Experience Flyer
 
For five years The Dream Maker ran The Taste Experience in Southend, starting at The Blue Boar (later renamed Reid's) on Saturday July 28th 1984 and culminating at The High Society Club on the 31st December 1988, taking in Shrimpers, The Moonraker and The Royal Terrace Club along the way, and with various special events, such as The Psychedelic Boat Trip, and a one nighter at The Crypt in London.
 
 
The Taste Experience
 
 
The Taste Experience
 
 
1984 - 1987 were the key years of the Psychedelic Restoration, and duly a Sister Taste Experience was established in London.

Firstly, at the Purple Pussycat, then Maximus in Leicester Square (the height of the London Taste's Existence), Elle et Lui and finally at The Royal Oak, London Bridge.

During this period The Dream Maker could be found DJing at a couple of the Alice in Wonderland Organized Mystery Trips, The Crypt, and Crypt related events such as Gospels, and the Hammersmith Clarendon, the Queens Ballroom in Southend with Dr and the Medics, Zodiac Mindwarp and Nik Turner, and various other events.
 
 
The Taste Experience

Taste Experience Flyer
 
The Taste Experience

Taste Experience Flyer
 
The whole scene had a very unificatory vibe, mixing Psychedelics, punks, Goths, mods etc into one special group, all digging the stratospheric sounds.

Every Taste Experience was very special and for The Dream Maker and the vast majority of Taste Attendees, no club or happening has come close to the special feeling of the Taste Experience.
 
 
The Taste Experience
 
 
The Taste Experience

Inside the club
 

The Taste Experience

Inside the club
 
The Taste Experience

Taste Experience ticket
 
 
The Taste Experience
 
 

In 1988, the Taste Experience reached its peak, and fully realized The Dream Makers aesthetic perception of how a club should be. A full on phantasmagorical experience, where transcending the terrestrial was the norm, and everyone was engulfed in ecstasy amid incandescent sounds, strawberry smoke, bubbles, slides and an electric atmosphere.

December 31st 1988 was the final, ecstatic night, and a phenomenal farewell to five years of utopianistic hedonism. Anything as rare, unique and extra special as The Taste Experience was not designed to last forever, and The Dream Maker had achieved all he had set out to, and so, at 25 O'clock, he climbed into his Crystal Love Ship and set off for Cloud Nine and Nirvana, returning to his ethereal love palace.

The final record of the night that The Dream Maker played was All you Need is Love.

 

Text Copyright Steve Pegrum © 2001, all artwork Copyright Velda Pond © 1984 - 1988.
Photographic Images Copyright Steve Pegrum © 2001. All Rights Reserved.
 
 

Do you have any memories of The Taste Experience ?

We would love to hear from you !