To this day, the Midlands is synonymous with breakbeats...

From the golden era of Que Club in Birmingham, to The Eclipse in Coventry, to The Sanctuary in MK and of course Milwaukees out near Bedford, there were a plethora of venues and promoters which attracted massive crowds from around the country every weekend throughout the late 80s Hip Hop scene and deep into the 90s raves.

This can still be felt today. If you cut the Midlands, there is a good chance it would bleed breakbeats.

Emerging from the dawn of that scene, and with a legacy still firmly at the heart of it today, there is a name that set new benchmarks for musicality and futurism in the culture; Foul Play.

Formed in Northampton in 1992, John Morrow, Steve Bradshaw and Steve Gurley (via Milton Keynes) made up a trio who have created some of the most beautiful, rinsed, respected, deep and sought after creations in the breakbeat catalog. 

They were part of, and came out of the local scene here in our home town. John also has an intrinsic link to VU too, in 1993 during a car journey back from a record fair in Birmingham... John, 'Aidy, what are you going to do with all those records you just bought?'. Aidy, 'I'm going to open a record shop'.

Steve Gurley left the group in 1994 and sadly Steve Bradshaw passed away too soon in 1997, but the name lives on and John Morrow continues to DJ and produce, furthering the Foul Play continuum.

Fresh from playing Rupture's party at the Outlook Festival in Croatia, new Remixes of Foul Play classics just dropping on Over/Shadow, Kniteforce's incredible 'Foul Play Collection' boxset and 12" reissues on the shelves, and a much needed repress of the 'Origins' set on Sneaker Social Club just landed, we caught up with John to hear his perspective on the early influences and legacy of Foul Play.

Vinyl Underground (VU Aidy): Northampton in the early hip hop days and discovering breakbeats, any particular moments or tracks that set you up for life? 

John Morrow (JM): We were definitely spoilt in Northampton in the late 80s with the town's music scene, particularly the Hip Hop and soundsystem culture. Brad (Steve Bradshaw) was in a Hip Hop / Soul soundsystem called Krush Inc. who put on events in the town bringing artists like BDP and DJ Cash Money here. Myself and my friends were all just the right age to soak it up and we all had decks in our bedrooms. It was this record collecting during Hip Hop’s golden age and the emergence of House and Techno that shaped our musical taste. In 1990/91 the rave scene really started to become a melting pot for all the music that I loved and I was finally old enough to go out to raves, and even started to DJ at some. I’ll never forget hearing tracks like ‘The Theme’ by Unique 3, ‘Funky Zulu’ by The Moody Boys ‘The Wickedest Sound’ by Rebel MC and ’She’s Breaking Up’ by Bitin’Back and being blown away. It was such a distinctively UK sound, that mixture of breakbeats, basslines and bleeps that borrowed heavily from the soundsystem culture I’d grown up with.

VU (Aidy): Starting off, what did Brad first say to you to get it going production wise?

JM: It was in 1991 that Brad took me under his wing and started to help me get gigs, giving my mixtapes to promoters and then we got together with a bunch of our mates and started putting on our own events in Northampton. These events which we called Oblivion catered to the emerging rave scene in the town and were at venues like Top of the Town and Roadmenders. One of the DJ’s we regularly booked was Steve Gurley. Steve had a small studio at his house in Milton Keynes and invited us over to make a track. Although Steve had never released a record before he was clearly already unbelievably talented and knew every piece of equipment in his studio inside out. We made one track, then another, and before you know it we had an EP which we called Foul Play Vol.1. We pressed it up ourselves and called our label Oblivion Records. It sold pretty well so we made Vol. 2, and that’s it, we were away. 

VU (Aidy) : You went to, and DJ'd at lot of the early raves / parties in town, any funny memories? I remember that party at Tops that Brad put on, me trying to play Detroit techno to 100's of young ravers wanting hardcore, which had just broken...

JM: I’ll never forget an event that Brad put on not long after we’d met in the summer of 1991. He told Northampton council that he’d like to put on a low key music and culture event in Beckett’s park and got a permit to do so. What he didn’t tell them was that he was going to bring an articulated lorry into the park with a generator and a huge sound system set up in the back. It turned into a full on outdoor rave in one of Northampton’s quietest parks with hundreds of ravers in attendance. Eventually the police blocked off the road to stop any more people getting in, and eventually shut it down after someone drove their car into the River Nene. It was one of those nights that live in Northampton folk lore and you can even see a homemade video of it on Youtube. (check it here)

VU (D'Arcy) : If you could strip away all the genre labels what was the Foul Play sound really about at its core?

JM: Our music spanned across Rave, Hardcore, Jungle and Drum & Bass at one time or another, but we didn’t really pay attention to any genre restrictions at the time which I think served us well. Our priority for the most part was that it would work on the dancefloor, which meant breakbeats and basslines were front and centre, but we always made sure that we injected some kind of soul into the music. That meant delving into our record collections for the right samples. We’d all been DJ’s and had a good amount of knowledge and lots of records, so I think we did pretty well in that department. We also had a secret weapon in the form of Adam Naked (close friend of VU, legendary Northampton DJ and breakbeat connoisseur). Adam would turn up at my house any time of day and night with obscure breakbeats he’d found that had been sampled in even more obscure Hip-Hop records. I’d borrow them and put them in whatever track we were working on at the time. We always prided ourselves on doing something a bit different with our breaks and Adam was a big part of that.

VU (D'Arcy) : Which are your favourite Foul Play releases / remixes?

JM: Of all the tracks in our back catalogue I think ‘Being With You’ and our remix of ‘Renegade Snares’ are a couple that I still listen to and enjoy as I think they’ve aged the best. I also think they’re thought of quite fondly by a lot of people so its always nice seeing the reaction to them whenever they’re played out.

VU (D'Arcy) : What do you think about the scene currently?

JM: It’s so nice to see that Jungle is as popular as ever especially with young people. A whole new generation have picked up the baton and run with it and the soulful side is really shining though. It’s also no longer the boys club it used to be, which is fantastic.

VU's Top 5 Foul Play tunes:
1. Being With You
2. Dubbing You
3. Renegade Snares (Foul Play VIP Mix)
4. Drowning In Her (as 4 Horsemen Of The Apocalypse with DJ Yomi)
5. Finest Illusion

You can follow John and all things Foul Play related here. Thanks to John for his time and respect to Foul Play.