It was in the summer, 1984 that I first saw the man who should probably be regarded as the central subject of this article. Punk was ripe, no longer novel, angrier even than in its conception and very much alive. Fast food was new, cynicism was young, it was sunny, I'd lost my virginity and I had a driving licence. I saw this incredibly tall, blond, leather clad attention grabbing punk-like creature emerge from his Crystal Love Ship - little did I know then that this young, skinny, stand out type of person would end up orchestrating the majority of my and many others entertainment, interests and even ideological development over the next decade.

The Dream Maker was a revelation to me. As well as being extremely clever and well versed in musical and philosophical matters, he had a dream that was so strong, that action towards its achievement just seemed to follow on, without any need to feel a sense of putting oneself out to get anything done. It was all fun. It was all necessary. It was all so obvious. Things had to be done. And thanks to The Dream Maker, things were done.

We knew that we weren't living in the Sixties. That era had gone. And we were wiser. Although Psychedelic and Psychotropic, The Dream Maker's movement wasn't retrospective. We had seen dreams fail. We had seen idealism smashed. And yet The Dream Maker had dreams and he gave dreams to other people, to feed and enhance their own. They were good dreams that recognized their own ostensible naivety and in so doing ceased to be naive and pushed the whole thing along a crucial step further, with the benefit of informed historical knowledge and hindsight.

OK, that's my general introduction. Human detail now in the hope of really capturing the texture of reality then, and again, pushing it forward, because for The Dream Maker and the few others of his precious ilk, could anything worthy be about anything else?

After a good friend of mine, Lenny Mellow, introduced me to The Dream Maker, we used to go round to another friends house, T.J. Banana's, and hang out. It here that The Dream Maker brought to life for me the ethos and driving vibe behind Marc Bolan's 'Children of The Revolution' and showed me how it linked with his own philosophy, which in my mind was significantly more sophisticated and shrewd yet nonetheless direct.

The Dream Maker internalized that sentiment and processed it through heart and soul, and through the seminal Taste Experience and various other happenings, he extended it. As a path to excavating and laying bare the strange and uniquely fecund ligaments of the above mentioned club, I must now start to talk plainly and go back to what The Dream Maker started after his 'Children of The Revolution' inspired thoughts in that summer of 1984.

Along with a bakery in Victoria Avenue that dates back to the 16th Century, the oldest building in Southend-on-Sea - besides and adjacent to the church - is a hotel and building called The Blue Boar (later renamed Reid's). Most Rock and Roll journalists would now continue with words like: " It was here that The Dream Maker unleashed his anarchic brand of psychedelic, jelly bean, acid drop, Iggy, Morrison-esque, Beat, groove, smoke, bubbles, strobes, projections, cool, speed head, head, head, decadent yet optimistic, fun loving, seriously life affirming, not give a damn about anything, but give a big, groovy, mean, lean, dancing flying damn about everything…kick began".

And why shouldn't I say that? Easy answer! Because it's been done and The Taste Experience was about everything that hadn't been done. And I'm not about to sit here doing anything like that. The Taste Experience in London and Southend was the only club of its kind and nothing like it has ever happened since. The emphasis was always on sensation and recognizing the need to break down barriers and strengthen the divide between forces that had successfully clashed previously, maintaining a distance from the otherwise growing grayness of the times. People way too young to remember the Sixties were introduced to a world where weird was interesting -The Taste Experience took all that was good out of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties and threw aside all that was bad, adding a new ingredient of its own. It kept the trip ethos and added a boost of colour to any hope that lay extant anywhere. It was a scene, to quote a phrase.

It's only been through beginning an article about the period that I have begun to realize the importance of the scene that The Dream Maker instigated and the ensuing sensory experiences, the importance of having such art (visually supplied by Velda - respect to the impetus and skill behind those promo posters. Superb girl.) colour my life and the lives of those around me. This was/is something that is worth writing about for those who were there and equally for those who missed it.

I write this out of respect for The Dream Maker, and very deep in the realization that it's not just the experience that counts, but also the processing of that experience. And in a very real way, though immediate in every sense, The Taste Experience seemed somehow to be able to process its own experience as it happened. There was something wise about the hardcore of that scene, something always a step ahead of itself. It took the night and brought it into tomorrow through its own present.

As with L.S.D., music and melody, sex, epiphany and real understanding, words fall short and the porpoise is frustrated by time once in a while. Like a play by Brecht, the audience can only finish this article. The Dream Maker has rejoined his Crystal Love Ship and is now back on Cloud 9 in the perpetual state of Nirvana, mission accomplished. And it's now down to us. If we don't keep the dream alive and constantly reinvent it, remaining true to its essence, we've had it. I insist there is still time.

With imagination, we'll get to wherever this is…

Mark Clemenson 2001