History
1998

The reinvigoration of Frostbyte Records
was complete on the 13th March, 1998, when the label launched its popular
monthly 'Frostbitten' club nights at the Blue Lagoon venue in the
Hilsea Lido, at the northern end of Portsea Island. The resident
DJ was Andrew Morrison, and he has since established the night as essential
for local club goers, by playing rare mixes and forthcoming unreleased
tracks from Frostbyte Record's catalogue. On the sell out opening
night, Fußgängerzone played a short live set to celebrate.
This has gone down in the annals of history as one of their best performances.
The reasonably small crowd filling the club were, in Birgitte's words "absolutely
out for the cup" and there was an intimate yet enthusiastic atmosphere
permeating the whole night, with many Frostbyte stars attending the evening
(which, against local bylaws, didn't finish until 4:30am). Fußgängerzone’s
much talked about set was:
'Fußgängerzone Are Back'
'The Dog Sh*t Shoe Song'
'Cockney Wanker'
'I Love The Mafia' - a new track
still in its embyrionic form, which the band had only just written, that
went down a storm!
The band were joined onstage by counterparts
The Celestial Anthropoids to perform Gin & Tonic's '00E - Licenced
To Rave' as the encore, which made the clubbers go ballistic!

(Big Bat Fat Cat Benjamin
outside his beloved Blue Lagoon, venue for the popular 'Frostbitten' monthly
club nights.)
The administration and running of the 'Frostbitten'
nights took up much of the record label's resources and manpower during
1998, and as a result very little music was released. Because of
the high black market price of copies of No One Knows We're Dead &
The Saint's 'The Return Of The Saint' EP, and with demand exceeding supply,
it was decided that a limited edition album album release should be made.
'The Return Of the Saint - Special Edition' came out on the 7th
December, marking Frostbyte's first release of 1998, and featured all the
original EP tracks, as well as new remixes and old archive material.
The album was deleted a week after release, with some 15,000 copies being
put into circulation.
Encouraged by the great reaction to 'I
Love The Mafia' at the debut club night, Fußgängerzone had a
brief summer recording session (their last at Viewpoint Studios, as within
weeks they were to open their own tailor-made "F-Studio" suite on
the same site as Viewpoint; which was to become the most technically advanced
recording studio in Europe). This resulted in the release - on December
14th - of 'I Love The Mafia' as a double A sided single with the
song 'Now, That's What I Call Fußgängerzone' (which itself
had premiered some weeks before as an acetate at 'Frostbitten', having
an unprecedented positive response from the crowd to its heavy dance beats,
"Stingray" samples, and additional vocals by Ludwig's mother).