London raves

[V Knid esq]

Uglyfunkers and other londoners... may I ask for your help please? I would like to write an article about the state of illegal parties - would it be possible for you to put me in touch with some promoters? Mail me: muggsdemon@aol.com, and I'll pass on my phone number.

Thanks

Knid

[karitek]

sorry...i am not the biggest fan of articles being written about squat parties and freeparties. i just don't see the benefit...people don't really want them to become more mainstream or mainstream attention to be brought upon them.

u could try posting to the dirtycircus.com message board or urban75.com message board (both have quite a bit of a squat party following) but i don't know how successful u'd be.

[V Knid esq]

I get your point completely... however, it wouldn't be a 'woo, aren't raves MAAAD?' sort of piece, and need not mention names or locations. The new editor at the Face is keen to get some 'proper' journalism, so it would be more about capturing the mood of various different types of parties; seeing how the scene has changed since the late 80s, where the lines of connection and division lie; trying to capture the language, look and dancing styles of different sorts of ravers; examining soundsystem politics; presenting the scary/nasty sides of the scene as well as the excitement. In short - non-sensationalist reportage.

thanks for the links - i'll check them out.

[grobelaar]

Hmmm, have to say I'm probably with Karitek on this, I don't think anyone involved in sorting out parties would appreciate coverage, however well written, sensitive, and supportive it is, in a magazine as well distributed and as popular as The Face magazine.

The fact is that no matter how positive a light it is presented in, it'll draw undue attention from the sort of people who busy themselves making sure that everyone has to live the same miserable Daily Mail life that they do...

Just my opinion...

[Lady E]

hmm thorny issue this one.

ive always been in favour of media coverage, i think use it for your own ends. its a good way to get a message out there.

one thing i always think about when debates like this arise is that sometimes magazines like the face or the nme that are widely distributed and broadly populist but sometimes give an insight into the underground, or alternative lifestyles are real windows into another life for kids in non-metropolitan places...i grew up in surrey in the suburbs and although i was half an hour from london by train and had some big towns near by at 13 i wasnt able to go to places like that on my own. we had no record shop to speak of and i read all the magazines and dreamed of the day when i could buy all the music i was reading about, it was like listening to john peel

you never know...an article about the free party scene might just inspire some youngsters to do it themselves...and surely that's no bad thing?

[V Knid esq]

Originally posted by emma

you never know...an article about the free party scene might just inspire some youngsters to do it themselves...and surely that's no bad thing?

Thankyou Emma, lucid as ever. That's precisely my aim. To get away from what usually gets coverage (trance & "bangin' tekno" parties), and show people the surprising variety of soundsystems out there. I've found some people who are doing raves in Cambridgeshire and Wales, who play mostly Venetian Snares / Knifehandchop / Kid 606 - they're total punx, and not interested in chinstroking electronica cred, for which reason the big artists come and play their parties whenever they're in the UK. I want to show how whatever your musical preference from Jazz beats to Merzbow, there is a way that DIY culture can work for you.

[M H]

For the record, if it wasn't for the free party scene, I would never have heard Defunkt, Blam the target, Demolish serious culture, swing/jerk, Take thatt, and probably wouldn't be djing now....

Seems to me that it's kind of the "Done thing" not to talk to the press, I can understand it to an extent after sensationalist journalism in the past.....

Nothing wrong with a healthy bit of coverage tho, so long as no-one is incriminated and it dosn't bring it on top....

Very interesting now that, going to a london squat party, you're more likely to hear techno on the more wonky end rather than the "Avinit" stuff, especially when the "Avinit" djs were declaring experimental stuff to be dead a few years back....

There's nothing like hearing Defunkt on a 20k rig at 2 in the afternoon in a dirty warehouse, to me, sounds like the enviroment it was written for....

[M H]

Originally posted by emma
hmm thorny issue this one.

ive always been in favour of media coverage, i think use it for your own ends. its a good way to get a message out there.

one thing i always think about when debates like this arise is that sometimes magazines like the face or the nme that are widely distributed and broadly populist but sometimes give an insight into the underground, or alternative lifestyles are real windows into another life for kids in non-metropolitan places...i grew up in surrey in the suburbs and although i was half an hour from london by train and had some big towns near by at 13 i wasnt able to go to places like that on my own. we had no record shop to speak of and i read all the magazines and dreamed of the day when i could buy all the music i was reading about, it was like listening to john peel

you never know...an article about the free party scene might just inspire some youngsters to do it themselves...and surely that's no bad thing?

Yeah, totally.....

[Marolo]

maybe contact the headfuk lot. They've been doing parties in London and around Europe for ages: www.headfuk.org/

[JE:5]

Originally posted by M H
For the record, if it wasn't for the free party scene, I would never have heard Defunkt, Blam the target, Demolish serious culture, swing/jerk, Take thatt, and probably wouldn't be djing now....



Same here mate, same here...........

[karitek]

yeah, i guess i agree with a lot that you are saying...especially since it was one of my friends reading about freeparties and stuff in the UK when she lived in the US that got me into techno in the first place. but i just think that a lot of people putting on parties are going to be very apprehensive about interviews and giving information out (and i understand why). did u have any luck with those other MBs?

Originally posted by Marolo
maybe contact the headfuk lot. They've been doing parties in London and around Europe for ages: www.headfuk.org/

yeah, they are a good system (a little too much K floating about) but they do very interesting things such as the art gallery that they are squatting right now that has a cafe, record shop, gallery, artist workshops ets in it.

just came back from a weekend in paris though, and there is an exhibition there that is nationally sponsered that features 30 different artist squats and was absolutley wicked...kinda makes me realize how much more can be done in the squat scene in general...

[V Knid esq]

Originally posted by karitek
just came back from a weekend in paris though, and there is an exhibition there that is nationally sponsered that features 30 different artist squats and was absolutley wicked...kinda makes me realize how much more can be done in the squat scene in general...

Wow, is that still going on?? Got any web links?

[karitek]

it is sorta still goin on...the official exhibition ended a week or two ago, but most of the squats are still doing stuff...

check out www.59rivoli.org

here is a picture of the outside of one of them...

http://www.proaudioeurope.com/images/design/squat.jpg

[Marolo]

I think headfuk and Dead silence are the only ones who are putting any effort into the squat scene in London at the moment. They are running a record shop, caberets, all sorts of workshops (photography etc...), parties with visuals and live sets...with the same philosophy that crass had in the 80's.
But still you go to places like amsterdam and you realise that so much more could be done. Amsterdam's squat scene is really thriving, they've even got squat cinemas...

[karitek]

yeah, knid...i think that would be a really interesting article (that might even give u a budget to travel :-p)- comparing squat scenes in london, paris and amsterdam and why they are different. are there different laws or people in london just not motivated to do more? and maybe tracing how the scenes over there managed to achieve a more favourable relationship with the government and mainstream society.

the headfuck gallery is definitely worth checking out. they do film nites on fridays...although i know u r busy going to uglyfunk this friday ;)

[karitek]

oh and the deadsilence website is wicked.

www.deadsilence.co.uk

i guess the main reason that i wasn't that supportive of doing a piece on the squat party scene in london right now is that (although it got me into techno) right now i don't think that a piece on it would show it in a good light coz right now i think the parties are quite stale and boring. i think they used to be good, and in a year or two will be again, but i usually just get bored and end up getting too out of it to compensate (as do most people).