|
The
confessions of a geriatric raver I was the last person on earth who was ever likely to go dancing, I'd never done it before and I'd never felt the inclination to try. However, a seed had been sown in the early 90's - this strange and highly irritating music kept grabbing my attention. I didn't know it then, but that was Trance. For some time I had a guilty conscience about my 20 a day tobacco habit and the idea of quitting was getting to dominate my thoughts. One day in april 1994 it happened. It was a nice sunny evening and I was sitting on the side of the Yare valley looking at the UEA (the local university in Norwich) when, halfway through a smoke, I stubbed it out and quit. What followed was a complete disruption of my life, everything changed. I went through a 6 month "cold turkey", which, apart from anything else, gave me a huge surge of energy. Also, all the things I used to do like going down the pub or watching TV, became simply impossible, I needed a new pastime. It was later that year at the tender age of 40 I went to my first "rave", actually a fairly tame 2.00am finish club night in the Waterfront here in Norwich. After standing around the edge of the dancefloor for an hour or so, I eventually plucked up courage and joined in. To my amazement, no-one laughed. So I started going to raves and I loved it, in particular I liked the people. Ravers are, on the whole nice people, there's rarely any violence and, for me the best bit, very little drinking. The atmosphere in these events reminded me very much of the free festivals I used to enjoy some years ago. There was a reason for this of course, the illegal drugs. My feeling about this, as now, was that there seemed to be a lot of young people doing something with little or no adult guidance or support and I wanted to do something about that. I contacted the local drug agency, the Matthew project and in early 1995 we ran a drug info stall in the Waterfront, giving out information about drugs, what I now know is now called "harm reduction". My approach was to try and give information in a "user friendly" way, ie in such a way as to relate to the culture. This, clearly, had to include the legalisation debate, in particular for cannabis. That first stall was very naive in many ways, but it got a good reception and I feel could have been developed into a very effective service. I still believe that and its the reason I'm still involved with harm reduction campaigning. However, my efforts were brought to a halt by the government of the day and, in particular, Michael Howard the then Home Secretary who saw fit to drag us back into the dark ages of the "war on drugs". However, throughout that year I fell deeper in love with the music, Techno, Trance and even some House and I became a regular on the Norwich "party scene". I would make drug information leaflets (mostly culled from information given out by Release or Lifeline drug agencies), which I handed out unofficially. I made no secret of this, even to the extent of asking for comments from the police in the shape of Richard Price (who was the Community Relations officer for Norfolk Police at the time) on occasions. Toward the end of that year though, the tragedy of Leah Betts happened. Leah died on her 18th birthday party, she had taken one ecstasy pill. This case resulted in a highly emotive and distorted advertising campaign typical of the drug war: "Just one pill took Leah Betts" ran the slogan. In fact of course the case was somewhat more complicated than that simplistic slogan portrayed. 1996 and my love affair with the scene deepened. That summer two major developments occurred. First the internet arrived and suddenly I was able to find out about events outside of East Anglia. In particular I started making my way down to London. Secondly, that summer I made my way to Berlin for the "Love Parade". Berlin was fun. A massive old Gestapo building - now gone - called "The Bunker" was the highlight of that year. The deeper I went into this evil building (it was clear form the design this had been a very unpleasant place) the harder the music became. This was Gabba, German style. Hard, fast pounding screaming music, constant flashing strobe, utterly intense. Back in London I'd discovered first of all the big club scene, Tyssen Street (where I still go from time to time) and the Fridge for example, but then I found the "underground", small club nights - parties - in railway arches in Brixton. in particular a gabba club called "Hellraiser". This was London Acid Techno - more akin to thrash punk, something I used to like many years before. That Christmas/New Year I went to India and made my way to Goa. It was here I saw the drug war in full force for the first time in my life. The harm it was doing, the dangers it was creating and the corruption it was spawning were easy to see. Clearly, smoking cannabis was out of the question, the message it was sending was clear and simple: "if you want to do drugs, do the small, easy to conceal more powerful stuff". Utter, utter madness. I resolved never to return to Goa. However, the parties in Goa were quite something. Very different to the Gabba parties under the railway arches in Brixton, dancing under a warm star filled sky, the air filled with the sound of "Goa Trance" (aka Psychedelic techno) is a wonderful experience. But when I came back I discovered that we were about to adopt this drug war insanity in the shape of the "Barry legg bill", a proposal that had the full backing of the Labour party, this was the vary last act to be rushed through before the election of 1997. This was the reason I resigned my 23 year old membership of the Labour party, no way could I support them anymore. The effect of the "Legg act" as its known (The public entertainment, drugs misuse act) has been just the same as the drug war madness I saw in India. People have moved away from Cannabis, the safest of all the drugs, towards pills, powders and the like, simply because they can be concealed easier. The only effects its had is to make everything more dangerous, to prevent outreach harm reduction efforts and to drive the drugs into the dark corners. I know of no positive effects of this law, in my view its been totally destructive and has only served to make the situation a lot worse. It's almost impossible now to put on a rave party in a legal, licenced venure and those that do happen are sterile and sanitised in my book, with bouncers watching to make sure no-one steps out of line. The best parties now are on the underground and take place either in squats, or outdoors in remote locations. That year I returned to Berlin for the Love Parade again, this time I came across a real free party system set up on some waste ground near the Brandonburg Gate. Little did I know where that would lead me some time later. The Christmas of that year I went to South Africa where raving is a big thing. Because of the e-mail, I managed to hook up with some people before I went there, which lead to some strange nights, such as a club in downtown Jo'burgh (not a place to go really) and the wonderful "Rustlers Valley", a sort of cross between hippy commune and English country club. In 1998 although I was still a regular on the Norwich scene and was still heading down to London, I was getting more into the political aspects of my drug campaigning. Two things happened, as is so often the case, at the more or less the same time. First the Green Party started selling the pill testing kits, a chemical reagent which indicates the presence or otherwise of "E type" chemicals. I started testing pills, smuggling the kit into clubs and such. It was clear from the tests that pills were very variable in quality. Then the second thing happened, Mitsubishi pills turned up and the floodgates seemed to open. Suddenly the quality of ecstasy pills seemed to improve. The pill testing database had just been started on ecstasy.org and I saw the Mitsubishi pills turning up all around the world. Within a couple of weeks of the first report, they were available in Norwich, a very impressive demonstration of the size of this illegal industry. Around Christmas of that year though, I decided I'd had enough and took a break from parties for a couple of months. Then 1999 happened. 1999 was a strange year, strange for many reasons. I started going down to London again and met up with Paj, who introduced me to the London squat party scene. These parties happen in old warehouses, derelict office blocks and suchlike, they are not the clean, sanatised events you get in clubs. It was only my second squat party when I was involved in an emergency and ended up saving someone's life after he threw himself through a window high on LSD. Away from London and free parties happen most weekends out in the country. But away from London and there's non of this "big city" dark side. Parties in woodland clearings, barns and on beaches are simply wonderful. But London, with all its problems, kept calling. What's the attraction of these events? Well, first there's the music, the sound of the London techno underground is wonderful and quite unlike the stuff you get in clubs on the whole. Then there's the atmosphere, no searches when you go in (which I find repulsive and refuse to submit to) and no chucking out time (or if there is, I don't often last that long). The positive side of the rave culture is what's termed the "DIY" culture, and you see it at squats. I expected my involvement with this scene to die away in 2000, but it didn't. Throughout that year I was heading down to London for parties in dead office blocks, factories and - well all sorts of strange places. There were also events out in the countryside and I ended up spending a lot of time on trains making my way to all sorts of weird places such as Hampshire. The year ended up in Brasil, in a party on the beach in Bihia State As 2001 passes I'm still following the scene. In Norwich we've had some big squat parties in the old Bennets warehouse on King Street. At least four of these happened before the local gutter press the Evening News did a "shock horror" front page feature on them, which forced the building owners to notice what was going on. _____________________________________________ Footnote November 2004 I never really stopped going raving, it just became something I did less often throughout 2002. What an amazing experience it was though :)
|