first issue first issue October september 2019 2019
PARTIES
WIKIWEEKLY #1
free
CONTENTS
EDITOR’S LETTER - p.7 WHAT’S A RAVE ? - p.8 DRUG USE - p.10 THE RAVE EXPERIENCE - p.12 THE ARRIVING OF THE POLICE - p.14 POSTER - p.16 WHAT’S A RAVE TODAY ? - p.18 THE AFTER PARTY p.20 RAVE IN POP CULTURE - p.22 TRACK LIST - p.26
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EDITO For this first issue of the WikiWeekly series I’d like to hit a topic as fascinating as it is illegal, as dirty as it is attractive, as mysterious as it is magical : the rave parties. A clandestine wild sphere has developed a whole concept of free party in all illegality. Free parties, teknivals, some raves, take place in places as diverse as they are insane, like a field, an abandoned factory, an abandoned warehouse, a quarry, etc., diverted for the feast. The principle is clear, tribes, tweeters or travelers appropriate the space of one night, or even several nights for, they install a festive decor and once the party is over they leave the place just as illegally. This is the principle of temporary zones of autonomy developed by a cantor of the counterculture. This issue is thought as if you were experiencing a free party night : From the moment you know about the party to the way back to your house. Passing by the rave, the drug taking, the arrivig of the police, the after party. If you read until the end you’ll have a little surprise at the last page. Valentin Le Nuff, Editor
A free party is a party ÂŤfreeÂť from the restrictions of the legal club scene, similar to the free festival movement. It typically involves a sound system playing electronic dance music from late at night until the time when the organisers decide to go home. A free party can be composed of just one system or of many and if the party becomes a festival, it becomes a teknival. The parties can be thought of as autonomous zones where all the people present create and enforce the rules. This typically means that drugs are readily available and noise levels are usually illegally high. The word free in this context is used both to describe the entry fee and the lack of restrictions and law enforcement. Motivations for organisers range from political protest to simply wanting to have fun. An example of free parties as political protest was their prominence during the M11 link road protest. At most parties no money is asked for entrance since the aim is not to make profit. However at some (most often indoor) events it is requested at the door to make a donation to cover costs. Typically organisers make little profit or make a loss setting them up. The term free party is used more widely in Europe than in the USA. In Canada and some parts
of Europe they are also referred to as Freetekno parties. A free party might have once been described as a rave, and the origins of the two are similar. Since the birth of nightclubs in town centres in Europe the use of the word rave had largely fallen out of fashion, however in recent times it is increasingly being used again. The term squat party defines the free parties with secret indoor locations. The address is obtained on the day of the event personally from organizers as the buildings are squatted. The parties often last over 24 hours.
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Drugs sale and use is long standing and accepted, most commonly MDMA (ecstasy), amphetamine, cocaine, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, cannabis, nitrous oxide, and ketamine. Drugs are easily available at almost all free parties and people often use them to reduce the fatigue resulting from dancing for many hours, as well as for the recreational effects. In early years MDMA was the most common drug taken at parties, however over the last ten years there has been a steady increase in the popularity of ketamine in Europe, most noticeably in the London scene, where ketamine has a massive presence and has been said by some to have spoiled the atmosphere found at earlier parties. Since 2000 ketamine has crossed over from being almost entirely a drug found in the free party scene to one commonly found in mainstream clubs as well.
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The experience of taking part in a rave is a highly sensory one. This has to do with the loudness and repetitiveness of the music which ravers can physically feel, the effect of the drug Ecstasy which is most commonly associated with raving, and the physical effects of non-stop dancing. This is not to say that other types of club events are not sensory, they are in varying degrees, but sensory overload is an essential part of the experience of raving. The point is to dance until you do ‘lose control’. Rave dancers reach the point of frenzy, rather like the religious dances of Santa Maria where the people dance until the spirit enters them. This emphasis on dancing to a frenzy is not new to Britain but is perhaps a new phenomenon for large numbers of British people to experience. Rave provides ways to ‘dance yourself back into your body’, and is about self acceptance, and self-love. «There was just this massive rush of, to me, happiness,
because there was a genuine brilliant atmosphere in the club and everybody was basically feeding off each other, where everybody’s shouting and screaming and dancing. And all of a sudden I got this huge whoosh running through my body and out of it sort of thing - I don’t know where it went - a huge energy force almost. And then going mad again, just dancing again and going crazy.» ‘And this would just build up and the whole crowd would just be like going along with it and becoming more and more frantic until you did actually feel as if you were slightly losing control.» «It hits you and it bombards you and it breaks down any of those barriers between us. The rhythm just grabs hold of you.»
Sections 63, 64 & 65 of the Act targeted electronic dance music played at raves. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act empowered police to stop a rave in the open air when a hundred or more people are attending, or where two or more are making preparations for a rave. Section 65 allows any uniformed constable who believes a person is on their way to a rave within a five-mile radius to stop them and direct them away from the area; non-compliant
citizens may be subject to a maximum fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale (ÂŁ1 000). The Act was ostensibly introduced because of the noise and disruption caused by all night parties to nearby residents, and to protect the countryside. It has also been claimed that it was introduced to kill a popular youth movement that was taking many drinkers out of town centres drinking taxable alcohol and into fields to take untaxed drugs.
The number of people attending and organising such an event for it to be deemed illegal were altered in the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 section 58 to cover indoor parties and outdoor parties of more than 20 people. It is also a crime if, within 24 hours of being told by a police officer to leave a rave, a person makes preparations to attend a rave. In August 2006, an unlicensed party organised by united sounds - Aztek, LowKey, One Love, Mission, Illicit, Monolith & Brains-Kan Sound Systems in Essex, England was broken
up after 24 hours resulting in approx 60 injuries from both sides and over 50 arrests. This was one of the largest confrontations between police and ravers that had occurred at an unlicensed event for many years. The Chief Superintendent in charge of the police operation said ÂŤThese sorts of raves are quite unheard of in this county - I have not seen this sort of violence since the old days of acid house.Âť
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A R VE TO A rave is a place where a group of people meet together to dance to electronically engineered music. It could take place in a derelict warehouse, a club, a beach, a field, an aircraft hangar or a sports arena. It may be free, and it may charge an entrance fee or raise money for charity. Each has its own discourse. A beach may signify the escapism of a holiday; a warehouse may signify the decline of industrialisation; and a sports arena may signify commercial profiteering. The sort of people that go to any particular one will vary according to the place where it is held, the way in which it is advertised, and the price of the ticket. For example, the London Jungle scene is predominantly black-led and attracts a racially diverse section of urban youth; the
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location of these raves is communicated by the pirate radio stations and those ‘in the know’. Conversely, a rave held at the Ministry Of Sound (a club reputed to have the best sound system in London) sells tickets at £25, advertises on commercial radio and in ‘Time Out’, and targets a wealthier, predominantly white middle class section of society. In 1991, as Hillegonda Rietveld notes, the first ‘Gay Raves’ were organised in the North West. So it seems that while raves do not necessarily create a melting pot for people from different cultural backgrounds, they do not exclude any section of youth on the grounds of race, gender, class, or sexuality. «There are no barriers» within rave since there is no authentic rave; each is just as much a rave as the other.
The Castlemorton Common Festival was a week-long free festival and rave held in the Malvern Hills near Malvern, Worcestershire, England between 22 and 29 May 1992.The media interest and controversy surrounding the festival, and concerns as to the way it was policed, inspired the legislation that would eventually become the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. Thirteen members of Spiral Tribe were arrested after the event, and charged with public order offences. After a lengthy and costly trial, they were acquitted. Concerns about the festival and the way in which it was policed inspired the legislation which developed into the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. This wide-ranging Act effectively made illegal such outdoor parties playing music that, as defined in section 63, incorporates «sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats». Whilst some have argued that Castlemorton, with its attendant publicity, led directly to the Criminal Justice Act and was the «final nail in the coffin of the unlicensed event», others have seen the Act as a draconian piece of legislation which was «explicitly aimed at suppressing the activities of certain strands of alternative culture»
Club Kids, 1990
Human Traffic, Justin Kerrigan
‘ ‘ Twe nty fi ve years on, the spirit of rave is being seen everywhere from catwalk fashion and art to the collective political experience of Acid Corbynism’’
“Artists see it as a halcyon age,” says Seb Wheeler, head of digital at dance and clubbing magazine Mixmag. “I’m 29 and acid house started in the late 80s, so that’s my whole lifetime of dance music to explore … There are dance music legends that you will hear from your older brother or your parents and you’re like: ‘I’m going to check that out,’ and head down a wormhole on YouTube or a specialised playlist on Spotify.” Wheeler points to Bicep, the dance music duo, as the act most influenced by the rave sound, which itself developed from acid house roots in Chicago. Since 2008, the duo’s Feel My Bicep blog has brought their favourite tracks from the genre to other fans. These fans will soon also be able to watch the story unfold: Irvine Welsh, the author of Trainspotting, is working on a TV series, Ibiza87, about the roots of the movement. Matthew Collin’s upcoming Rave On, meanwhile, is a follow-up to his acid house book Altered State, telling the story of how rave went from underground to ubiquity. Fashion brands including Charles Jeffrey, Molly Goddard, Christopher Shannon and Comme des Garçons – more known for conceptual experimentation than clothes for the dance floor – have all brought rave to the catwalk. The latter’s menswear show was a highlight of the SS18 season, with young men dancing, coloured lights and clothes made of neon glittery fabric last seen on Camden Lock market stalls in the 90s. Meanwhile, Russian designer Gosha Rubchinskiy, currently fashion’s golden boy, staged his spring collection in St Petersburg’s first-ever rave venue. He also published a zine with 90s images of teenagers on the rave scene in Russia, at clubs such as Tunnel.
Comme des Garรงons S/S 2018
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Extacy - Shades of Rhythm
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E-Vapor-8 - Altern-8
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Playing With Knives - Bizarre Inc.
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Anasthasia - T99
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Everybody in The Place (155 And Rising) - The Prodigy
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Injected With a Poison - Praga Khan
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Close your Eyes (Optikonfusion!) - ACEN
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The Orange Theme - Cygnus X
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Rave Nation - Da Hool
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Seawolf - Underground Resistance
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Are Am Eye - Commander Tom
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Energy Flash - Joey Beltram
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Mr. Vain - Culture Beat
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Six Days - Jimmy J & Cru L-T
GRAPHIC CONCEPTION Regard Sournois PHOTOGRAPHS SOURCES flyingoverengland.co.uk vfiles.com PRINTING e-artsup Lille BINDING e-artsup Lille PAPERS Liderpapel PC56 TYPEFACES Shapiro Agrandir Cooper Black
Regard Sournois Lille