26th-29th May 1991: DiY at Avon Free Festival, Sodbury Common, Chipping Sodbury, Avon

UPDATE: Just came across some black and white pics on this excellent site: http://www.loftsites.co.uk/old_school_rave/photos/free_rave_photos.html

And here’s a couple of colour photos:

http://www.travellerhomes.co.uk/?p=1430

http://www.travellerhomes.co.uk/?p=1431

DiY was there, but no idea about other soundsystems in attendance. This was a year before Castlemorton and there were apparently house systems there according to this page: http://www.oldskoolanthemz.com/forum/chillout-room/11812-good-old-days-acidic-warehousing-bygone-nights.html (it’s a great article which was apparently copied from the now-defunct DiY discs site).

For the first time the major festivals appeared not so much as hippy events but akin to the great orbital raves of 1988. Here, indeed, was the true spiritual heir to the Summer of Love. The commercial rave scene could no longer genuinely claim to represent love, unity or spiritual celebration. Chipping Sodbury, the eventual site of the Avon Free Festival of 1991, featured various house systems and was really the first free festival so explicit in it’s reveration of dance music. The antagonisms many travellers felt towards these foreign new sounds, also began to become apparent. Fair point, if you have to live on a site with a baby, five days of hugely amplified house is probably not ideal. However, it is undeniable that the influx of this culture breathed new life into an atrophying festival scene. The Avon Free in 1987, for example, had been without joy, a paean to negativity.

Alan ‘Tash’ Lodge had some unwelcome police attention there, the text below is from his page: http://tash.gn.apc.org/photo_degree_ntu.htm

In May 1991 at a small “free festival” near Chipping Sodbury in Avon, a major police operation was mounted and road blocks were set up. The police were attempting to search most of those attending for controlled drugs. This “blanket” activity was held by our counsel to be illegal, since the police must act on individual grounds to suspect any particular individual. The law says that they must not make judgements on colour, style, appearance etc.

This was, however, exactly what was occurring and I was asked by lawyers to go and photograph the circumstances for later use (slides 134 – 142). I have engaged in this activity many times and know police frequently object or are obstructive.

This occasion was no different and while photographing, was threatened with arrest. It was never clear exactly why, but it would have achieved getting me out of the way. I was also subjected to a search myself.

The story is described in a statement that I made to record an official complaint against the police.

And we just found a couple of photos:

http://www.travellerhomes.co.uk/?p=1430

http://www.travellerhomes.co.uk/?p=1431

8th November 1992: Sketch at Upfront £5 rave, near Axminster, Devon

‘Upfront’, a £5 party in two marquees at a farm near Axminster in Devon. Everyone who’d driven from West Dorset  for the chance to go to a free party was a bit pissed off when they realised it wasn’t the free-for-all we were used to. After a bit of a haggle, we convinced the guy on the gate to let one of our posse have a stroll round to see if it was any good. Ten minutes later our spy came back with good news- it was kicking. Those of us who could afford £5 walked in through the gate, and those who couldn’t crawled through some muddy ditches and over some barbed wire fences.

One very tall, reasonably long marquee contained a hefty stomper of a main rig, great lighting, and a stall selling rave accessories. There was also a burger van, and another, smaller marquee (tacked onto the side of the big one), containing a smaller, housier rig (Sketchy Crew, I believe), and a makeshift bar.

We were later to find out that ‘proper’, i.e. legal pay parties, at 5 to 6 times the price of this party, offered a lot less value in terms of both facilities and atmosphere. Another bonus was a big firework display at the peak of the night’s festivities, which caused a lot of ooh-ing and aah-ing. There was also a decent sized bonfire, so that ‘chilling out’ didn’t mean getting freezing cold.

One downer was the fact that everyone seemed to leave so abruptly in the morning- not like a free event, when everyone loiters for hours.

One last thing, one of our friends loved winding people up when they were completely out of it, and on this occasion, she saw fit to endlessly harangue this one particular guy, telling him there were sheep wandering around on the roof of the marquee. It worked. He was very confused indeed.

There’s a nice post about Sketch on the Go Bang Brighton blog.

Some more random memories just came back, one was that I think I remember Slipmatt played there, and the other is that there was some kind of crustyfight which involved earbiting. Nice.

We’ve separated this out from the ‘general’ Lazy House post (which can be found here: http://freepartypeople.wordpress.com/2007/06/15/lazy-house/ ) , here are some of the comments that relate to this particular party:

tinkerbelle
corinne@cmps.uk.com | 88.105.81.9

The party you descride in Aminster ‘Upfront’ party sounds like a party i went to and helped with. From what I recall it was a guy called Jason’s birthday party. He worked for an Electrics company in Exeter and was going out with a friend Gemma in Ashburton at the time.
It was a pay party, £5 about right………
I remeber it was a blast.
Although I used to go to Exmouth in ye olde days I never atually made it to one of the Lazy house Parties. I did know Simon though.
Took my first pill in Exmouth, what fun…………

From Lazy House, 2008/04/23 at 11:27 AM

Frim
fimstonkg@hotmail.co.uk | 79.71.206.60

The upfront party in Axminster was Jason warren’s birthday party Tinkerbelle. I can remember Max having his own stage to dance on was well funny say hi to Gemma if you see her I aint seen her in years, not since she split up with Jason.

From Lazy House, 2008/05/23 at 12:11 AM

7th–9th August 1991– Spiral Tribe and Sweat soundsystems at Torpedo Town Festival at Bramshot Common, Hampshire

Updated- some of the Youtube links were broken.

We try and keep an eye out for broken links/deleted video/mixes etc but please let us know if anything seems wonky or missing

Please note: this covers the 1991 festival, here are links to the 1990 and 1992 festivals of the same name.

Here are (possibly different versions of) the tunes Tim Acid and Dunk mentioned hearing at this party (see comments):

And here’s something one commenter just mentioned:

Here’s a picture and some quotes from Andy Brown’s wonderful but hard to find book ‘Rave: The Spiritual Dimension’. If anyone else has anything to add about this, please send it in

In 1991, the festival was 5 miles further north along the A3 and the turnout was even higher at a cool 12,000… Torpedo Town 1991 mushroomed into existence on a Friday night, grew at a phenomenal rate for all of Saturday, sustained itself through Sunday and then, on account of an M.O.D. injunction, had completely disappeared by Tuesday, except of course for the burned out wreck of a coach which looked like a crashed spaceship. The land itself was I think a M.O.D. common, mainly scrub trees and grass with broken, disused tarmac roads. When we first arrived on the Friday night things were a bit quiet so we took it easy. We parked up in a lane thing and pitched our tents right near. To start off with there were hardly any tents but things didn’t stay that way for long. As more people arrived, a right of way formed through our piece or real estate. What had been a hardly used path through the ferns when we arrived, was now one of the main routes for ravers collecting firewood from the forest. What had happened was that the quiet suburbs which were quite near to the dancefloors had turned into prime sites. Anyway, we had a good spot so we weren’t bothered. At its peak, the city had streets, all heaving with bright eyed happy people, so many that sometimes the paths were so completely rammed with bodies that you couldn’t move at all. This festival really was a city and it even had its own booming economy. I don’t think I need to say what were the main commodities but just as in any established city, you could buy anything you wanted from food to clothes- even a haircut. I was so happy, I cannot stress that too much, really, really, really good times. The totally awesome atmosphere generated at these festivals can be overwhelming… It no exaggeration that once experienced, these festivals can change your life.

22nd-29th May 1992: Spiral Tribe, Bedlam, Circus Warp, Circus Normal, Adrenaline and DiY at Castlemorton Common Free Festival, Worcestershire

We didn’t go.We’re not bitter.

Update 22/10/09: Here’s a couple of Guardian articles about Castlemorton etc: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/jul/11/castlemorton-free-party-scene-spiral-tribe?showallcomments=true

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jul/12/90s-spiral-tribe-free-parties

A couple of contributors remembered some tunes they heard at Castlemorton and here they are (see this post for details: http://freepartypeople.wordpress.com/2009/02/27/some-hardcore-mixes/ )

UPDATE 24/10/08: Here are a couple of videos, the first one’s been online for ages, the second one’s newer and includes some footage taken near the spiral rig-

My old friend Atomic Robot Man was there, and he sent me this page from his diary, thanks man

I missed Castlemorton partly ‘cos I was a bit battered after Lechlade But I believe everyone who says it was wicked. Interesting that dr_box mentioned the police herding him onto the common, people often forget that.

UPDATE 21/04/08: I just found this Flickr pool with some unseen pics of Castlemorton:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/castlemorton/pool/

The following pics are from Atomic Robot Man- thanks dude!

By the way, if anyone has exact dates for this please let me know, I know it’s quoted as going on for 6 days, but need some sort-of-facts! Thanks!

This lucky lucky person was there too:

dr_box wrote:

Castle Morton was an experience.. I’d been visiting a mates place in East London and he was coming over to mine in the depths of West Wales afterwards. we’d heard that there was a festi down near Bristol that weekend, so set off on the hunt along the M4. At one of the service stations along the M4 we got a lift from a Green godess fire engine that was loaded down with kit and Hippies, it was one of the vehicles spiral tribe was using to get to the festival. As we got close we found out that the festival might not be on, so set off on a hunt. the police herded us up to Castle Morton, by the time we got close there were several miles of trucks and busses full of people. At one point the line stopped and a guy with us got out and started counting vehicles as he walked towards the front. when the line started moving again, he waited for us to catch up. he’d counted over seven hundred vehicles, and he hadn’t reached the front of the line.

When we got there, the sun was setting and from the hills overlooking the site you could see the site starting to pulse with light and hear blasts of sound as things were set up. Travelling off all the way to the horizon there was a ribbon of headlights delivering more people to the festival.

Blinding weekend, my mate had his first E experience, Watched the police try and drive through the centre of the crowd. they got stopped in the middle, and a nameless longhair got passed over the crowd, and started selling Acid off the bonnet of the police car. after futilely attempting to get out of the car the plod ended up just laughing at the sheer balls of him.

Nighttime had more than its fair quota of low flying helicopters with spotlights. (although someone did take a potshot at them with a firework)

Last of the truly fun free festivals.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/jul/11/castlemorton-free-party-scene-spiral-tribe?showallcomments=true

? April 1992: Spiral Tribe Free Party on Selsey Common, Stroud, Gloucestershire

Hello Graudian readers! Thanks for visiting, but thanks to a mistake on this page, this isn’t the page you’re looking for! Click here for the Castlemorton Common free festival page. Cheers!

A mate of ours remembers that the police turned up at some point to try and shut it down, realised it was too big to stop, and buggered off again …

Here’s some more memories:

a guy pulled a gun on someone and spiral stopped the music and said that it wasn’t on, so get the fuck out of here.. all the ravers boo’d the gun guy until he had no choice but to leave.

music back on, party continued.

it was a pretty crazy party all told. getting there was quite a mission as well, climbing up that hill. I think the soundsystem caught fire at the beginning, or some wires did anyway. and then eventually it all kicked off. great place to see the sunrise as well.

edit: also pretty funny to see people walking their dogs in the morning. what must they have thought!

Does anyone have an exact date for this? Or any more detailed memories?

Anyone who’s looking for the 1991 event should go here: http://freepartypeople.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/21st-september-1991-free-party-at-great-mills-stroud-gloucestershire/