Spannered – A book about freaks, friendship and free-parties

If you’re reading this blog, this book might interest you. I read it and loved it, took me right back…

 

SPANNERED – by Bert Random

 

A book about freaks, friendship and free-parties.

 

Spannered Books, a new small press from Bristol, have just released their first book – a novel set in the west-country’s infamous free-party scene. We follow a group of Bristol party-heads as they stomp from party to party on the wrong side of town over one life-changing weekend; a must-read for anyone who was there in the 90′s glory-days, or for anyone who wants to know what the fuss was all about. The book is also illustrated by rising stars of Bristol’s art-scene – see here for details from some of the pictures. Get it direct from the publisher, or from Amazon (paperback, Kindle or ipad/iPhone versions are available)

 

Reviews:

 

“A vivid account of the squat party experience; a pumped-up Fear and Loathing transplanted to Bristol, England… we are taken on an odyssey, ‘aving it to pounding techno in a dirty warehouse. Read this book – the story of the real 90s ecstasy revolution.” Chris Liberator (Stay Up Forever Records)

“Love it! It put me right back to the days when I was doing exactly the same thing in London 1995. A really fun read , with some great visual descriptions of the weirdest moments…” Henry Cullen aka D.A.V.E. the Drummer (Hydraulix/ Mutate to Survive/ Pounding Grooves)

 

“…Its evocative descriptions will echo with anybody who has been to free parties anywhere or anytime then or since. It’s all there – the highs, the lows, the intense friendships, the casualties, the transformation of some derelict zone into a temporary playground… and of course the music. As a historical document capturing the mood of a specific time and place this book is bang-on,” history-is-made-at-night.blogspot.com/

 

There are more details, tunes, and rants at www.spanneredbooks.com, and you can follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.

23rd November 1991: Free Party at Staravia factory, Ascot, Berkshire

NB This post refers to the first party at this site. For the second party, the week after, please read this post: http://freepartypeople.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/30th-november-3rd-december-1991-spiral-tribe-and-circus-warp-free-party-at-staravia-factory-ascot-berkshire/

We’d heard about this before, but thanks again to Snufkin for filling us in on some of the details:

That Ascot party was awesome. Last day of November 1991 and it was cold, minus ten at least I’d say. We had been living there ten days or so, on the site of a demolished jet engine factory called Staravia. The site had been used for storing  pea gravel so there were mounds of the stuff everywhere and huge ruts frozen solid.

We held a party the previous week, had no tent, but the factory site was a big concrete pad with rows of pine trees down both sides, so we borrowed (?) some scaffolding and tarps and strung up a makeshift marquee. We had no rig either, the one we usually used wasn’t available, but we phoned a number from the classified adds in Sounds and managed to book 6k of brand new Peavey Turbosound. The owners were bikers who had never seen anything like us, but fair play, they were up for it. The party rocked, for a few days and Easygroove played. In  the morning he asked if we would host his birthday bash. Sure we said, if we ain’t evicted. We had been partying and being moved on for a few months by then. We were all quite surprised to still be there on Friday.

Here’s a map: http://wikimapia.org/9626663/Spiral-Tribe-Rave

Any memories from this one, anyone?

30th November-3rd December 1991: Spiral Tribe and Circus Warp Free Party at Staravia Factory, Ascot, Berkshire

NB This post refers to the second party at this site, for the earlier do, please read this post: http://freepartypeople.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/saturday-23rd-november-1991-free-party-at-staravia-factory-ascot-berkshire/

More from Snufkin:

That Ascot party was awesome. Last day of November 1991 and it was cold, minus ten at least I’d say. We had been living there ten days or so, on the site of a demolished jet engine factory called Staravia. The site had been used for storing  pea gravel so there were mounds of the stuff everywhere and huge ruts frozen solid.

… Easygroove turned up with the whole Circus Warp crew and added their tent onto our shambles. Spirals turned up later and they had to stay out in the cold. I remember walking away from the party at one point, tripping my tits off I turned back to look. There were 5000 people raving in a bodged together tent and the heat of their bodies formed a fog around the tend, which pulsed and throbbed with the lights. As I watched, the fog sat up on its haunches, like something ethereal out of ghostbusters, smiled a snaggletooth smile at me, winked and then settled back down again, curling itself around the party contentedly. No, really!

I can’t remember how long we partied for, maybe til tuesday, it got pretty twisted by the end. I had the burner going in my trailer all the way through and the site was big enough that it was possible to sleep now and then, but I don’t remember too much sleeping..

Here’s a map: http://wikimapia.org/9626663/Spiral-Tribe-Rave

Thanks again for the nice long comment Snufkin. Does anyone else remember this at all? Any photos?

31st December 1991-2nd January 1992 New Year’s Eve: Spiral Tribe and Circus Normal at The Roundhouse, Camden, London

Thanks to Snufkin for this comment:

I was at the Roundhouse gig on New Years Eve too. At the time it was derelict and owned by the Metropolitan police. the entrance was blocked with several hundred tonnes of rubble, totally filling the access road. Didn’t stop the Normals drving the rig and genny in on a six six-wheel-drive Militant that used to belong to Moscow State Circus, strainght over the top. Another crazy night. Next night wasn’t so great, after the security had done too much coke and gone to sleep and every mugger in London moved in.

From the Spiral Tribe Wikipedia page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Tribe ):

The power was stolen from a light socket owned by British Rail at the back of the building and the system went off at 6:30 in the morning when they turned the lights off. Someone then found an alternative power source.

There are also some lovely pics and a flyer from this party over at:

http://www.spiral-tribe.org/understand/page10.html

Again, we heard about it at the time but didn’t attend. Remember hearing rumours about muggers, but also about what an amazing venue it was. Were you there? What was it like? Got any photos or flyers? Also, there seems to have been a Christmas Eve party (also Spiral). Anyone know about this? We’ll create another post for it.

21st-23rd June 1991: Circus Warp at Summer Solstice Free Festival at Peasedown St. John, Somerset

Does anyone else know anything about this party? Matt and Paula reckon it was the solstice weekend, which seems to make sense. The dates we’ve put in the post title are Friday to Sunday, anyone know if that’s correct?

Shout going out to watermouse who alerted us to this video, thanks! And an even bigger shout out to dj jenjen (aka mis-chief) who shot the video