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):

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.

21st September 1991: Free Party at Great Mills warehouse, Stroud, Gloucestershire

A comment from Jamie pointed to the fact that there’s nothing here on the 1991 event in Stroud. This is what he said:

a truely epic warehouse free party in Stroud Sept 21st 1991 when 8000 ravers crashed into town and rocked the old Great mills

Anything to add anyone?

By the way, we’ve found two references to parties in Stroud, this one, and one in April 1992. And we’ve seen things about Selsey Common in Stroud, as well as Stroud Common, and warehouse parties too, so it’s all a bit confusing , can anyone help? We believe the party in 1992 was the Spiral Tribe where someone got on the mic to confront a mugger. The page on that event is here: http://freepartypeople.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/april-1992-spiral-tribe-free-party-on-stroud-common/

Anything in anybody’s memory banks?

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

DiY was there I think, 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

22nd August – 4th September 1991: Spiral Tribe, Circus Normal, DiY and Circus Warp at White Goddess Free Festival, Camelford, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall

UPDATE 07/09/09: I just stumbled across this video, quite sweet really. I reckon it must have been a few days into the party and no-one’s up for dancing any more, apart from some of the smallest ravers you’ve ever seen

Just received the comments below from Suzi on the ‘What is this site all about?’ page. First of all, thanks a million for your short but sweet comments Suzi!

The August Bank Holiday weekend started on Friday 2nd August 1991. According to various sources the festy lasted 2 (!) weeks. But if anyone else has more accurate dates let me know. Also the sound systems in attendance were gleaned from the Wikipedia page on Spiral Tribe.

Who else can add to this?

Suzi’s comments:

Just discovered this site – brilliant! Went to most of the Festi’s from 91-92… most memorable:

Torpedo town ; Camelford 91, Lechlade 92, ; of course the one that will go down in history being Castlemorton 92 (proper lost it big time there!!). Not much here on Camelford 91, so here is my contribution:

Good Memory:

After getting lost on Bodmin Moor around 3am, following a 4 hour drive from Bournemouth, we stopped at a phone box (pre mobile days of course) to cheekily ask for directions from the local plod and they surprisingly obliged!

Bad Memory:

Discovering there were no trees when daylight broke, hence no discreet toilet facility, and having to walk for miles through a minefield of turds with a layer of pink toilet paper fluttering not so discreetly atop each mound, just to take a girl piss.

Some hardcore mixes and tracks

These are all newish mixes using top hardcore tunes from the era this website covers. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do

http://conehead.fun-in-the-murky.com/2008/06/dj-conehead-unmix-12-breakbeat-hardcore-parts-1-2.html

http://conehead.fun-in-the-murky.com/2009/02/dj-conehead-unmix-15-breakbeat-hardcore-parts-3-4.html

http://theacidhouse.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/re-upped-visions-of-1991-mix/

This last one is on Tim Acid’s blog. he’s posted here before and his blog’s always got lots of good stuff on it.

Update: Thanks a million to Ben for hooking me up with the DJ Producer oldskool mix, really enjoying it right now! Tracklist for this is out there somewhere. It’s apparently an Ableton mix and he’s sort of chopped up and layered all sorts of oldskool niceness together in a big hardcore rave flavoured sandwich. Yum.

Here it is: http://rapidshare.com/files/204371849/THE_DJ_PRODUCER_OLDSKOOL_8.mp3.html

Other mixes can be found by following the ‘mp3′ and ‘mixtape’ links on the right. If any of the links die please let me know and I’ll re-upload them ASAP.

At the time we used to say ‘hardcore you know the score’. We didn’t even really consider it a style of music, especially as you’d hear loads of different styles in one night and in one DJ’s set (you’d also hear a lot of influences/genres/styles in the space of one tune, which I guess is what hardcore is, by my definition anyway )

At Spirals parties techno started to play a larger part after a while. However,  I can remember hearing all sorts of styles on their rig, partly ‘cos they let ‘other’ DJ’s  on (e.g. chancers who just turned up with a record bag and said ‘can I play?’- for example an unknown but very good DJ from Dorset did this at Castlemorton), and partly because they weren’t (as lots of people seem to think) a finite entity with exactly (marketingspeak here I think!) 23 members. Bedlam were quite generous at letting guest DJ’s play, maybe even more than Spirals, I’m not 100% certain. If anyone can shed any light on this I’d be pleased to hear from you. I guess you’ve got to let other people on if you’re running a party for such extended periods of time

In my rather faulty memory banks I can only connect a handful of specific tunes with a handful of specific parties. For instance at the Spirals do in Rhayader I remember Aphex Twin’s ‘Digeridoo’ and Urban Shakedown’s Some Justice’:

A commenter, Ben, had this to say on the subject of the tune above:  I cannot hear ‘Some Justice’ without thinking of Castlemorton. At some point on the Sunday night I walked a mile or so away from site in the pitch-dark to, ahem, clear my head a little as the Screaming Buddha’s had made everything a little too *intense*. After half an hour or so of just lying on my back staring at the stars the Ce-Ce Rogers vocal sample drifted lovingly through the air towards me, inspiring me to drag myself off of the floor, and back to the party.

Another contributor to this page clearly remembers Epitome of Hype’s ‘Ladies With An Attitude playing in the Circus Warp tent at Castlemorton. At the time he thought it was a DJ being clever with Madonna’s ‘Vogue’ (which the track samples) but since then he’s realised it was this:

At Happy Days Free Festival in Kerry I remember hearing DJ Aztek playing Brother From Another Planet’s ‘Planet Earth’.

Happy listening!