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:
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)
UPDATE 19/08/09: Just stumbled across this great video. Thanks a million to whoever filmed and youtubed it UPDATE 25/8/09: Mark (see comment) reckons this was Spiral’s rig.
I’m looking for a list of which other rigs were in attendance. It was in 1992, so no worries if it’s all a bit hazy
Amino Clang was there, and here’s his report:
I was staying with my Dad, his partner and her son (who is my age and an old friend of the family too) in Dorset when we heard that there was a festi just down the road in a tiny place called Smeatharpe so, totally unprepared and with no way of getting there, us kids set off to see how far we could get with nothing more than a thumb and a burning need to get there in our inventory.
We managed to get a lift quite easily, but unfortunately the driver wasn’t going far and he dropped us off in the middle of nowhere. Too far down the road to get home, too far away from the party to walk… and then it started to get dark.
Luckily, just as dread was setting in, a VW campervan stopped for us and when we got in the inhabitants said “You look like you’re going where we are going! Do you know where it is?”
We knew that it was at Smeatharpe air strip, but didn’t really know where that was so a phone call from a payphone, a look at the map and couple of wrong turns later we made it onto the site and said our goodbyes to our saviours before bouncing off into the throng.
I love that feeling you get when you finally find the party you have tried so hard to get to. The people looning about, the lights in the sky, maybe a glimpse of some local coppers, but always that unmistakeable boom-boom-boom of a sound system, or even better – that distant fairground sound of people talking mixed with a selection of sound systems churning out allsorts of sounds from all directions. It turns into a cacophony of chaotic noise that I suppose most people would find offensive, but I just love it. Just writing about it now is making me feel all cosy and comfortable, like somebody has draped a warm blanket over my shoulders. Aaaahhhh!
Anyway – I digress…
Back at the party we did a quick tour of the site and soon worked out that there was at least three or four sound systems, some louder than others, but all banging it out to a crowd of happy up-for-it people. There was also a whole lot of UV backdrops, a whole lot of vehicles (both ‘omes and ravemobiles), a bouncy castle, one of those NASA gyroscope things, a TV showing movies, a bar in a double-decker bus, a t-shirt stall and the obligatory selection of dealers shouting “Hash for Cash!”, “Acid, Exctacy!”, “Speed, whiz”, “Mushies, trips!”, etc. (and there really was a bloke shouting “Hash for leather jacket!”).There was even a smallish campervan for sale. I swear you could buy absolutely anything at a free festi in ‘92 if you looked hard enough.
Anyway – I digress…
We had been there a while and had not bumped into anybody we knew yet so we bought a “pill” off some girl and split it (the last of our money gone now). I don’t think it worked very well though because my memory of Smeatharpe is pretty vivid. Eventually we plucked up our courage and asked the MC at the biggest rig to get one of our friends to come to the decks so we could meet up with him. Unfortunately the mate in question was a bit worse for wares and thought they wanted him to play a set so he ran away instead!
We continued to wander about looking for somebody we knew – they had to be here somewhere – when suddenly… I noticed a car that I recognised from my hometown in Wales (where I lived with my Mum), and there leaning up against it was one of my friends from up there. I went over to say hello, but he looked a bit wobbly and was trying to lean on the car. It turns out that he had spilled a bottle of poppers on himself and was struggling to stay conscious. Anyway, he started to come round and told me that my oldest friend (it’s a long story, but we met before we were born and have been friends ever since) was in the van he had just fallen out of. This was excellent news of course and the three of us spent the rest of the night bouncing about the party together (there may have been some speed involved at some point?). Here are some of the things I remember:
1. I remember meeting a lovely couple of ravers on the bouncy castle and discussing the pro’s and con’s of going to see The Lawnmower Man in the cinema on acid.
2. I remember doing a bit of juggling with my glow-in-the-dark juggling balls in front of a sound system with a particularly large collection of UV backdrops and a UV light playing more ambient tunes than the other systems.
3. I remember one system was almost all treble while another system was almost all bass.
4. I remember sitting on top of a BIG van/truck type traveller vehicle in the morning watching the ravers in front of the biggest system beneath us. If you squinted your eyes a little bit it looked like the crowd was moving in a steady circle around a point in the middle of the dance floor. This is kind of difficult to explain but it had us all really impressed at the time.
5. I remember seeing some traveller kids ragging about the place on bikes being naughty and taking the piss out of the ravers when the sun came up.
Eventually we found some of our friends from Dorset too and the morning panned out very nicely – chilling out in the sun smoking temple balls with a big bunch of friends at a huge party that showed no signs of slowing down. What more could you ask for?
Time passes and we started to get hungry and tired so we decided that it would be a good idea to say our goodbyes and try to get home. We started the long walk towards the nearest town with our thumb out hoping that somebody would be leaving at the same time. We did get picked up… by a crazed scally driving a stolen car! When he saw the police (who had parked up nearby) he sped up and told us he would let us out as soon as he got away from the police. We smiled politely, thanked him for the lift (and thanked god that we were still alive) and continued to walk through country lanes trying to find a sign of civilisation. God knows how we did it, but we did manage to get home eventually.
So we’re sitting back at home chilling out, smoking more temple balls, resting up and feeding up, watching a bit of telly and getting ready for a good sleep after last night’s adventures, when the parents come in from work (they ran a restaurant) with one of the staff from the restaurant, totally pissed up and raring to go off to “The Rave” to see the sites and embarrass their kids. The guy who worked in the restaurant was sober so we all piled into the car and off we went – once more unto the breach…
By the time we got there is was dark again and there weren’t quite as many people, but the party was still going strong. The parents managed to find themselves some pills and got well and truly! I don’t know if you have ever done a pill (a good ‘92 pill) when you are already pissed up, but it knocks you for six, and knock them for six it did.
The resounding memory for me is watching my Dad fall over shouting “Yeah Baby!”, but there are other memories from night two at Smeatharpe Free Festival…
1. I remember that Spiral Tribe had set up a sound system that I had not noticed on the first night and I was having a bit of a dance when this bloke comes over (clearly rushing himself) and started dancing around me saying “Rush, rush, rush, rush…). Well it worked – I really started to come up on the pill we had split (this one worked) and then we spiralled off to investigate the rest of the party again.
2. I remember walking about the site between sound systems and noticing that the music from each system was mixing perfectly with the next. Just as one would fade out, the next would fade in and the tunes were always perfectly beat-matched. Probably my imagination, but pretty cool nonetheless!
3. I remember trying to find our parents’ car and going right up to it and looking in the window and everything, but still not recognising it. We soon realised that we had been looking at the right car when we were ready to go and the driver walked right up to the car we had been looking at and unlocked it!
Time passed, and it all got a bit too much for The Olds so we went home with smiles on our faces and warmth in our hearts.
But the story of Smeatharpe does not finish there either…
TEN YEARS later I was living in Exeter with my girlfriend when I got a phone call from another friend who told me to switch on the local news. There it was again – Smeatharpe Free Festival had returned and it was only down the road again!
We immediately jumped in the car, met up with our friends and headed up to the party (thank fuck for the local press). We had to park a little way from the site because the police (with some help from the local farmer) had blocked every road up to it (not like in the old days!), but we managed to find a way through a hedge, into some fields, dart across the main road past the police and run onto the site with our heads down and our hearts racing.
This blog is all about free parties from 1990 – ‘94 so I will just give a brief account of this night:
1. There were more sound systems, but less people at Smeatharpe 2002. This seems to be a bit of a theme for modern Free Festivals – the sound system has become the ultimate party accessory.
2. The musical spectrum was wider at Smeatharpe 2002. There was a house system, a selection of techno systems, a selection of DnB systems, a cocktail bar playing disco and there was even a ska/punk band playing live on a makeshift stage stuck between two pretty big sound systems.
3. Some moron almost ran us over in their white van at Smeatharpe 2002. This same van had been caught on film as they rammed their way through a gate past a local news reporter to get onto the site (clever boys!)
4. The atmosphere was still havin’ it and happy at Smeatharpe 2002, but I gotta say it – they don’t do ‘em like they used to.
5. I was older and wiser at Smeatharpe 2002. We drove there and back in a comfortable car, no need to hitch, no need to search for the site (although there was the obligatory stop to get out of the car and listen out for the bass line echoing across the valley), no parents to look after and we met up with our friends before getting on site.
6. The press were not impressed with Smeatharpe 2002. They reported that the site had been left in appalling condition with loads of burned out cars and rubbish left lying about everywhere, not to mention all the raver poo creating an environmental health hazard. Funnily enough I had taken my girlfriend up to see the site of Smeatharpe Free Festival ‘92 only a week or so earlier and the air strip had been used as a stock car racing track for quite some time – it was covered in burned out cars, tyres and oil tins and it was an absolute shite-heap. The worst footage the press could get was of the burned out white van left by those same dickheads who had tried to run us over at the party. The shot panned across the wasteland of the air strip to see other burned out cars, burned out tires and a nice neat pile of bin bags that had been left by the ravers who generally like to leave a site cleaner than they found it.
Also, someone I don’t know, but probably unknowingly danced right next to at a few parties sent me this report on the 1992 Smeatharpe Free Festival… Thanks mharridge!!
After missing Castlemorton because ‘I didn’t think it would be that big and another would come along and I’d already said I’d work..’I was determined to make it to my first free festival. I’d leaked the secret to a couple of mates from the next town (Leamington) who seemed keen and also would help supply the main ingredient. So, off the 5 of us set sometime Friday evening after making various ‘doctor calls’ around town. We arrived on site at Smeatharpe airfield, Devon, to a police prescence who happily waved us through. Not that I had a sweat on mind with the whole cars stash tucked under the carpet in my footwell of my mate’s Cavalier.
It was dark when we arrived so I don’t remember much other than all night merry making but i do remember watching aeroplanes soaring high above in the clear blue morning sky.
It turns out that one of our friends from Leamington had taken a funny turn and was asking to be taken back home.. After a quick pow-wow we decided it would be ok and we set off on the 2/3 hour drive. After dropping our 3 friends off in Leamington we spent the rest of the day hanging around the pub and telling our mates about where we’d been.
It happened that an older crowd were headed down that evening so being as we knew where the site was we asked if we could tag along. This time I jumped in my mates camper van and again after a variety of pitstops we were off. Again arriving in the pitch black and after getting lost among country lanes we eventually found the site again. A couple of us had scored some acid and I’d bought some more speed. I wasnt an E convert by this time and was sticking to amphetamines and acid. However, how I’d wished I had bought an E as I spent most of the night in a jittery state inside my mates van – though it was fun.
The morning soon came around and drawing back the curtains of the camper van we saw an increasing ring of black uniforms – oh dear :/ The police cordon got tighter and tighter so we moved the van nearer to the last remaining system playing. This was my first experience of Spiral Tribe. Picture the scene – mid Sunday afternoon in blazing summer sunshine, people dancing on top of vehicles to twisted acid techno, lots of dust around – or maybe thats just me. Not sure I’ll ever be able to forget that.
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.
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:
Atomic Robot Man, who drove us to this party, just sent me his rave diaries. Here’s an extract:
It was a beautiful location, but there was 12 hours of driving and loads of calls to the hotline before we even had proper directions, let alone arrived! We were listening to Levitation, The Cardiacs and Butthole Surfers to keep us awake. Out of the darkness on a Welsh mountain road in the arse end of the arse end of nowhere a shape loomed towards us, and the driver braked sharply. It was just a paralytic local on his way back from a pub spilling off his antiquated bicycle and headfirst onto the tarmac. We were worried, and asked if he was OK. He clambered back on, grunted, and cycled off into the gloom.
Eventually we had to give up, and had a couple of hours of very uncomfortable sleep in a layby in the car (3 of us in a mini metro, a gearstick poking me in the ribs).
In the morning we were aching, but the weather was beautiful and we’d already decided that if we couldn’t find the party we’d take our pills and go for a walk. We finally got proper directions at 7 am or thereabouts. After driving through some deep valleys carpeted with thick forests, we stopped the car for my friend to get out for a pee. Two minutes later she came rushing back -’I can hear it! I can hear it!’, after hours of uncertainty and confusion we arrived at the party at 8 or 9 am. A seemingly purpose-built dancefloor (actually a ruined building- part of a disused leadmine) on the side of a slate mountain with a waterfall over to the right (just out of the picture). There was a river running past to the left of the picture.
When we arrived we realised we needed something for ‘breakfast’. We started with Love Hearts and followed these up with some Special K.
Tired after the journey we spent a stupid amount of time in the car. This often happened back then, you’d travelled MILES with your friends to be in this special place and then, fuck it, let’s just stay in our mobile chill out room.
We were listening to Special K (an old house tape) in the car, and I remember attracting one or two curious stares because of this. Even then, things were quite polarised- you liked house OR techno. We liked both, which confused people.
A pair of beautiful girls knocked on the car window. They were tripping enormously and pointing to a piece of sheet music and gibbering at us through the window.
Sometimes, in certain states of mind, time seems to fuck up and start looping. At one stage there were about 5 of us sat in this tiny mini metro, so fucked that all we could do was sigh. This was all that could be heard for a while: ‘Ffffffffffff. Pshhhhhhhh. Phoooooooo! Ffffffffffff. Pshhhhhhhh. Phoooooooo!’
This was what passed for conversation in the old days. Then there was a new sound ‘Ffffffffffff. Pshhhhhhhh. Phoooooooo! Fwap. OW! Ffffffffffff. Pshhhhhhhh. Phoooooooo! Fwap. OW!’ The girl sat in the middle of the back seat was brushing her hair. Every time she brushed it, the brush twatted her neighbour in the head. It was a while before she realised and stopped.
We spent some time chilling out in/by the river:
As you can see I look like a cheesy raver. I have no shame.
Sunglasses? Check.
Strange facial expression? Check.
Shit ponytail? Check.
Home made Fimo bead necklace? Check.
Home made Fimo badge in the shape of the Rising High logo? Check.
Standing in the water with shoes on, not realising it’s going to be a bit irritating later? Check.
Somerfield bottle of water? Check.
You can’t quite see it in this picture but there was a rasta fast asleep on an ‘island’ in the middle of the river behind me. While we were sitting relaxing by the river, my mate, our driver for the weekend, heard the start of Aphex Twin’s ‘Didgeridoo’ and, without warning,sprinted back to the sound system:
Then, and this was something to do with the K, I had a very strong urge to climb the mountain (or at least get to the waterfall). I could feel, and this sounds weird, I’m sure, an invisible thread pulling me upwards. The mountainside was covered in loose slate and so it would have been a bit hairy even if you were straight. God knows how I managed it, but I reached the height of the waterfall. However, I’d gone slightly off course and the waterfall was now too far away for me to reach. I looked down. Mistake. I realised that if I wanted to get through this in one piece I would have to continue going upwards. I reached the top and noticed a gentler slope (you can see this to the right of the first picture) to take me back to where the party was. On my way down I walked into a field full of sheep. I could see a farmer in a Range Rover in a field below me, and I didn’t want him to see me so I sat on the ground and kept still for a couple of minutes. That was when I realised that the field I was sitting on was covered in clover and there seemed to be millions of bees everywhere. I carried on staying very still for quite some time. The farmer had left and the bees weren’t attacking me so I carried on down the slope. I reached the main road and had to walk a little way back to the party. I passed a lone Welsh country copper and gave him a cheery ‘hello’. Arriving back at the party I saw my friends, who had last seen me disappear up a mountain a couple of hours previously. They’d been worried, and I was oblivious to this.
On the way home one of the fluffed up casualties co-piloting the car insisted the vehicle be stopped and they be let out immediately so they could leap into a field and hug a lamb. I think the lamb ran away.
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.
