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 As a historical document capturing the mood of a specific time and place this book is bang-on,” history-is-made-at-night.blogspot.com/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.

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?

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?

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.

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

Here’s an extract from Atomic Robot Man rave diaries:

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 just see 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.

A disused quarry in Gloucestershire was the venue for this 8,000/10,000/15,000-strong free technofesty blowout. Who counts the numbers anyway ;P If it was based on the number of cars it would be an underestimate- 4 people per car was the absolute minimum those days. Police estimates are always ALWAYS under (for obvious reasons), especially at ‘oppositional’ events e.g. free unlicensed 3-day festivals, reclaim the streets etc. demonstrations.

This pic of Lechlade featured in an article in Select magazine:

An excerpt from Atomic Robot Man’s rave diary:

Missed Castlemorton due to leaving my brain at Lechlade. A long drive up. I think we got the location of the party from the news reports:

When we arrived we had a jittery moment because the police stopped our car on the way in. FFFFFFffffUUUUUCCCCkkkkk! Oh no, it’s OK, they’re just telling us where to park, politely. A few metres away a dealer was standing in the middle of the road bellowing “Rhubarb and Custards! Callies!”

I think the big white tent in the pics above was DiY’s but I don’t remember there being a rig in there at this do.

This blue and orange marquee in the pic above was Circus Warp’s. I also remember a load of far out UV stuff dangling from the roof of their tent, including bicycle wheels. Also a mad max robot and some red/orange speakers too:

A fantastic atmosphere but there was a little friction between the hippies and the ravers- heard a few expensively dressed ravers getting harangued by the crusties: “OOOOOooooh dress to IMPRESS!”. Oh yeah, and someone laughed at my hat. I deserved it for sure

Other sights and sounds:

Flinching at the sheer excessive volume of the beat coming from the Spiral system in the blazing sunlight on Sunday morning, when we felt particularly fragile.

A brew crew/keta/acid/whatever casualty rolling around on the ground trying to scratch the tattoo off his arm.

A bunch of well-spoken but off-their-tits Oxford medical students who came and sat in our car, and jabbered with us for either 3 minutes or three hours.

A misty and gentle sunrise over one of the huge trout ponds (which, incidentally, contained huge trout).

Seeing some poor fucker who’d overdone it being carted away.

Finding a lost crusty puppy.

Taking photos of ourselves and the next week wondering what the nice girl in Boots thought was wrong with our faces in the pictures.
The aftermath:

It was even mentioned in the Commons:

Sir David Mitchell (Hampshire, North-West) :

I noticed that on the spring bank holiday about 30,000 people attended a pop festival at Lechlade in Gloucestershire, and if more itinerants and hippies come to my constituency in the pre-solstice period, the noise disturbance, the petty crime and the filth that they will leave behind will cause my constituents great anxiety.

also

On 21 June, the summer solstice arrives and large numbers of hippies, itinerants and new-age travellers can be expected. Some of my constituents call them by names that cannot be expressed in parliamentary language.

Were you there? What was it like? Please leave a message in the comments.

Found some great photos on this page:
http://www.its-all-about-flyers.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=768 Thanks to the original uploader, they’re great shots.

We also found a drawing of the party, which is a first for this site
http://www.flickr.com/photos/leehutchinson/542987905/
The same Flickr user also uploaded a newspaper cutting about the party:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/leehutchinson/552921413/
Thanks whoever you are! I thought I’d link to your page rather than just nicking the image, ‘cos that’s not nice, I like what you’re written as well.

And here’s an Easygroove and DiY tape from the event. I listened to it a while back and I remember there’s a funny bit where he gets on the mic and starts complaining about a lack of Special Brew ;P It was a bit tricky to find, but we finally tracked it down on a Polish website!

http://www.stressfactor.co.uk/resources/portal/index.php?name=Downloads&req=getit&lid=1422

Also available on Youtube, but I don’t know whether this is the complete set or not:

(Click on thumbnails to see full-size versions)

Does anyone have any more info or newsletters, flyers etc featuring this organisation (which campaigned against the CJA)?

Deep cartel says:

Does anyone remember Lazy House? Classic house music free party crew based at a squat in Exmouth circa 1991-4 They had a very small rig but attracted huge crowds every weekend in the summer of 92. Parties were usually in Devon and they were at Smeatharpe. Dj`s: will, jonny t, aaron, Iain lazy Parties: Blackenstone Rock, Ashclyst Forrest, Chalice Wood, Woodbury Common, and many more Wow memories! I know the framed photo your thinking about and I know where it is now. Yeah it would`ve been mighty force and if I ask nicely I should be able to scan it, this was the first lazy party I attended. I`ve got two mixes, Lazy House vol 1, and Blackenstone Rock (bad quality). I also remember the backdrop which read lazy house-One Family. Diy dj`s often played and spawnee possee dj`s like Tigger and Justin. There is a brief account of a lazy house party with some pics on dj riddlers website. In 1993 a certain member of Lazy House wanted to be a dj so swapped the tiny rig for some decks.Some members of Lazy House including Will and Dom (spiral) and Lorien then formed “Sign On” and continued doing smaller parties throughout 93 which also evolved into Sketch (pawlette manor) . It`d be really nice to get a page up as they`re not anywhere on the web and they were some of the best parties of the time. By the way Smokescreen are still going! As are we and we sometimes have jonny t and will play in many of the same locations…. Dj will the simon dk of Lazy House…

freepartypeople says:

Thanks for the comment, deepcartel, I had been intending to write something about Lazy House. You’re dead right, absolutely classic parties The problem was, and this is a bit embarrassing, your parties were SO FUCKING GOOD, that my memories of them are a bit scatty.

I remember… forest clearings, great music, snowballs, a low canopy, shouting next to a river, our car having to be pushed through a ford ‘cos it broke down but we didn’t really care, leaning on my friends’ arm thinking it was a car window, massive convoys and meeting places, racing to get to the party site before the cops (I recall seeing a couple of guys sprinting across a field with decks shoved up their jumpers )

etc etc.

I lived in Dorset at the time and didn’t drive, so I’d just clamber into someone’s car on a Saturday night and see what happened. I don’t know any of the locations of the parties I went to.

We enjoyed these because they were local, and because they were a welcome break from the facelessspiraltechno we’d all been following slavishly, although I have to say some people at the time HATED house music. The scene could be insular even back then.

The first thing I ever heard about Lazy House was when we visited a shop in Exeter (Mighty Force?) and saw a framed photo of a party. We asked the guy in the shop and he told us ‘Lazy House’.

UPDATE: Some dates that I do have a record of: 10/10/92 near Exeter, 8/5/93. Also an event on 8/11/92 called Upfront, where there were two marquees, one of which contained the Sketchy Crew sound system, full freepartypeople report here.

Mark (mharridge8787) says:I have a ‘Lazyhouse’ tape but I cant be sure of its origin. Its mostly late 80′s chicago house. I went to a party in a squat in Bloxham near Banbury, Warks on NYE 93/4 (i think) which I was told afterwards was a lazy house party… but having just learnt they were based in Exeter this seems unlikely. Was anybody there??

‘anonymous’ says:

Dutch Barrels/snow balls/china whites the strongest pills I`ve ever done. I`ve heard they were 140mg of mda made in a former eastern block country in ex government labs. Jaw chatter and eye wiggle for 12 hours…Also do you remember pcp and k pills called m25`s/crackerjacks/ lose it pills?

mistychelle says:

wow the memories,i share them too,anyone know where arrone(probably spelt wrong and ian smith think it was ,i had such a crush on arron). apres exmouth pavillion on to the lazy hose squat,fab,give anything to go back there for a night ..anyone have pics or mixes from those crazy nights???/ thanks to the lazy house crew for the memories i shall hold 4ever