21st-23rd June 1991: Spiral Tribe, DiY and Free Party People at Rats Run/Longstock Free Festival, Hampshire

UPDATE 13/01/21:

From Andy Worthington, Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion. Loughborough: Alternative Albion, 2004, p.161.

From Andy Worthington, Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion. Loughborough: Alternative Albion, 2004, p.160.

From Matthew Collin, Altered State: The Story Of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House. London: Serpent’s Tail, 2009, p.214-5.

Spiral Mark quote from Richard Lowe and William Shaw, Travellers: Voices Of The New Age Nomads. London: Fourth Estate, 1993, p.168.

From Ian Abrahams and Bridget Wishart, Festivalized: Music, Politics and Alternative Culture. London: Gonzo Multimedia, 2015.

From Ian Young, It’s Not About Me! Confessions Of A Recovered Outlaw Addict- From Living Hell To Living Big. Norwich: Anoma Press, 2013, p.49-50.

The date for this is apparently correct, here’s the Spiral flyer, listing their events in 1991. I didn’t make it to any of their do’s until the spring of 1992:

Were you there? What do you remember? Let us know in the comments, however hazy and vague your memory is 🙂

All comments (and of course photos, flyers, etc) welcome!

NB This event was the same weekend as Summer Solstice Free Festival at Peasedown St. John, Somerset

Do any of you lovely people know the date this happened please? :) Summer 1992: DiY Free Party at Breedon on the Hill, Leicestershire

Here are Tim Wilderspin’s memories of DJ’ing at this event. Does anyone remember a date or dates? This apparently continued for days or even weeks 🙂

https://www.abetterbreak.net/home/2020/4/28/g38ge3v12c96mn97by4i3d6yu1mx97?fbclid=IwAR3XsrITlYnunKk2i9vrtARkve8tk1tz3rQPpEVUkNBbgHaHjSUIqD0–eE

 

Book Review: Exist To Resist by Matthew Smith

 

I’ve been waiting for the appearance of a book like this for decades. There’s hardly any published photographic record of the UK’s early 1990’s travelling, free party, free festival, and environmental protest scene, let alone books on the subject.*

Matthew Smith was actively involved in the scene he lovingly portrays. As the authorities started cracking down on travellers, ravers and dissenters of all sorts, the scenes became more inward-looking and more distrustful of mainstream media, cameras, and the people wielding them, whether professional or not. Insiders like Smith were thus in a position to record events in a way others couldn’t.

This long overdue volume of exciting photos that captures perfectly the feeling of being involved in protesting and partying in the early to mid 1990’s. It also covers some soundsystem-centred events from preceding years, like the Moss Side and Notting Hill Carnivals of 1989.

Some of the events photographed were pivotal. The Glastonbury Festival of 1989, for example, was “the year rave arrived at Glastonbury in a big way”. The first picture of the sequence is of a shirtless traveller toddler, with their home vehicle’s registration number and the field it was parked in scrawled on their chest. Behind the child is a tent with “DHSS World Tour” painted on it. This, together with the other images in the series, serves as an artefact of the pre-giant fence, pre-sanitised Glastonbury, an era when travellers were allowed in for free and police weren’t.

The excellent image on the cover is a fine example of the way Smith’s photography captures the energy of the protest movement while placing it in context. The roofs of The House of Commons loom through the heat haze. A truck, on top of which a woman dances and claps, is transporting a soundsystem up a busy street in central London. A man, leaning out of the truck with a microphone in one hand, gazes into the lens. It is unclear whether he’s driving, MC’ing, or both. The truck is framed by a row of police vans on the left and a cinema, showing Four Weddings And A Funeral, on the right.

I think I’m not alone in saying this: the Criminal Justice Act politicised me. Prior to the legislation, I simply wanted to rave, or help organise raves. The fact that these events were unlicensed couldn’t have interested me less. And in the period before the CJA, as long as no-one made any noise complaints, reasonable-sized parties were allowed to continue without much interference from the authorities. It wasn’t until the Criminal Justice Bill was actually on the cards that I personally realised I had to take to the streets, for the first time in my life, to try and prevent its passage through parliament. The day I was politicised constitutes the explosion that lies at the centre of Exist To Resist: the second anti-CJA demonstration in July 1994, which was characterised by thousands of ravers raving in the middle of the street in usually grey workaday Central London, grinning and dancing on the back of a truck as it drove past the Houses of Parliament, cavorting in the fountains and raving to a bicycle-powered soundsystem in Trafalgar Square. Politics was never so much fun, and Matthew Smith captures this sense of freedom and hope perfectly. Although it was mostly peaceful, the demo I attended didn’t pass without some unrest: as the parade made its way past Downing Street and some tried to force their way into the Prime Minister’s front garden. Smith suggests that there may have been agent provocateurs in the crowd. Whether this was the case or not, the resulting horse charge that my friends and I were caught up in was truly terrifying, preceded as it was by police threats to ‘sterilise the area’ if we didn’t move out of the way.

By the third march against the Criminal Justice Act, according to Smith, it was “too dangerous to not be wearing a police uniform” and it “felt like a harsh end to a beautiful dream”. The dream continues to be lived in a more low key fashion, but Smith’s wonderful images remind us of the moments when hope was brightest.

 

Order it here.

 

 

 

• Alan Tash Lodge is one of my favourite photographers, indeed, the only one I knew about for many years, but he has never published a book of his own. Check out his site ’One Eye On The Road’ for some fantastic images. Alan Lodge was on site even before the birth of Acid House, and his intimate connection to the scenes and their people is evident from his images. In Molly Macindoe’s Out of Order, an honest and intimate portrait of the British warehouse party scene from 1997 to 2006, the photographer portrays a scene she was clearly a part of. It’s full of amazing photographs, but due to the period she covers it falls outside the period my blog is most interested in. Vinca Peterson’s No System portrays the continental European offshoot of the scene, covering the adventures of some of the British soundsystems after they took their noisy circuses to France and beyond. Again, not of direct interest to this site, but probably my favourite book on the travelling soundsystem scene. The book contains not just photographs, but also excerpts from Vinca Peterson’s diary.

 

 

 

24th-26th August 1991: Street Level Free Party in Cassington, Oxfordshire

Update: Darren sent us his account of the night, thanks Darren! 🙂

A chapter from my life where I attempted to rescue an invisible girl from the murky depths of a quarry

Darren Worrow

It’s 2015 and I’m just a shitty delivery driver blindly following a sat-nav through Oxfordshire, that’s how much I progressed in my life. Yeah could blame it on my youth, but I’d rather not reminisce on the endless parties, psychedelia and various shenanigans. Much as nostalgia gratifies me, they all blur into one great festival of perpetual hedonism. But memories slip into the empty fish-tank of my head whilst voyaging along these monotonously congested roads.

Using back roads I’m passing through the sleepy village of Cassington, a shard of recollection sweeps, a chapter from my life where I attempted to rescue an invisible girl from the murky depths of a quarry with a lone traveller non too impressed by the authenticity of the emergency.

Thing is there seems to be no sign of a railway track here and I distinctly recall a train track in which “ravers,” as they were termed during the period, were sternly warned by the master of ceremonies, not to sunbathe or even wander the train track, being it was a train track and well, trains tend to trek along them; understandable concern really.

I find, some way out of the village a railway over a bridge, I stop there for a smoke-o and scan the horizon for a quarry. Yeah this must be the track but, jaded as my memory is, I know accurately there was a quarry too; have good reason to.

Does it matter, why do I feel the need to locate the sites of these wild free raves for anyway, to relish in memories of gold, to recapture my youth, or simply to have confirmation these things really happened at all?

You see if you came here looking to precise details about the event I apologise, it may be the passing of the years, or the man in the Brocade trilby and puffer-jacket who kindly sold me some party accessories, but my memory is jaded.

I cannot recall how I got there, estimating my friend and I scrounged a lift by hanging outside our local watering hole asking any passer-by if they were going to the party, as that was our usual method pre-driving test. With equal vagueness I recall getting home, but as for the bit in the middle, well, memories are fond and surprisingly vivid.

A year away from the supermassive events at Lechlade and Castlemorton this occasion was sizable, wedged in a valley between the train lines and the quarry, a grassland dancefloor was packed, with the sound system situated to the east and the car parking area to the west.

The party was humming and I did my traditional meandering away from friends who favoured loitering at the car parking zone. Still in darkness around the dance area I perchance to befriend a rather charismatic young lady with a Cheshire cat grin and eyes like saucers.

We danced for an undeterminable period, but time was never an issue here. Then we stepped back to take a breather where she kindly shared her bottle of water and lent me a chewing gum to ease my vibrating jaw, a symptom of the aforementioned party accessories.

At that time the modern designer drug they called simply “E” was costly compared with the price tag of later years, but rather than exorbitant they had a higher quality which the later versions simply never matched. Nevertheless budget was low and I would top up my experience with a square of cardboard they dubbed “acid.” In my infinite wisdom, rather than stash said cardboard square upon my person for later consumption, I feared I may lose it and therefore the best storage option I had was my stomach.

Miraculously I convinced the girl to saunter up the bank with me under the cunning temptation of constructing a cannabis cigar. We wandered and chatted, I expressed my emotional state; how in awe I was at the serenity and togetherness of the raves and pondered if only real life could harness this ethos. My profound ramblings were lost though when she turned her head and said, “You what mate? You’ll have to speak up; I’m partially deaf in this ear.”

Enjoying each other’s company, we covered some ground; over the bank and into dark reedy grassland. I stopped as the greenness below seemed to halt, there was a clear drop ahead; into a disused quarry, I was led to believe.

It was at this point I looked up to the starry night but as I dropped my head back to Earth she had vanished. I called her name and her reply came, “I’m down here!”

As much as the manner of intoxication caused a collective and calm experience, I fear meshed with the cardboard square, things tended to get muddled. I panicked, figuring she had fallen into the quarry. Had I turned around or at least sensed the voice came from behind and not in front of me, I may have realised she simply descended the bank, back towards the rave.

Rational thinking I called down, ordering her to stay there and I would get help. I shifted along the bank, plunging once I spotted a traveller’s coach. Figuring if anyone could assist it would be them; they were bound to have a rope if anyone here had. I threw myself at a large chap, attired in traditional traveller garb and crusty dreadlocks. After a short communication breakdown the kindly fellow realised I wasn’t seeking party accessories and managed to produce a tow-rope and powerful torch.

Not willing to part with them he joined me on the rescue. United we peered over the bank, I was certain I had returned to the exact point, he was doubtful of my sense of direction. The traveller shone his torch down there and called down, increasing his pessimism about my claim. I assured him it was real, even pointed out she was deaf in one ear.

As he grew fretful of my sanity, I grew concerned she was unconscious down there and tried to convince him I was authentically in trouble. He shook his head and instructed me to taunt the end of the towrope as he steadied himself and lowered himself down the perilous side of the bank. He scrambled a quarter down and shone his effective torch at the bottom of the dry quarry. Then returned to the surface to inform me he could not see anyone down there.

If I was sure, he ascertained with a sigh, we needed help. So we dashed to his coach to rally some able-bodied men. Upon our return I was dismayed, and looked out at the dancing ravers having fun, blissfully unaware of the peril one of their tribe was currently in. It was at that point one charismatic young lady with a Cheshire cat grin and eyes like saucers passed by, looking strikingly similar to the girl down the quarry. “Alright mate?” she grinned as she passed, “what happened to you, I was looking for ya?”

Once explained the situation to the travellers and made a quick exit, I referred the anecdote to the girl and she nodded her understanding but, was gone from my life as quick as she came into it; sensible choice really…..

Freepartypeople: Heard about this a looong time ago but didn’t attend it myself. Allegedly went on for 3 days and was still running on the Monday, hence the dates at the top of this post (Saturday 24th to Monday 26th).

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:

24th October 1992: Frequency Oblivion at Crossways, Dorset

We know there was a party at Crossways in Dorset on this date but do we know anything else about it? Nope. Help us fill in the gaps if you can!