Cultural Enrichment for schools : Is Everybody In The Place ? Free Party Folk History and the roots of Rave from Traveller scene

I’m over the moon! I finally get to talk about rave culture / raving and the social impact it has had on our society. I’m going to be running a short course on djing and rave culture for my own school where I attended and collected many tapes and flyers ( personal Thanks sam blay , Matt Carter, James Hutchins , Theo ,Richy Blitz , Jords, Gareth w, The Hall twins , Lucy , Al Harrison , Morgan egg lord and countless other ravers who all shaped my young raver mind ) and i’ll be able to invite some heroes ( warm agency – Mickey , Andy who was at Castlemorton ) , Jenny Twenty ( death by stereo / mixology ) to talk about what they have experienced… i’m literally agogo and assembling many pieces of essential info to present a brief history of the greatest cultural movement we have still going…

I know its anti outlaw to work with da man ( insert jez from peepshow voice ) but we need the next generation to keep the acid house supported and spreading the spirit, fuck trap, fuck mumble rap I know I sound like rave grandad when I say that but nothing pains me more to hear that sound coming out of a boom box on the beach , where are the pounding beats my lord !! ….but they need less Xanax and more XTC ….and TLC waterfalls is OK 😉 btw anyway sorry this is a rambling blog ill get my verbal diaherea out the way now and try and be more cohesive…

Writing for schools is difficult …. what to leave in what to leave out !! My heads wrecked !

here’s the rough text for the presentation of Jeremy Deller’s totemic film Everybody in the place and other important docs I’ll be showing to the students.

Everybody in the place – Jeremy Deller – an incomplete history of Britain 1984 -1992 – Free Party Folk History & Tales of a Traveller docs

Course Notes 

Jeremy Deller is a Turner Prize winning  multi media artist that focuses on history and postmodern culture to look at the way Britain has evolved through music and youth culture. He traces the links and social historical background of cultural events and movements, he’s not so much an artist more of a historian that makes visually interesting work. 

His film Everybody In The Place very accurately tells the story of how Rave culture made a huge impact to our society, we the British took and re made a sound and culture from many different elements  the throbbing hypnotic music of gay chicago clubs like Ron Hardy’s music box where EBM, Belgium New beat and other types of early electronic music and disco music were fused leading to inspired remakes and a completely new type of music was born using the newly available roland music devices such as the 303 drum machine and 808 and 909 drum machines , the beginnings of the Detroit techno sound was growing at the same time in the early 80s and the industrial sound that sprung from the deindulstialized zone of the former motor city was fused with the trance elements of Belgium New Beat and the roots of New York Disco from Clubs like Larry Levan’s Garage (we’ll be looking at these scenes through the course to see the parallels and similarities and learn about them and these societies and what created their specific cultures )  

Today there are a multitude of different sounds and scenes that grew from the rave scene in the late 80s and early 90s. outsider Societies mirrored societies and took elements and remade and created incredible mutations of sound and vision, from the collapse of the Berlin Wall leading to the amazing German rave scene we see that Rave and Techno powered amazing social shifts in societies globally.

from a UK perspective With the above mentioned music we took elements and added our own love of hip hop and reggae and created Hardcore and this sound exploded in fields and abandoned warehouses and clubs across the country.

Industrial spaces that had been abandoned since the de industrialisation of the UK  in the Thatcher reigning years 1979- 90. Where a steady decline in production as the UK moved to being a service and finance based economy leaving many parts of the UK in ruin and without recompense for the loss of jobs and effects it had on communities…however

We ( the generation that embraced rave culture )   re purposed spaces and sounds from the past that led to the creation of a wholly new sub culture that led to Moral panic and questions being asked in the house of commons about the future of our nations youth, this panic basically amounted to fear of a society out of control and living with its own codes and outside normal Conservative values. Where the travellers and hippies were shunned from the spaces they had seen and quite rightly used as common land they formed alliances and assimilated into ravers who organised free parties all over the country , a great website with accounts of these can be found here , free party people.org culminating in the event that undoubtedly changed society – Castlemorton which led to the Criminal Justice Bill – no gatherings allowed with repetitive beats and police having powers to break up parties and take away sound systems.Painted as folk demons the travellers had been moved away from stone henge and other sites as the police cracked down on the New Age traveller movement that had developed since the late 60s.

It is important that people see that there are alternative ways to live outside of society and especially now that the cost of living has become untenable , looking back over history like this there were moments when it seemed possible to live without intervention from the state, alternative worlds and ways to be are still possible and we can take inspiration from the peak era of raves and free parties, it is also a huge industry ( think of what is termed EDM and techno blandness with Instagram djs and paid for followers and ghost producers …. ) with all the downsides to what we have today but there are also many pluses and links to the travellers and ravers groups like Extinction Rebellion whatever your view on direct action and groups like this have links to these scenes and are necessary for the protection of our planet

Hippy ramblings ? Make of it what you will, films like Aaron Trinder’s doc show us and give voice to many who were intrinsic in this radical movement that arguably means more than Punk ever did and has had many more positive effects on society – DIY culture, autonomous societies and independence is something that needs encouraging, applauding, examining and talking about now more than ever as a the world gets crazier and more unbalanced.

a really touching and essential book that has inspired myself and friends to go back to free parties and make our own was the gift of Dreaming In Yellow by Harry Harrison l by Velocity Press , my true love gave me this Bookman its the greatest present ever to get a book about something I really enjoy and feel passionate about …….DIY is the sound system I respect the most as they simply had the best music, digs and whoosh almost played in alum chine in bournemouth but the party was shut down within twenty minutes … boohoo I was too young to get to their parties so reading about them is a joy , thanks LUCY xx

another great eye witness account of the roots of the rave scene and parallel lives with links to the free festival and traveller circuit can be seen here in this film about Rodger a traveller who ended up djing at Spectrum at Heaven …