It seems that telling stories about raving is quite the thing at the moment. The summer saw Jeremy Deller’s Everybody in the Place and Norman Cook’s Ibiza: The Silent Movie getting their Friday groove going on BBC4 while, in the theatre, Gary Clarke’s Wasteland has been receiving (ahem) rave reviews. All three of these examples share a paradoxical insistence on telling stories in unique ways. Deller leads a class of initially bemused sixth formers into something of a techno epiphany through social history, brilliantly chosen film clips and the thrill of mucking about with Roland kit. Fatboy Slim’s film plays fast and loose with Ibiza’s rich mythic history and its string of unlikely occupations to arrive at the conclusion that capitalism is a bit crap. Clarke, meanwhile, uses the language of choreography to make links between Britain’s industrial heritage and the ‘repetitive…organised chaos’ of the dance floor/field.
All of this was on my mind as I paid a visit to the Saatchi Gallery’s Sweet Harmony exhibition a couple of weeks ago. Described as a ‘fully immersive experience’ (aren’t all galleries sort of immersive?), it sets out to tell stories about UK rave culture via bespoke artwork, masses of photography, walls covered in psychedelic flyers and plinths displaying the ephemera and paraphernalia discarded along the way by the cool, the fucked and the criminal.
It mostly works.
I’ll get the things that were a let down out of the way first. Number one, the gallery is in Chelsea. Outside it are cafes frequented by the only sort of jobless oiks deemed acceptable in double-barrel land. Men with no socks on and women with massive shopping bags all chatting loudly and listening badly. It looks like a trailer for a bad E4 show about a biscuit twat and his plummy friends. Give me Camden Town any day. Secondly, it is an exhibition about the joys of being in the moment, the rush of the dance floor moving as one, the politics of resistance and cultural revolt. But it is also an exhibition chock full of people with selfie sticks. The photos and artwork aren’t good enough on their own. They need two cretins pouting and flashing peace signs to make them that little bit better. I mean, photos of an important socio-historical movement are fine and all, but they are kinda hard to insta. #FFS.
Aside from my middle-aged bloke moans (I say literally the same things about every gig, play, restaurant and festival I attend), the exhibition had lots to enjoy. Best of all was the opportunity to play around with 909s and 303s. For four whole minutes I was on equal footing with DJ Pierre and Richie Hawtin. I was making acid house that sounded like something that a producer might have discarded after 30 seconds consideration. Yes mate, it was that good. When I took the cans off, there was a queue of baldy beardy men (completely copying my vibe) that looked for all the world like 80s kids waiting to buy their new Star Wars figures. There was a room dedicated to sound system culture with photos of the infamous Spiral Tribe on every wall. Resplendent in their hoodies and Nike Air, they still say everything to me about rebellion and the hardest of hard techno. In terms of storytelling, it’s hard to beat the room in which photographer and veteran scenester Vinca Petersen’s diary was recreated along a 40-foot wall. Polaroid pictures, flyers and wonderfully opaque prose took the reader from the early 90s right through to this decade. Raves were ‘well wicked’ and fuelled by ‘trippy pills’ and ‘epic sets’. This was narrative that engaged through its gaps. Among the hedonistic hints were more mundane notes regarding ‘shelf-stacking’ jobs in WH Smith and, horror of all horrors, ‘meeting Shed Seven’. The manner of telling here is as significant as the story itself.
I love all of this. Readers of this blog’s (somewhat infrequent) output will know that I value stories much more than notions of truth. I love the shape of stories, their obvious holes and contradictions and the way that they rise and fall. It’s all this that makes story telling so musical and is the reason why I can’t fit an extra-slim Vera between the two modes. It’s especially interesting with rave as I both remember it and don’t remember it. I don’t mean this as some kind of hedonistic boast (man). I just mean that I was a little bit young for the glory days. I can exclusively reveal that I was not running around the M25 looking for the spot that Super Kev had announced on the phone line. Nor was I decked out in white gloves and whistle as the second summer of love kicked in. No, I was listening to Transvision Vamp and praying for my acne to fuck off. Rave came to me via tabloid hysteria and older lads at school telling lies. Rave was a thing I wasn’t allowed to do (along with smoking fags, getting my ear pierced and any kind of overt socialism). It was something that surely signified the end of civilisation. Who wouldn’t be fascinated by all of that? Well, it took me a long old while to be just that.
It was ages before I got into techno or jungle or hardcore. I had some mates that were always a little ahead of the curve. I had just about caught up with Neds, Pavement and Jesus Jones (!) when they were already gushing about Autechre, Jeff Mills and LFO. I was reluctant to leave the guitars and DMs behind and to appreciate that synths, decks and sequencers were actually pretty awesome.
The epiphany happened in a mate’s living room during a half term holiday. His mum was out at work, so about 15 of us spent the day smoking roll ups and sharing about three cans of illicit lager in his back garden. He had a new record that was blowing his mind. Had never heard anything like it before. I tried my best to look enthusiastic, but my inside voice was going, ‘more techno rubbish, why can’t we all just love Mega City Four and Leatherface?’ He put it on. It was absurdly good. Mesmirising and strange. Lifting and shifting all over the shop. It was ‘Digeridoo’ by Aphex Twin.
I don’t know why this tune hit where others had failed. Maybe the stereo in this house was better than others. Maybe it was the psychoactive impact of half a can of Skol. Maybe it was the thrill of a Tuesday afternoon not in double maths. Whatever. It rocked and I was a changed man.
I got into techno after that. I still loved messy haired men and women from Stourbridge, Seattle and Boston, but now I also liked producers from Detroit and DJs from south London. I said ‘sorted’ and ‘nice one’ a little more and ‘where’s me jumper’ a little less. I wanted to go raving with my mates when they went to the Rocket but a) I had a Saturday job in Boots and b) I had a Scottish Dad who wasnae having any of that pish.
I got there in the end but when I raved it was in small clubs in and around my middle England home with names like ‘Decompression’ and ‘Interactive’. I adopted all the pseudo hippy stuff and went a bit crusty. I even knew a couple of the Spiral Tribe lads (although I was shit scared of them and one stole my mate’s Gameboy). I ventured into London a few times and went to Club UK and Soundshaft but I was always more comfortable bobbing about to a band than throwing sweaty shapes with my top off. I suppose it doesn’t help that I am a terrible mover. A dad dancer before my time. As such I don’t have many good raving stories beyond, ‘we saw [insert Belgian techno legend here] and it was well loud.’ No, I don’t have many of those.
But I do have one.
I cocked up my A levels a bit and, as a result, had an unplanned year out. I spent three quarters of it working in a book shop on Hollywell Hill in St Albans. It was a lovely old place with a garden, a knackered vacuum cleaner and a grumpy cat (both called Henry). It paid not much and was a daily reminder of how weird and wonderful the general public are (especially when revealing their reading habits). It was also the year that my mum and dad moved to Ottawa in Canada. The move was long planned and was supposed to coincide with me going off to the University of Southampton to study history and literature. However, one botched history paper (damn you Bismarck!) later and the plan had changed. So, I was now living on my own in my mum and dad’s house and working. You can guess what sort of year it was. Suffice to say, I did not spend it building schools in Mozambique or diving into Caribbean waterfalls.
I did go travelling for a bit though. Sort of. I went to the States and to Canada. A safe bet where I could end up tired and skint at my parents’ new gaff for a couple of weeks. I was there with some mates that I will call Katie, Christy and Mark (for that was their names). We were a crew so useless that to this day I am astonished that we managed to get the train to Gatwick, let alone fly across the Atlantic and get let into another country. After some time in Boston and a few days marvelling at Niagara Falls, we ended up in Toronto and this is where the ravey things started to happen. We were having a cuppa outside our hostel when we spotted a flyer on the table next to us. It was called ‘Destiny 10’ (whether there had been a previous 9 I do not know) and it was organised by the fine folks at ‘World Electronic Music Festivals’ (operating in Canada only). It was taking place somewhere about two hours outside of Toronto and it looked magnificent. We were supposed to go to the bus station and then phone a number on the night. It was like we were real ravers! The line-up included acts from Plus 8 Records and a UK contingent in the form of Keith Fielder and the late great Colin Faver (we actually met both of these gents and hung out with them a bit but that’s a story for another time).
It took us AGES to get there on the rickety old school bus (yes, one of those yellow ones from the films) surrounded by the best of mid-90s ravers. They wore the obligatory uniform of died hair, very small rucksacks, huge jeans and phat (note the spelling) skate shoes. They spoke in a North American drawl that was a blend of Floyd the stoner from True Romance (Brad Pitt’s finest moment) and Keith Richards circa 1971 (if Keith Richards was from Ontario rather than Dartford…sort of…whatever…you get the point).
We got to the site at a very early hour of the morning and were met by three or four tents whose ominous bass thumps and synth squawks were battling for sonic supremacy. As well as the noise, there was intense heat and humidity. None of us pasty British types had ever felt anything like it. It was like being slowly steamed in a wok (or something less liberal elite – I’m an inclusive writer). These two things, alongside the aforementioned sartorial experiments, made for a unique and somewhat unsettling sensory overload.
It got worse.
I’d only ever seen tornadoes on the telly and even then I’m pretty sure they were on cartoons and films. They’d twist and whip and pick up the Wiley Coyote or Dorothy’s house before dumping them somewhere new. I’m also pretty sure that I thought that they weren’t really a thing. Something that odd could only be the result of a fevered imagination. I mean, they couldn’t pick up a record from a deck and sling it across a tent like a wax frisbee could they? They couldn’t pick up the central pole in a massive tent and send hundreds of screaming ravers scarpering for the one open flap could they? They couldn’t throw lightening about and set fire to the toilets could they? They couldn’t leave tripped out teenagers crying for their mums could they?
Yep, they could.
Look, this was the 90s so we weren’t clutching precious phones. We didn’t film any of this or take any pictures. The rave itself only has two vague entries on the internet (a weird ravers’ forum and a brief story from a Toronto news site). This stuff only exists in my memory. I can’t even check it with my three mates as we lost touch yonks ago (one lives in Brighton I think and was last heard of being a train conductor). I am positive that the more I’ve told the story the more it changes and I know for sure that I have added bits that are pure bullshit. I definitely, depending on the audience, leave out some parts (not you dear blog reader – you get the unvarnished and only-a-bit-fictional version). I’ve never told my mum any of it.
There really was a tornado that ripped that rave to pieces though. The next day, people stumbled about wondering what the hell had happened. No one had slept. No tents remained intact. The bus wasn’t due to take us back to Toronto until the next day. What the fuck were we supposed to do? Well, riding in like an electronic cavalry came the DJs. They set up a rig on the back of a flat bed truck and played loud, banging techno. All day. It is a huge, clanging cliché but the tunes saved the day. My dad dancing got me through it all. No food, no water. Nutrition came in the form of Canadian B&H and Moosehead lager.
It was really, really good.
So this is my one decent raving story. This is why I felt a connection with what Jeremy Deller was talking about on the telly and with what the Saatchi curators put together in their exhibition. These weren’t my memories. I wasn’t even a part of that scene. But the act of telling a story with wonderfully hazy edges speaks to me. Their memories and their cultural makeup make me reflect on my own. We are our stories. They shape our lives and our loves. I was too young to party with the original cheesy Quavers but, in my own small (and admittedly weird) way, I have a stake in this.
I still love techno. In fact, the day after visiting the Saatchi, I got on the ones and twos at my friend Mel’s birthday bash in Walthamstow (she had a Disco Shed – it was the best thing EVER). I entertained/bored (delete as applicable) my old mates with an hour of the stuff. Old records with dusty sleeves carried in a tatty Aphex Twin tote bag. What could be better?
The weather was good too.