2025 - fixed the image size woohoo
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Saturday, 11 June 2016
Monday, 9 June 2014
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
you might stop the party
you might stop the party
god i need to relax.
sam's up there blagging her heart out to the copper saying it's her fault she wanted me to drive and i'm thinking christ i hope they dont find the pills stuffed down my shoe. the breathalyser came back positive - no real surprise there, i'm fucken pissed, can't hardly stand up, nearly fell over when the copper asked me to breathe into it, but the whole fucken point is that the pigs cleared us out the building and told us to fuck off.
i know i'm pissed so i tells 'em and they dont care they're all moody at being up so late past their beddybyes and then they start waving their penis-substitutes about and growling so i says ok ok i'll drive the van but i'm pissed alright and they don't care and then we go fifty metres down the road and this fresh-faced traffic cop pulls me over and tells me he had reason to believe im driving under the influence.
christ he ain't half right there, i'm a pharmaceutical guinea pig - like the t-shirt says, testing in progress. if i'm selling pills i gotta take a couple to be a good advert and if i'm pilling i'll have a drink too. why not? i know my limits. someone shoved a tab down my throat and if i get offered k i'll do it, why not, it's no crime. these stupid wankers are the dangerous ones stopping parties and turfing out all these young aggressive moody drugged up punks with nothing to do except a bit of good old-fashioned english vandalism. i can hear them now doing a bus stop. the cop looks round a little nervous and holds onto his radio for support. sam is really bending his ear, he looks worn out and then i see some hoodies turn the corner up ahead.
tension mounts, neck hairs prickle. someone throws a bottle. the glass smashes beautifully on the rain smeared tarmac. just like we're in the movies. the cop bricks it. properly shits himself. to be honest, i would too, it's all about the numbers. so he's back in his car and his mate's reversing fucking fast and that just gets the boys excited so they're chucking bottles, rocks, anything which lifts and sam's got her arms around me laughing and kissing my neck. phew. we started a mini-riot.
i guess the drink drive charge gets dropped then. what next? the punks drift past us aimlessly and sam chews on her favourite thumb. there's another party but it's in acton and we're in hackney wick and not really in a state to get there. i've had enough rozzers for a week already and sam don't drive. crapper turns up and shoots the shit for a bit. he offers to drive but he's off his head too. he says he's not. but he is. he leans against the car and gabbles happily, the streetlights bathing him in a warm amber glow. maybe these pills are alright. i sell a couple to the bored punters still milling about and then i think why not a bit of music, so we crank up the speakers and play an old headfuk mixtape. that wibbles evryone out and i sit on top of the car, a little bit cold but enjoying the weirdness of this saturday.
someone says mainline are gonna turn back on, but i doubt it, they wouldn't risk their rig after a noise abatement. and if they did, we'd hear them anyway. this whole area is one dead wasteland. i wonder who complained about the noise. maybe the pigs made it up. i came up here in the day once, strange to see all these normal people walking past raved up warehouses and burnt out factories. i guess some of them are still functioning. it's a little bit sad all this decline and fall, but the tekno makes the desolation special. i feel a bit emotional. must be the pills.
they're beautiful in their own way all these roads - carpenters, roach, dace. they'll get developed soon, they have to, hackney is on the up, maybe a railway line will pass though here or yuppie conversions will regenerate the area. and in some ways that's good, it gives new life to a dead zone although i don't see why rich people should just come in and 'civilise' an area when most council housing is falling down.
shit i seem to be getting more lucid again, that ain't good. i gobble a few more grinners and wonder where sam's got to. she comes back with dom, he's in a bit of a state. no surprise there. seems like some cunt's nicked his jacket and dom can't remember where he lost it. he always does this. but then this big skinhead comes over and gives him the jacket back, says he saw him drop it round the corner a minute ago. dom's pretty screwed by this information and it makes me laugh watching the gears in his brain slowly turning. sam's all stoked to see people being nice to each other and she stands there giving me the wink until i get the hint and give the big bastard some gurners. now he's smiling too. everyone's happy except me, im thinking about profit margins although i know the uncomfortable truth is i've boshed too many myself to care. it's gonna be one of those weekends, if only we could get home. i wanna be in my nice warm bed, all cosy and snuggled up to sam.
she's giving me a dirty look now, i hate the way she can see straight through me. could be worse though. dom grumbles off, bouncing off lamp-posts and there's more business to be had, looks like most people can be fucked to try to get to acton. i still can't be arsed, so i lock up the car and pull sam off towards this building i saw a few weeks ago. it's over by the canal and i think it's worth exploring. sure enough, the gate is hanging off its hinges and we saunter in, a little bit afraid because there's not much light, then we find the stairwell and gain our confidence as we climb. we chase each other up whooping and banging on locked metal doors. the door to the roof has a crappy padlock on it, a few kicks and we spill out into the night sky, stars hanging around us and london spreading her legs like a dirty bitch.
there's the telecom towers and tower blocks in camden. over there is probably stratford. sam thinks she sees her uni but im not convinced. she's swinging her arms about and leaning into me, singing into my eyes. we kiss and it feels great. sometimes i think i'm doing all right. we find an airconditioning vent to perch on, shielded from the wind by the lift shaft. we talk about what were gonna do in our new squat. sam has big plans for the living room. she's thinking cushions and drapes, i'm saying it all sounds very nice, but we'll see what the dumpster god provides coz i'm fucked if i'm spending money on it.
then we start talking about benny, he's this guy we know who topped himself a few weeks back. took lots of acid and they found him swinging from a rope in his room. shame really, nice guy, little bit weird, too quiet, but nice, real nice. its fucked us up more than we thought. sam cries a bit, i stroke her hair and think of things to say but don't say them. and then suddenly it's dawn. the sun just popped up and its six thirty already. i love dawn's early light. i'm staring at bleached out concrete babylon, shame we don't have no music up here. so that was it. goodbye 98. start the year as you mean to go on so they say. well, i'm already draining the last of the water on two more gurners. doubledrop is the way forwards.
we are the future.
i stand tall before london and piss onto the road below.
god i need to relax.
sam's up there blagging her heart out to the copper saying it's her fault she wanted me to drive and i'm thinking christ i hope they dont find the pills stuffed down my shoe. the breathalyser came back positive - no real surprise there, i'm fucken pissed, can't hardly stand up, nearly fell over when the copper asked me to breathe into it, but the whole fucken point is that the pigs cleared us out the building and told us to fuck off.
i know i'm pissed so i tells 'em and they dont care they're all moody at being up so late past their beddybyes and then they start waving their penis-substitutes about and growling so i says ok ok i'll drive the van but i'm pissed alright and they don't care and then we go fifty metres down the road and this fresh-faced traffic cop pulls me over and tells me he had reason to believe im driving under the influence.
christ he ain't half right there, i'm a pharmaceutical guinea pig - like the t-shirt says, testing in progress. if i'm selling pills i gotta take a couple to be a good advert and if i'm pilling i'll have a drink too. why not? i know my limits. someone shoved a tab down my throat and if i get offered k i'll do it, why not, it's no crime. these stupid wankers are the dangerous ones stopping parties and turfing out all these young aggressive moody drugged up punks with nothing to do except a bit of good old-fashioned english vandalism. i can hear them now doing a bus stop. the cop looks round a little nervous and holds onto his radio for support. sam is really bending his ear, he looks worn out and then i see some hoodies turn the corner up ahead.
tension mounts, neck hairs prickle. someone throws a bottle. the glass smashes beautifully on the rain smeared tarmac. just like we're in the movies. the cop bricks it. properly shits himself. to be honest, i would too, it's all about the numbers. so he's back in his car and his mate's reversing fucking fast and that just gets the boys excited so they're chucking bottles, rocks, anything which lifts and sam's got her arms around me laughing and kissing my neck. phew. we started a mini-riot.
i guess the drink drive charge gets dropped then. what next? the punks drift past us aimlessly and sam chews on her favourite thumb. there's another party but it's in acton and we're in hackney wick and not really in a state to get there. i've had enough rozzers for a week already and sam don't drive. crapper turns up and shoots the shit for a bit. he offers to drive but he's off his head too. he says he's not. but he is. he leans against the car and gabbles happily, the streetlights bathing him in a warm amber glow. maybe these pills are alright. i sell a couple to the bored punters still milling about and then i think why not a bit of music, so we crank up the speakers and play an old headfuk mixtape. that wibbles evryone out and i sit on top of the car, a little bit cold but enjoying the weirdness of this saturday.
someone says mainline are gonna turn back on, but i doubt it, they wouldn't risk their rig after a noise abatement. and if they did, we'd hear them anyway. this whole area is one dead wasteland. i wonder who complained about the noise. maybe the pigs made it up. i came up here in the day once, strange to see all these normal people walking past raved up warehouses and burnt out factories. i guess some of them are still functioning. it's a little bit sad all this decline and fall, but the tekno makes the desolation special. i feel a bit emotional. must be the pills.
they're beautiful in their own way all these roads - carpenters, roach, dace. they'll get developed soon, they have to, hackney is on the up, maybe a railway line will pass though here or yuppie conversions will regenerate the area. and in some ways that's good, it gives new life to a dead zone although i don't see why rich people should just come in and 'civilise' an area when most council housing is falling down.
shit i seem to be getting more lucid again, that ain't good. i gobble a few more grinners and wonder where sam's got to. she comes back with dom, he's in a bit of a state. no surprise there. seems like some cunt's nicked his jacket and dom can't remember where he lost it. he always does this. but then this big skinhead comes over and gives him the jacket back, says he saw him drop it round the corner a minute ago. dom's pretty screwed by this information and it makes me laugh watching the gears in his brain slowly turning. sam's all stoked to see people being nice to each other and she stands there giving me the wink until i get the hint and give the big bastard some gurners. now he's smiling too. everyone's happy except me, im thinking about profit margins although i know the uncomfortable truth is i've boshed too many myself to care. it's gonna be one of those weekends, if only we could get home. i wanna be in my nice warm bed, all cosy and snuggled up to sam.
she's giving me a dirty look now, i hate the way she can see straight through me. could be worse though. dom grumbles off, bouncing off lamp-posts and there's more business to be had, looks like most people can be fucked to try to get to acton. i still can't be arsed, so i lock up the car and pull sam off towards this building i saw a few weeks ago. it's over by the canal and i think it's worth exploring. sure enough, the gate is hanging off its hinges and we saunter in, a little bit afraid because there's not much light, then we find the stairwell and gain our confidence as we climb. we chase each other up whooping and banging on locked metal doors. the door to the roof has a crappy padlock on it, a few kicks and we spill out into the night sky, stars hanging around us and london spreading her legs like a dirty bitch.
there's the telecom towers and tower blocks in camden. over there is probably stratford. sam thinks she sees her uni but im not convinced. she's swinging her arms about and leaning into me, singing into my eyes. we kiss and it feels great. sometimes i think i'm doing all right. we find an airconditioning vent to perch on, shielded from the wind by the lift shaft. we talk about what were gonna do in our new squat. sam has big plans for the living room. she's thinking cushions and drapes, i'm saying it all sounds very nice, but we'll see what the dumpster god provides coz i'm fucked if i'm spending money on it.
then we start talking about benny, he's this guy we know who topped himself a few weeks back. took lots of acid and they found him swinging from a rope in his room. shame really, nice guy, little bit weird, too quiet, but nice, real nice. its fucked us up more than we thought. sam cries a bit, i stroke her hair and think of things to say but don't say them. and then suddenly it's dawn. the sun just popped up and its six thirty already. i love dawn's early light. i'm staring at bleached out concrete babylon, shame we don't have no music up here. so that was it. goodbye 98. start the year as you mean to go on so they say. well, i'm already draining the last of the water on two more gurners. doubledrop is the way forwards.
we are the future.
i stand tall before london and piss onto the road below.
Thursday, 29 March 2001
Teknival Tolworth
1-3 September 2000
Review taken from http://www.partyvibe.org/free-parties/fpreportabs.html
Not many parties happening this weekend.....maybe this is due to the all weekend Teknival planned for London. Nothing this large has been done for a while in this country - and it certainly made headline news around the capital! Unfortunately the media has painted a rather dark picture of the event. We know the truth though!
Setting off in a small convoy, along the M3, M25 and then on the A3, we arrive within an hour of driving. Tolworth, SW London is the chosen site for the gathering. As we pull off the main road, and down an industrial estate road, cars ahead of us are full of blatant party people. Parking up outside a factory, we abandon the car, and head towards the thumping basslines down the road. Climbing over a huge mound of mud, and down the other steep side, we walk into a wasteland meadow.
Rigs-a-plenty. 15 at one count. Loads of soundsytems, so many that I didn't know the names of, but I managed to catch a few .....Colossus soundsystem in one corner. Huge rig, with a large marquee and large speakers....kicking out techno - with Nightstorm keeping 'em company. AKA with another huge white marquee, with video projections on the side of the tent - heavy gabba came out of the tent for most of the night. Evolution Soundsystem next to them had live trance PA's for part of the night. Headfuk, Panik and loads of other London squat party systems were dotted around the field as well. Near the main entrance into the field, the dub 'stage' had a live band playing out the side of a truck.
Unlike the Dutch Tek, heavy techno did not dominate the site. A variety of music emits from all corners of the field....dub, gabba, trance, techno, drum & bass and old skool....something for everyone. Plenty of people turn up to fuel the party.....2000-3000 people reports the paper....probably the only thing they reported accurately! I brought my car in for comfort - not many London clubs let you bring your cars up to the dancefloor!
The night soon passes into day.... the masses came and went. The site was still rocking when we left in the morning and the Teknival came to a final close on Monday. The police tried to disperse the site as soon as they heard about it on Friday night... but lack of manpower provided to be the problem for them. The media coverage has been quite widespread - front page of the Evening Standard. The Times had a column on it. Local TV news showed pictures of Sunday daytime dancing. The papers were reporting thousands of new age travellers turning up, when really the majority of the people attending were typical ravers. The papers also tried to use the litter factor to blacken the name of the party....knowing the way free parties work, I knew the site would be clear by the time the last people had left. Proof on the TV as well. The Evening Standard also mentioned a car being set alight - I didn't see or hear anything about this...
An interesting night, in deepest darkest London....don't believe everything you read in the papers...
Bugs
Read what the media had to say about the event!....
Evening Standard newspaper article - 04/09/00
Main article - 04/09/00 - from the Times
Follow up story - 05/09/00 - also from the Times
Teknival History from the Times! - 05/09/00
ITN news - 05/09/00
Thursday, 29 April 1999
Brick Lane Window Party
Brick Lane Window Party
Review taken from http://www.partyvibe.org/free-parties/fpreportl.html
3/4/99
The party was near Aldgate East in a huge blue and white office block. Loads of people are arriving as we turn up around midnight and boom-boom-boom is coming from inside, so in we go.
Oh shit, this place is huge. Over something like 10 floors, there were rooms and rooms of sound systems. I lost count of how many there were, but it was much more than the 6 promised. There was everything from Gabba to that lovely "Housey London" sound, I still don't know this is really called.
The night was spent either dancing myself silly or wandering around this huge building, constantly finding more and more new areas. Fair to say I was getting as trashed as the building was.
One thing was clear though, the event was popular, massively popular. Despite there being no advertising and the phone lines not opening 'till 10.00pm, I would say at a guess at least 5000 people turned up, maybe a lot more. The reason for the popularity is simple, no hassles. This was free land, go mad in an empty office block, have fun.
I continued my wanderings down a second staircase, through the heating plant and into a huge underground car park and a room with the most beautiful sounds.
Back up the stairs to the first floor and a small area with a PA and a guy with a CD, MD and DAT arrangement playing "home made" music of various types. This guy looked like a real thug, huge he was with deep set eyes. He seemed to know his music though and was treating the CDs with utmost care. Now I began to see the strength of the underground in London, the brilliance of the music and the two little figures held stiff against the blandness of commercialism.
More rooms later I find Doug, a friend over from the US and experiencing his first squat rave, who seems to have had an interesting time. I was worried as to how he would feel about all of this, certainly it was quite unlike anything he had experienced in the US. He seemed happy enough and we went upstairs together to yet another room I hadn't found yet on the top floor.
This room was huge. It was daylight by now (had been for some time) and the large "glass wall" windows let the light flood in to show a somewhat trashed open plan office room full of trashed people. After dancing for some time I took a break and sat down for a chill.
As we were talking some geezer, totally off his head, runs over to me, slaps me (gently) on the head and runs away. I didn't think too much of it, but a bit later he does it again to someone else. I'm watching him as he is clearly going over the top, rolling around on the floor and then running around the room. Suddenly, he runs toward me again, but slightly to my left, and smashes into one of the large glass windows which shatters. He seems OK though and goes back to his insane running around. A group of people are concerned about him however, and we talk about what to do. Some of them want to call the police and stop the party before he hurts himself. I thought we should take him downstairs to somewhere nearer ground level and where its quieter.
Before we can come to a conclusion though, he comes running from the crowd again. I see him and I can tell from his eyes, this is it. I try and grab him but fail, then run with all my speed behind him shouting "stop him, stop him", but he reaches the window and dives head first at it.
Fuck
Glass smashes as he goes out the window with a sound I will never forget, but someone catches his feet at the last minute and pulls him back in, we're 6 floors up remember. He gets up and runs again, but this time there is a lot of blood. I catch him and wrestle him to the ground and with the help of about six other people, we apply first aid.
This was serious, and I had wondered what would happen in a place like this if there was an emergency, now I was going to find out. Someone with a mobile phoned 999. The police were there in minutes, followed by the medics.
The guy was out of there very quickly and off to hospital, I doubt he would have had faster attention in a legal place. Police re-enforcements turned up but stayed outside. I was left there, covered in blood and very shaken but with a strange feeling of having just saved someones' life. I've never done that before.
It's also worth mentioning the way others reacted. A girl knew more about applying the pressure pad than I did, someone else checked carefully for glass fragments, someone else phoned the police and directed them to the scene, others helped restrain him. No-one got in the way, everyone helped. The police, it has to be said, were also wonderful, they were calm and polite and accepted help until they were able to take full control.
The bloke was tripping on acid, rather too much acid.
Afterwards me and Doug went up to the roof and I became a lump of jelly. We left the party (it was around midday) and went to have a cup of tea.
There is a happy ending to the story, the person concerned made a full recovery and is still very much with us, if a little shaken by the experience, but it was an unfortunate end to what had been a really good party.
Derek
Monday, 29 March 1999
NYE 1998/1999 reviews
Stratford NYE
^^^^^party * report * NYE * 1999 ^^^^
Pissed up to the gills, the tekno revellers came into Stratford (East London) in a constant stream of minicabs. We got there about two, had the usual "wot ? you're telling me five quid ?" argument and then we were in. The number of systems varied from twelve to fifteen depending on who you spoke to. I saw ten, but then I couldn't see.
There appeared to be four floors, all equally huge, all containing at least two systems each side of protruding corners. The music was uniformly normal in its London free partyness -- ie crap fast techno, reasonably rough jungle, and acid tekno. No Spiral/Network/French stuff was to be heard unfortunately, although that doesn't mean there wasn't any, but then I very rarely hear any quality music in England nowadays.
The warehouse was huge but didn't have any water, which would've been ok except that ALL THE BARS ran out about nine, so we left at ten, which was a shame coz it would've been nice to stay. This was nowhere near as cool a venue as last year, Tottenham, but then Tottenham was something I'll be telling me grandchildren about ("mum - grandad's gurning again"). The people came and the people partied - the take on the door must have been huge and I hope it fell into the right hands. All in all, a pretty good one, especially judging by the size of the headache I had when I finally got home. With another party in a pub and then a party in an old nightclub last Sat, Stratford's certainly basing a firm claim for taking the crown of "tekno central 1999".
mujinga
We (Mutant Pollutant) did the United Systems party in London, one of the best free parties I've been to in years! It was in an old office block. The building was huge, with 4 levels and around 15 sound systems playing eveything from trance to reggae, there were 4 on the level we were on. There was no trouble from the coppers either, there were quite a few outside but they never tried to get in. We had our loudest system so far and caned it all night resulting in fucking up an amp, shorting out a mid range speaker and setting fire to a bassbin (there's a huge hole in the cone and it's covered in water now!) but it was worth it. We shut down about 1pm and then came the worst part, lugging all our stuff up and down stairs whilst being completely knackered. This was the first United Systems party we'd done and they seem really well organised, everything thought out in advance like separate entrances for sound systems and party goers so no one got in the way of the equipment being carried in, people on the all the doors that were open so they could shut up quick if the coppers tried to get in, we even got a little bit of money off the door and they'd never heard of us before! All in all it was an excellent party but I doubt if we'll being doing loads in London this year, after all we've got to help keep the vibe alive in this area!
Pissed up to the gills, the tekno revellers came into Stratford (East London) in a constant stream of minicabs. We got there about two, had the usual "wot ? you're telling me five quid ?" argument and then we were in. The number of systems varied from twelve to fifteen depending on who you spoke to. I saw ten, but then I couldn't see.
There appeared to be four floors, all equally huge, all containing at least two systems each side of protruding corners. The music was uniformly normal in its London free partyness -- ie crap fast techno, reasonably rough jungle, and acid tekno. No Spiral/Network/French stuff was to be heard unfortunately, although that doesn't mean there wasn't any, but then I very rarely hear any quality music in England nowadays.
The warehouse was huge but didn't have any water, which would've been ok except that ALL THE BARS ran out about nine, so we left at ten, which was a shame coz it would've been nice to stay. This was nowhere near as cool a venue as last year, Tottenham, but then Tottenham was something I'll be telling me grandchildren about ("mum - grandad's gurning again"). The people came and the people partied - the take on the door must have been huge and I hope it fell into the right hands. All in all, a pretty good one, especially judging by the size of the headache I had when I finally got home. With another party in a pub and then a party in an old nightclub last Sat, Stratford's certainly basing a firm claim for taking the crown of "tekno central 1999".
mujinga
We (Mutant Pollutant) did the United Systems party in London, one of the best free parties I've been to in years! It was in an old office block. The building was huge, with 4 levels and around 15 sound systems playing eveything from trance to reggae, there were 4 on the level we were on. There was no trouble from the coppers either, there were quite a few outside but they never tried to get in. We had our loudest system so far and caned it all night resulting in fucking up an amp, shorting out a mid range speaker and setting fire to a bassbin (there's a huge hole in the cone and it's covered in water now!) but it was worth it. We shut down about 1pm and then came the worst part, lugging all our stuff up and down stairs whilst being completely knackered. This was the first United Systems party we'd done and they seem really well organised, everything thought out in advance like separate entrances for sound systems and party goers so no one got in the way of the equipment being carried in, people on the all the doors that were open so they could shut up quick if the coppers tried to get in, we even got a little bit of money off the door and they'd never heard of us before! All in all it was an excellent party but I doubt if we'll being doing loads in London this year, after all we've got to help keep the vibe alive in this area!
P.Remix - http://www.partyvibe.org/free-parties/fpreport7.html
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