state of London underground

[davethedrummer]

What's with all the negativity?

Jesus, no wonder the scene is in decline if everyone's so negative. I mean it's hardly going to get any better if all people are going to do is whinge and wish it was like it used to be, it won't be, the honeymoon period is over, deal with it and get on with having a good time FFS.

THE one thing i'm looking forward to the most is coming back to London and seeing my favourite DJ's banging out the acid whilst i'm busting some moves!

I think the guys have consistently done an outstanding job and we should be supporting them and the scene as much as we can, not kicking them/it while it's down and whinging as if it's all a load of bollocks. NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS FFS!!!

Peace out, party on, lets ****in 'ave it!!!

I agree
I don't come on the acid forum too often these days mainly because the style is not as fresh as it was and I'm just not so crazy about 303's as i was a few years ago.
sorry about that.

but i still come and check stuff out and see what everyones up to
and there have been some great tracks kicking about here recently too.
i think saying these negative things about the scene just alienates people who are getting into it for the first time
and upsets some of the other guys who are trying hard to make good new stuff
it really disses all their hard work to say that it's all gone hard dance etc etc ...
i mean what the **** is that all about?
and I do take it a bit personally too , I can't help it.

but yeah
being negative will just not work.
you have to accept that it is not 1997 any more and look forward
and accept that while it may have been fun getting trashed and playing records for 3 days in a warehouse in hackney
you can't live that lifestyle forever (unless you want to die at 45 from a heart attack)
and once you break out of that mode , you see other forms of music and other ideas that are just as valid and exciting.

As for the political thing , I think that's become a bit overblown
it is true in a sense that acid techno had a political ethos, but the records were made for the sake of the music first and foremost.
the parties picked up around that i think , plus the end of the free traveller movement and the poll tax riots etc etc .....it was certainly inspiring
and it came out in the music for sure and pulled people together.
but it's not fair to say "what happened to these guys ?" or anything like that
because for me politics is still there , and i'm still into underground music.
and anyway ,what the hell has my life or political view got to do with you?

I think a vast majority of all techno is still "**** you" music
mainly because the musical ideas it deals with are abstract and go against the grain of commercial music.
and it needs a bit of a leap of faith to understand.
In a way shouting "**** you" over a track can be seen as being a bit naive too
and as i got older that started to ring a few alarm bells for me.
like "what kind of message are we actually trying to achieve here?"

so thats my say
I had to write something you understand
and I'm sure there'll be disagreements, no problem.
but let's try to pull together on this one
and maybe open that door to the future of the sound together
not wedge it so firmly shut that we lose it all forever.
that is the true crime.

[the_psychologist]

Well, my post was strictly to get some idea of what's happening in the underground scene. I had the fortune to attend a few London underground parties in the early 2000s when the sound was dark as ****, and even then something felt... off. I was pilled up like everyone, but that did not hide the reality of shady-looking people snorting stuff in the dark corners. So naturally I'm very curious what form the parties have taken now that acid has withered, MP3s are dominating, etc.. And I was also curious about the political angle because there seems to be so much globally that should have people angry and ready to make hard dance music. Instead, we get a never ending sea of "minimal" tunes to make us choochoo around the dancefloor and ponder the make of our cars.

Re: your (and the other dons) output, I stopped expecting you to churn out 303 tracks ages ago. I think an artist's enthusiasm for their music can be heard quite easily in the tunes, so it's best to move on when you've lost that spark for a given sound. What surprises me is that there has been no real hotbed of acid techno since you guys did it from the mid-90s to the early-00s. I fully expected that other British producers would have stepped in and become part of your crew, maybe taken up the reigns. But perhaps acid techno really is dead for the time being, and there aren't any people willing to invest on the level you all did.

I really want to take a crack at producing some tracks, as I have a pretty clear idea of a different direction I could take, but I lack the resources right now. Maybe part of the new acid techno philosophy would be the exploitation of software production in order to get back to that DIY mindset. Because I certainly cannot afford vintage synths right now. Our economy is ****ed, so pricey gear is bottom of the list.

I guess you all set the bar so high that it has made it difficult for others to carry on. Definitely a unique period in dance music that you all led.

[teknofilth]

What surprises me is that there has been no real hotbed of acid techno since you guys did it from the mid-90s to the early-00s. I fully expected that other British producers would have stepped in and become part of your crew, maybe taken up the reigns. But perhaps acid techno really is dead for the time being, and there aren't any people willing to invest on the level you all did.


I guess you all set the bar so high that it has made it difficult for others to carry on. Definitely a unique period in dance music that you all led.

agree with the last para definitely..but there are producers around who will take up the reigns as you say..paul cortex, 3phaze generator off the top of my head..it is all cyclical i reckon..imo that keeps it fresh, maybe acid techno as we knew it is dead yes but there will always be acid music..although when there were distributor problems with the uk acid i did look abroad but found nothing but boingboing cliche squelchysquelchy stuff..not the dirty london stuff..so yes lets have a sabbatical, move on and producers take your time and mature the london acid sound..its worth waiting for imo..

[teknofilth]

writing this knackered so excuse the rambling, lack of punctuation etc but my tuppenceworth based on 10 yearsworth of squatpartying/djing etc is, in no particular order that;

hackney has less places to do the parties now what with the land being used for olympics/yuppie flat building..
..the crackheads of a few years sgo with their mugging etc took their toll on the scene, put lots of people off..
..the parties maybe due to their cheapness/sheer ****ing difference always had a lot of energy from immigrants..the italian squatter characters that helped fuel the parties in the late 90s seem less around these days..speaking to some italian mates they say that coming to london for a few years of madness is less a rite of passage these days..when the government opened up visas to latinamericans in early 2000s there was an upsurge in brazilianfuelled psytrance squatparties..now the uk government have enough newly qualified eu citizens from the east to do their lowpaid blackmarket jobs they stopped letting in so many brazilians..so the psy parties went quiet again..the new eu crews from the east eg poland are fuelling parties now but maybe more in a club environment for whatever reason..
..police are using terror laws that they couldnt use before to stop parties..
..acid techno was never going to remain at the same popularity..maybe like other genres such as dnb it will regroup/reinvent and come back with a vengeance..but for now the younger ones seem to be more into breakcore hardtek etc..using their own laptops to make stuff than watch a dj spin vinyl..which is what is still the norm at squatparties is..
..er yeah and crews just have moved on/got kids/had enough..
..definitely agree with the link between strong economy and weak alternative culture and viceversa also..think this is a big factor..
..oh yeah and k, not exactly condusive to people networking/talking/having a laugh/getting off their arses and doing anything which is what parties fuelled by uppers are more likely to be..
..sometimes when djing, looking up and seeing a load of dribbling zombies can be really dispiriting..
..and i think people spouting shite on internet forums probably (not this one i hasten to add)puts off interested but uninformed potential squatparty people "yeah i got mugged at a party..all i took was 3 lines of k in 5 minutes and i woke up without my money, phone etc and a bruise on my head..cant have been me falling down oh no" or "yeah so and so got stabbed and shot, i dont know who or when or where but i heard it did definitely happen" or "yeah they are well dodgy..well the ones i used to go to years ago were..i dont know about now but i will still spout off as if i went last weekend" etc..
..dont know enough about the politics fuelling it, coincidence playing a part or not etc but the coming together of characters like henry, chris, lawrie gizelle etc was something that doesnt happen very often..to follow that lot will probably happen but not straightaway..like expecting england to produce a paul gascoigne every summer..in my opinion like..zzz goodnight all

[Gus]

I agree

you have to accept that it is not 1997 any more.

Im still trying to accept its not 1993 anymore !
Anyway I know what you mean about the lifestyle. I was talking to this girl about it, she hates techno, and she was saying - youve stopped taking the drugs now stop listening to the music. I was trying to explain to her its not just about the drugs but she wasnt having any of it. I do love techno but I am not a druggie anymore and to be like that for life is not my thing, however the music IS designed to illicit a certain response whilst people are on drugs, yet I still love it. What a dilema. I guess maybe once a year in a field is not going to kill me.

[Gus]

I agree

you have to accept that it is not 1997 any more.

Im still trying to accept its not 1993 anymore !
Anyway I know what you mean about the lifestyle. I was talking to this girl about it, she hates techno, and she was saying - youve stopped taking the drugs now stop listening to the music. I was trying to explain to her its not just about the drugs but she wasnt having any of it. I do love techno but I am not a druggie anymore and to be like that for life is not my thing, however the truth is , side from political matters, the music IS designed to illicit a certain response whilst people are on drugs, yet I still love it. What a dilema. I guess maybe once a year in a field is not going to kill me.

[nekro]

everything has been done with 'london' acid techno imo, hence most people have become bored with the genre.

i don't mind listening to a set or 2 of classic stuff but when you get 8hrs or so of DJs playing the same records over and over again it can somehwat kill the atmosphere. london squat parties got away with it cos most people were too ****ed to notice what they were listening to. a lot of djs in london seem to think that acid music revolves around stay up forever/smitten/cluster/routmaster etc...and don't delve any deeper

[speed-it-up]

I used to cain that Pull the Strings tune si put up!

There are no good soundsytems playing techno, acid or otherwise on the London squat scene on a regular basis. I went to one after the thing on Hackney Marshes the other week. 50 people, really shit techno, you had to be on k to even tolerate being there.

Compare that to 6 floors of an office block in the city, which you got regularly in the late 90s and you can see why all but the most diehard party heads give 'em a miss.

[nekro]

yeah, i popped my head into that one as well (sainsbury's building right?) - it was 2am and nothing was getting sorted so i cut my losses and went home. there are some decent parties further out of london and in the home counties, just need to avoid the hard trance/hard style sound systems

[speed-it-up]

yeah, i popped my head into that one as well (sainsbury's building right?) - it was 2am and nothing was getting sorted so i cut my losses and went home. there are some decent parties further out of london and in the home counties, just need to avoid the hard trance/hard style sound systems

Yeah, supermarket rave.

Can't be arsed to drive all that far to a free party anymore unless I know who is doing it or am spinning myself. If I want to hear quality techno now I'll go to a club.

[the_psychologist]

So Immersion and the like no longer do free parties? I don't have a sense of who the major rigs are now.

[Aratron]

So Immersion and the like no longer do free parties? I don't have a sense of who the major rigs are now.

no one important, by and large its a front for crooks to have an easy market to sell crap drugs.

[wrong]

Felt to comment even tho i don't play the london acid sound, but have been involved with the parties

[wrong]

oops.. try again...
Felt to comment even tho i don't play the london acid sound, but have been involved with the parties for a looong time.... I totally agree with whoever said that the music sometimes can be so monotonous and it was allowed cos everyone is too ****ed to realise... the london squat party these days can be a dismal place, with dark corners, robberies and a lot of people who are there not for the music or even the party, infact really not sure why they're there.. to get rowdy and simpley cos they've nothing better to do.. Not saying there aren't still people who do care.. just not nearly as many as before.. before it was everyone's party, now the responsibility generally falls soley on the soundsystem for everything...I think its like this because people stopped caring, stopped putting effort in, stopped getting the buildings the week before and stopped spending all week decorating it. the people who did care about putting good parties on in the 90's got pissed off with all the politics and stopped coming out, leaving it to people who lets say had other priorities, to drive the thing into the ground.
Now there are lots of really positive crews who are doing parties, and every few parties it will go OFF.. in a good way.. when everybody comes out, there's a good building... not a massive open warehouse with 30 people shivvering round a stack in the far corner and most importantly, a great atmosphere. In my opinion the crews who put on regular techno squat parties these days are all really sound and have the best attitudes, its just that there are now so many negative 'components' that have been ignored for so long that they're now almost part of it and not enough people are 'on it' enough to stand up to it and say NO (and i mean crew AND ravers).
As far as i'm concerned, ketamine played a massive part in dulling things, it definately took the importance out of the music and took the awareness away leaving parties a free for all for thieves and general dark behaviour... But agreed.. the days of 1000 happy smiling people, from all walks of life having it as one are truely over.. Although, the best parties now seem to be the semi private, smaller squat parties/semi-legal parties where you can quite easily have 100 smiling people in a room together :)
Please forgive the rant...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTiAU-w1KyI&e

[Gus]

This lot (Mutoid Waste Company) are still around, they had a wiked gabba tent at glastonbury and a robot drummer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHcX2Q5OBJg[/QUOTE]

[Gus]

and these parties play acid techno and happened in the last year and look like they have a pretty good vibe :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBjP01U6IBo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNRswUt_jm0

[speed-it-up]

and these parties play acid techno and happened in the last year and look like they have a pretty good vibe :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBjP01U6IBo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNRswUt_jm0

munt don't go out regularly anymore

[rhythmtech]

bow road 98/99 - immersion, twisted & underground sound all combined into one big **** off rig - jugglers, fire breathers, ddr live, all 3 liberators, lawrie playing pounding grooves live for one of the first times. good ****ing times!

[nekro]

immersion stopped before the millenium i think, last time i saw the immersion rig out was at glastonbury in the travellers field, 99 i think.

there are occasionally multi-riggers but they cater more for the breakcore and drum n bass crowd and attract people from the home counties

[Si the Sigh]

Yea man, Immersion system at Glasto 99... :)