state of London underground

[Gus]

Haha. Im still around, Ive been making acid techno since 1993 and still play festivals, squats and free parties , though a lot less these days, partly because Ive found theres more to life than getting off my trolley at parties, and partly because theres less opportunities and places to play at. However now and again the tribes will gather and the beast will be unleashed. I LOVE acid techno - it is in my blood, howeve rI think the scene went seriously wrong in the late nineties when it became about ketamine and coke and lost the psychedelic and uplifting "liberating" side of itself. Parties started to look more like something out the night of the living dead than something were people had fun.
These days the underground scene is probably more centered around niche, bassline UKG and dubstep rather than acid techno and drum and bass. Squat parties still happen but the crackheads have turned them into and rather more sinister affaitr. Last time I looked Tribe of Munt were still playing Acid Techno at squat parties in London. The travellers have mostly fled to Europe where the torch of free party techno continues especially in the Czech republic. The scene is much smaller in London now and many of the old Acid techno heads ar enow middle aged with kids etc
I will never stop making it though and there will always be someone playing acid techno at some party somewhere just as there will always be Irish Jigs and reels in pubs in Ireland.
Here is my latest acid techno tunbes, free to download, that I made a couple of weeks ago at Glastonbury festival, which for me was free, because my Jedi blagging abilities have been honed to perfection ove rthe years :

http://www.soundclick.com/bezzerker


You can here the live version here and the other version higher quality :

http://www.myspace.com/thechurchofillusion

Viva le Acid Techno .

[Technologic]

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!!!

[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.