I wrote months ago in this blog about a recording mini-mission I took up to London, and the radio show I hoped to craft from the interviews and tunes taken at the party held by SP23 on the MS Stubnitz.
The show I 'envisioned' (a visual metaphor on a blog about noise? hmmmmm) has sat half-made on my hard drive for the last 5 months doing nothing but inspiring me to get on with all other aspects of my life :-). I always just needed one more interview to tie them all in together .... A problem with prerecorded material is that the 'work' somehow becomes extra precious- and its essential worth gets complicated in turning it into a 'form' or 'product', and caught up in a kind of perfectionist loop rather than boshing it out live on air and letting it stand up for itself. (this material can definitely stand up for itself.)
This Wednesday evening I finally played out some of the interviews I made at the SP23 party, and some of the music made there too ( glorious life affirming booty shaking boat rocking banging hand-raising audio dynamite- livesets, sweet, deep and fine). Mr Seany T and I loosely tied the audio together batting some great ideas inspired by the music and interviews around the studio for a hour. We agreed we had very good fun. And there wasn't even cake involved.
Its taken me a few months to get around to broadcasting this- and also to admitting that what I've really been working on putting together is not a show- it is a response to what I got from the SP23 party. I’m not a good interviewer, and purposefully lack the historians' critical eye. I wanted to mark the party with full respect, by partying very hard. The show was never going to be a professional report- I've no formal journalistic stylee- I didn't want to script a piece of meta-raver narrative...
Saying that, did you know, raving saved my life? More than once?
Situations where more than 2 people meet and socialise whilst enjoying "sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats" have now become a highstreet norm. But a international collective including an radical street-art design magazine, a emerging digital co-operative commoners' organisation, and 2 generations of highest quality beats and visuals producers hosting parties in the UK is not so frequent. The LSD Magazine and the Commoner's Fayre Network are two SP23 projects pushing underground creativity and community back into the mainstream. Both are FREE. FREE is one of the most provocative ideas humans have to play with.
Legendary largess aside, Spiral Tribe was a collective that threw open doors / no doors parties- as a way of exploring / exploding freedom- freedom to congregate together, freedom to use resources and share ideas, freedom from the tyrannies of hegemony. Simple- work together to forge a way of life centred around action and celebration- DIY- no one is right to tell how it should be done. By testing boundaries by riding right over the line between un-do-able and done- by making and claiming the rights to live without restrictions, to roam, to rave, to raise and wave the flag of 'what the fuck is stopping us being here now together- because being here together is the best part of begin here at all' . The beats are very sweet, and the heat generated by moving in a convoy, on to any dance floor, is enough to melt cultural icebergs and re-energise visions and hopes and possibilities- making what- a dream- honed across the world in a thousand communities- into a shared reality - this is how we do...
And SP23 is doing it again- next Friday at the Village Underground, London. It's ticketed- priced to cover costs- and it will be worth every penny- :-)))
The show I 'envisioned' (a visual metaphor on a blog about noise? hmmmmm) has sat half-made on my hard drive for the last 5 months doing nothing but inspiring me to get on with all other aspects of my life :-). I always just needed one more interview to tie them all in together .... A problem with prerecorded material is that the 'work' somehow becomes extra precious- and its essential worth gets complicated in turning it into a 'form' or 'product', and caught up in a kind of perfectionist loop rather than boshing it out live on air and letting it stand up for itself. (this material can definitely stand up for itself.)
This Wednesday evening I finally played out some of the interviews I made at the SP23 party, and some of the music made there too ( glorious life affirming booty shaking boat rocking banging hand-raising audio dynamite- livesets, sweet, deep and fine). Mr Seany T and I loosely tied the audio together batting some great ideas inspired by the music and interviews around the studio for a hour. We agreed we had very good fun. And there wasn't even cake involved.
Its taken me a few months to get around to broadcasting this- and also to admitting that what I've really been working on putting together is not a show- it is a response to what I got from the SP23 party. I’m not a good interviewer, and purposefully lack the historians' critical eye. I wanted to mark the party with full respect, by partying very hard. The show was never going to be a professional report- I've no formal journalistic stylee- I didn't want to script a piece of meta-raver narrative...
Saying that, did you know, raving saved my life? More than once?
On the 23rd of October 2012
SP23 - the name of the resurfacing Spiral Tribe collective - held
its 23rd birthday bash. The party, one of a series of
events planned across Europe called 'infoblips', was held aboard the MS
stubnitz- docked on Galleons Reach, Woolston Dockyards, in the west
end of London. So -not on British soil- but for the first time in many
years, this legendary rave crew, regrouped, was back in the UK as a party, as a celebration.
I wanted to find out about the root of Spiral Tribe, and its route to date, and where its setting it's course now (blazing trails) in these critical times.
Its a strange thing to party with
underground legends who continue unabashed to instigate culture. SP23 are intent on taking progressive arts n music
even further still- no resting on laurels, no back-in-the-day static (though there was plenty of birthday-party style reuniting between good old friends going on). I left that party with a strongly renewed feeling the party itself,
unfathomable, urgent, is still definitely on. A great vibe at a party is
like a baton getting passed or a high five-?
I never attended a Spiral Tribe rave
(I was a few years young) but the vibe and the influence of the late 80's early 90's
underground parties is British cultural history: not just for raving's direct effect on governmental policy- the Criminal Justice Bill's fearsome primrose-coloured anti-gathering legislation- but for the
inspiration and taste of freedom that those parties seeded in the minds and hearts of
the generations taking part.
Situations where more than 2 people meet and socialise whilst enjoying "sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats" have now become a highstreet norm. But a international collective including an radical street-art design magazine, a emerging digital co-operative commoners' organisation, and 2 generations of highest quality beats and visuals producers hosting parties in the UK is not so frequent. The LSD Magazine and the Commoner's Fayre Network are two SP23 projects pushing underground creativity and community back into the mainstream. Both are FREE. FREE is one of the most provocative ideas humans have to play with.
Legendary largess aside, Spiral Tribe was a collective that threw open doors / no doors parties- as a way of exploring / exploding freedom- freedom to congregate together, freedom to use resources and share ideas, freedom from the tyrannies of hegemony. Simple- work together to forge a way of life centred around action and celebration- DIY- no one is right to tell how it should be done. By testing boundaries by riding right over the line between un-do-able and done- by making and claiming the rights to live without restrictions, to roam, to rave, to raise and wave the flag of 'what the fuck is stopping us being here now together- because being here together is the best part of begin here at all' . The beats are very sweet, and the heat generated by moving in a convoy, on to any dance floor, is enough to melt cultural icebergs and re-energise visions and hopes and possibilities- making what- a dream- honed across the world in a thousand communities- into a shared reality - this is how we do...
And SP23 is doing it again- next Friday at the Village Underground, London. It's ticketed- priced to cover costs- and it will be worth every penny- :-)))
(The birthday party Infoblip on MS Stubnitz showcased a amazing venue. The ship is steel grey and beautiful- in a techno
robust way-
metal, bent economic iron buttressed hull like a
submarine's ballroom. The ship is itself the feature. Stubnitz entered British waters for the first
time as a venue for the London Pleasure Gardens – sailing up to dock in the metropolis' east end, bringing a fresh attitude to what
a venue can be in 2012 - a 1960's Russian fishing ship- the harvester
of the fleet- refit to provide stage, dance and exhibition space,
bars and a chill out areas, and a deck for surveying the lights of the
city spread out all around and reflected in the black water. Hosting continuous performance and happenings wherever it sails, and a weekly radio show!!!, at 800 foot
long, with
a crew of around 25, the MS Stubnitz is a real cultural ark.)
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