Round 2: The State V The Rave

“There will probably be in the annuls of history minor skirmishes and different bits of law to stop partying in different bits of the country, but I think it's fair to say that acid house was the first time that the state came together to legislate against one thing.”
“If you look at northern soul, there were lots of people breaking in to chemists for example, nicking slimming pills, so there were certainly nefarious activities surrounding partying well before acid house, but they weren't legislated against in such a heavy-handed manner.”

“As soon as the media gets into something, it’s like this big shouting match, where the media starts shouting, then the MPs start shouting at the police and then the police start shouting back, and it all escalates.”


“I totally understand why Thatcher and her people were clamping down on what they saw, because there were proper criminals involved. You had gangsters and people like the ICF involved [West Ham United's 'Inter City Firm']. I think the reason why Boys Own escaped this was that we kept our events under a thousand, so no real money could be made by gangs moving in and running the doors and stuff. We would get gangsters in, but mainly it was on their night off.”

“Acid house bringing people into the dance scene that hadn’t experienced the earlier stuff is what made it be viewed as more political. So years later people see it as this ‘right on’ anti-Thatcher thing, but the truth is it doesn’t matter who was in government. If it was a Labour government, they’d still be knocking the door down. In the 70s when it was a Labour government, they’d still shut down the fucking party!
“I think once it got into the 90s and the free-rave party scene, it was more political. By then though, most people who had been the first acid house vanguard had brought it back into clubs.

The former home of Home, Leicester Square
“Basically every single week after that first month, Home went cap in hand to them saying ‘can we have our 6am license as promised?’ and Westminster were like ‘ask us next week’. Cunts kept it up for over a year.
“Thankfully there’s always going to be younger people who are ambitious and think they can make a go of things. We live in a more ambitious and go-for-it society than before. When I was doing this 20 years ago you’d go to a bank to get a loan and they’d just laugh at us.
Must Reads
Joining The Circus
What to do for British politics?
Solidarity with Ukraine
Resource List
URL vs. IRL
Do DJs Today Need Social Media to Be Heard?
Trending track
I Hear (Borusiade Remix)
Mother of Mars
Shop NowMidnite Rogue
Hologram Teen
Shop Now