Archetype for something new…

I’ve long awaited the next phase of our development as groovers and music heads. Hopefully looking into the corners and crates for signs of life from anyone who is forward thinking in a way that speaks to my soul. Without wasting time here in critique of what’s being done, I am going to outline what I’d like to do.

First some history:

My first experiences with “underground” parties go all the way back to the 1970’s. Punk rock had no home apart from a precious few clubs in San Francisco. To list them makes it sound like a lot, but for the most part you had to be 18 in those days to get in. I was only 12, and that made things difficult. Until Paul Rat and a few other people opened off site venues where age wasn’t exactly the criteria. The people’s temple (church of Jim Jones,) Rat’s palace, the hell hole, the a hole, and for a few years, a continually rotating sort of warehouse, or storefront type of club rose up out of the lack of places to play and go. Of those, only the tool and die really lasted for more than a summer. But they were dark, dodgy, and a lot of fun. By the 1980’s much of the creativity put into finding places to have these new musical experiences had run dry. Not that the shows didn’t improve with more established and varied venues, because in some ways they did, but the freshness of an odd space, in a neighborhood you didn’t know, where a few hundred punks would descend at about 10 o’clock and trash the place was magic.

In the early 80’s I went with a friend to a garage in the western addition to hear “some music.” I had no idea what I was in for, but what I found was a 4 car garage packed with rastas going crazy to a local reggae band. It didn’t get started until midnight, and wasn’t over until almost sunrise. The cops never came, the music was mind opening, and i danced beside a tall, thin dread who was swirling his beautiful loks in all directions all night without stopping, clapping his hands, singing along. I was changed, shifted in a new way from this experience. I went back every week until they stopped doing it, got my first taste of plantain there, and knew in my heart that i’d been traveling the wrong road up until now (during this time i removed my sid vicious swastika t-shirt and never wore it again.)

Shortly afterward, a series of parties called ANON parties began to happen. They were art student get togethers, where tiny little flyers would be handed out on your way out of one party, with information on how to get to the next party. Never clear, always cryptic, getting the invitation to the next party was like being in a secret club. The parties themselves were mainly gay, and new romantic-like. The few post punks who attended them at the beginning would burn incense, and practice their terrible dancing to the electro, rap and motown being played. These parties were held in old discotheques, cultural centers, and many of the same places early punk shows were held. The will to create a space, and design the idea of an evening was almost the most important part of the party itself. Like punk rock before it, these parties grew quickly in popularity, and soon the magic was lost. They chose permanent locations, and as the 80’s got going, the music changed from post disco, post punk into more of a new wave sound.

The in-between years were filled with various types of events that tried to embrace fashion, design, modern music, and vice. The party SEX from southern california was interesting, as were the pajama parties at 55 natoma, the Glashaus organization tried to accelerate the idea of the anon parties to a haute couture/fine art level, where Ira, an actual collaborator in the original anon parties opened a permanent location at 1015 folsom and gave opening up a full fledged night club a try. Some of these pushed the limits of all decency, and ended up as a dark room full of strangers having sex while Mantronix played through the lousy sound system, others were less exciting and either never got going, or didn’t last long.

Finally rave happened. Similar to the anon idea, where map points, and off site locations were used exclusively in the beginning, the rave was something else. less about any one element, and more about the entire experience. You know the history of rave, and there’s no point in my laying it out here.

Core values:

I don’t think the actual details of any of these parties are essential to my point here. The music, the intention, or even the outcome per se. What seems to be the common thread of this micro histoir is that during times of friction, or boredom, someone got an idea and decided to take it to the people. the people liked the idea, and went along with it. The craft seemed to be more a matter of gathering people from the margins, and bringing them together in a fresh space where they were free to do their thing.

For some this was sex in the dark, for others it was radical dress up, and for others it was about a departure from what had come before. But in each case, it was the commitment to makeup, crazy hair, buckle boots, and undertaking the difficult task of locating the party itself that gave it an air of danger and excitement.

Most of my peers and I knew heading into this decade that we were in for ten years of a re hashing of the last 50 years of music. We felt, collectively, as the decade of the 1990’s closed that this was the end of something. Not for sentimental reasons, but because 15 years is a long time for anything to stay new, underground, and continue to reinvent itself with any degree of fury. We had, in the united states succeeded in avoiding the pitfalls of the mainstream, but in so doing we had also succeeded in avoiding the incomes of the mainstream. Now approaching 30 (or older) a different set of needs, and aspirations began to set in. Reality alone is enough to diffuse this energy.

So where is the magic?

Outline for something new:

The premise here stems from the notion that there’s really nothing healthy in fighting the flow of the people. Unless you see a gaping hole to fill in the cultural landscape, the uphill battle of insisting that a deep house night of emotionalism and drums is going to be it for you no matter what, that’s where you are going to stop, is exhausting and unrealistic.

However, we have learned so much over the last 15 years or more that it’s sad to waste these lessons on rehashing the past in the same old way on a new generation, or worse, enduring the law of diminishing returns as you sadly watch your great idea hemorrhage old friends who love you, and love the music, but just can’t make it out anymore.

Embrace the future:

The trends of the moment are decidedly rehashes of the 80’s. Rock is struggling to make a beck-like come back, dance is still something people want to do, oldies only go so far, and the combinations of drum and bass, 2 step, and even house with the vintage low fidelity music of the past may have a degree of novelty for a moment, but as we learned from electronic music, this fancy is a passing and transient thing. It soon fades, and the next combination is embraced.

That said, if something new is coming from the past, then why await the invention? Why not open your laboratories to experimentation today? Begin to explore the sounds, production techniques, and applications of what might be the logical step in the new music?

I suggest that to begin with a seamless hybrid of the music from the past, currently in vogue, and the concept of beat matching and music mixing.

Embrace the past

I say embrace the fascination with the past. Exploit it. Encourage dress up, play, and environment. With this new musical hybrid that has only the basic rules of house, and the content of anything from computer music to pop music as its sample source, set out into a new location, paint the walls bright pink, and in rude boy caps, bright white hair, yellow eye liner, and plastic bags for your disco dress, invent the new art object. Be a situationist, and deplore the ordinary.

There are any number of interpretations, here is one of them…

Apply the theory:

Create a series of events. Never have them in the same place twice. Theme them by year, or by era. Collect a dedicated crew who are 100% into this concept. Be that era on the night. The music is strict, and while beat matched and produced by you and your crew, it is restricted only by the criteria for the event itself.

An example:

Party:

1979

Atmosphere:

Take on a Post punk/Reggae’s rise theme.

Code:

all staff will wear rasta caps and rude boy hats (buffalo style) with mirrored cop sunglasses. Stove pipe jeans and bright t-shirts for men, buffalo skirts, and pile up head wraps for women.

Music:

the music will be restricted to reggae, post punk, and the sound of ‘79. This music can be played from the source material (not recommended) or re edited and mixed as if it were house music (highly recommended.)

Emphasis:

A strong political, protest, and theme of awareness is needed. Leaflets, preachers, and ministers are essential to provide this street corner rally feeling.

Vice:

the spliff, quaaludes, reds, beer. Definitely a downer night.

Physical Environment:

the banner behind the DJ should be the entire wall if possible, a crude spray painted stencil of the RAR logo (rock against racism.) the colors should be red and black, some yellow is ok too. Lighting should be dim at best, and lit by way of the vintage par can strictly. Think red, always red. When in doubt, paint it red.

The criteria for the night is not to present a fancy dress party, rather a theme. You shouldn’t forget that by design you are doing something new. This is a synthesis. Theme participants are rewarded. Those who come in the dress of the night are rewarded with easy entry, or even free entry. Those who do not wait in line. Anyone who demonstrates real creativity and takes the theme seriously, perhaps makes it their own and goes way over the top is celebrated, brought to the front of the line, given a free quaalude.

Finally, have your next party’s manifesto prepared on the night. Hand out the information to the people as they leave in the morning. Do not flyer the town. Do not give them to the apologetic types who leave early. Wait until the end, and only advise those who were in it to win it.

This is just one idea. there are so many possible combinations including this diy, secret, amalgamate theory of gathering and building.

Take it, make it your own. And I’ll see you in the next phase of our development.

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