When 11-year-old Mark Stay was enduring a double maths lesson, some time in 1984, a long siren sounded from outside the school buildings.

“Everyone froze, even the teacher,” recalls Mark, now 51. “It was very similar to the four-minute warning siren. Then she remembered that some buildings nearby were being demolished and this was a detonation warning. Still, nothing like the cold chill of imminent annihilation to clear the mind.”

It’s not surprising everyone was a little jumpy. The memory of Threads was still lingering in their minds. Broadcast at 9.30pm on the BBC on Sunday September 23rd, 1984, just a couple of weeks into the new school year, Threads has imprinted itself on the psyche of a generation, like the shadows of obliterated people burned into the pavements of Hiroshima.

Ask any Brit aged over 50 about Threads, and the chances are they’ll go a little pale, shudder, and start telling you about melting milk bottles and women weeing down their legs in the street.

The birth of the docudrama

It was what today we’d call a docudrama, a combination of the fictional stories of individuals caught up in a nuclear attack on Sheffield and the narration of science broadcaster Paul Vaughan, which gave the facts about atomic war he imparted a horrifying, familiar veracity.

This is what it would be like… this is what would happen to us

There was a ‘Play for Today’ vibe about the story of Jimmy and Ruth, a young couple preparing to get married after finding out Ruth is pregnant. In the background, TV reports and newspaper headlines outlined the growing international tensions with the Soviet Union, but it all takes a back seat to the domestic tribulations… until the nukes start flying, and Sheffield (among most other cities) is bombed.

The memory of the mushroom cloud rising over the city still chills. This is what it would be like. This is not some American science fiction drama, positing the destruction of New York or Los Angeles or other far-off places we only ever saw on TV or at the cinema. This is what would happen to us.

Those behind Threads, nuclear war film

Jimmy was played by West Yorkshire born Reece Dinsdale, who went on to star in A Private Function and the sit-com Home To Roost, while Ruth was Karen Meagher, who the following year took the role of Miss Broom in the ultimate palate cleanser, the kids’ TV show Jonny Briggs.

Threads was produced and directed by Mick Jackson, who, once he got nuclear annihilation out of his system, turned to romantic movies such as LA Story and The Bodyguard in the early 1990s. The screenplay was written by Barry Hines, the South Yorkshire-born author of A Kestrel for a Knave, later filmed by Ken Loach as Kes. Who among us can say we didn’t sit in an English class while a big old TV and a video player the size of a small family car was wheeled in for us to watch that?

Hines brought his trademark northern grit to the script, but there was to be no happy ending. Not even a slightly sad, though redemptive, ending in Threads.

There was just going to be endless bleakness and horror. The mushroom cloud rising over Sheffield, the milk bottle melting in the intense heat from the blast, the woman in the street losing control of her bladder as realisation dawned that this was it, this was the end… that was only the beginning.

Ruth Beckett (Karen Meagher) in Threads (1984)

Gary’s experience

Gary Wilkinson, of Lincoln, was 17 when he watched Threads, and a couple of years later he would head off to Sheffield for university. He’d been aware of Threads in the run up to broadcast largely thanks to the one-off drama being given a Radio Times cover, with what has now become an iconic image.

In the wake of the nuclear attack, government protocols kick in to try to control the remnants of the cities and keep the peace

Anyone with any official links is drafted in, including an unnamed traffic warden, pictured with half his face bandaged and looking genuinely shell-shocked, and carrying a gun. The traffic warden, played by Michael Beercroft, only appeared for a moment, as an example of how martial law would have to be declared in the wake of an attack. But it’s an enduring image. The writer and broadcaster Charlie Brooker even reproduced the costume for a Halloween party a few years back.

Gary, 57, recalls, “It all added to the general feeling of doom and gloom that nuclear war was imminent. It definitely stayed with me though because I went to Sheffield University a couple of years later. I remember recognising some of the filming locations as I walked around the city for the first time – the council building, and the shopping street with the mushroom cloud. Ironically the pub they shot in was a popular student pub, but it had had a makeover so I never realised until later.”

The culture of nuclear war

Threads didn’t come out of nowhere, of course. If you grew up in the 1980s, the threat of nuclear war was a very real one. The year 1984 had arrived carrying all the baggage of George Orwell’s dystopian novel. The rise of the surveillance society and admonishments that if you’d done nothing wrong, you had nothing to fear from the CCTV cameras suddenly sprouting on streets.

The miners went on strike and felt the steel rod of an authoritarian establishment. We had an Iron Lady in Downing Street and a Hollywood Cowboy in the White House, and the special relationship between the Thatcher’s Britain and Reagan’s America seemed destined to take us on a mutually assured destruction collision course with the Soviet Union.

The year after Threads was released, America produced its own take with The Day After. WarGames, starring Brat Packer Matthew Broderick, had been released in cinemas the previous year and was a big hit on VHS in 1984, giving a Hollywood thriller gloss to impending nuclear destruction. Then Raymond Briggs’ When The Wind Blows was adapted as an animated film about the heartbreaking end of the world from the perspective of two pensioners.

The charts were the soundtrack to the apocalypse. Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s pounding Two Tribes had a video featuring wrestlers wearing the heads of Ronald Reagan and Soviet Communist Party secretary Konstantin Chernenko. Nena’s 99 Red Balloons wrapped Armageddon up in a catchy Europop beat. The video to Ultravox’s Dancing With Tears In My Eyes was about a meltdown at a nuclear power station.

An unhappy ending

And all of these were just in 1984. It’s no wonder that by the time Threads was broadcast, we were all certain of only one thing: the world was going to burn. And if somehow we survived, Threads showed us how terrible that would be.

Moving on from the initial attack, it showed a reduced population of a few million trying to claw their way out of the dark ages. Ending with Ruth dying and her young daughter trying to survive in the ruins, getting pregnant, and giving birth to a stillborn, horribly mutated child.

There was not going to be a Hollywood ending if those nukes started flying.

Planning our way out

I was 14 when I watched Threads, and was already fearful of what felt like the inevitable nuclear war. I watched with my parents, feeling a growing sensation of mounting dread. My mum, watching the breakdown of society in the aftermath, said quietly, “If that happens I’m going to get a gun and shoot us all.”

“You’re not going to shoot me!” said my dad. He planned to go up to Scotland and basically go fishing if the mushroom cloud appeared. Nobody asked where mum was going to procure a gun.

My mum, watching the breakdown of society in the aftermath, said quietly, “If that happens I’m going to get a gun and shoot us all.”

The next day, everyone was talking about it at school. My main memory of that is people commenting gleefully about the coloured vomit issued by those slowly dying of radiation sickness.

“Kids at school were just making jokes about it,” agrees Mike Whittaker, a 52-year-old postman from Bolton. “But that was how 12-year-olds responded to everything, as far as I remember.”

Mike watched it alone on his black and white portable TV in his bedroom. “I was way too young, in retrospect. But they showed it in some schools, didn’t they? We got the Radio Times delivered so I must have seen that iconic cover. I think I had a bit of an obsession with nuclear apocalypse prior to Threads, to be honest. Scared and fascinated. Two Tribes and 99 Red Balloons didn’t help in that regard.

‘They’ve done it, they’ve bloody done it’

“The build-up was scarily real to me. The panic in the shopping centre was very upsetting. As was the ‘They’ve done it, they’ve bloody done it’ moment. The end section is obviously beyond bleak. It added to an already real sense of dread. I had apocalypse nightmares for years. Still do now occasionally.”

History repeats

The BBC has only shown Threads twice since that initial broadcast, but it’s being screened again. I’m not wholly sure I can bring myself to watch it again, even 40 years later. The unrelenting bleakness and the sheer lack of hope makes it a difficult watch.

“It brought home that a nuclear attack wouldn’t just be an awful experience that would last a week, or a month, but for decades.”

“It was grim,” agrees Steve Tanner, 56, of Birmingham. “It brought home that a nuclear attack wouldn’t just be an awful experience that would last a week, or a month, but for decades.”

Perhaps if Threads was just a piece of television history about a time long gone, we might be less traumatised by it. But aside from a few years in the 1990s, the threat of nuclear annihilation never really went away, and given the current global situation, sometimes feels as likely as it ever did in 1984.

Still, at least if it does happen, we can all live-Tweet the apocalypse and get one last joke in when the four-minute warning comes. And, as Frankie had it, if you’re unsure what the air attack warning sounds like… this is the sound…

If you can cope with it, Threads is on BBC4 on 9th October, 10:15pm

David Barnett

David Barnett is an author and journalist, originally from Wigan and now living in West Yorkshire. His latest novel is the folk horror WITHERED HILL, from Canelo, and forthcoming, a magical Christmas rom-com, THE LITTLE CHRISTMAS LIBRARY (Orion). He is married to Claire, a journalist, and they have two children, Charlie and Alice.

The post Threads; the closest you ever want to be to nuclear war appeared first on Silver Magazine.

I’ve wanted to use this photo of Jilly Cooper for yonks, so I’ve dug it out shamelessly for this piece. Just look at her! How gorgeous? I suspect that Jilly’s life has probably been, in parts, as exciting and racy as many of her novels. When I think of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals, or Riders, or any of them, I sort of picture her like this, writing them.

I grew up loving Cooper. As a child, I can remember my dad guffawing to her columns in the heady days of Harold Evans’ Sunday Times, over a full English and untipped Gitanes. I was too young to read her then, but endlessly devoured collections of her works a few years later. And as I hit my teens, I fell head over heels in love with her romantic heroines. Prudence, Octavia, Emily, Bella, Imogen et al – I read them cover to cover, repeatedly. I loved Octavia best, because who doesn’t love a broken bad girl? And Octavia was very naughty indeed.

Tame stuff by today’s standards really, despite the wildness of the ‘70s. But my love for Jilly was set for life. The delicious Britishness of it all was a big part of the attraction. I devoured the wicked filth of Jackie Collins, but it was so American to me, settings I could barely relate to. Whereas Cooper wrote very much about life from my own frame of reference. Country living, London, dogs, ponies… ridiculous 11am drinks parties. As a child, one of my first ever jobs was as a pheasant plucker – I kid you not. So to find someone writing about sex, drama, and intrigue in English country villages…

Read more: Are you common? A class guide…

But I digress

When the big ‘bonkbusters’ (god, I hate that term) started coming out, I was in fits of ecstasy. From Riders onwards I was hooked, reading voraciously and pining until another one came out. I have no idea how one even starts to write novels like that, holding all that information about so many characters together. I can barely remember why I went into the kitchen. But reading the books, sinking into that heady world of treachery, and money, and sex, and absolutely appalling behaviour was a wild pleasure I can still feel today.

So when I saw that Rivals was to be made into a TV series – by Disney no less, a weird marriage, I thought – I was wary. There have been a few adaptations of Cooper’s work before, and they’ve largely been rather awful. Would this be any different? As luck would have it, I was invited to a premiere screening of the first two episodes, followed by a panel sesh with some of the actors – so I would get to find out sooner rather than later.

The launch event was huge fun

The invite had specified there would be ’80s-themed drinks and canapes, and on the way up to town, my plus-one Kath and I necked G&Ts and wondered what they might be. Vol au vents, for sure. Possibly smoked salmon. Prawns? It turned out to be a take, rather than a religious revisit, which is probably better. But there were vol au vents, you’ll be pleased to know (creamy chicken and mushroom). Also prawn cocktails, and teenie Black Forest gateaux, amongst other delights.

…you could have been forgiven for thinking it really was 1985. We circulated a bit, rubbing shoulders with celebs and quaffing bubbles and tequila sunrises…

We did however arrive to a glittering event with Duran Duran blaring, hot and cold running cocktails and champagne, and stars galore. For one moment you could have been forgiven for thinking it really was 1985. We circulated a bit, rubbing shoulders with celebs and quaffing bubbles and tequila sunrises, before taking seats in the sumptuous screening room.

Kath and I tried not to squeal with excitement when Aidan Turner sat right in front of us (WHAT a handsome man). But sadly he was moved to the front, ready for the Q&A at the end. My friend Amanda was messaging me, telling me to sniff him so she could know what he smelled like. I was four drinks deep by then and might just have had a go, but thank god the poor man was moved before I could work out how to do this. And I probably avoided an arrest for public harassment into the bargain. So sorry, I can’t tell you what Aidan Turner smells like, but he looks very clean. And did I say how handsome he is?

(L to R) Aidan Turner, Katherine Parkinson, Emily Atack, David Tennant, Dame Jilly Cooper, Danny Dyer, Alex Hassell, Nafessa Williams, Bella Maclean, Claire Rushbrook and Victoria Smurfit (Photo: Dave Benett/Getty Images for Disney+)

Tell us about the show

I’m not allowed to write about the show itself yet properly. It’s embargoed until whatever date was on the piece of paper they made me sign. So I can’t actually review it properly. But I think I can tell you a few things without getting strung up.

Alex Hassell and Aidan Turner (Photo by Dave Benett/Getty Images for Disney+)

David Tennant (Photo by Dave Benett/Getty Images for Disney+)

Katherine Parkinson (Photo by Dave Benett/Getty Images for Disney+)

The lineup was always going to make this enjoyable viewing, even it was shit, let’s face it. Some of my faves are in this – David Tennant, Katherine Parkinson, Danny Dyer, Aidan Turner, Emily Atack… and many more, as they say. It’s a great bunch, and dare I say it, very well cast. Tennant is sneering and chippy as Lord Tony Baddingham, Danny Dyer a perfect Freddie Jones. Bella Maclean is meltingly beautiful as Taggie, and Victoria Smurfit is a brilliant, fragile Maud O’Hara. And if you tell me that there’s a better actor to play hot-headed, principled Irish TV star Declan than Aidan Turner, well I don’t believe you.

The lineup was always going to make this enjoyable viewing, even it was shit, let’s face it

If you’ve been looking at the photos and thinking that Alex Hassell isn’t right for Rupert Campbell-Black, well, you’re not alone. Even Alex admits to being really worried about stepping into his shoes and not exactly looking like everyone expects him to. He’s not blond, for a start. But – and there are no real spoilers here Disney, if you’re reading this – after literally every part of Alex is revealed in the very first episode, as he points out, there’s nowhere really left to hide. So he just got on with it. And honestly, he makes a pretty good fist of it. He’s handsome, dastardly, and has a good bash at Rupert’s hidden depths, such as they are.

The challenge of taking on well-known characters

Many of the actors channelled older family members or situations. As readers of the book will know, Declan is fiercely protective of his family. Aidan said he was able to get into Declan mode by looking back at his own family. “He’s a dad, I’m a dad,” says Aidan. “I sort of related to him. And he’s like my dad, he’s Irish, there’s the hair…”

Nafessa Williams, who plays the gloriously feisty TV exec Cameron Cook, said she couldn’t wait to immerse herself in the ’80s, pointing out that she had family back then who looked exactly like she did in the show, big hair and all. She’d been able to use her own experience as the only American actor in the show, not really having insight into the wonders of the English countryside.

“It’s a lot like life imitating art, right?” she says. “Like, she [Cameron] came from New York to come here, I came from LA. So I understood her coming here and being new and not understanding this world.”

I’m not sure how many slow-burn relationships are allowed to happen in a world of Tinder and so on, so it was extremely enjoyable to play

Katherine Parker plays gentle Lizzie Vereker, and I suspect talking about the situation between her character and that of Danny Dyer’s is off limits, although obviously you can read what happens in the book. But she confesses to being thrilled to be working with him, and their chemistry is lovely.

“I was so pleased that Danny was playing that part. It’s so beautifully drawn throughout the series, their dynamic. And it unfolds over eight episodes, which is a kind of slow-burn relationship. Which feels very ‘80s. I’m not sure how many slow-burn relationships are allowed to happen in a world of Tinder and so on, so it was extremely enjoyable to play.”

And another great team

David Tennant is Lord Baddingham, massively hung up on class and wanting to fit in. He’s anchored by his wife, Lady Monica, played by the excellent Claire Rushbrook, who is very much old school posh, and who gives him the only real class clout he has. David says he loved playing Tony.

“It’s all there, it’s all there in the writing. And it’s very potent, it’s very British. But it’s very human too, you know? Like, [as Tony] I can never quite be where I want to be, to always be disappointed, because no matter how hard you try, there’s a club you’re not allowed to be in. And for someone like Tony, that’s devastating. He can only try harder. And he will never be satisfied because he’s always one peg down from the exclusive club, and it kills him.”

…he will never be satisfied because he’s always one peg down from the exclusive club, and it kills him…

Tony’s a grammar school boy, as opposed to, say, Rupert’s start in life at Harrow. And the chip on his shoulder is enormous. The most important thing to Tony?

“Winning!!” shouts Tennant, quite literally, channelling Tony alarmingly right there in the screening room. “Whatever that means, and whatever the situation… because he can never have the ultimate prize, he must have ALL the other prizes.” Tennant laughs. “He’s very balanced. There’s no daddy issues here, AT ALL!”

On scenes with Claire Rushbrook as his wife, Lady Baddingham. “I love those scenes, because it’s where all his armour falls away, and you get to see the little boy again. And he’s sort of got his mum there, that comfort. He’s very at home with her, and absolutely needs her. And he kind of runs this extraordinary lifestyle of treachery and debauchery, but he always has to have Monica.”

Best part of the night was seeing Jilly Cooper

Dame Jilly Cooper attends a special UK screening of “Rivals” (Photo by Dave Benett/Getty Images for Disney+)

It’s not often I fangirl massively, but honestly. It’s DAME JILLY COOPER! After a lifetime of reading her books and words, I actually found it quite emotional to see her in the flesh. She was utterly divine, just so happy with the production and telling all the girls how beautiful they were and all the men how handsome. Plus ca change, Jilly! She’s a rather marvellous 87 now, and looking good on it. Plenty of the old Cooper sparkle, and clearly having a whale of a time at the do. I didn’t get to corner her, and probably would have been too shy really. But it was enough to have been there for this whole event.

As for the show – well, I could have sat there and binged the whole lot in one go. Which is, I suspect, what will happen when it finally airs. It’s one hundred per cent a ‘romp’ and not to be taken massively seriously. I absolutely loved it, and really hope they make the entire Rutshire Chronicles into telly shows, if they’re going to be like this.

Jilly Cooper’s Rivals launches on 18 October on Disney+ in the UK

Don’t say: “I’ll have a soya matcha latte with a gluten-free protein bar.”
Do say: “More champagne and keep it coming, and pass the Dunhills.”

Sam Harrington-Lowe

Sam is Silver’s founder and editor-in-chief. She’s largely responsible for organising all the things, but still finds time to do the odd bit of writing. Not enough though. Send help.

The post First look: Jilly Cooper’s Rivals is a wild ride appeared first on Silver Magazine.

One might reasonably accept that punk changed attitudes and was the most important youth cult since the sixties. But rave has been equally subversive, causing seismic shifts in cultural and political attitudes and behaviours.

But there’s a big difference between punk and rave. With punk, even though its adherents’ attitudes were cut from the same anarchic cloth, you didn’t have gatherings of tens of thousands of people on any Saturday all over the UK, dancing to the same music, all on the same buzz, and all with good intention. Where punk was about anarchy, shock and anger; rave was about love, appeasement and acceptance.

Everyone was loved up, and caught up in the moment. We all felt a part of something new and exciting that was ours

“I was 13 when punk happened,” states pioneering house DJ Andy Weatherall. “So I watched that train go by, but when I got on this [acid house] bus I was deliriously happy, out of my head on E. I felt like I was at the centre of a magnificent cyclone.”

Read Summer of Love Part I

“Punk and New Romanticism were very empowering for us,” explains pioneering promoter Nicky Trax. “They too had this DiY ethos which house music picked up and ran with. House music was a very open and friendly scene – no VIPs, no attitude – and it was all about like-minded people taking a chance, putting on something new that might or might not work. Everyone was loved up, and caught up in the moment. We all felt a part of something new and exciting that was ours.”

But this fledgling scene, just like punk, was all-encompassing, certainly organic; and was growing exponentially all over the UK.

Johnny Walker and Danny Rampling at Shoom 1988. Photo: Dave Swindells

By January 1988 Shoom was so busy Jenni Rampling had to stand on the door and vet attendees. “You’d see Pete Wylie, Paul Rutherford, Keith Allen, Boy George, and Michael Clarke dancing, off their tits in the smoke, bumping into the bleeding mirrors next to a bunch of Millwall fans from Rotherhithe,” laughs Johnny Rocca, ace face on the music scene.

“Sometimes we didn’t get into Shoom,” attests Charlie Fitzgerald (nee Colston-Hayter), whose brother Tony was the man behind the now-legendary Sunrise parties. “I think this is when Tony started thinking he could do his own events.”

‘Afters’ only lasted a few months as it was free to get in and we didn’t sell any drinks as mostly everyone was off their trolley on E

Other people had similar ideas – me included. In December 1987 I opened a club called Afters in Clink Street (near to London Bridge) that started at 4AM and finished at noon. The music was a couple of 90 minute acid house cassette tapes mixed by a bloke called Ron Hardy of Chicago’s Music Box, played on a boom box. Afters only lasted a few months as it was free to get in and we didn’t sell any drinks as mostly everyone was off their trolley on E. But that’s why they were up all night dancing. Swings and roundabouts. C’est la vie.

Club night Delirium had paved the way with an exclusively house music policy but closed its doors in December 1987, and DJs Noel and Maurice Watson moved to the Wag on a Friday to do Black Market main man Rene Gelston’s 100% acid house night. And in January 1988, the brothers became residents in the same club on a Tuesday for Translantic, where Ce Ce Rogers, Marshall Jefferson, Kym Mazelle, and Frankie Knuckles performed in February ’88 – for the almighty sum of £350.

Around the same time in the Empire Leicester Square, they played former St. Martins Art student Robin King’s Delirium Deep House Convention, and were joined by Fingers Inc., Robert Owens, Ralph Rosario, Dj Pierre, Adonis and Xavier Gold.

Helter skelter at Delirium. Photo: Dave Swindells

“It was make or break for me as the acts came at great expense,’ sighs King. “Unfortunately, only 250 people turned up and I lost about £4,000. It was a credible success, but a financial failure.”

But, this was just the lull before the storm. An unlicensed event, aptly named Hedonism, in a rundown furniture warehouse in Hanger Lane would create the blue print for the coming acid house tsunami.

MOVING INTO UNDERGROUND TERRITORY

“I got married in Wandsworth to Jenni on the day of Hedonism,” grins Danny Rampling. “Got married, had lunch in Joe’s Café, went home and changed, and then went and danced all night. It was a pivotal event.”

Hedonism was created by brothers Alun and Simon Gordon, and a third partner, Josh Wilkins. The brothers had gone to New York in the summer of ‘87 and caught DJ David De Pino at the predominantly gay Tracks NYC (sister to the Detroit club) on West 19th that featured dry ice, Muscle Marys, OTT drag queens on PCP and thumping house music via a monster sound system.

Bringing the vibe back to London, on Friday 26th February 1988 they launched warehouse night Hedonism, with DJs Colin Faver and Justin Berkman (who went on to found the Ministry of Sound) pumping out pure house music all night long. It not only hit the target, it blew the bloody doors off. Hedonism with its solid no-holds-barred one hundred percent Chicago, New York and Detroit house soundtrack was tough, urban, very London and utterly perfect.

“My first real ‘proper’ flat-out full-on all night house music session was at Hedonism,” remembers Nicky Trax. “Around 400-500 people jammed all night, the sound system was one of the best you’ve ever heard while the lasers smoke machines and graffiti decorated walls topped it off. It was an incredible sensory experience; stimulating and immersive.”

A wave of Doves and new clubs sprang up proffering this new acid house idyll while the crowds got bigger and bigger

This is something of an understatement. I personally walked in at 4.30AM and was hit flat. The bass growling through the pit of my stomach via one of the best sound systems I’d ever encountered, the treble tickling the spine while patrons danced furiously in semi trance, whacked out of their gourds. I then knew that this was it. This was going to be massive.

Three more Hedonism events followed; the scene exploded on a wave of Doves (unusually potent pills from Amsterdam) and new clubs sprang up proffering this new acid house idyll while the crowds got bigger and bigger all over the country.

“The effect of E was huge,” stresses Hacienda DJ Mike Pickering, the man behind the Latin House classic Carino of 1987. “I remember how over a three week period the crowds changed; I likened it to a Mexican wave starting one end of the club to the other. The whole atmosphere and look of the crowd changed, and DJ-ing was never the same again. Then on my Friday night Nude [at the Hacienda] the queues started forming around 6PM and by opening time stretched miles around the block. I then saw that this could be truly a global thing.”

The effect of E wasn’t just felt on the dance floors.

“The North was pretty grim back in the 80s,” remembers Graeme Park. “There was a recession and cities like Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Bradford, Leeds and Nottingham weren’t the glitzy modern metropolises they are today.

“Nobody lived in city centres and they were pretty dismal. Unemployment was high and there was a Thatcher government, so the rave scene was an escape from the harsh realities of modern life. Acid house and ecstasy was the perfect antidote and nobody cared who you were. Gay, straight, black or white; plumbers, barristers, shop workers, doctors, football hooligans… they all came together to party all night long with a soundtrack like no other.

By now this cultural tidal wave had its own clothing mores and was developing its very own argot; ‘On one matey,’ ‘radio rental,’ ‘Jack and Jills,’ ‘monged ‘, ‘munted’ etc. Much taken from ye olde Cockney Rhyming slang tradition (itself created to baffle undercover cops) it was often deliberately absurd, rapidly obsolete and consciously irritating.

Meanwhile, all over the country little warehouse parties full of happy, euphoric ravers were cropping up most weekends, along with weekday one nighters.

HAPPY CULTURE

Back in the clubs, Shoom moved to a bigger venue, RAW at the YMCA in March 1988, and in April Oakenfold and Ian St. Paul teamed up with Gary Haisman to do Spectrum at Heaven on a Monday night. The first night was under-attended with only about 300 in a space that held 2,000. “We were in trouble,” admits Oakenfold. “Then after a few weeks it went massive and was packed every week.”

1988 – party goer, Paul Oakenfold, Lisa Loud, Ian St Paul and Gary Haisman. Photo: Dave Swindells

Soon people were coming from all over the country; in particular a big Manchester contingent. So Spectrum productions became more and more ambitious; one week there were confetti snowstorms, another saw a huge E covered in silver foil coming out of the ceiling to Ride of the Valkyries; while even more remarkably, one Monday night I saw Lisa Minnelli sitting drinking champagne on the balcony.

Spectrum flyer 1988. Artwork Dave Little

“Looking around Spectrum one night,” reminisces Johnny Rocca, who DJ’d in the back room and looked after a lot of the scenic productions, “there was all these proper hard football hooligan firms there that I knew and I thought ‘Oh no, it’s going to kick off!’ but it didn’t, as everyone was so off their face on the best E ever, they were all hugging each other and totally loved up.”

(It still tickles me that chaps who’d a few weeks before been fighting viciously over football were embracing this music that had, in the main, been created by gay black Americans. But such was the power of the pill.)

“I used to go to raves in Blackburn that were massive,” enthuses Dave Beer, the main man behind Back to Basics in Leeds. “And then it spread all over the North, and it was lovely because before, if you came from Leeds and you went to an event in Manchester or Liverpool you’d get your head kicked in. But during the house days we all accepted each other and suddenly got on and danced as it was all about love and acceptance. It changed people’s lives forever.”

And all the while preposterous shenanigans flourished.

“I remember on my 40th birthday in ‘88,’ interjects Rocca. “I was DJ in the back room and they had a little kids’ play pen in the bar. So I climbed in it with Dave Little and spent the whole night rolling about with a variety of strangers and friends. Totally off my tits, it felt like I floating was in a lovely big bath. It was the best night of my life. You could do what the fuck you wanted back then as it was all about love and acceptance. But it was full time, like going to war, a military campaign; we all lived it to the max, going out every night of the week till dawn for months on end.”

The acid house scene is lovingly recollected by all.

“One of my fondest reminiscences is of Barry Mooncult – who’d been a proper nasty Chelsea football hooligan – rearranging the petals of a daisy he’d found, and trying to revive it by pouring mineral water on it,” recalls DJ Andy Weatherall. “It had that effect on people.”

Undeniably, Spectrum’s huge success signaled the scene’s move from subculture to superculture.

In June 1988 Nicky Holloway opened The Trip at The Astoria that, a smash from day one, had queues around the block, and folk dancing in the fountains underneath Centrepoint till they were dragged away by the peelers.

I recall a pile of about 20 punters writhing around on the floor and my business partner asking me, “What on earth is going on Chris? What have you done to our club?”

Two weeks later Love opened at the Wag with two floors of crucial house music from 10PM till 6AM. Initiated and promoted by Rod Marsh and DJ Dave Dorrell (who’d had a number one record with Pump Up The Volume), Love proffered the UK’s finest house music DJs such as Dorrell himself, CJ Macintosh, Pete Tong, Jeremy Healey, Paul Anderson and Andy Weatherall et al, whilst also pulling in likes of Mike Pickering and Graeme Park from the North, and legends like Tony Humphries, Little Louie and Frankie Knuckles from over the water in the US.

1988 the queue round the block at the Wag, London. Photo: Dave Swindells

Because it was legal, proper and on a Friday, customers traveled from all over the UK; there were 500-metre queues each week. But the downside of the market was the drop in drinking. Whilst floors filled up, the bar take plummeted to nothing. I recall a pile of about 20 punters writhing around on top of each other on the floor and my business partner asking me, “What on earth is going on Chris? What have you done to our club?” My only reply was a cheeky gurn.

THE SECOND SUMMER OF LOVE

Love spawned the nomenclature, ‘The Second Summer of Love’. For that and the next few summers Rod, Dorrell and I took Love to Ibiza monthly with our residents DJs, and took over Amnesia on a Friday and Pacha on a Saturday. Back in the UK things were moving fast and the movement was spreading.

“I’d never witnessed such electric energy and enthusiasm in my life as at the Friday Nude night at The Hacienda,” smiles Graeme Park. “It was a night for hedonists by hedonists. I doubt we’ll ever see the like again.”

“All over the country you’d see these freshmen walking into a rave,” chuckles Johnny Rocca. “And they’d be all wide eyed and nervous, not knowing what to expect, then you’d see them dithering about, deciding whether to buy an E which was £20 a pill (£60 now). Then next thing they’re on the dance floor drenched with sweat, and you’d see them outside at 5AM still off their box looking as if they’d found God.”

Times were tough. Disaffected youth weren’t happy. They needed something that was their own

Indeed, I’d liken them to Moses when he came down off the mountain but the big difference was that Mo hadn’t swallowed his tablets! Looking back, for many this was the chance they’d been waiting for. Times were tough. Disaffected youth weren’t happy. They needed something that was their own that their parents and the powers that be disapproved of. Said youth went into their first acid house night as civilians, dropped a pill and came out disciples of this futuristic epicurean religion and went forth and multiplied.

ANARCHY IN THE UK

It was at this time that unauthorised, anarchic parties started popping up everywhere until barely a field was empty. Getting stranded in the countryside and asking a cow for directions home became tres chic in the UK.

“I thought at the time that this house music palaver was both amazing, and also that I hated it,” recalls BBC London’s Robert Elms. “I knew immediately that this fledgling scene was the next big thing, but this will end in a field I thought. Hippies, mud, terrible clothes and no discernment. It was so all encompassing and all consuming and there has been nothing like it since. It was the last spaced out, loved up, lilac-clad hurrah of indigenous British youth culture.”

“My first rave experience was in a massive field somewhere in the Midlands,” recalls Wolverhampton-raised DJ Sarah Walcott, who was 18 at the time. “Thousands of people jumping for joy, running around smiling and hugging each other; but mostly dancing, smiles of ecstasy on their faces. The defining moment was the sun rising, smiling like an Inca God over us, it was beautiful! Hands out raised to the sky, all of us together, was a magical moment! From that moment we knew we were part of something that was extraordinary.”

The youth, just as they had with punk, considered anything The Sun hated as being something worth following

On the 17 August 1988 The Sun led with the headline, ‘Scandal of the £5 drug trip to Heaven’. They got it totally wrong, as they claimed everyone was tripping on LSD and not on Ecstasy, but the headline ultimately only served to promote the concept even further, as the youth, just as they had with punk, considered anything The Sun hated as being something worth following. And so, while the authorities were sharpening their knives (as they had with Teddy Boys, Mods, Hippies and Punks) the movement exploded.

Parties popped up in grand stately homes, on farms and on racetracks; in London, every night a good half dozen acid house after-hours spielers were open till they shut in Soho full of gangsters, trendies, trannies, hookers and ravers. In Brixton you had Mendoza’s with DJs Fabio and Grooverider, while those not in the know after the clubs had finished simply congregated around a car with a good sound system and blasted out the house music until the cops arrived. A night out became an hilarious adventure fuelled by E– looking for parties, getting lost, taxi journeys, the police, running out of petrol, being stranded. Every calamity was hilarious.

SUNRISE

Luckily, the tube was running by the time I left professional gambler, card counter and veritable genius, Tony Colston-Hayter’s first event (with Roger Goodman), Apocalypse Now, August 88 in Wembley film studios.

“When Tony said he wanted to start putting parties on, none of our group questioned it,” says his sister Charlie. “We all jumped on board and took on different roles. Tony found a loophole in the law that said it was legal to put on a private party, so everyone became a Sunrise member, and they were going to a private party. They all had membership cards and we sent out newsletters (by post, no internet or Facebook in those days). We ended up with about 30,000 Sunrise members by August 1989.”

The first Sunrise occurred on 8 October 1988 in Wembley, four days after ITN had transmitted a damning six-minute report about the dangers of ecstasy, and so the police busted it. Undeterred, Tony then put on a bash at a secret location near his home in Buckinghamshire. About 1,000 guests experienced a rather incredible evening that ended at 8AM with Don’t Worry Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin. So we didn’t worry and were happy as sand boys.

But this was perhaps the last un-maligned event of the time as by now the powers that be had fully cottoned onto this ‘thing’ that was happening and began to crack down.

All the press needed was something to hang their coats on to lambast the movement and sell newspapers. This came in the form of 21 year old Janet Mayes who died at the end of October 1988 after taking a couple of Es. Oddly the first death – 19-year-old Ian Larcome who died after he allegedly swallowed 18 ‘little fellas’ after a police stop and search – went largely unreported. He probably wasn’t pretty enough.

Meanwhile the BBC banned all acid house. Lick-arse DJ Peter Powell commented, “It’s the closest thing to mass organised zombie-dom. I really don’t think it should go any further.” We didn’t agree, and neither, it seemed, did the public.

“We were racing up the pop charts with the track I did with D-Mob, We Call It Acieeed,” recalls frontman Gary Haisman. “We were already there, then at the last minute they cancelled us and said we’d been banned. It didn’t stop us getting to number one though.”

1989 the Metropolitan Police in their infinite wisdom publicly declared open hostilities with the acid house scene, and invaded a small soiree of some 150 people on a boat on the Thames

There’s nothing like a banned record to propagate a youth movement, just ask the Sex Pistols. And so the popularity of acid house and the raves that went with it catapulted beyond our wildest imaginations. As did the absurd police attention.

In November 1989 the Metropolitan Police in their infinite wisdom publicly declared open hostilities with the acid house scene, and the next day invaded a small soiree of some 150 people on a boat on the Thames, pulling out all the stops. Undercover rozzers in bandanas, smileys and dungarees, scores of riot police dressed in crash helmets and protective boiler suits carrying shields; frogmen, launches and searchlights.

It was the Raid on Entebbe, but on the Thames at a tiny party. An impressive haul of just nine middle class party people were arrested for having a good time, being friendly and sharing half an E.

On a more serious and utterly unjust note, organisers Robert Darby and Leslie Thomas were charged with “conspiring to manage premises where drugs were supplied” and were sentenced to 10 and six years imprisonment respectively. You’d get less for rape.

The genie was out of the bottle and 1989 was to become the year that house music made serious money for farmers with empty fields, warehouse owners, ecstasy dealers and bottled water companies

Still the scene grew. James Perkins started his Phantasia events at Cheltenham; Fabio and Grooverider opened Rage; Sunrise sold 4,000 tickets for their Guy Fawkes bash, and Wayne Anthony commenced his series of Genesis events in the East End.

The genie was out of the bottle and 1989 was to become the year that house music made serious money for farmers with empty fields, warehouse owners, ecstasy dealers and bottled water companies, and the whole of the UK was consumed by this wave of goodwill – all initiated by a gay club in Chicago and bolstered by Ecstasy.

“The attempts to clamp down were always doomed, due to the sheer numbers of people and the ingenuity of how to get around the authorities,” chuckles Graeme Park. “The police were only paying lip service to an outraged right wing press and government. They knew they were on a hiding to nothing.”

STILL RAVING ON

The police, the authorities, and the property developers might be moving closer, but for now the scene is a long way from being locked off

Today, as traditional nightclubs close for business left and right, illegal raves or unlicensed all night parties are popping up again all over the UK, as the new Vice online documentary Locked Off, directed by Rhys James and presented by Clive Martin reveals. “The police, the authorities, and the property developers might be moving closer, but for now the scene is a long way from being locked off,” concludes Martin.

“Something like this is needed now in the UK as society is in a mess divided through politics and social media,” concludes Danny Rampling. “And it’s sad to see the rise in the level of violence, knife crime, hate racism and the far right. What we did was change people’s attitudes and gave them a certain empathy and love for everyone. This is needed right now.”

“I suppose back then people felt like anything was possible, which is a good collective energy to be around,” concludes DJ Nancy Noise (top photo, in hat). “My daughter has said to me quite a few times, ‘you’re so lucky Mum, what you went through; being part of something like that’. And you know what? We were.”

To read Part I of this journey click HERE

Chris Sullivan promoted a long list of warehouse parties, founded and ran the Wag Club and is a former GQ style editor who has written for many others including Italian Vogue, The Times, Independent and The FT. He now is Associate Lecturer at Central St Martins School of Art specializing in ‘youth’ cults.

The three-CD mix celebrating the Second Summer Of Love. The period from 1988 through 1989 as compiled by Paul Oakenfold, Nancy Noise and Colin Hudd is out now on though New State Music.

Limited edition signed lithographic prints of Spectrum; Land of Oz. Boys Own posters etc are available from www.davelittle.co.uk

Chris Sullivan

The post Second Summer of Love – Ecstasy, the rave explosion and underground parties appeared first on Silver Magazine.

“Three elements collided in 87/88 to make this unique cocktail of hedonism that took over the world,” says DJ, promoter and producer Dave Dorrell, whose landmark club Love at The Wag gave that heady summer its indefatigable moniker, the Summer of Love.

“The first was this music from Chicago called ‘House’; which was modern, up-tempo, relentless and underground, and was designed for dark basements and flashing lights, which was a new paradigm then. Another element was chemical – Ecstasy, of course – an amphetamine-based drug that gave you tons of energy, along with a certain euphoria; and finally there was fashion, which was loose, unstructured, and the perfect accompaniment to the other two. When this hit the UK it went through the roof. It was flawless. It was revolutionary and it was absolutely bloody marvelous!”

House music had been around for a while in the UK. Releases such as Your Love by Jamie Principle and Acid Tracks by Phuture (DJ Pierre, DJ Spanky Spank and Herb J) had done the rounds in groovy club North and South while Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk’s Love Can’t Turn Around had the audacity to hit number 10 in the UK in October 1986. Jack Your Body by Steve Silk Hurley reached number one in the UK charts in February 1987.

Maurice and I wanted to bring … this house music to London. It took a while to take off because house was considered to be “too gay” by a lot of clubbers

But at the time house music was simply another genre mixed up with hip-hop, disco and rare groove. DJs such as Mike Pickering in Manchester, Graeme Park in Nottingham, Derby-born Hector Heathcote at the Wag Club (who played Your Love, the first house record I ever heard, in ‘85 after a record buying trip to Chicago), and brothers Noel and Maurice Watson, sensing that it was time for a change, were mixing more and more house music into their sets.

“London was locked tight by the Rare Groove scene,” remembers Belfast born Noel Watson. “But Maurice and I had been to clubs like The Paradise Garage, Area, Danceteria etc, so we wanted to bring that here, and this vibe, this house music to London. It took a while to take off because house was considered to be “too gay” by a lot of clubbers.”

GAY BEGINNINGS

Lest we forget, ‘house’ music was named after the Chicago gay club ‘the Warehouse’, while other gay clubs such as Frankie Knuckles’ The Power Plant, also in Chicago, and New York’s Paradise Garage (nicknamed the “Gay-rage”) with Knuckles’ best friend DJ Larry Levan, was where the music was coming from. MDM (a close relative of ecstasy) was the drug of choice with a bit of LSD thrown in.

I went to Garage in August 1980 and, after running the gauntlet of drug dealers outside who proffered everything from Quaaludes to Mexican mushrooms, PCP, Acid and THC, made my way up this ramp and into this huge space filled with about two thousand rampant, almost totally black and Hispanic gay men. Dressed in singlets, t-shirts, trainers and shorts, they were all totally off their boxes, dancing their asses off.

The atmosphere and sheer power of the music hit you like a brick in the face. I had never seen or heard anything like it

The atmosphere and sheer power of the music hit you like a brick in the face. I had never seen or heard anything like it, and the only woman I saw in the place was my girlfriend. But the influence of US gay clubs on the resultant UK and international rave scene is paramount. It would not have existed without them.

Back in 85/86 the only clubs I can recall that played a good chunk of house music (mixed with the likes of Feels Good by Electra and Don’t Make Me Wait by The Peech Boys) were gay clubs like The Pyramid at Heaven on a Wednesday, with DJs Colin Faver and Mark Moore; The Jungle at Busby’s on a Monday with Faver, Vicki Edwards and Fat Tony, and the mixed gay night at the Wag on a Saturday with DJs Fat Tony again and Hector – all of which also, and not coincidentally, had a big MDMA presence.

In 1986 certain promoters who crossed into the London/gay/fashion scene began employing DJs with an eye of the future. Robin King and Nick Trulocke (whose girlfriend at the time was Clothes Show host Caryn Franklyn) did Delirium at the Astoria, beginning September 1986, with DJ’s Noel and Maurice Watson who injected a fair slab of house music into their mix.

ECSTASY

Another aspect that seemed new but wasn’t was Ecstasy, AKA Methylenedioxymethamphetamine or MDMA, which was first synthesized in 1912 by German chemist Anton Köllisch. The US military used it in experiments in the 1950s while hippies had caned it since the mid sixties. It was named Ecstasy by businessman Michael Clegg in 1981 who manufactured it legally in Texas and sold it as a ‘fun drug’ that was “good to dance to.”

MDMA by 1980 was all over the US and was the number one drug of choice for patrons of the aforementioned gay discotheques, and was legal in the US till July 1st 1985. As for the UK, it was illegalised in 1977, but it wasn’t until 1980 that, to fund their visits, enterprising New Yorkers (including my then girlfriend) smuggled in significant amounts of the powder to sell in underground clubs like Le Beatroute in Soho, after which it became more and more popular amongst groovy club goers for whom Ibiza Town (and not San Antonio) was a premier destination.

THE IBIZA CONNECTION

The playground of naughty jetsetters such as Grace Jones (who was Tony Pike of Pike’s Hotel’s girlfriend), Terry-Thomas, Amanda Lear, Roman Polanski, Steve Strange, Freddy Mercury and Kenny Everett (whose orgies were legendary), Ibiza had been the premier destination for Spanish gays and hippies escaping the wrath of Franco (whose fascist regime ended in 1975) and was as camp as a row of pink tents. It was like the Blitz, Taboo and Studio 54 on Sea.

Transvestites (some on stilts) roamed the streets handing out flyers for its premier nightspot The Ku Club that featured a swimming pool, an abundance of extremely beautiful people (many wearing very little) and unbridled hedonism. I‘d been going to the Ku since 1981 and there was nowhere else like it in the world. It and Ibiza were unique. At the clubs you’d see transvestites (on stilts), a man dressed in full American Indian kit con feathered head dress, a couple in Day-Glo Lycra and huge platform boots, Cavaliers, a couple in loin clothes with Aladdin Sane hair and make up. And all in 90 degrees heat. It was off the Richter Scale.

I was exporting London to Ibiza and didn’t think of doing it the other way around. I just didn’t think it would ever work. Others disagreed

In 1985 in an effort to spend more time there I started bringing Wag DJs to the island. I was exporting London to Ibiza and didn’t think of doing it the other way around. I just didn’t think it would ever work. Others disagreed.

At the end of August 1987 four friends – Danny Rampling, Johnny Walker, Nicky Holloway and Paul Oakenfold – went to San Antonio Ibiza to celebrate the latter’s 24th birthday and meet up with their old pal DJ Trevor Fung who, working there, informed them of this club on the other side of the Island named Amnesia and this new drug called ecstasy.

“You and I used to go there after the Ku who used to give out hot chocolate dosed with magic mushrooms at dawn,” reflects Steve Holloway, the first Wag DJ to play on the island. “It was never that busy, but then again we never arrived till after 6am.”

For yours truly, Amnesia took off only after Alfredo started mixing New York and Chicago sounds around 1985, after which it started opening at 5am where it attracted all the local club workers, who went bananas.

“In Amnesia, DJ Alfredo fused all these different types of music including Paradise Garage stuff, ‘Jibaro’, the Woodentops, Cindy Lauper and Talking Heads,” explains Danny Rampling, the man behind the legendary one-nighter Shoom. “He inspired us all.”

“I felt very surprised by all this English boys and girls loving the records I was playing,” reflects Argentine Alfredo Fiorito. “In Amnesia, background or social class didn’t matter and it was freer and cheaper than elsewhere. Also the British appreciated this open-air club and partying together with people of different nationalities, ages and colour. And, as I always say, they weren’t the main thing but the drugs certainly helped.”

DJ Nancy Noise had worked there for two summers before 1987.

“I was going out every night all night at Amnesia, Glory’s, Ku…” she explains. “It was those nights that led to clubs like Future. It was a special time in London during the Summer of Love but I wouldn’t say those nights altered my life as much as the nights in Ibiza previously. If I could relive just one night of my life again it would have to be a night in Amnesia. It was the best place on earth!!

Dawn rising at Amnesia ’89 Photo: Dave Swindells

BRINGING IT BACK TO LONDON

“We all came back and all started clubs, mixing Balearic with Acid House and it went off in a way that we could never imagine,” recalls Rampling. “We broke down barriers and we were all about inclusion and bringing people together breaking down race, colour and sexual mores.”

“It became the most important and the best holiday we ever had,” reminisces Oakenfold. “We were compelled try and recreate it, even if it went tits up.”

The first UK club that Alfredo played in in the UK was Project in Streatham, opened by Oakenfold shortly after his return from the island. Initially billed as an Ibiza reunion the club was open till 6am, and Oakenfold played tracks he’d heard in Ibiza; The Chant by Nitzer Ebb and Why Why Why by the Wooden Tops – two records that might have been played at the Blitz club in 1980 – alongside the few Chicago house and New York dance tunes that were available then.

Project closed after six weeks, and Oakenfold, with his business partner Ian St Paul, moved their operation to The Sanctuary at the back of Heaven where Future was born. A tiny dark room that held just a couple of hundred it was intimate, and really bloody hot.

Indeed, what Rampling did with Shoom, and Oakenfold with The Project and Future was bring back this distinctly Ibicencan approach

Oakenfold’s manager Mickey Jackson remembers it well. “It became the place to be in London, with everyone (including Prince!) coming down, but we were all there for each other and not because of who’s who; it was our scene and everyone was invited. I remember when Leigh Bowery waltzed onto the dance floor in a wide dress lit head to toe in light bulbs. He was awesome so the crowd gave him a bit of room while he flashed his bulbs, pirouetted a few times and left!”

Indeed, what Rampling did with Shoom, and Oakenfold with The Project and Future was bring back this distinctly Ibicencan approach, mix it with acid house, put it in a tiny club, add smoke machines and flashing lights, throw in a decidedly London edge and open the doors to a crowd, many of whom had never have considered going to Amnesia, Ibiza Town or the Warehouse in Chicago.

And their timing was perfect, as that summer quality ecstasy had hit the streets by the truckload. The Summer of Love was under way.

“The music and attitude was great,” clarifies Gary Haismann, whose record We Call it Acieeeeed stormed up the charts in 1988. “But this wouldn’t have happened without the ecstasy. It would be like the first Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967 without LSD – no fucking way Jose. In the summer of ‘87 the Dutch turned MDMA into tablets that were easy to sell, easy to take and as strong as fuck, and their importation coincided with the rise of all these clubs like Shoom and Oakenfold’s Project in Streatham, and your night in Clink Street.”

Shoom 1988 Photo: Dave Swindells

IT FELT LIKE PUNK

After a dismal first night at Shoom, for the second night a month later Rampling went flat out. They filled the basement with dry ice and strobe lights and pulled in DJ Colin Faver who’d cut his teeth paying Euro disco and electro at Steve Strange and Rusty Egan’s club The Camden Palace.

A former punk rocker, Faver (who was give MDMA by Soft Cell associate Cindy at the Camden Palace in 1984) was all about electro and up-tempo throbbing beats and as such was the man for the job. To add to it, Rampling now used the soon-to-be-ubiquitous smiley logo, printed on a t-shirts he’d bought from RAP in Covent Garden. Designed by Simon ‘Barnzley’ Armitage the look certainly hit the zeitgeist head on, and they had themselves a hit.

“The energy in that basement was profound,” remembers Rampling. “It was fun, and apolitical, and all about the music. But like punk it gave a lot of people the chance to be creative and be a part of something that was theirs.”

“We had 50 people at Shoom on the first night and queues of 2,000 three months later,” says Rampling. “ It was mind blowing.”

“My brother Joey supplied the sound and I helped him,” chuckles DJ legend Norman Jay. “And as Colin Faver was blasting it out a top volume and the smoke machines were pumping out these kids climbed into the tiny space in the speakers and these were powerful – 10,000 watt reggae sound system speakers. I knew than that something was happening. I loved the madness, the anarchy and the punk rock DIY attitude. Out with the old and in with the new.”

By January Shoom (the name describes the rush of E as it hits) was off the scale and had developed its own mores and style of dress. Bandanas, Converse, dungarees, baggy t-shirts and long hair; it was utilitarian, cheap, accessible. And suited the scenario down to the ground.

“We had 50 people at Shoom on the first night and queues of 2,000 three months later,” says Rampling. “ It was mind blowing.”

DAWN OF THE RAVE CULTURE

This was now a scene with its own music, drugs, clothes, attitude and philosophy. It was destined to kick off.

“Shoom was like travelling into a different dimension,” smiles Charlie Fitzgerald, formerly Colston Hayter, whose uber rave promoter brother Tony was dubbed ‘the acid house king’.

“It was like transforming from a chrysalis into a butterfly. Like suddenly belonging. There was no ego, no pretentiousness, no shoulder pads, nobody hitting on you, and definitely no handbags! It was just people on the same level having the best night of their lives. It was so hot in there we were melting, and I remember being in the bar area and pouring bottles of Perrier on our heads. It was such a shock when the lights went on at the end of the night. I think Danny played Why Can’t we Live Together [Timmy Thomas 1972] but everyone sang ‘Why can’t we Shoom Together’, and then it was over and I didn’t want it to end. And it didn’t. That was just the beginning…

In part two Chris explores the explosion of house and the dance culture, from its storming burst into popular culture, and the hedonism of illegal parties and raves… to read Part II click HERE

Chris Sullivan promoted a long list of warehouse parties, founded and ran the Wag Club and is a former GQ style editor who has written for many others including Italian Vogue, The Times, Independent and The FT. He now is Associate Lecturer at Central St Martins School of Art specializing in ‘youth’ cults.

Chris Sullivan

The post Summer of Love – the rise of house music as a great British institution appeared first on Silver Magazine.