A disclaimer first: we were involved in a little background work (figuring out e.g. dates of parties) for this documentary, so what you are about to read is a little biased.
I had been looking forward to Aaron Trinder’s documentary for a long time, and even though I had heard plenty of positive feedback from others, nothing could replace experiencing it for myself. It was well worth the wait. This film is joyful, inspiring, and nuanced, and provides a crystal clear view of times that we often spent in a euphoric cloud. The main achievement for me though was that, considering the subject is so multifaceted, the view of the scene is nothing short of panoramic. Trinder has wisely balanced this out by zooming in on pivotal aspects of the history. He, however, managed not to get too bogged down in the nitty gritty of the chronology. Figuring out the right dates for everything, working out which sound system or DJ was at which event, and making orderly lists, as I may have mentioned before, is perhaps the least pleasurable aspect of chronicling our scene, and Trinder thankfully seems to be of the same school of thought!
Even though there are plenty of hard facts for the avid rave historians among you, parts of the documentary are as colourful, psychedelic, and disorientating as befits the topic. In fact, they are reminiscent of the coming up sequence in Beats*.
The introduction describes acid house, but it is not lingered on unneccesarily. The absence of the Achilles heels of acid house (the pound signs reflected in the glistening eyes of both organisers and opportunistic criminals, the cops getting on top) were transformed into some of the strengths of our movement, at least for a couple of years…
We meet key figures in the scene but are never told that certain individuals or particular crews were more important than the others. Collectives like Free Party People, Spirals, DiY, Bedlam, Warp and Tonka are the main focus, with a nod to the second-gen deep housers influenced by DiY and some footage of more recent UKteks at the end. Important forerunners such as Circuses Normal and Irritant, and pre-acid house fluoro lunatics Mutoid Waste Company are also invited to the party. Early and reasonably unsung heroes such as Fun-de-mental and Sweat get a mention too.
Inclusivity and cooperation are central themes, as they should be. It is great to see the sentiment that ‘everyone is Spiral Tribe’ expressed here. It is a principle many of us partygoers were aware of at the time, but this aspect of Tribe history is often forgotten in the rush to canonize the core Spirals, and turn back the clock to the idolisation and guitar solos the house and techno scenes of that era were moving swiftly away from. The Do it Yourselfers, too, were welcoming, unless, as Grace says, ‘you’re a total knob’.
Although I am not fully in agreement as to the importance of Glasto ’90’s place in the discourse as number one mothernode of free party folks and travellers, the argument made in the documentary for this is very strong, and the elements of a great oral history are all there: the KLF turning up with a tape, the spangled Mondays, the dancefloor horse.
On the last leg of the road to Castlemorton Common the embattled Spirals are plagued by stormclouds of doom and paranoia. After the police brutality at Acton Lane in the spring, and a Roundhouse party in the new year where everything seemed to go pear shaped, the mood was dark, and the Tribe escaped to North Wales to, as was said in the sixties after the first flush of psychedelia passed, get it together in the countryside.
There are of course plenty of fond reminiscences about the golden years of the free party and the rebirth of the free festival, but not everything is projected through a rose-tinted lens. The racket and the mess that was made at the larger events, and how that affected locals, is one of the issues touched on. Mark Spiral, outside the courtroom, having just been acquitted, seems genuinely spooked and contrite about the scale and noisiness of Castlemorton, a huge contrast with the other bookend: the trial began with an militant platoon of shaven-headed Spirals in their uniform Make Some Fuckin’ Noise Ts marching in to the court.
We learn about the free festival’s musical progression, from the original space rock riffing to the future sound of pumping techno and house. The legendary pyramid tent is used to illustrate this (r)evolution. It belonged to Nik Turner of Hawkwind and covered the main stage at Stonehenge free festival from the early seventies, and a couple of decades later housed (pun intended!) DiY’s legendary outing at Glastonbury Festival’s Travellers’ Field’s colliding of cultures in 1990. The traveller-raver subculture clash is not glossed over, it is made clear that the new blood flowing onto festival sites was not always welcomed by one and all. Having said that, this shift meant that ‘Five years of suffering’ were over, at least for some of those who lived on the road. Don’t remember who said it (I will have to watch again!) but this is a beautifully expressed explanation of the ecstatic rebirth of traveller events half a decade after the violence of the Beanfield.
I hope that this film will serve not only to spread the word about what an amazing time we had back then, but more seriously to bring witness accounts of shocking of police brutality at parties such as Acton Lane to a wider audience. I see this as part of a broader movement (see also Dreaming in Yellow, A Darker Electricity) to document our culture as it was in the early nineties.
* Have you seen Beats? You should, it’s another great film about early nineties free parties, only it’s fictional. The visuals the protagonist sees soon after dropping his first pill are… well, you should watch it yourself!
P.S. We always add categories to our posts, and as you can see from the enormous list at the top of this entry, we went a little overboard this time! Any comments about the functionality and navigation of this site are most welcome 🙂
P.P.S. This is a short teaser version of a more detailed review, so if you want to read more, including the reactions of a certain blogger’s festivalgoing mother to the film, watch this space 🙂
23 January 1993
Spiral Tribe
Disused Depository, Brent Cross, London
Diary entry: Fucking too fucking good the most violent aggressive unmusical music I ever heard, fast noteless, tuneless grinding noise. Gave Mark lift in Tom’s car. Mental building.
Not sure how we got to this party but when we arrived Tom asked me if I could go and pick up Mark from Spiral Tribe, who was still back at their squat on Uxbridge Road. Tom couldn’t because he was too out of it on ketamine already. I’d just taken some drugs, so it became a race against time driving across London before I came up. I picked up Mark, Sebastian and Emily, all clothed in black bomber jackets and combats with shaved heads. I felt a bit old skool Day-Glo in my orange jeans and tie-dye T-shirt.
The music that night was relentless pounding techno. And outside was the best collection of matt black traveller vehicles I’d ever seen.
UPDATE 30/09/09: Thanks to an old friend’s generosity we now have this flyer:
Rumours from a source very close to Spiral Tribe at the time indicated that this never happened due to one of them doing a runner with the money and spending it on crack. The flyer below is for the free event that happened in its place:
In Harry Harrison’s account of Castlemorton he reveals that someone phoned DiY on the Thursday with news of the venue. By 7pm on the Friday they had driven on to the common, ‘unchallenged’. There’s a whole two chapters on this festival in Dreaming in Yellow (follow the link to buy a copy), but we’ll only reveal a couple of extracts here.
Over Friday night, more and more systems rolled in, set up, kicked off. Some of them we knew (Bedlam, Circus Normal), while others, such as Adrenalin and LSDiesel, we did not. Uniformly that weekend, they all played their characteristic fast techno, or ‘nosebleed’ as we called it (they called our music ‘fluffy’). In our marquee, right on the edge of the already huge gathering, we played house, club music, deep house and garage. On the Saturday and Sunday afternoons, we slowed it down and played an eclectic mix of downtempo beats, soul, funk, hip-hop and even jazz, and we were undoubtedly the only people to play John Coltrane on Castlemorton Common. Many, many people have told us since that, musically, we saved their lives. They came to our tent and never left. Hopefully, however, they missed Simon [DK]’s set on Sunday afternoon. By that time, he had been up for so long and had so over-indulged that two of us had to prop him up from behind. As he attempted to DJ, he kept placing the turntable needle onto a slip-mat instead of a record.
On Saturday night there were by now so many people that the crowds around different sound systems merged into one enormous dancefloor. Our music at Castlemorton was probably the most effective PR we ever did. Tens of thousands of people passed through our tent and liked what they heard. As dawn broke on Saturday morning, with hundreds of people dancing outside the marquee, we were surprised to see dozens of outside broadcast vans at the bottom of the slope, cameras and microphones pointed our way. Japan, New Zealand, America and Italy were all represented as they beamed the sights and sounds of DiY in full effect back to their respective nations. What we hadn’t really considered was that the police were probably studying the same images, including our incredibly prominent ninety-six square foot banner with the letters’ DiY’ in six-foot monochrome splendour. That backdrop would feature on many news bulletins and shocking documentaries on the moral outrage of drug availability at raves. For me, as we walked around the still-expanding site on Saturday afternoon, the atmosphere was less of a drug-crazed dystopia and more of a village fete. For once, the sun shone benignly throughout the bank holiday weekend and beyond. It was balmy and warm at night, and raving is so much more pleasant in those conditions. Laughter rang out, old acquaintances were renewed and fresh ones forged. Kids ran around and their parents lazed in the sun. Late to the game, we heard amazing stories of the quarry pool only five minutes walk up the main drag. Hurrying there, we witnessed the wonderful spectacle of hundreds of festival-goers, half of them naked, swimming in a beautiful, deep natural pool surrounded by ancient quarry walls. This was turning into some kind of English Shangri-La. The sheer diversity of the crowd was striking. Porsches, family saloons and Land Rovers rubbed bumpers with ambulances and ancient double-deckers. The old school festival crew were still there. This was, after all, supposed to be the Avon Free Festival, but they were just swamped. It was no longer a festival; it was a great big fucking massive party. There were mutterings among the old crowd about ‘cheesy quavers’ and people not burying their shit (a legitimate concern). Effectively, the free festival movement was laid to rest that weekend; the frantic and ravenous synthetic hydra of acid house had buried it.
Again, I was able to surreally watch images on the news on a battered old telly on a mate’s bus, as video footage of us below was beamed to the wider world. A day later, someone turned up with the Sunday papers and we realised, with a deep gulp, that we were the nation’s news. Being the mouthpiece of the landed classes who really own and run the country, The Sunday Telegraph had dedicated almost the whole front page to the events in which we were immersed, below the immortal headline ‘Hippies Fire Flares at Helicopter’. God’s honest truth, when someone announced the headline, thought for a second that someone had propelled some wide, seventies-style trousers at the police until I saw the picture; someone had genuinely tried to bring down the police helicopter with a powerful distress flare.
And so the festival continued, on into the week, becoming infamous as the biggest rave anywhere, ever. Our system ran from Friday evening until Tuesday morning, by which time our thoughts turned to getting it out intact. Not only had we been one of the most prominent rigs, but we also had a distinctive large yellow truck that had displayed our name on its side in huge letters. But, as is so often the case, the sheer bravery and daring of the travellers saved the day and a friend, Alix, sneaked our rig out in her horsebox in the middle of the night. The police waved down our Dodge truck with a confident look, only to find it empty apart from a few tank nettings and a lot of empty beer cans. Thank you, Alix, again and forever. Spiral Tribe went through until the next weekend, refusing to stop. They were perhaps less crafty, as confrontation was in their DNA. Thirteen of their number were arrested and their system impounded. They were collectively charged with organising the festival, which they hadn’t, and were finally acquitted in Crown Court following what was one of the most expensive prosecutions in English legal history.
Here’s Tim’s account of the event, previously only available on the excellent but now-defunct Loft Sites:
And of course there was Castlemorton. Breathtaking in it’s sheer size and bravado, looking back on it, it is clear to see that this monster, week long rave attended by 25,000 people marked not only the peak but also the death of free rave culture. While watching us helplessly and largely furiously, England would now take serious steps to ensure that that these ultimately harmless parties could never happen again, at least on any reasonable scale. The eventual introduction of the Criminal Justice Bill gave police new powers to prevent and break up any form of outside beat-based gathering.
From this point on, rave would go overground. There was no where else to go. Sure, pockets still thrive here and there, but a once gloriously anticorporate culture became swallowed up in clubland. Muddy fields and hastily erected marquees were replaced by steel and chrome, and thirty pound entrance fees. Trainers and baggy jeans did not make it past the bouncers. Terra techno turned into slinky house. Shiny clubs, shiny drugs, shiny people, and shiny music. It did not feel bad anymore. It had become respectable.
Getting to Castlemorton was easy. It was advertised on the TV. Arriving home from work on Saturday, I turned on the news to see an excited local broadcaster relaying information about a huge gathering of ‘ravers’ and ‘hippies’ on Castlemorton Common, an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty at the foot of the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire. They had mysteriously arrived overnight, many different groups co-ordinating beautifully and thwarting any attempts by the police to break up the large convoy of trucks, vans and old buses they were understandably becoming increasingly suspicious of.
I hopped it to 227 and picked up the few who had not already gone. For the first time I set off for a rave before the sun had even set. With such exact directions it was an easy drive through the Cotswolds, and we gradually became part of a convoy of cars full of ravers with the same destination. As night fell we began to leave the lights of the towns and villages behind us as we followed the road high up on to the vast common. Darkness now shrouded the rolling hills and only suggested at the space and beauty around us.
Then suddenly we were there. Cars were everywhere, parked randomly and haphazardly on either side of the road, which led directly through the middle of the gathering. We ditched my car and followed the general movement of people away from their vehicles and towards the distant throb of beats and bass.
It was soon clear that most of the traveling sound systems were there, each with their own individual party set up. At the center of it all, and the ringleaders behind the entire event, was, of course, Spiral Tribe. And that was where we were heading.
We continued walking down the road along which stalls and vendors had sprung up, selling all kinds of rave paraphernalia; bottled water, Vicks sticks, bongs, rizlas, whistles, glo sticks, mix tapes etc. Drugs of all kinds were openly available. People were hanging out, shopping, chatting, coming up on a pill, sharing a spliff. It kind of felt like being in some kind of bizarre town center, in a world where ravers had taken over. And always, in the background, the boom boom of the sound systems, reminding us why we were there.
After passing several large marquees each with their own rave in full swing, we arrived at Spiral Tribe’s own party. Their motley collection of vehicles were arranged in a large circle. This provided an amphitheatre into which their DJ’s pumped hard tribal techno. As always the focal point was a huge black and white spiral hanging from the side of one of their lorries, right next to the one sided van which housed the decks. Maggie and I put up the tent we had been carrying – she was intending to stay a few days – just to one side of the main circle. We scored some mushrooms and swallowed them down with a few sips of water.
While we were hanging out, waiting for the mushies to kick in, Mitch turned up with recommendations for good E’s. There were some shit hot Tangerine Dreams about he confided, if you could find them. Before long I had sniffed them out and had two in my belly. My own private party was beginning.
Fortuitously, the E’s turned out to be two of the sweetest ever. My memories of the night are little more than drifting around in a blissful haze, I’m not even sure if I danced. But that’s not the point, I was off my head at Castlemorton and that’s what counts.
As dawn began to break I lapped up a wrap of speed, I was so used to doing this now I barely even needed water to help it down. The sky became a little clearer and I started to recognize people everywhere – no one was missing this one. All of the heads from Witney were there. Being my home town this caused much handshaking and mutual jibbering affection. The whole of the Oxford Massive had made it, along with all my new friends from all over the place, who I had met through these weekly parties. There were several people I hadn’t seen for years, including of course a few spanners who had just come to check out the show after seeing it on the news. None the less, I was immensely pleased to see everyone, and greeted them all with much enthusiasm.
Night slipped back into day and in the sunshine the enormity of the carnival we were part of became clear. Tents, cars and people stretched out in all directions, creating a multi coloured splash in the languid countryside. There were several mini travelers villages, complete with dogs, fires and scruffy kids who appeared quite at home amidst all the madness. And spaced throughout this were the raves themselves, each with their own sound and their own vibe.
Framing this were the Malvern Hills rising majestically through the morning mist.
Many ravers began to sit in loose groups, spark up a few spliffs and just take it all in. We knew right then that this was something special. This would never happen again.
At some point I met up with Georgia, who dragged me away from the Sprirals to the DiY tent where she had spent most of the night with her mates. The large dance area was now quite empty, the floor littered with empty Evian bottles, roaches and butt ends. A bit later on I spotted Easygroove sitting in the back of an open van with some mates. By now we clearly recognized each other, and we nodded hello, like we always did. I even bumped into my sister. Half of England seemed to be there that weekend.
The party continued on for several days, but I had to be back for work on Monday. So late on Sunday afternoon I left many happy people behind and headed home.
Some more newspaper clippings have just turned up, big up to Simon K for these, which have been transcribed for the benefit of anyone following this site who can’t access the text in the images. It is worth mentioning that our long term goal is to have all of our newspaper articles and book excerpts transcribed 🙂
12,000 revellers descend on village for 4-day rave
Hippy days are here again!
Unless you’ve got this lot in your back garden
By BILL DANIELS
THE hippy days of the Sixties were back with a vengeance yesterday as Britain’s biggest-ever illegal party swung into its fourth night.
But for the tiny village reluctantly playing host to 25,000 revellers, it seemed that the self-styled peace people were making WAR, not love. A police helicopter flying over the crowd narrowly escaped disaster when it was fired on with five marine distress flares.
And the ear-splitting throb of acid music could be heard 10 miles from the sprawling city of tents and camper vans infesting Castlemorton Common, near Malvern, Worcs.
Meanwhile police could only stand and watch for fear of sparking a full-scale riot. Drug-dealers openly set up shop to push Ecstacy and LSD. One even did the rounds bearing a tray of freshly-baked “hash cookies’.
Trapped
Used syringes were among rubbish littering the 700-acre common. Furious locals report their garden fences have been ripped up for fire wood. Chickens and sheep have been poached.
Some families have sent terrified children to stay with relatives.
But others have become prisoners in their own homes – surrounded by the vehicles choking the narrow lanes.
Villager Jill Gilbert, 29, said: “Before long, the residents are going to get their shotguns and blast that music machine.”
West Mercia police had 400 officers, some in riot gear, on standby. They claim the helicopter attack vindicates their decision to keep a low profile.
Assistant Chief Constable Phillip Davies said: “This shows the lengths they will go to prevent police gaining access. The safety of my officers must be one of my priorities.”
Western Daily Press Monday 25th May:
Police powerless as 20,000 attend rave
By Giles Rees
THE biggest, noisiest and most lawless party of the year roared on last night as police stood and watched.
At Castlemorton Common, beneath the Malvern Hills of Hereford and Worcester, an estimated 20,000 hippies and ravers were having a ball.
They took drugs, they drank they danced and they made love.
They also turned a beautiful corner of England into a filthy, litter-strewn tip.
The invasion of Castlemorton began late on Friday as illegal hippy camps in Gloucestershire and Avon were cleared by police.
A convoy of buses and cars snaked bumper-to-bumper into the picturesque village, normal population 600.
Within hours a sprawling shanty town of tents, coaches and caravans was set up on the rolling common on the edge of the village.
Its sheer size forced West Mercia into an effective surrender with officers able to do little more than observe from a distance.
By yesterday the encampment, with no toilets, sanitary facilities or first-aid, had become a ghetto.
Drugs were openly on sale and alcohol was available from illegal bars.
Dirty-faced toddlers played by camp fires fuelled with hacked-down trees.
Amid all the squalor however, there was money.
Dotted among the ramshackle coaches and caravans were spotless Range Rovers and BMWs.
At eight different “dance centres” Acid House music pounded remorselessly and glossy leaflets advertising other Acid parties were given out.
Last night the festival of Castlemorton was still swinging.
Traveller Carol, aged 25, from Wiltshire, said: “We are having a good time. The
convoy will probably break up some time. I don’t know when.”
Farmers and villagers on the edge of the common were close to despair. There were
unconfirmed reports of one gunpoint confrontation.
Farmer’s wife Mrs Margaret Jones, aged 41, said gates had been broken, fields
driven through and livestock chased.
“I do not see what gives people the right to behave like this,” she said.
Villager Julie Williams, aged 24, who lives on the edge of the common, said: “We
have never had anything like this before. We can’t believe it. It’s frightening up there.”
West Mercia police said there had been six arrests and the situation was being monitored and contained.
A spokesman said: “We shall be considering our policy regarding the camp in conjunction with Malvern Hills district council and the Malvern Hills Conservators.
West Mercia police set up a 24-hour helpline for local people who wanted to discuss problems arising from the event and the police’s approach to it. The number is 0684 893630.
A VILLAGE OF NIGHTMARES
By RICHARD CREASY
25,000 invaders turn rural peace into anarchy
THE tiny community of Castlemorton Common is normally a safe and peaceful haven – the English countryside at its tranquil best.
But the past three days has left its 800 inhabitants stunned and terrified. They are prisoners in their own homes from 25,000 invaders who mock a pitifully small police operation.
Britain’s biggest illegal party was still in full swing last night with drugs like Ecstasy, LSD and acid being openly sold by dealers. Worried families in the village have sent their children to stay with relatives and others are sleeping with shotguns under their beds.
“Basically there is total anarchy on the common. We feel sick with fear and just so helpless,’ said Jill Gilbert, 29.
“It’s a complete no-go area for the police because they are so outnumbered and don’t want to spark off anything worse.”
The police admitted yesterday they had been hopelessly under-manned for the mass invasion and set up a special hotline to advise worried about the situation. During yesterday afternoon a helicopter with three policemen on board narrowly missed five ship distress flares fired from the festival site.
“This highly disturbing incident clearly illustrates the lengths to which these people will go to try to prevent police access to the site,” said West Mercia’s assistant chief constable Phillip Davies.
“Under current circumstances, we are clearly obliged to adopt a low-key approach on the site in order to avoid unnecessary conflict with members of this huge gathering.
“Many of them have already displayed an extremely aggressive attitude towards the police, and the safety of officers must be one of my priorities.
“This is already a difficult situation, but I do not wish to provoke things further by sparking off large-scale disorder.”
“The result of the low police presence has been thousands of hippies spending three days dancing, drinking, taking drugs and making love on Castlemorton Common, near Malvern, Worcestershire.”
Acid music can be heard 10 miles away blasting out round the clock from the huge tented shanty-town.
One drug dealer carried a tray loaded with hash cookies selling for £1 each.
Since the invasion hippies have ripped down trees and fences to burn on their camp fires and a mountain of rubbish is piling up on the 700-acre common. The site has no toilets.
Raiding parties in search of wood for fires, food and animal feed pilfered from neighbouring sheds, barns and gardens.
Packs of maurauding dogs owned by the travelling hippies scavenge in the mounds of rubbish and sheep have been savaged.
The pub, post office and shops have shut down for fear of trouble.
Some people are trapped in their homes because scores of cars and lorries block their entrances.
So far 30 people have been arrested in the area for drugs related offences.
The nightmare began on Friday when convoys of ramshackle vehicles converged on to the common land after an advance party broke through a thin police line.
Outnumbered police conceded defeat and were powerless to stop the illegal Bank Holiday music and drugs festival.
“The music is booming every night and it seems to get louder every half-an-hour,’ said villager Peter Cooksey, “The place has become totally lawless. The peace of the village has been shattered.”
Scared Julie Biggs, 21, has had to run the tiny store in neighbouring Welland under constant police guard. “Everyone here is absolutely petrified. I have had terrible problems with hippies coming into the store and shop-lifting. I couldn’t work here if it were not for police protection, I would be too frightened.”
Angry publican Barry Smith, landlord of the Robin Hood, said: “Most people are too afraid to come out of their homes. If had lived up on the common I would have shot someone by now.”
One hippy, dressed in ragged denims openly touted ecstasy and LSD as he pushed a young baby in a pram across the Common, once an area of outstanding natural beauty.
Some offered “magic mushroom” cider, mindbending cocktail of drugs and alcohol, from makeshift stalls.
A traveller who gave his name as Richard said he had driven his battered bus from North Lincolnshire. He and his companions were a “peace loving group out to have a good time”.
“There is nothing wrong with what we are doing. We are here to have fun in the sun,” he said.
“We chose to live this way and rejected the hassles associated with a conventional way of life.
“Some say we are dirty but we are environmentally conscious, we make efforts not to dump rubbish.
“It makes more sense to bury your waste instead of flushing it away with harmful chemicals.
“People generally have it in for us because of our lifestyle.I think many envy us becauseof our freedom.”
You can find more newspaper articles if you scroll down 🙂
Here are some photos James sent us, thanks a million James, we love them!
Some quotes on Castlemorton from books:
From Matthew Collin, Altered State: The Story Of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House. London: Serpent’s Tail, 2009, p.228-232.
From Simon Reynolds, Energy Flash : A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture. London: Picador, 1998, p.135-140.
UPDATE 24/10/21:
Here is a slideshow by top subculture chronicler Alan ‘Tash’ Lodge, enjoy!
We added the following sound systems, give us a shout in the comments if something is here that shouldn’t be, or if you know about any cases of rigs working together:
Armageddon
Conspiracy
Also interested to hear whether the list in the title is correct 🙂
There were rumours going round about a free festival being held somewhere in the west country on the 23rd. At first we thought it might be at Chipping Sodbury, but late on Saturday night we found out it was going to be near Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire. We switched off the episode of Casualty we’d been watching (which was about a drugs overdose) and the four of us set off from Bridport towards Gloucestershire in my gold Mini Metro.
Once we got past Bristol we saw loads of other ravers and travellers headed in the same direction. Near Tewkesbury we joined a convoy of disparate vehicles that stretched for miles towards Castlemorton Common and realised this was going to be a big free festival.
Having got appropriately stoned whilst dawdling along in the line of traffic we finally arrived on site at about 2am and parked the overheated Metro on the side of the road going through the common. Jumping out of the car we hurried towards the lights flashing into the sky from what looked like a huge sprawling township that had grown out of nowhere. Music blasted out in all directions, a mash-up of house, hardcore, breakbeat and techno. There were people every where and parties already in full swing.
Surrounding the marquees were traveller buses, ravers cars, tents, fibreglass sculptures and human gyroscopes. People were selling stuff all over the site. Beer, dope, E’s, acid, speed, rizlas, fags, coffee. We scored and dropped some ecstacy and stayed around the DiY and Circus Warp tents for the night.
After coming up, my fellow raver, dressed in a boiler suit and gas mask hat turned yellow and went outside to puke. I only found him much later, dancing, luvved up, ice lolly in hand. Once the sun came up we had a better idea of the layout of the site and in amongst the 40,000 party goers we found some friends from Dorset and joined them at Spiral Tribe. We sniffed some K and did some wobbly dancing, creating solid shapes out of thin air.
I was never a big fan of Spiral’s hardcore music and would have preferred to be back at DiY, but the Ketamine had me stuck to the spot like glue. Some travellers with families were quite rightly annoyed at Spiral Tribe’s strict policy of 24 hour hardcore and techno. Other systems mellowed out with some dub for a few hours on the Sunday to give people a breather and for kids to get some sleep, but not Spiral.
Commenter Jam Smoot told us about this Sparks and Martian at Castlemorton mix:
I missed Castlemorton but I believe everyone who says it was wicked. Interesting that dr_box (see below) mentioned the police herding him onto the common, people often forget that the travellers and soundystems were pushed/chased there by the cops. By the way, if anyone has exact dates for this please let us know, we know it’s quoted as going on for 6 days, but we need some sort-of-facts!
Interesting query from Hardcore Bob in the comments: the Techno Travellers (who we’ve now added to the headline) had their rig in the blue and red marquee, so which other rigs were there, and which tents were they in? Let us know in the comments 🙂
Thanks!
More book excerpts:
From Ian Young, It’s Not About Me! Confessions Of A Recovered Outlaw Addict- From Living Hell To Living Big. Norwich: Anoma Press, 2013, p.59-60.
We came across three longish (slightly chewed) VHS videos of Castlemorton free festival recently. Thanks a million to youtuber discodelinquent (great name by the way!) for uploading them. Discodelinquent has also uploaded some footage from Sugarlump parties. We’ll probably do a post on Sugarlump sound system sooner or later… Meanwhile, enjoy these videos:
Here’s a quote about Castlemorton from ‘Adventures In Wonderland’ by Sheryl Garratt:
Mr Arm (you know who you are!) let us scan a load of newspaper cuttings from his scrapbook. Big up! :
The following photo was captioned “Festivalgoers on Castlemorton Common yesterday, enjoying the sound of music in the Malvern Hills”.
The following photo was captioned “Common nuisance: The 20,000 hippies encamped at Castlemorton common yesterday”.
A classic headline:
Click on images for larger versions:
The following picture and article appeared with the headline: “Villagers threaten to burn out hippies -An illegal festival in the Malverns has driven people living near the site to breaking point”
Continuation of article above, click on image below for larger version:
The following article and photo appeared together:
Here are a couple of videos, the first one’s been online for ages, the second one’s newer and includes some footage taken near the spiral rig-
Thanks youtuber Yangow for the first vid, and thanks youtuber hemustbemad for uploading the second (he credits his friend Matt with filming).
Old friend Simon M was there, and he sent us this page from his diary:
The photos below are from George McKay‘s book ‘Senseless Acts of Beauty’ and I believe they were taken by Alan ‘Tash’ Lodge (whose excellent website you can find in the links on the right hand side of our main page.
The Riddler (who has a great site, well worth a browse), has some pics of castlemorton here:
Tim Aldiss’s site, now defunct but accessible via Wayback Machine, has his account of his trip to Castlemorton (his rave diaries are a good read, look at the other entries while you’re there)-
Castle Morton was an experience.. I’d been visiting a mates place in East London and he was coming over to mine in the depths of West Wales afterwards. we’d heard that there was a festi down near Bristol that weekend, so set off on the hunt along the M4. At one of the service stations along the M4 we got a lift from a Green godess fire engine that was loaded down with kit and Hippies, it was one of the vehicles spiral tribe was using to get to the festival. As we got close we found out that the festival might not be on, so set off on a hunt. the police herded us up to Castle Morton, by the time we got close there were several miles of trucks and busses full of people. At one point the line stopped and a guy with us got out and started counting vehicles as he walked towards the front. when the line started moving again, he waited for us to catch up. he’d counted over seven hundred vehicles, and he hadn’t reached the front of the line.
When we got there, the sun was setting and from the hills overlooking the site you could see the site starting to pulse with light and hear blasts of sound as things were set up. Travelling off all the way to the horizon there was a ribbon of headlights delivering more people to the festival.
Blinding weekend, my mate had his first E experience, Watched the police try and drive through the centre of the crowd. they got stopped in the middle, and a nameless longhair got passed over the crowd, and started selling Acid off the bonnet of the police car. after futilely attempting to get out of the car the plod ended up just laughing at the sheer balls of him.
Nighttime had more than its fair quota of low flying helicopters with spotlights. (although someone did take a potshot at them with a firework)
Dan’s shared a couple of pages of his rave diary with us, take it away Dan! And thank you!
The bust is apparently where Paul Massey took his iconic photo of policemen carrying off loudspeakers and amps. It features on the back cover and label of a recent Ragga Twins compilation, and was apparently used in an Advance Party leaflet too.
Tim was there and here’s his tale, previously located on Loft Sites:
Craig, Russ and Jamie were this weeks passengers in my trusty VW Polo, which was a dirty white with a smiley acid face painted on either side. We were followed by Diz, Amanda, Maggie and Sarah, an Oxford Uni student who looked like a tall Betty Boop. The party was just outside London in Surrey. We parked in what seemed like a suburban street, no doubt the residents would wake up and wonder why their road was a mass of illegally parked cars. We walked for quite a while to get to the rave which was set on an unkempt, sprawling piece of common ground that looked like it had once been cleared for development and had eventually grassed itself over. Although we had only recently left streets and houses behind it appeared pretty remote.
It was a Spiral Tribe collaboration, their sound system with Circus Warp’s trademark blue and red striped marquee, and Rough Crew’s DJ’s. The rest of their vans and trucks were parked nearby and formed a temporary mini village. The drugs of the day were fantasies, tiny round brown balls, no bigger than a ball bearing. I think I ended up doing 2. Speed had fuelled the drive up, and helped get the fantasies working.
I don’t remember it being dark so we must have hit the party at around dawn. The crowd was small but up for it as ever, being led onwards and upwards by the pulsating music.
At the big, legal events you got the big, hands in the air classic rave tracks. Every other track you recognised from one mix tape or another. At parties like this the music was always unpredictable, underground and unrelenting in it’s hardcore attitude. Often the big name DJ’s would come and spin at these raves, relishing the opportunity to play cool weird shit the teenyboppers at Fantazia wouldn’t get. Nearly every week I saw a funky dreaded black dude in shades behind the decks. Turns out he was Easygroove, playing for free after finishing his mega bucks set at the latest licensed party.
The fantasies produced a weird high, like E but less euphoric and made the world become even more confusing and bizarre than it usually did. Word later was that they were full of ketamine, some kind of horse sedative, which would explain things a little.
As per usual I got more out of it as everyone else began chilling out. I used to love this time – plenty of room to dance, plenty of light to see everyone. My usual trick was to try and get a smile out of everybody; this is what would bring on the rush. I probably made quite a spectacle – inanely grinning, limbs flailing more or less in time to the music, eyes on stalks. I may have looked a bit silly but it was these moments of solitary dancing with my head in the clouds and well beyond, that I really felt like the sweaty, skinny embodiment of rave. Passionately committed to hard drugs and hard music, and brim full of pure chemical joy.
For me, being a raver was a full time job. It gradually infiltrated all aspects of my life. Like being in love, it became all I could think about. And I know there were thousands like me. From being just a weekend attraction, pretty soon weekends lasted three days and the rest of the week was spent smoking as much pot as we could afford, swapping DJ mix tapes with friends, and collecting drugs for next Saturdays party.
To be on the crest of the wave of a new movement was heady enough. Combine that with music that sounded like it had been downloaded from the future and drugs that make you want to embrace the whole world, and it is easy to see how so many people who once thought that they were students, or hairdressers, or bank clerks, instead became ravers, with reality an unfortunate necessity.
By now it was full daylight. It could have been any time; watches were way too tiny and complicated to read properly. It took me a while to realise that the fine drizzle that had been keeping me nice and cool was turning into more heavy rain. Cos my body was functioning at around 250 degrees this did not worry me unduly, and I continued to pound out the beat as my trainers turned the grass to mud. One of the few others left dancing grabbed me by the arm and looked at me with huge eyes and sunken cheeks. “It’s amazing!” he enthused, his jaw working away furiously on some gum, “I’ve come down but I can still dance!” Yeah, right I thought, and smiled at him as he bounced off. However I soon realised that everybody else was now sheltering under the marquee and decided that it looked kind of fun.
These traveller raves brought in some people you could never imagine meeting anywhere else, and pretty soon I was chatting to a nearly blind dark haired girl called Nessy. She lived in a horse drawn caravan and could only really see when she put on some incredibly thick glasses. Needless to say she very rarely wore them, and was convinced that the world was a much more enjoyable place when all you could see were misty, colourful shapes. Her horse could see where they were going so she managed to get around ok. I put together a shaky spliff while she swigged on a bottle of vodka, and there you go, the sun came out again.
As the music continued to fill the air, the skies cleared and people began dancing again. Maggie and I pooled our money and scored a Red and Black, a powder filled capsule which we split roughly. We wondered off a little way and climbed a small hill. We sat on the wet grass and looked down at the colourful collection of vehicles, the shabby marquee, the DJ lost in concentration and the huge, omnipotent speakers. In front of these was a mixed bag of people, who had been drawn in from across the country to meet and party with others they would probably never see again.
From here we felt a little like onlookers, somewhat removed from the proceedings. It struck me just how bizarre these parties must seem to the general public. Yet for us, hearing the tribal beats reverberating around the English countryside did not seem in any way intrusive or out of place. Instead they somehow appeared to bring each other to life. The deep booming bass became like the earth’s heartbeat, while the chattering, alien rhythms danced with the wind through the trees and seemed to awaken a mysterious, primitive consciousness in the surrounding landscape. Maggie and I contemplated on the uniqueness of such an event and decided we were pretty God damned lucky to have been there, then. I thanked whoever was listening that I had been born at the right time. Fuck the sixties.
The Red and Black turned out to be way better than I expected and was still rushing when the rest of my posse eventually broke it to me that they wanted to return home. We had been there for a pretty long time it seemed so we trailed back to my car, and I guess I drove home but I don’t remember.
It turned out that shortly after we left the police descended in large numbers and by all accounts smashed up the sound system and as many cars as they could while the travellers and ravers looked on, powerless. Nice one.
Here are a couple of photos of Chobham Common from Samantha Williams’ fantastic book Happydaze, the first one is the front cover:
UK Free Parties and Free Festivals 1988-1994 
