Suzi Quatro and AC/DC: punk rockers in Australia 1974/75

I don't think anyone who knows 1970s UK pop culture would argue with the fact that Suzi Quatro was one of the leather clad pop rockers who prepared the ground for punk. Still was surprized to see her being mentioned in relation to punk as far back as 1974 in the Australian press on the occasion of her touring there:

'She looks like the leader of a motorcycle gang, but pretty like the girls who run with the pack ought to look. She's 23, dresses all in skin-tight leather zippered down to her waist, off stage as well, but usually adds a shirt under the leather suit. Her eyes look out soft and warm from photographs. In real life Suzi Quatro is tough, but still soft underneath.

She's from Detroit, and in this country that says a lot. A harsh city, "Motor City," with the highest crime rate in the U.S.A., it is the birthplace of punk rock, the MC5 (Motor City 5, a once famous rock group.) Suzi continues the image though she does complain that "people who've only heard my voice expect me to be about 6 feet tall." In fact she's five feet. Wearing a small star tattooed on her right wrist, she explains, "I got the star four years ago 'cause that's what I wanted to be'  (Australian Women's Weekly, th May 1974).

From searching on the great Trove newspaper archive this seems to be the first reference to 'punk rock' in an Australian newspaper, earlier even than a 1975 mention of 'top punk rockers' AC/DC.

Interestingly, the AC/DC gig in question at the Harmonie German Club in Canberra took place on 7 November 1975, one day after the first Sex Pistols gig at Central St Martins art college in London.

Canberra Times, 7 November 1975

Rosaleen Norton: Dance of Life

Getting in the Halloween zone, I watched 'The Witch of Kings Cross' (2020)- a fascinating documentary about New Zealand born artist and occultist Rosaleen Norton (1917-1979) who scandalised Australia in the 1950s. Her erotic/esoteric paintings led to prosecution and the destruction of some of her work, and newspapers published sensationalist accounts of her supposed involvement in 'black magic and sex orgies'.

I'm always amazed by figures like this who bravely lived a 'counter-cultural' life decades before there was such thing as mass counter culture. Pursuing a life of queer sex, magic and drugs in the face of overwhelming repressive conformity was dangerous - no wonder they felt they needed to invoke the powers of gods like Pan against the world that confronted them.  This was an age in which social ruin awaited 'deviants', as for instance the composer and conductor  of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra Eugène Goossens (1893-1962) found when his bisexual relationship with Norton and the poet Gavin Greenlees was exposed.  50 years later, hundreds of thousands of people were parading every year down the same streets in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras- but maybe in their own ways it was people like Norton's circle who helped open a space for this.

'Individuation' by Rosaleen Norton

 'In the spiral horns of the Ram,

In the deep ascent of midnight,

In the dance of atoms weaving the planes of matter is Life.

Life spins on the dream of a planet,

Life leaps in the lithe precision of the cat,

Life flames in the thousandth Name,

Life laughs in the thing that is ‘I’.

I live in the green blood of the forest,

I live in the white fire of Powers,

I live in the scarlet blossom of Magic,

I live'

(Dance of Life by Roslaeen Norton)

In this case the accused was asked why 'despite police warnings she was still consorting with homosexuals'. She was said to have been to a Black Mass conducted by Rosaleen Norton, and to have explained to court that 'although she had some other clothes she preferred to wear black - "the sign of the witch cult"'. She was sent to jail for 2 months for vagrancy  with 'recommended psychiatric treatment'' (full article here)

Discotheque Dress for Party Dancing (1964)

Previously we discussed how the word Discotheque, coined in France by the 1940s, seems to have entered the English language in the early 1960s, with the opening of La Discotheque club in London by 1961 and a spate of articles in 1964 which used the word to refer to both a nightclub and a French-influenced style of dress. Another blogpost at OUP uncovered that in July 1964 the name of the dress was abbreviated to 'disco' in an American newspaper article and in September 1964 Playboy was the earliest example so far of the word 'disco' being used to describe a club, as in 'Los Angeles has emerged with the biggest and brassiest of the discos'.

Here's some pictures of the Discotheque dress, which seemingly by December 1964 had already been codified as a Vogue pattern advertised in Australian Women's Weekly 2 December 1964. Note too that here the name was abbreviated to 'disc dress' (and indeed the London club was sometimes referred to as 'The Disc')

Discotheque dress for party dancing!

'Here it is, the disc dress - the freshest, swingingest fashion for Christmas party nights ahead. Skinny and short and in one piece, it's a terrific dress for young mods who like to follow the swing beat'.

Police and parties, 1994-95

A while ago I posted chronologies of police and parties from 1996 and 1997. Here's some more from 1994 and 1995, all from England unless otherwise stated.

1994

January

( N.Ireland): A member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary is acquitted of the murder of 19 year-old Kevin McGovern in 1991, and will now return to police duty. McGovern was shot in the back on his way to a disco in Cookstown. The policeman claimed he thought the youth was armed (he wasn't). A few weeks earlier (on December 23) two British soldiers were found not guilty of the murder of Fergal Carraher, an unarmed man who was shot dead at an army checkpoint in Cullhana in 1990.

March

(N.Ireland): 16 people are arrested and many injured as RUC police with riot gear and dogs attack young people leaving a dance in Omagh. As the dance finished, police sealed off surrounding streets. People are beaten about the head with three foot long batons and plastic bullets fired.

April

Richard O’Brien, a 37 year old father of seven is killed by police from Walworth police station in south London. He had been to a dance at an Irish centre after a christening; outside he got into an argument with cops who held him down on the ground for 5 minutes after handcuffing him. In 1995 an inquest jury found that he had been unlawfully killed.

November

100 police raid Riverside club in Newcastle, making 33 arrests

December

Police raid on Final Frontier, techno night at Club UK, Wandsworth, South London

1995

May

Police with riot shields raid a techno free party at the ArtLab, Preston and impound the sound system, decks, records and other equipment. 21 arrests [Mixmag July 1995]

(Scotland): Drug squad cops harrass people at Ingnition II, a commercial rave in Aberdeen. 75 people were searched (some of them up to four times in a half hour period), and some arrested.

3000 people attend an all-weekend free party organised by United Systems at a disused air force base near Woodbridge, Suffolk featuring Virus, Vox Populi, Jiba, Oops and Chiba City sound systems. Police shut down the party on Monday afternoon, arresting four people and confiscating equipment (all returned within two weeks).

Police close down free party put on by Transient and Babel sound systems near Bangor (Wales).

Heavy police presence at Phenomenon One at the Hacienda, Manchester. Although there was no trouble, the police complained that there were too many people smoking grass and drinking after 2 am, and the management cancelled future jungle nights.

June

Police raid Home in Manchester, and call for it to be closed down permanently. It doesn’t reopen until December.

July

The weekend of July 7th 1995 saw the first major police operation using the ‘anti-rave’ sections of the Criminal Justice Act. Cops across the country coordinated their efforts and successfully managed to prevent the planned 7/7 “mother” of all free festivals. To stop people dancing in a field, police:

- raided the houses of people believed to be involved in organising the party and charged eight people with “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance”;
- took over the party info phonelines and questioned callers;
- used helicopters and set up roadblocks to stop people getting to planned festival sites at Corby (Northants), Sleaford (Lincs.), and Smeatharpe (Devon) where ten people were arrested.
- seized the sound system belonging to Black Moon (a free party collective based at Buxton, Derbyshire), charging three people under Section 63 of the CJA, the first time it has been used.
- used Section 60 of the CJA to set up five mile exclusion zones around festival sites.

Thousands of people took to the roads in search of the festival, and despite the efforts of the police several smaller parties did happen, including at Grafham (where over 1000 people partied) and at Steart Beach near Hinckley Point in Dorset where 150 vehicles managed to gather.

Bottles and bricks thrown at police by people being turned away from a warehouse near Huddersfield, Yorkshire where a party was to be held. 3 people are arrested after shop and police car windows are smashed.

70 police raid Progress house night in Derby. Everybody in the club (punters, staff and security) searched and made to leave, and the club was closed down

On July 23rd 1995 Reclaim the Streets closed down one of London’s busiest roads and held a big free party. Publicity for ‘Rave against the machine’ had been circulating for weeks with only the venue a secret. While police wondered where the action would be hundreds of people poured out of Angel tube station and blocked Islington high street, transforming it quickly into a car free zone. Banners calling for an end to the “tyranny of the motor car” and “support the railworkers” (on strike) were hung across the road, and sound systems, including one fitted onto an armoured car, sprang into action. Chill out spaces were created with bits of carpet on the road and a few comfy armchairs, as well as a giant sandpit for children. A couple of thousand people partied from noon to about seven o’clock while the police watched on unamused. After the music finished and most people had gone home, riot cops took out their frustration on those left behind, baton charging them down to Kings Cross, and making 38 arrests

(Scotland): “The friendly ‘boys on blue’ or rather ‘psycho cops in combat gear’ launched a massive, over-the-top drugs raid on the Kathouse club in Lockerbie. About 50 of them burst in, handcuffed everyone and carted them off to Lockerbie and Dumfries police station. Everyone was interrogated, finger prints were taken and they had to mark on a plan of the Kathouse where they had been sitting and they were all strip searched. The police treated everyone like shit. The Kathouse holds about 150 people max. It’s in a small town and the club itself is not very big. .. The music ranged from house to hardcore, the atmosphere was electric, there was never any violence... 6 people out of 77 were charged with possession of drugs” [M8, October 1995.]

August

(Canada): In Shuswap territory, a sacred sundance and burial site was been occupied by Native Americans. At the end of August 1995, heavily armed Royal Canadian Mounted Police cut off all communications to the Shuswap camp, and surround the area. One Canadian cop refered to the sundancers as “dancing prairie niggers”. [Earth First Action Update, September 1995]

(Argentina): Police arrest 130 gay men and transvestites after storming the gay pub Gas Oil in Buenos Aires on suspicion of ‘corruption’. In Mar del Plata, 60 lesbians and gay men were stripped searched and arrested in the Petroleo disco [Pink Paper, 1 September 1995]

September

(Iran): “A bride has been sentenced to 85 lashes in Mashhad, Iran, for dancing with men at her wedding. The court sentenced 127 wedding guests to floggings or fines and jailed one man.” [Guardian, 5 September 1995]

(Ireland): Tribal Gathering II, due to take place in Cavan on September 30th, is cancelled after the local police object. A local cop says that they did not have the resources to stop “the undesirable elements that shows of this nature attract”. Cavan County Council had initially approved the event, but after the intervention of the Garda they moved the goalposts and said that the organisers (Universe and The Mean Fiddler) would need planning permission, impossible in the time remaining.

Over 114 arrests (mainly for drugs) at Dreamscape, a commercial rave at Brafield Aeordorome, Northampton.

35 people arrested in police raid on party at Clyro near Hay-on-Wye on the Welsh border.

October

150 police raid Club UK in south London. Operation Blade involved dogs, horses, and the Territorial Support Group. 800 clubbers were turned out on to the streets, and many searched. 10 people were arrested

(Wales): Police raid 37 pubs and clubs in mid-Wales, making 50 arrests after seizing various drugs

11 people are nicked in a a drugs raid on Happy Jax in south-east London.

On Saturday October 21st 1995, 600 people block Deansgate, one of Manchester’s busiest shopping streets for a Reclaim the Streets protest. People dance and party until 5:00 pm, when the police threaten to arrest the Desert Storm Sound System (veterans of Hyde Park and Bosnia). The crowd move to Albert Square (outside the Town Hall) where they carry on till the morning.

November

(Scotland): 30 police raid Slam at the Arches in Glasgow.

150 police wait outside Dance Paradise event in Great Yarmouth searching people and making 86 arrests ; the rave was spread over three venues and the police stopped and searched people as they moved between them. The police invited BBC and ITV crews to film the operation [Mixmag, January 1996]

Manager of the Mineshaft gay club in Manchester convicted under the Disorderly Houses Act 1751 for supposedly allowing men to have sex with men in a back-room at the club (raided by police in April 1994 with 13 arrests).

The owner of Peckham gay bar Attitude fined under an 1832 Act for “allowing disorderly behaviour”. Undercover cops in leather visited the club earlier this year, as did two Southwark Council Licensing officers. The latter attended an underwear party and stripped down in the spirit of things before reporting that they had seen men having oral sex and four men dancing, when the bar had no dancing licence [Gay Gazette 8 November 1995]

The House of Lords refuses to repeal the Sunday Observance Act of 1780 which forbids pubs and clubs from charging for dances on the Sabbath. While horse racing and shopping have been allowed, the Lords ruled Sunday dances too sensitive and needing more public consultation. The Metropolitan Police have written to pubs warning them that they could be fined for breaking these rules. Since New Years Eve falls on a Sunday some events (such as a Sign of the Times party at the ICA) have already been cancelled. The law also requires special licences to extend music, dancing and drinking hours on a Sunday [Time Out, November 1995, Gay Gazette, 8 Nov. 1995]

December

Police raid the Dolphin gay pub in Wakefield at 2:30 am on Boxing Day and arrest 15 people because “Licensing laws were being broken”

Seven people become the first to be found guilty under the “rave” sections of the Criminal Justice Act, after being arrested at a party on the site of an anti-roads protest in Whitstable, Kent

(Australia) 20,000 people from all over the world turn up for the Bondi beach party in Sydney on Christmas Day. Police threaten to ban next year’s party, or at least make it alcohol-free after rioting at the end. On New Year’s Eve, there is more trouble: 12 people were arrested and rocks and bottles were thrown at cops.

Tolpuddle singer deported to Australia

The punitive UK immigration controls against musicians have been highlighted here before. A particularly poignant example this week, with an Australian singer prevented from singing at the Tolpuddle festival - which commemorates the deportation of workers to Australia for forming a union in the 1830s. Came across this at Bristol National Union of Journalists site:

'In a bizarre homage to governments gone by, the UK Borders Agency has deported an Australian trades unionist back to the colonies. Her crime? Singing.

If you’re heading to Tolpuddle next weekend for the annual union festival – a great mix of political debate, foot-tapping music and beer – spare a thought for Maureen Lum from Tasmania. The Australian trade unionist was due to take part in the annual rally to commemorate the Tolpuddle Martyrs, who were deported for forming a trade union – but has herself been deported.

Maureen arrived in the UK last Sunday for a long planned holiday and was due to sing with the Grassroots community choir at the festival in Dorset. However, immigration officials at Stanstead Airport deported her for not having a performers’ visa, despite the fact that she was not being paid to come or for her performance. The deportation has led some commentators to question whether grandmother trade unionists are more unwelcome than terrorists.

The Tasmanian Grassroots Union Choir is a group of music lovers dedicated to ensuring that workers’ songs, old and new, are being sung and heard in Tasmania. They were due to perform a special series of songs about one of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, George Loveless, who was exiled to Van Diemen’s Land, as Tasmania was then called.

Nigel Costley, South West TUC Regional Secretary, said: “You would have thought that after 170 years things might have moved on. The Tolpuddle Festival is more than a rally for trade union members; it is a celebration of working people’s culture. We were delighted when the Grassroots Union Choir agreed to come and perform. The petty and vindictive attitude of immigration officials might mean there is one less voice in the choir but the thousands of people attending the festival will sing out strongly in her place.”

Just to remind you what the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival is all about, in 1834 six Dorset farm workers were arrested and sentenced to seven years’ transportation for organising a trade union. Massive protests swept across the country and thousands of people marched through London; many more organised petitions and protest meetings to demand their freedom. Eventually they returned home in triumph. The festival takes places each July when thousands of people come to small Dorset village to celebrate trade unionism and to remember the sacrifice made by the six farm workers.

It’s a popular mix of political discussion and speeches, great music and the traditional procession of banners, wreath laying and Methodist service. This year’s Festival takes place from July 15-17 and the camping places have already sold out. For more information see: http://www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk/'

'The Rhythmic or Throbbing Crowd' (Canetti)

From the chapter on Rhythm in Elias Canetti's Masse und Macht (1960), translated as 'Crowds and Power':

'Rhythm is originally the rhythm of the feet. Every human being walks, and, since he walks on two legs with which he strikes the ground in turn and since he only moves if he continues to do this, whether intentionally or not, a rhythmic sound ensues. The two feet never strike the ground with exactly the same force. The difference between them can be larger or smaller according to individual constitution or mood. It is also possible to walk faster or slower, to run, to stand still suddenly, or to jump.

Man has always listened to the footsteps of other men; he has certainly paid more attention to them than to his own. Animals too have their familiar gait; their rhythms are often richer and more audible than those of men; hoofed animals flee in herds, like regiments of drummers. The knowledge of the animals by which he was surrounded, which threatened him and which he hunted, was man’s oldest knowledge. He learnt to know animals by the rhythm of their movement. The earliest writing he learnt to read was that of their tracks; it was a kind of rhythmic notation imprinted on the soft ground and, as he read it, he connected it with the sound of its formation.

Many of these footprints were in large numbers close together and, just by looking quietly at them, men, who themselves originally lived in small hordes, were made aware of the contrast between their own numbers and the enormous numbers of some animal herds. They were always hungry and on the watch for game; and the more there was of it, the better for them. But they also wanted to be more themselves. Man’s feeling for his own increase was always strong and is certainly not to be understood only as his urge for self-propagation. Men wanted to be more, then and there; the large numbers of the herd which they hunted blended in their feelings with their own numbers which they wished to be large, and they expressed this in a specific state of communal excitement which I shall call the rhythmic or throbbing crowd.

The means of achieving this state was first of all the rhythm of their feet, repeating and multiplied, steps added to steps in quick succession conjure up a larger number of men than there are. The men do not move away but, dancing, remain on the same spot. The sound of their steps does not die away, for these are continually repeated; there is a long stretch of time during which they continue to sound loud and alive. What they lack in numbers the dancers make up in intensity; if they stamp harder, it sounds as if there were more of them. As long as they go on dancing, they exert an attraction on all in their neighbourhood. Everyone within hearing joins them and remains with them. The natural thing would be for new people to go on joining them for ever, but soon there are none left and the dancers have to conjure up increase out of their own limited numbers. They move as though there were more and more of them. Their excitement grows and reaches frenzy.

How do they compensate for the increase in numbers which they cannot have? First, it is important that they should all do the same thing. They all stamp the ground and they all do it in the same way; they all swing their arms to and fro and shake their heads. The equivalence of the dancers becomes, and ramifies as, the equivalence of their limbs. Every part of a man which can move gains a life of its own and acts as if independent, but the movements are all parallel, the limbs appearing superimposed on each other, They are close together, one often resting on another, and thus density is added to their state of equivalence. Density and equality become one and the same. In the end, there appears to be a single creature dancing, a creature with fifty heads and a hundred legs and arms, all performing in exactly the same way and with the same purpose.

When their excitement is at its height, these people really feel as one, and nothing but physical exhaustion can stop them... Thanks to the dominance of rhythm, all throbbing crowds have something similar in their appearance'.

We can only assume that when Canetti talks of 'man' he means 'woman' too! Photos: top, a dance at the University of Sydney; bottom, dancers at Poe Park in the Bronx, New York, September 4 1938.

Drinking, dancing, fingerprinting

Interesting article from Australia on clubs scanning ID and even taking fingerprints as a requirement of entry. I am aware that some clubs in England have begun scanning in photographic ID (e.g. clubs by London Bridge) but not aware of any taking fingerprints too at the same time - though the now closed SEOne club did apparently take thumbprints of people accessing smoking area. As this article implies, would you want your personal details held by club security?

'A big night out: drinking, dancing, fingerprinting' (Saffron Howden, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 March 2010)

'Somewhere in Perth's central business district is a building containing the names, ages, addresses, photographs and unique fingerprint codes of thousands of revellers who danced and drank at Sydney's Home nightclub last year. Home, in Darling Harbour, began trialling a biometric ID scanning entry system nine months ago. Patrons lined up before six large terminals to have their photo taken, and their driver's licence and right index fingerprint scanned. The information was copied and sent to Western Australia, where it is stored on a secured central database by the system developers.

While Home is the only NSW venue to use fingerprint technology at present - there are 13 nationwide - various forms of ID scanning are being quietly rolled out at other nightspots. Among them is Hotel Cremorne on the lower north shore. Since November the nightclub has required guests to submit to a photograph and ID scan as they line up on the street to enter on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights...

Not everybody is convinced ID scanning is appropriate at nightclubs. Home said NSW police suspended the club's fingerprint scanning three months ago over privacy concerns. There has also been a spike in complaints about ID scanning to the Federal Privacy Commissioner, who warned there were ''major security risks'' if companies held onto the data.

The commissioner, Karen Curtis, is investigating the issue and reviewing advice to clubs to encompass the surge in new ID-capture technologies. ''We have … anecdotally noted a general increase in complaints in recent years,'' she said. ''The majority of the complaints concern unnecessary collection of personal information and the issue of anonymity, although some also involve other issues such as security concerns and lack of notice. 'There are major security risks if organisations hold on to large amounts of personal information for lengthy periods of time, including possible identity fraud.''' (full article here)

Prohibition and the Pleasure Principle

The Pleasure Principle by Kane Race (Sydney Alumni Magazine, Summer 2009) is an excellent article on the absurdities of drugs prohibition, in the context of policing of queer parties in Australia. It's starting point is a police raid on on the Azure Party in Summer 2007
part of the annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney.

Race argues that: 'Dance parties have long been a central element of gay community life in Sydney, and recreational drugs have played a significant part in the formation of self and community. To thwart these events by seizing upon this aspect is to deprive a whole subculture of one of its most significant community-building rituals'.

More generally he discusses how he enforcement of prohibition results in a situation where:

'casual intimidation of ordinary citizens is, if not already normalised, then rapidly becoming so – at youth events, in migrant and racially marked suburbs, and in the recreational precincts and public transport arteries of numerous states and nations. What’s striking is how the status of certain substances as “illicit” provides an occasion for the state to engage in what could be described as a disciplinary performance of moral sovereignty. This performance bears little relation to the actual dangers ofdrug consumption – in fact, it often exacerbates those dangers...

The state allows many forms of dangerous recreation, such as hang-gliding, football and mountaineering. And then of course there are those legal, revenue-raising drugs like alcohol (much more likely to be associated with violent crime and aggression than club drugs, incidentally). We would be horrified if the state tried to make these activities as dangerous as possible in order to discourage people from trying them. But this is exactly what is allowed in the attempted enforcement of drug prohibition, which in its present form precludes quality control, puts the drug market in the hands of organised criminals, and threatens users.

The illicit drug user has become a special and symbolic figure for the contemporary state. Their consumption practices resemble the licensed (legal) pleasures of the market, but can also be made to represent their excess. In times of governmental stress, the state jumps at the chance to stage a drama between immoral consumers and the supposedly moral state. But this drama seems more like high-profile posturing on the part of the police, designed to reassure middle-class voters that the state is tough on law and order, and driven more by the state’s desire to be seen to be “doing something” than any considered response to the issues at hand. Indeed, the persistence of these policing practices despite the evidence accumulated against them suggests that their counter-productivity is beside the point. For the point is the public spectacle of detection and humiliation, the making-suspect of populations, and the desire to create a demand for authority in the sphere of consumption. The state confirms its image of itself and its moral constituency in these forcible attempts to expose its other'.

Crowds and Equality

"Within the crowd there is equality. This is absolute and indisputable and never questioned by the crowd itself. It is of fundamental importance and one might even define a crowd as a state of absolute equality. A head is a head, an arm is an arm, and differences between individual heads and arms are irrelevant. It is for the sake of this equality that people become a crowd and they tend to overlook anything which might de­tract from it. All demands for justice and all theories of equal­ity ultimately derive their energy from the actual experience of equality familiar to anyone who has been part of a crowd" (Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power, 1960).

Photo of crowd at Winter Enchanted 2006 (Adelaide) in front of DJ Alex Kidd by Sweet Unncertainty at Flickr.

New Year's Eve

I know millions of people have been partying and having a good time in the past 24 hours (from a free party in Kent to Melbourne where 40,000 partied at Sensation rave at the Telstra Dome. So sorry for highlighting two bad news stories, one tragic, one farcical but with serious implications for people who live in the Maldives and enjoy dancing.

Thailand: 61 die in nightclub fire (Guardian, 1 January 2009)

'The death toll from a fire at a Bangkok nightclub, packed with New Year's Eve revellers, has risen to least 61 with 200 people injured... The cause of last night's fire was unclear; some clubbers blamed it on fireworks while others said it had been caused by an electrical fault in the Santika club. Video footage of the disaster showed bloodied, bruised and burned victims being dragged out of the still burning, two-story club, or managing to run through the door or shattered windows. "We were all dancing and suddenly there was a big flame that came out of the front of the stage and everybody was running away," Oh Benjamas told Reuters. Another survivor told how the ceiling caved in, burying victims in the rubble...'

Maldives: Islamists spoil the party

'Disco organisers have blamed the ministry of Islamic affairs for the poor turnout at their New Year’s Eve events after the ministry asked police to ban all discos on the night... Ibrahim Manik, the organiser of a disco held at Dharubaaruge hall said many young people were afraid to attend the discos after it was announced that they were illegal and would be stopped by police... Although the discos were not banned on the night, organisers say they were continually disrupted by police officers inspecting the venues every hour. Security was tight all over the Male', with hundreds of police officers patrolling the streets, in particular in areas where discos were being held... A 26-year-old woman, who did not wish to be named, said she was very annoyed with the ministry’s decision.“I can’t believe it. I planned to go to a disco but changed my mind when the announcements were made saying they were cancelled,” she said. Likewise, Seni Naim, 18, said her friends were planning to go to a disco but decided against it after the ministry’s announcement' (Maldives News, 1 January 2009).

The ministry of Islamic affairs appealed to the Maldives Police Service on Wednesday to end to all the discos organised for New Year’s Eve celebrations. Police sergeant Ahmed Shiyam confirmed Dr Abdul Majeed Abdul Bari, the minister of Islamic affairs, had made an official request to the police commissioner, Ahmed Faseeh, for police to take action regarding this matter... Sheikh Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed, the state minister of Islamic affairs, said the ministry had formally requested the police stop the discos from taking place because they were contrary to Islam. He added the ministry had received complaints from the public. “We have received hundreds of complaints asking for a ban on the DJs,” he said. “So, the number of people who are against having DJs is greater than the number who wants them. Even a police official has informed us that they have also been receiving complaints.” he said. According to Shaheem, it is haram or forbidden in Islam for both sexes to dance together (Maldives News, 31 December 2008).

Party Police Round-Up

Australia: Riot Police called to Sydney Rave (In the Mix, September 1 2008)

'A secret warehouse party in Sydney’s Inner West was shut down by police early on Sunday morning, causing unhappy revelers to spill onto busy Parramatta Road, forcing its closure for around 90 minutes. Riot police and the dog squad were called to the party by concerned residents, and it’s estimated the illegal warehouse rave had between 1,000 and 1,500 party goers. The party was split over three floors of the abandoned Parramatta Road warehouse, but it was closed by authorities around 1am. Ravers on the building’s top floor are said to have showered police with bottles when asked to leave, and news reports indicate authorities are now on the hunt for the people responsible, as well as the event’s organisers'.

'I was at the party on Saturday night, standing directly behind decks on the drum n bass stage when the riot police invaded. The news reports state there was no damage to police vehicles or property, but what about the damage to the equipment caused by the over zealous police who stormed in and smashed both turntables and attempted to smash the mixer (about $5,000 worth of damage) and then they pushed and shoved and bashed everyone they could get their battons on. This was complete overkill and so unnecessary. there were no arrests on the night so clearly the "riotous partygoers" were non existant'.

England: 'Curfew order on man at rave' (Lynn News, 23 October 2008)

'A Swaffham man who went to a rave when a court had ordered him not to, now faces a curfew to keep him indoors seven days a week. [RW]... was caught by police on the record decks of an unlicensed music event at Gayton Thorpe in August, Lynn Magistrates heard on Tuesday.In April, a Norwich court had given him a two-year community order with a requirement he was “not to attend a rave or other unlicensed musical event”. [RW] admitted he had carried out an unauthorised licensable activity at Gayton Thorpe and accepted he was therefore in breach of the order.

... police became aware of the rave after a Gayton estate employee called them at midnight on Saturday, August 16, and said there were a number of cars and people gathering near his home... police found [RW] wearing headphones on the sound decks and he was arrested. Items taken by officers included 12 speakers, two generators, three turntables and five mixer-boxes. In a police interview, Walsh described the equipment as a “suicide rig” in that it was expected to be seized... The bench decided to revoke the original order and replace it with a new two-year order with a curfew, meaning [RW] will now have to stay at home from 8pm to 6am seven days a week for six months.

India: 'Police raid rave party' in Mumbai

'In one of the biggest police swoops in recent times, cops barged into a Juhu pub on Sunday night and picked up 240 youngsters on suspicion of 'doing drugs'. Nine of them, including an Israeli national, were arrested for peddling and distributing narcotic substances. The other 231 were made to undergo blood and urine tests and released on Monday afternoon after spending about 12 hours at the Azad Maidan police club' (Times of India, 7 October 2008)

'Blaring trance music, smoke-filled dance floors and stoned youngsters are no longer confined to just Goa or farmhouses in Mumbai's outskirts. Nightclubs and pubs in the city are fast becoming hotspots for rave parties. The busting of a rave party in Juhu is perhaps only the tip of the iceberg, say police officials. "Youngsters form a huge pie of the clientele. With higher disposable income and easy accessibility to high-end drugs, Mumbai is soon becoming popular," said a senior ANC official, requesting anonymity. Rave parties are characterised by high entrance fee, extensive drug use, chill rooms and even open sexual activities in some cases, said a senior officer from the Narcotics Control Bureau, Mumbai, on condition of anonymity. Apart from youngsters from affluent families, the upwardly-mobile people employed in BPOs and KPOs, film personalities, industrialists are also part of the clientele. "Attendance can range from 30 ravers in a small club of tens. While techno music and light shows are essential for raves, hard drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy and LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) have become an integral part of the rave culture," observed a senior cop.' (India Info, 7 October 2008 - KPO=Knowledge Processing Outsourcing, BPO= Business Process Outsourcing, i.e. IT, call centres etc.).

'The next time you get a whiff of a rave party in your neighbourhood or see a hippie-looking character trying to pass on drugs to youngsters, just dial a number and help the police.
The Anti Narcotics Cell (ANC) of the Mumbai police has introduced helplines for people to give information about suspected drug peddlers and about those consuming drugs. “We are aiming at maximum participation by people. We need their support to help us remove drug menace from our society,” said Vishwas Nangre Patil, deputy commissioner of police, ANC' (DNA Mumbai, 1 November 2008)

Happy New Year

Tonight is a big party night in many parts of the world, we wish everybody a safe and happy new year and hope that anybody going out tonight can avoid being ripped off by outrageous ticket prices or having their unofficial alternatives closed down. Here's some global party policing news from December.

England: Rave returns to Slough area (Slough and Windsor observer, 31.12.07)

‘Patrols have been stepped up around an industrial estate after an illegal rave saw 500 revellers take over an empty warehouse.Police have been forced to beef up their prescience on the Poyle Industrial Estate after they were unable to break up a massive event. The rave in an empty warehouse saw an estimated 500 party goers descend on David Road, Colnbrook on Saturday, December 8. Officers were called to the event but decided it was too established to break it up prefering to monitor the situation safely and help disperse it the following day.

Slough East Neighbourhood Inspector, Andy Boomer, said: “This is the first rave that we have had in a number of years. Officers who were called to the scene estimated that there were some 500 people at the event. On s occasion it was decided to monitor the event rather than break it up. Since the rave we have increased patrols in the area to prevent a reoccurrence.”

India: police plan to stop New Year's Eve parties

'The Mumbai police's cyber crime cell is monitoring the Internet for information on rave parties being planned... The Mumbai Police is hoping that in the city, the Internet will yield information on not just venues but also who's been invited and the source of drugs. Rave parties are normally organized in places like Madh Island, Aksa beach, both in Mumbai, Yeoor Hills in Thane, Lonavala, Sinhagad and Mulshi in Pune are also hotspots. The Pune Police busted a rave party in March this year where 289 youngsters were picked up from a rave party in Sinhagad. The Mumbai police itself had raided a rave party in September 2006 at a Borivali farmhouse and arrested 80 people including 13 drug suppliers and prosecuted them under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. Now they are hoping to take that a step forward by prosecuting even those who advertise and publicise such events. The Mumbai Crime Cell says that once a rave party invite is found on the Internet on a cellphone, they use IP address and SIM card details to trace the identity of the sender and members of his group. With this pre-emptive measure they hope to bust the party even before it begins' (NDTV, 26 December 2007)

'After hundreds of youngsters were caught with drugs in a rave party, early this year, Pune registered 40 more cases of drug seizure. This is, however, an indicator of how susceptible the student city has become to drug peddlers. Keeping the city away from such unwanted elements, during the biggest party time of the year is a challenge, which the Pune Police is getting ready for... Pune crime branch will coordinate with excise and customs department for information on drug smugglers. Security forces will pair with home guard force to beef up security. City borders, too, will be covered with 13 check posts. Every entry lane to Pune will bear heavy security on the New Year eve. The police here is making sure that no matter how heavy the traffic be, no vehicle will enter the city without a security check.

Event managers are also hit by the tough stance taken by the city police. Last year Pune had twelve major events on the New Year eve, this year only six have managed to pass the necessary license tests. A club owner and event manager says, "After the trans party that really shook the city, this New Year eve is not going to be that big a celebration that it normally is for a lot of event managers."(IBN Live, 30 December 2007)

Australia: police criticised after overdoses (News.com, December 12, 2007)

'A police raid on a dance party at a medieval tourist attraction near Ballarat in central Victoria caused the overdose of 14 young people, a drug users association has claimed. Fourteen people were treated at Ballarat Health Services Base Hospital for drug overdoses at the Ultraworld rave event at Kryal Castle on Saturday, with three of them spending time in intensive care.

The head of drug users organisation VIVAIDS, Damon Brogan, blamed police for the mass overdose, saying rave-goers swallowed their drug stashes rather than risk arrest as police with sniffer dogs entered the party.He told the Herald Sun the arrival of more than 70 police at the rave party was “over-zealous”.

Nigeria: police raid Kuti family 'Shrine' club (AFP, December 16, 2007)

Nigerian police late Saturday raided the New Shrine nightclub in Lagos founded by two of the children of the late Fela Kuti, Nigeria's most reknowned musician, the Kuti family and police said Sunday. "They stole money, they stole drinks and they broke instruments," Fela's daughter, the dancer Yeni Kuti told AFP.

"I can confirm that a raid took place," Lagos state police spokesman Frank Mba told AFP. "It started at 2300 (2200 GMT) and ended at around 0500 and 331 persons were arrested," he said. Mba said the club was suspected of being a "safe haven for criminals" who met there to plan their "nefarious activities." He said he had also received complaints from residents of the area about "Indian hemp (marijuana) and other kinds of illicit drugs" being consumed on the premises. Mba said all of those arrested but found to have no link to any criminal activity were being released.

Yeni said the police broke down half of the door to the room where her musician brother Femi Kuti keeps his saxophones. "When you see what they did there, it's terrible," she said. Femi said he and his sister had been cleared of any involvement in robberies but were still at the police station trying to secure the release of more of the club's patrons.

"People are telling us we should be careful -- that they just want to victimize us," Yeni said. The New Shrine is a vast hangar decorated with fairy lights and Fela Kuti memorabilia. Most of the regular Shrine patrons are boys and young men. The atmosphere is friendly and electric with Femi Kuti often playing non-stop for several hours, and the club is something of a Lagos institution. The smell of marijuana there is so strong that visitors joke about it not being necessary to smoke oneself as "just breathing in is enough to get high". But the club has no reputation for hard drugs.

Fela Kuti himself, an outspoken critic of the then government, had several run-ins with the security forces. In the worst of several raids on his home, in 1977 his mother was thrown out of a window and died the following year from the injuries she sustained. His son Femi is also extremely critical but tends to attack Nigeria's political class as a whole rather than individuals'.

Australian Jazz Panic

From the archive - this is an article I wrote for Alien Underground 0.1, Spring 1995, a zine edited by Christoph Fringeli (Praxis Records) which promised 'techno theory for juvenile delinquents'.

The powers restricting "raves" in the Criminal Justice Act are not the first authoritarian response to a dance-based culture. The association of popular dancing with sex, intoxication, and black people has made it an object of moralist suspicion at various times in history. It was the jazz dance craze which swept across much of the west that was the source of both pleasure and panic in the 1920s, as Jill Matthews told a meeting of London History Workshop (an informal group of radical historians) in November [1994].

In Australia (where Jill comes from) the dance craze began around 1911 and really took off in 1917 with the arrival of the new "hot jazz" sound from New Orleans. Within a few years, dance halls holding up to 2000 people had opened in most Australian towns, with dances being held almost every afternoon and evening. Dance styles with names like the Whirligig, the Bunny Hug, the Turkey Trot and the famous Charleston (1926) rapidly succeeded each other in popularity, each lasting for a year or two before passing out of fashion. While these steps were highly formalised by today's standards, the emphasis was more on rhythm than on the more difficult to perform steps that existed before 1910, and this was part of their mass appeal.

Soon the dancefloors became a battlefield as the moralist backlash gathered momentum. Dance was condemned as sensual, barbaric and pagan by churches, with the Methodists leading the way in banning mixed dancing on their premises. Doctors got in on the act, with some claiming that doing the Charleston could cause death. There was a strong racist element, with black US jazz musicians being banned from the country in 1928 as part of the government's White Australia policy (supported by the Australian Musicians' Union).

Meanwhile professional dance associations sought legiti­macy by trying to distance themselves from the undisci­plined dancing masses. Their aim was to reimpose the boundary between the artist and the audience by insisting that dancing should be the preserve of properly trained experts. Such dance entrepreneurs reached a compromise with the anti-dance moralists on the basis of licensing respectable dances properly controlled by professionals. By the 1930s a range of local and national licensing laws and restrictions on building use had succeeded in regulat­ing and taming the dance craze.

The discussion after Jill's talk included parallels with the CJB and other situations. Somebody said that in France in the 1840s, particular types of dancing were banned and the police had the power to come on to the dance floor and arrest people (usually working class youths) for dancing in inappropriate ways. Not even Michael Howard has thought of that one yet...

Jill Matthews went on to write Dance Hall and Picture Palace (2005), a book about popular culture in Sydney from the 1890s to 1930s. I haven't seen a copy of this yet, but it sounds very interesting. Michael Howard, the Conservative Home Secretary behind the anti-rave Criminal Justice Act 1994 went on to oblivion.

Parties raided on three continents

1. Cambridgeshire, England

"Police officers were attacked with fire extinguishers as they tried to break up an illegal rave at a disused factory on the edge of Warboys. Nine people were arrested and another was taken to hospital and later released after an eight-hour illegal rave took place overnight on Saturday and Sunday. Police from Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Suffolk were called to break up the rave, which had attracted about 300 people but, when they arrived at about 12.30am on Sunday, fire extinguishers were sprayed and thrown at the officers... Police also seized several thousand pounds worth of music equipment and a number of vehicles. "

Source: Hunts Post, 21 February 2007

2. Suffolk County, New York, USA

"Suffolk County Police arrested 11 people following an investigation at a rave party in Copiague. Officers began investigating the party at the Third Rail Lounge last Saturday, and found that liquor was being sold without a license"

Source: Empire State News, 20 February 2007

3. Sydney, Australia

"A large dance party near Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens was shut down yesterday and 26 revellers were arrested following a police crackdown on illicit drugs. Officers with drug detection dogs raided the harbourside Azure V party at Fleet Steps... The dance party's website, run by iRIS Group Productions, said more than 5000 people - including some of "Sydney's [and the world's] most buffed and beautiful" - were expected to attend the eight-hour gay and lesbian event. But the party was shut down at 9pm following the raid, which police said was part of a operation targeting drug use and supply in The Rocks Local Area Command.... Another reveller, who did not provide his name, questioned the police's motives in shutting down the party. "As a patron of last night's Azure harbour party, I find it hard to believe the NSW Police shut down the party for the concern and health of the people at the party... they ejected 5000 people out of what was a medically supervised and policed event onto the streets to fend for themselves."

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, 26 February 2007; photo of pre-raid party by 8lettersUK