Top 10 Reasons Parties were Better in the Last Millenium

i don't see it as a north/south divide, i see it a london/everywhere else divide

i wish we could get back there, but there have been too many changes and too much water under the bridge.

i hope it is more than a couple of years

arv, i love you, man, but no can't stand it, nor can sean and it just won't happen. its shit i feel that way, and i wish i didn't, but i ain't going to change now unfortunately

edit: i should qualify that; if there was a venue in bristol where we could go to 10/11am, and if we had the energy to put on parties that long, then i wouldn't mind having a couple of hours of the dark stuff. trouble is, we don't and we have loads of residents to keep happy and only enough space on the line-up to book the acts that sean and i really want to hear

fair doos.

it's definitely not everywhere else though.

best of luck with shroom though, masterblasters are going to melt the shop.

This hopefully will sum up my party !

thanks mate, i think they will

haha! the only concept we have is losing money, cos sean has no concept of the word "budget" (if you are referring to coming to bristol )

it wasn't my intention for this thread to turn into a shroom thread, but you know what they say about publicity

No... I was refering to the party I invited you to in July mate

lol my bad!

in that case it will definitely be that, no doubt

i don't really, but its ok. i actually suggested EVP and beardy to sean a couple of parties ago, but he was having none of it

Oh bugger.... Well hopefully, At the very least I'd like to cover travel expenses of those kind enough to play. Even if it comes outta my own pocket !

I can happily say that the parties I've been going to recently are every bit as good as they used to be.
Either that or my memory is failing me.

Onwards and upwards boys and girls.
It's what you make it!

Thought some of you may be interested in the street sign on this pic.. Beamish would moan like fuck about being on a psy-forum - but i've heard him play Dedrah and Kox Box on the sly...

Come on, dude, you don't even party in London, so how can you say 'our' scene needs sorting out? I absolutely love the scene we have down here, more so than anywhere else I've been to in the country. I'm a regular attendee of London parties, and each one is still an epic adventure full of amazing music and happy, smiley people bringing positive vibes. I'm sure most of the London party-goers would attest to this, too. It's really starting to grate me, having 'outsiders' who don't even attend the parties telling us it's all going to shit, when we're all actually having the times of our lives.

dan, i don't go any more because it is not worth my time, or my money, to go up for something that has a good chance of not happening. i miss partying in london, got loads of mates up there, but there is hardly anything to go up for any more. i know loads of people who feel the same way as well, a lot of whom live in london. it should not be all about squat parties, they might be the be all and end all for you, but to many others they are not, and it sucks that there is no choice any more.

back when i was talking about you'd find out about a squat party a couple of days before, you'd go there, it would look amazing, you'd hear amazing music and it would be rammed. you would also usually get dosed with "free lemonade" on the door, if you wanted it, and the next night there would be a farken cool club to go to. things couldn't be more different.

it grates being called an "outsider" as well, because i've been going to parties regularly in london for 18 years, despite never having lived there.

Maybe that's a musical issue? There has definitely been a shift towards more nighttime sounds in London... perhaps this is why your friends think it's going shit? Meh, all I know is that my friends and I are all still having the time of our lives at parties down here. We have a very close, tight scene down here, with lots and lots of love emanating from people, and the most cutting edge (IMVSO ) psytrance to be found in the UK.
Edit: Amazing music is still to be heard in London; they're still occasionally rammed (is this really a good thing?); lush decor is still found... Fair enough, free acid drops might not be handed out anymore (how often did this happen 'back in t'day'?), but what you described still happens...

I lived in Edinburgh in the early 90's and nights out were all about our local club nights or nights in various weird venues like cellars or ex-bus stations, galleries etc, there were loads and they were varied and plentiful.
Acid techno, trance (and even a bit of deep house) ruled, you could do pretty much what ever you wanted, the party treats were good quality, cheap and plentiful, it was so much fun.
We didn't really have squat parties. There were house parties, huge allnighters in exhibition centres and things in fields but it was usually much too cold :/
And we come down to Megadog, RTTS etc in the big smoke and feel like proper bumpkins...aaaaah though, happy days
And STILL having fun after all these years,,,(though not EVERY weekend)

I would only point out that the people who made the music then were the people who could afford to make the music in the first place. As such the concept of doing gigs for a living may have been less pertinent as a living wasn't required.
The ever decreasing costs of equipment and tools for electronic music creation are a double-edged sword: they increase the amount of objectively ( ) shite music, but also - hopefully - they mean the music becomes of a better quality (technically) as people are forced into competition with eachother. It's a form of free-market liberalism perhaps.
If anything, the pre-broadband pre-inexpensive computing era was considerably more elitist simply because the initial investments required by those who wished to make the music excluded anyone of a less wealthy upbringing. Still, one can't deny a person an expensive hobby.

In any case that's tangential... I think there is, now, a feeling that because of the people making music pre-millenium becoming famous and now flying all over the world playing gigs for a living, this is attainable.
Also, at a certain stage if all one does is make music one wants to see some return - as we all know, but might refuse to accept, peace and love is not enough to get food on the table, solid cold and rain protection and soap on one's hands. yoghurt in one's loom.

Also - we can all agree on the fact that there was more money in the music back in the day... It may not have been a living, but my word hearing about the advances which some of the artists received for albums on the classic labels are mind-boggling when compared to even the highest advances or fee agreements available these days... The scene has changed (as, indeed, has the rate of inflation!). Perhaps the fact that artists got more money for making music rather than playing it meant gigs were more for fun than for pecuniary gain - and that was apparent in the general feeling of the nights.

In the end though - I write this as someone who turned 13 in 2000. I cannot attest to subjective experiences - only provide a Devil's Advocate alternative perspective

I was with you right up until the point you suggested them crusties were using soap !

I was @ Edinburgh uni in the early 90s and Pure at the Venue with Twitch and Brainstorm was very much my introduction to the world of acid house and techno... Used to have loads of uni mates who would go there, every week with an 'all back to mine' afterparty where folk would head on to. That place was a sensory deprivation tank with smoke machine, strobe lighting and sweat dripping off the ceiling it was always so rammed! Then drenched in sweat you'd roll out into freezing early morning Edinburgh sunlight... hehe. Ege Bam Yasi was a local hero with his acid techno tunes! Irvine Welsh's introduction to rave culture was at Pure and he even dedicated Trainspotting (I think) to the folk he met there. There was also Tribal Funktion and events like Squid at La Belle Angel which were ace too. Attended a couple of massive Rezerection raves myself, plus a couple of events in fields, in the summer of course! Happy days!!! Then down in London for hols and Sugarlump acid house parties... hehe. All a distant memory now! Fuck where have the years gone!!!

Amended for relevance.