Luton may be a shithole but its proximity to both London and East Anglia (and having an airport) meant that there was still money around. Even at the depths of a recession an airport area or transport hub will always have work as people might want to get the fuck out of the place (Reading, being a gateway to Heathrow, was in a similar situation during the early 90s),plus essential goods like food etc will still need to come in.

Also Glenn Jenkins is a fucking excellent spin doctor, way better than anything the govt could dream up, he did a good job of selling the dream of communal living (pity the collective couldn’t actually deliver the goods first time round!)

ironically the peak of exodus’s time (and the most recent rise in the rave scene as a whole) was actually around the time of the dot-com boom (1994-2001). Although the CJA got passed around then the Tories had starved the cops of the resources needed to actually enforce it.

this is the paradox.

Whilst the economy was booming, the rest of society didn’t care so much about people jumping around in fields and warehouses, as there seemed to be lots of spare resources. it didn’t matter to the farmer if a few crops were trampled as he was doing well and the govt were giving out loads of subsidies on top of his profits. it didn’t matter to the property managers that the warehouses were getting rinsed, as they had been simply abandoned by companies expanding to bigger and better premises.

it didn’t matter to middle england as even they weren’t that grumpy, despite a bit of moaning about travellers/squatters people were getting away with loads of stuff (my mates squatted a new building every month and got away with it). We’d often have buildings for entire winters…

but at the same time people started taking the parties for granted, and losing the solidarity within their crews…

a lot of the original acid house lot were. I was your age when it all started and no fucking way could I afford pills at £20 each and £25 tickets to get into raves, nor the money for foreign travel. They teamed up with loads of people like East london gangsters and foreign people to get the drugs in what funded the scene,and the growing drugs market brought down the prices and provided the resources

its a big area though and in a place where large raves were tolerated or at least endured for the longest time by the rest of society (there are loads of old posts on here about Biotech raves and the Ridgeway ones). A quarter of the country has gone zero tolerance in the last 5 years…

Norfolk (cops) do let stuff happen still (they only clamp down for stupidity like Kan using in use warehouses), even Thames Valley which is supposed to be on zero tolerance has let a fair few happen, but cops are only half the problem.

The other is the organisation being way sketchier than even 3 or 4 years ago, and people barely older than yourself already burning out through too much drugs, friendships falling apart etc.. I get the impression a lot of people are “going through the motions” rather than enjoying the parties like they once were..

Oh, and gangs rather than Scotland yard was what has fucked over the London scene (its driven many crews back into legal venues or made them quit altogether)

the early 90s weren’t a good time at all – but within a few years an artificial boom happened from the dot com days and it was at that time the underground party scene actually flourished in a lot of areas.

Though Exodus did try to publicise their ethos in the early 90s, (as did Kan) a lot of people didn’t bother looking into the wider picture of what Exodus were doing until the late 90s when they thought “hey man, they are getting away with growing weed!”

Then Exodus fucked up and didn’t deliver what they promised. Kan got themselves into heroin abuse and petty theft, hence the feds being constantly on their case to this day.

maybe, but a lot of the people partying today no longer want to (or know how to) build the networks, especially when they involve actual hard work rather than just drugs and music and people getting together for more than 12 hours for a ketamine binge.

I was talking about “wider communities” and going beyond raving on here and SJ in 2003 and no fucker really seemed to be interested, and that situation hasn’t changed.

the rave I referred to at the start of this thread which went tits up didn’t even get hassled by cops. If people can no longer put on a positive rave in the first place even without “dirty babylon” hassling them, how on earth can they be expected to build a wider community?

sorry, but other than a few youth shelters that isn’t the case in my area (other than clampdowns on crime etc) there was a councilor claiming to be “sticking up for the youth” but he was a tory and he is on remand now for noncing young girls.#

even if people do show interest often no one can agree on the fundamentals here, stuff is talked about and delayed due to squabbling and wranglings.

anyway, its getting to the stage where other than family and a few close friends I’ve stopped caring about what happens in society any more – I’m not gonna be around much longer than 20-30 or so years on this earth (perhaps less even), and the rot won’t set in immediately – I don’t have kids so it doesn’t really matter all that much what happens..

I worked fucking hard for this comfort and security – I gave “grass roots activism” a try in my old city but it didn’t work out, it doesn’t seem to be working here and I think those who disagree with stuff (or some aspects of it) have a right to talk about it. isn’t that the fundamental aspect of free speech?

I did care once but I think now is the time to stop caring. Perhaps the only way to adapt is to wirte off the last few years, accept that otherwise my life is going really well and get on with MY life (but still trying to be a decent person and helping friends/family) instead of trying to “sort out the rest of society”