Born in London 1977 - raised in London till 1988
Some might think thats cool but thats not entirely true, allow me to elaborate...
I grew up in Acton, West London, in one of the notrious council estates that during the 80's was a place of fear and degradation of the soul and as you can imagine my family wanted to leave the big city, asap!!
Life on the estate was tedious for me as I had to be within my parents view whenever I wanted to go out because they were afraid of what might happen, which is not suprising when you consider what regularly occurred on the south Acton estate; occurances such as murders, drug-overdoses, armed robberies, sheer brute thuggary, racist attacks, rape, paedophilia, alcohol abuse and child neglect were all the norm, the constant sound of car alarms and police sirens filled the air day and night, along with the constant sound of traffic.
On a lighter note; the sounds of the nearby industries captivated my interest as did the other constant sounds of London; people yelling, Reggae music pumping out of flats on the 23rd floor being competed with by the punks with their Sid Vicious and so on, the iron wheels of trains in the distance screeching over the steel tracks, the tube trains thundering along in the tunnels underneath the great city (probably the most influential of all the sounds in my chilhood) some kid (probably myself) kicking an empty coke can on the streets of the concrete jungle, market stalls with fruit and veg traders yelling their various good deals on their wares and the old-skool hip-hop sounds provided by the breakdancers and their Brixton Suitcases! (Brixton Suitcase is a portable stereo).
My family and I left the horrificness of London at the end of the filofax era and we headed to somewhere totally unlike London - the east coast of Yorkshire. From one complete shithole to another only this one far more feeble than the previous one.
The world of chavs, boy racers, ski jackets, shell suits, and day-glo everything as well as the newly emerged rave culture which raced into full swing, but I was only 11y/o at the time.
Despite moving to a poorer area of the country my family were still one of the more worse-off families in our new hometown, which of course lead to further torture from my "friends", however it was in my early teens while living in this boring shithole that I discovered I had the talent of being a bloody good athelete, especially in the middle and long distance running events.
I also became a champion cross-country runner and before I left school I captained both the athletics team and the cross country team in the inter-school competitions.
I had to do something with my life at the time because this former seaside hotspot called Withernsea has to be the arsehole of the country, no longer worth the jaunt down from Hull, York or Leeds as it was in the days before the revolution of the leisure and tourism industry. Still with its seaside promenade in tact if not the pier, the amusement arcades flickering, and squeaking, constantly repeating themselves day-in, day-out.
During my time at Hull College I discovered, thanks to the lucid rhyming of Cypress Hill and the hard-hitting Ice Cube, the wonderful world of smokin weed and the other wonderful world of Gabba music!
Of course there was no Gabba parties in my area because the incest ridden area of deepest east Yorkshire cannot understand music that veers slightly more toward the extreme, were only interested in poxy trance and techno.
I had to travel all the way to Doncaster to get some hard 909 pummelling of the brain at the Doncaster Warehouse and experiment for the first time with class A drugs such as speed and E. At first I went with a couple of friends but decided it was a lost cause when I found myself going to and from "Donny" on 'me todd.'
The moment I felt I was mature enough I left home.
Spent a year in Sussex in a place called Lewes near Brighton and at the time couldn't find anyone my own age who wasn't interested in making other peoples lives hell, not my idea of fun, couldn't find any raves that didn't cater for just happy hardcore and jungle with the same 7DJ's and really fuckin awful, music raping MC's, playing at every event, so I buggered off back to Yorkshire.
This lasted all of one year then, after going to the huge and famous Rezerrection parties in Edinburgh, I met a bunch of really sound geordies (folks from Newcastle) and started to go to parties with them, namely Nosebleed in Edinburgh and Judgement Day in Newcastle. Finally I was really getting the injection of Gabba and Speeedcore which I ultimately truely desired at that time.
I eventually moved to Newcastle to the beautiful council estate known as Cruddas Park (the name alone conjours some pretty piss poor images in the mind) but had a bloody good time of it.
Started going out to all different kinds of clubs, can't remember the names of the clubs but the music was always varied from the likes of Squarepushers experimental sound, technical itch, Ed Rush & Optical for drum n bass and loads of local hip-hop artists pulling off truly fantastic nights at the World Headquarters and at the Uni, as well as the Gabba parties which I loved so much.
I also managed to build up a huge friend base of some of the most brilliant and hilarious folks ever!
Newcastle is a great city; plenty of stuff to do, drugs easily available, public transport is not only cheap but pretty comprehensive too, it was never a problem getting from A to B except when I hadn't paid the Metro fare and the inspectors got on!
I went from the rags of Cruddas Park to the riches of South Gosforth where I lived for a short time with a couple of skunk dealers which all went a bit pear shaped toward the end with one of them going really pear-shaped as he became a paranoid schizophrenic, manic depressive as he was swimming in pools of cocaine which he should have been selling, leaving the rest of us with a lot of tricky stuff to sort out, so due to this stress and the stress of living in FUCKIN ENGLAND with all its bullshit I left for pasturtes greener, - The Netherlands, namely The Hague!
I loved it smoking in Coffeeshops without a worry of consequences because unlike virtually any other country on the face of this beleagured planet, there were no consequences.
Squatting wasn't considered devil worshipping as it seems to be in the UK and good clean squats thrived all over the place allowing people to live certainly in a more cost effective manner, this also meant ther was a lot of scope for illegal parties which all played Tekno.
Since discovering Teknival (a travelling tekno festival in which huge soundsystems from all over Europe gather in one place completely illegally after hoaxing the old bill to a point where they give up to have a week-long sometimes two, outdoor rave where no-one sleeps, they just take more drugs and dance!) in France some years earlier, I was well up for what was to come in the way of partying over the next few years.
Not only did I find tekno parties locally but I also discovered huge noise festivals in Germany such as the Fuck Parade (anti love parade) and Maschinenfest and other large parties in Belgium and sometimes France, hosting top experimental and breakcore artists pushin, what was for me a new kind of sound: oh my fuckin god, I've found it, I've found the music I can really relate to!
As you can probably recognize for yourself my musical tastes are my life, I'm into a broad spectrum of electronic music ranging from harsh noise, speedcore, grime, dubstep, breakcore, industrial electronica and to the most ambient soundscapes with a little digital hip-hop thrown in there for good measure, complicated mashup jungle/experimental beat patterns are probably my most favoured style.
Anyway, all of which can be classed as underground.
Being a complete anorak for this kind of music I listen to it whenever I can, I organise gigs here in the south west for touring artists from foreign lands, I have one in the pipeline right now!
On a political level I'm worried, I'm worried that nothing is gong to change and we shall plummet deeper and deeper into world turmoil.
This turmoil is neglecting the environment, which is the very thing that keeps us alive, not oil.
I like to take a realistic point of view but my hopes for the planet as a whole are probably more unreal.
I would like to see a revolution of the people on a global scale and an overthrowing of western governments, disarming of nuclear powers and so on.
See what I mean about unreal.
These topics will hopefully be covered in my blogs and things.
Keep smiling people, it can only get better!
****(Jesus!!! I sound like the most dreadfully boring, resentful, pessimistic bastard ever, well I'm not, I'm actually quite a cheerful bloke, no seriously!!)****
;-))
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