Spiral Tribe

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Spiral Tribe was a free party soundsystem which existed in the first half of the 1990s. The collective originated in west London and later travelled across Europe and North America. According to one member, the name came to him when he was at work, staring at a poster of the inter-connecting spirals in an ammonite shell [1]. The group had a huge influence on the emerging free tekno subculture. Members of the collective released seminal records on their label, Network 23.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] England

From 1990 until 1992, Spiral Tribe were responsible for numerous parties, raves and festivals [2] in indoor and outdoor locations. These mainly occurred in the south of England. The largest and most famous party the group organised was the Castlemorton Common Festival free party in May 1992. Thirteen members of the group were arrested immediately after the Castlemorton event and were subsequently charged with public order offences.[3] Their trial became one of the longest running and most expensive cases in British legal history, lasting four months and costing the UK tax payer £4 million. (1999:373)[4] Regarding Castlemorton, Nigel South states that "the adverse publicity attending the event laid the groundwork for the Criminal Justice Act 1994" [5]. Low and Burnett opine in Spaces of Democracy that "Spiral Tribe, with their free and inclusive parties, succeeded in constituting an alternative public space, rather than just a secret one. Though no one could say how many lives were touched in their three year tour of duty". (2004:217) [6]

[edit] Parties

Date Location Comments
October 1990 The school house, north west London. First real party organised by Spiral Tribe
July 1991 Longstock The displaced Stonehenge Summer Solstice free festival
July 1991 Bala, Wales
9-12 August 1991 Liphook, Surrey Torpedo Town
August 1991 Chelmsford The entire crew got arrested, then released without charge. They moved to another location, where they again got shut down
August 1991 The Cisbury Ring festival, held on a picnic area near Arundel Castle Two rival gangs attacked each other and a car was set ablaze. There were also two stabbings.
August Bank holiday 1991 The White Goddess festival for 2 weeks on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall They they combined their sound system with Circus Normal (to achieve a sound system of over 25,000 watts RMS) receiving complaints from over 14 miles away. Despite police pressure they partied on until all of the partygoers went home. The event was attended along with a number of other sound systems including Circus Warp and DIY.
September 1991 The Arches, Deptford
October 1991 North west London The green house party
October 1991 Kent The Village Idiots festival
November 1991 Brewery Road
Christmas and New Year's Eve 1991 The Camden Round House, North London. The power was stolen from a light socket owned by British Rail at the back of the building and the system went off at 6:30 in the morning when they turned the lights off. Someone then found an alternative power source.
January 1992 Blackwall tunnel
February 1992 York Road, King's Cross
February 1992 Numbers Farm, Kings Langley, Hertfordshire.
March 1992 Tubney woods Done with the Bedlam sound system
March 1992 Swindon
April 1992 Chobham Common
April 30 – March 3 1992 Lechlade 15,000 people
May 1992 Castlemorton Common Festival
June 4 1992 Canada Square, next to Canary Wharf, London. About 1,000 people manage to dance for a little over an hour before 300 police seal off roads and move in to make arrests.
August 1992 The Cisbury Ring festival The police allowed it to go on over three different sites. The system was supplied by Big Life Records, it also got split up, and at the end of the parties it was misplaced by a number of different tribe members to re-surface in Europe and around London.

[edit] Europe

In March 1993, after being acquitted of all charges relating to Castlemorton, the group moved to Europe, doing parties in cities such as Rotterdam, Paris and Berlin. Over the next few year, the collective organised parties and teknivals throughout Europe, then it slowly dispersed with some members taking up residence in Germany and Holland and releasing work on Labworks and many other techno labels. Individual members of the collective joined other sound systems, did squat art events or pursued other interests.

From the summer of 1994 a number of free parties were organised by Spiral Tribe members throughout Europe. When the parties were large festivals with an open invitation to other sound systems and artists to participate, they came to be known as teknivals. In tribute to this collective, the type of music predominantly played at early teknivals came to be known as spiral tekno. Parties included the following [7][8]:

  • Montpellier, France. May 1, 1993.
  • Paris, France. June 19, 1993.
  • Berlin, German. June 26, 1993.
  • Berlin, Germany. December 31, 1993 at the Tacheles squat.
  • Hostomice, Czech Republic. July 28, 1994. First year of festival later known as CzechTek.
  • Vienna, Austria. August 27, 1994.
  • Vienna, Austria. December 31, 1994.
  • CzechTek, Czech Republic. July 26, 1995.
  • Rome, Italy. December 31, 1995.
  • Milan, Italy. May 11, 1996.
  • CzechTek, Czech Republic. July 26, 1996.
  • Vienna, Austria. September 14, 1996.
  • Prague, Czech Republic. November 30, 1996 at the Cibulka squat.
  • Vienna, Austria. April 11, 1998.

[edit] United States of America

Some members of Spiral Tribe toured the United States of America in 1996 and were hosted by Pirate Audio and S.P.A.Z. Soundsystems on a coast-to-coast free tekno party tour.

In 1997 Spiral Tribe toured America with a full rig and crew, joining forces once again with free party systems. They were instrumental in the initiation of the Autonomous Mutant Festival in July of that year.

[edit] The number 23

From its inception, the group was obsessed by the number 23. Images for musical releases, posters, backdrops and flyers featured the number 23. Parties were often organised on the twenty third day of the month. Members sometimes recorded under the moniker of SP23 and of course the record label itself was called Network 23.

Previously other famous figures, especially in the Literary world, had also been obsessed with this number. William Burroughs for example littered his stories with it and was fond of stringing together any encounter with the number to prove that it did not appear coincidentally. He was often fond of recounting his meeting with a ferry captain by the name of Clark, who claimed to have been sailing the same route without an accident for 23 years. That very day, however, the ferry sank, killing all aboard. Later that day, Burroughs was thinking about Clark's ferry accident when he heard that a Flight 23 on a New York-Miami route had crashed. Burroughs recounted how the pilot's name for the flight had also been Clark.

[edit] Music

In 1992, some members of the collective signed to the major label Big Life, as a result of the publicity generated from their involvement in the organisation of the Castlemorton Common Festival. Three EPs were released and two albums, one merely a compilation of the tracks from the EPs, the other a full album entitledTekno Terra.

Members of Spiral Tribe also released records on their own highly influential label Network 23.

Simon Reynolds described music at a Spiral Tribe rave in 1992 as follows: "one Spiral-affiliated outfit plays a set of undanceably fast, stiffly regimented, metallic beats that sounds like ball bearings rattling around in a concrete pipe". (1999:172) [9]

In 1997, Techno Import, a French commercial distributor compiled a CD entitled Spiral Tribe The Sound of Teknival .The CD consisted of previously licenced material via Big Life Music, Rabbit City, Drop Bass Network and Force Inc. It was released without any consent being given by members of Spiral Tribe, was advertised on television and sold at least 30,000 copies. Spiral Tribe made a statements against its release which began F**k Techno Import, Spiral Tribe Is Not For Sale and had to take quick action to ensure the name Spiral Tribe was not copyrighted by Techno Import.

[edit] Discography

[edit] 12" releases (Chronologically)

  • U Make Me Feel So Good
  • Breach The Peace
  • Forward The Revolution
  • Forward The Revolution (The Youth Remix)
  • Spiral Tribe EP
  • Sirius 23
  • Spiral Tribe Sound System (The Album)
  • Tecno Terra
  • Don't Take The Piss
  • Definitely Taking Drugs
  • Expekt The Unxpekted
  • SP 23
  • Panasonic
  • Power House
  • Power House 02
  • Probably Taking Drugs
  • Spiral Tribe 1
  • Spiral Tribe 2
  • Spiral Tribe 3
  • Spiral Tribe 4
  • Spiral Tribe 5
  • Full Fill Fromage
  • Strange Breaks
  • Fac'em If They Can't Tek A Joke

Note: They also released EP 23 No. 1 No. 2 and No. 3 (World Domination Part 1, 2 and 3), as well as a few untitled promo CDs, and another one simple referred to as EP - but there is little documentation about these vinyls.

Network 23 Repress

[edit] Remixes

[edit] Tracks Appear On

  • Shamanarchy In The UK
  • Survival! The Dance Compilation
  • Technohead - Mix Hard Or Die
  • World Traveller Adventures
  • Aid Asia Compilation

[edit] Quotations

  • It is our purpose to destroy the inertia that has been responsible for the demise of the life force on our planet. It's time to wake the planet up! (from Tekno Terra)
  • Make some f**kin' noise! (from Breach the Peace)
  • Spiral Tribe in the area (from numerous flyers)
  • You might stop the party but you can't stop the future (from Forward the Revolution).

[edit] Recent news

A DVD has been released called World Traveller Adventures in an echo of a track (World Traveller Adventurer) on an early Spiral Tribe record, Forward the Revolution. One of the four films, 23 Minute Warning (the name again taken from an early Spiral Tribe record, this time Breach The Peace) features interviews with several members of the collective [10].

In 2005, the label Network 23 Repress was set up to rerelease sought-after and still-played tracks from the Spiral Tribe back catalogue. Eight records have so far been brought out in the series.

[edit] References

Notes
  1. ^ http://www.uncivilizedworld.com/WTA_en.php3
  2. ^ http://www.beyondtv.org/beyondtv/page.php/376/soma/
  3. ^ Reynolds, S. (1999) Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture Routledge ISBN 0-415-92373-5
  4. ^ Brewster B. & Broughton F., 1999, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey, Grove Press, ISBN 0-8021-3688-5
  5. ^ ed. South N., 1999, Drugs: Cultures, Controls and Everyday Life, SAGE Publications, ISBN 0-7619-5235-7
  6. ^ ed. Low M. and Barnett C., 2004,Spaces of Democracy: Geographical Perspectives on Citizenship, Participation and Representation,SAGE Publications, ISBN 0-7619-4734-5
  7. ^ http://www.elektrokanibal.org/flyer23.html
  8. ^ http://parties.are.free.fr/flyers/spiraltribe.html
  9. ^ Reynolds, Simon (1999) Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture, Taylor & Francis, ISBN 0-415-92373-5
  10. ^ http://www.uncivilizedworld.com/WTA_en.php3

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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