Class of '88

by Wayne Anthony

  Whenever I listened to the pirates, I’d have the record button constantly paused, waiting for that wicked track that I’d heard Carl Cox playing the previous night. The pirates were marketed solely to party people and so, if promoters needed to make an urgent announcement, we’d call the studio directly. Within seconds, the DJs would then repeat what they’d been told over the airwaves.

  This was another useful tool in our race against the police and provided us with instant access to the public at large. The pirate boys had it completely sussed and had transmitters plotted all over London. As soon as the Department of Trade and Industry found one transmitter and temporarily cut them off, another one would be broadcasting within minutes. The DTI couldn’t win.

  The pirate guys were as organised as we were, and good luck to them. They were earning good money back in 1989 but, if they weren’t consistent, us promoters wouldn’t use them. Of course, we of all people knew that things could always go wrong, but at the end of the day our objectives were to promote the gigs. We weren’t going to pay money out to a station to be cut off for weeks, but if it took them a day to organise we could cope with that.

  The proper firms had it sorted. If they lost one transmitter they would switch to another, and if that one went down too, there’d be another fallback. The switchover wouldn’t usually last longer than an hour, then it would all be back to normal. The commercials that the pirates broadcast on the hour could last for fifteen minutes because there were so many of them. Each promoter was paying at least £100, so it was in the station’s best interests to be organised and stay on top of things.

  I went to one of the studio set-ups on the top floor of a tower block. Its doorway was cemented with bits of concrete and iron, wired up to car batteries. When the council, police or DTI tried to go anywhere near the studio entrance, the door would be electrified, sending shock spasms through anybody who touched it. We had to get on to the roof via the stairway and then practically abseil down on to the balcony. It was pretty scary shit.

  The DJs used to lower their record boxes down on a rope before they could climb into the studio. A lot of the guys were so used to doing this death-defying feat that they would be jumping and swinging into the window. After I saw that, I would happily give them my money because they would actually risk life and limb to ensure that the show went on.

  To a large degree, the stations were responsible for bringing House music out of the clubs and parties and exposing the brand-new sound to the masses. One summer day in 1989 we were listening to a pirate station and a DJ was playing a wicked set. Then the DJ announced that the DTI and a police squad were trying to break the fully secured studio door down. He was telling everyone to keep the vibe alive, and continue dancing no matter what. Listening intently to the broadcast, our hearts went out to them. We faintly heard some shouting before the needle was dragged across the record and a loud, deep voice started speaking.

  ‘Good evening, listeners,’ it said. ‘This is the police. I’m afraid to say this station has reached the end of the road. I just want to say what a good job our officers have done on this warm summer evening. We’re going to play one last record which is dedicated to my team, our colleagues down at the station who are all listening, the officers out there fighting crime on the streets of London, and Acid party promoters. We want you all to remember that Big Brother is always watching. We’ve brought a record with us especially for this occasion and it’s the theme from Hill Street Blues: the Scotland Yard remix. This is DC Jones on the wheels of steel playing the last record you’ll ever hear on this station.’

  On another occasion we were listening to a station when the DJ announced that his car had been stolen and described the make, model, colour and registration. He asked anyone who spotted the car to report the sighting to the police immediately. Within an hour, not only had someone spotted the motor but the suspect was in protective custody and the DJ had recovered the vehicle.

  Another pirate announcement that I heard said: ‘This is a message to the geezers who nicked my motor. If there’s even a scratch on that bodywork you are going to regret ever setting eyes on it. I hope you like my friends, because they’re going to bring you to the studio. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a fine example that crime sometimes doesn’t pay!’ I don’t know what happened to the thief but, given the choice, I bet he’d have preferred to get nicked …

  ACID HOUSE GOES ORBITAL

  The M25 played a major role in getting party people from all around the country together on one route. It was easy enough to set roadblocks up on inner-London roads but to do so on motorways was virtually impossible. So, our struggle went orbital.

  The key to ensuring the party would go ahead as planned was to locate a venue in the Home Counties, or just within the M25. Then you’d name two service stations as the meeting points, making sure they weren’t too close together. When the service station car parks were full, promoters would send someone to head a convoy to the venue, which could easily contain as many as 3,000 cars. We found that if you did this in London the police would block certain routes and begin splitting everyone up. This worked in their favour because, once the crowds were dispersed, the police would close the party down and confiscate the equipment.

  Soon, at least 25,000 party animals would be converging on the M25 each weekend, searching for a party to attend and go radio rental. You would instantly recognise your fellow revellers. Their car stereos were at full-blast, their heads were bopping and they were constantly on the look out for other party people. Once you’d established contact, the first words spoken were invariably: ‘Where’s the party, mate?’

  Most of the time nobody knew where they were going. You either followed other cars, or else your map. You could be on the motorway for hours and still not find the party, and you’d end up telephoning the recorded-information line several times for clues you may have missed on previous calls.

  However, the best buzz of all was driving in convoy to the event, especially if they were heading in the right direction. You’d start off with ten cars, and as you hit the motorways cars would join the trail of vehicles or drive side by side. Because the venue address was released at a set time, everybody would converge on the roads pretty much simultaneously.

  One night we were on a major motorway en route to a party outside London. There must have been 500 cars riding in a convoy in the slow and middle lanes, and we travelled at speeds of less than 40 mph, so as not to lose anyone. It was a real adrenaline rush to look in your mirror and see nothing but headlights, stretching back as far as the eye could see.

  We were among the first twenty cars, so we could see what was ahead. In the far distance we spotted blue and red flashing lights – and a lot of them. As we drew closer, we could see that it was a roadblock. The Old Bill had actually blocked a major motorway and the blockade was six cars across and three deep, with about 30 officers standing in front of their vehicles.

  The police were giving us the hand signal to stop so we slowed to a crawl and came to a halt. Everyone started getting out of their cars and walking towards the blockade. The police were yelling at us to get back in our vehicles. Nobody was listening, and by now there were 300 people standing at the head of the convoy. One officer picked up a megaphone and told us that the party had been stopped and there was another roadblock ten miles ahead.

  The officer said that we all had to turn around at this junction and go back to wherever we’d come from. Fuck that! We stood defiantly on the roofs of our cars and began to clap and somebody shouted: ‘Street party!’ A loud cheer echoed into the night sky and music began blasting from all the cars. We were dancing and clapping in the middle of a motorway. It was a full-on road party (the Reclaim the Streets promoters would have been proud of us!).

  The police didn’t know what to do. Although we were defying their orders, nobody was acting in a threatening manner. It wasn’t a potential riot situation; in fact it was the other motorists who were angry and doing their nut at the Ol
d Bill. Fifteen minutes later the police opened the roadblock and let us through. Then, as we approached the second block further down the road, the cars just moved to one side. The party hadn’t been stopped and 6,000 people turned up.

  On another occasion the police blocked an A road two minutes from the party venue. We were so close that we could see the party’s flashing lights across a country field. Determined to reach the event, people began parking on the hard shoulder and making their way across marshlands towards the lights. There were about 50 policemen with dogs, and 2,000 ticket-holders. In the end, Dibble had no choice but to unblock the road. We got to the party thrilled to bits that we’d made it: we’d been rushing, sitting in the car, for over an hour.

  Two hours later it was announced that the police were towing away the cars that had been parked on the hard shoulder. Scores of people left to check their motors and returned half an hour later to say that about 25 tow-trucks were taking the cars away. That night, over a hundred cars were taken to various police pounds around the motorway.

  And the police operations didn’t end there. Service stations around the M25 were also blocked by riot squads. However, it wasn’t just partygoers who were trapped by the roadblocks: everyone in the service station was stopped from leaving. Although ticket-holders expressed their anger to Dibble at being penned in and having their civil rights obliterated, the threat of violence was nonexistent.

  Admittedly, a group of over a thousand people will generate a lot of noise but there was never a threat of physical violence. The ticket-holders didn’t need to cause trouble: ordinary road users gave the riot squads enough abuse without our aid. The roadblocks could last from one to five hours and nobody was allowed in or out. Can you imagine the tension that this caused?

  We party people were used to this kind of treatment because the media and the authorities had basically given the police licence to do with us as they pleased. In our eyes, this was just another weekend of catch-and-chase. However, the other road users were outraged by the police’s measures to stop people reaching their destinations. They often expressed resentment, and practically started violence between themselves and the squads. Then, the following day, newspapers would publish stories of how families were trapped in service stations with thousands of drugged-up criminals, fearing for their lives and the safety of their children. It was the kind of unfairness we soon became used to. But would the authorities have agreed to mount a similar assault against more ‘decent’, accepted members of society?

  CHEMICAL REACTIONS

  It’s impossible to separate the Acid House scene from Ecstasy and the other drugs that soundtracked it. In fact, a lot of people would argue that the scene WAS the drugs and that anybody who had never taken Ecstasy could never begin to understand what was going on. Now, I’m not condoning or recommending drug use in this book, but I can’t deny that chemicals have given me a lot of fun, and memorable, moments.

  At one stage Keith and I got into the habit of dropping large amounts of Acid and doing absolutely radio rental things. Keith was going through a phase of spiking drinks with microdots, which was absolute murder. I’d go around his place in the morning and get offered tea and toast, then half an hour after I’d eaten the munch, he’d say, ‘Are you buzzing?’ He caught me a few times, until I got wise and never accepted food or drink from him.

  Keith bought 100 microdots so that he could spike as many people in one night as possible. It reached a stage where he was throwing the small seedlike trips at tables crammed with drinks. Nobody knew which glasses were contaminated or who was the culprit responsible for the unexpected headfuck.

  Anyway, we were on the sniff one night when Keith challenged anyone to drop a dot and parachute from an aeroplane. He even offered a grand to the lunatic that did it, and I said that I’d also bung a grand into the kitty for the person with balls enough to jump.

  We’d pulled some gorgeous Italian models a few weeks earlier and they’d been with us ever since our meeting. They thought we were crazy and, looking back on it, we were totally off our nut. It was the ‘what do you give a man with everything?’ scenario. We constantly lived such a high life that it all became boring and so we just constantly thought of ways to achieve the ultimate rush.

  They say money doesn’t bring you happiness, and I agree, but it is a good way of keeping the mind occupied. However, I certainly wouldn’t contemplate now doing the dumb things we did back then. Nobody was willing to accept the aeroplane challenge, but secretly I had always yearned to jump from a plane. Fuck it! I threw the gauntlet down and challenged Keith to jump with me; he accepted without a second’s hesitation. There was no money at stake – just red-blooded pride. A pal of ours named Touch had recently passed his pilot’s test and treated himself to a twin-engine aeroplane. He used to hang out with a guy, Steve, who had spent seven years in the parachute regiment and done over 300 jumps. Between them, they had enough equipment for six people to take the plunge.

  We got Touch on the blower there and then and made an arrangement to meet at a private airfield a few days later. On the morning of the jump we dropped a microdot at 10 a.m. Our terrifying ordeal was scheduled for 1 p.m., so we wanted to be sure that we were at peaking point before our big test.

  Some friends and the Italian girls came with us to witness our death-defying feat and we drove in convoy to the airfield where we met Touch and Steve. A quick glance at the planes in the hangar started twitches inside my gut. I looked over at the runway, where four magnificent rainbows stretched from one side of the sky to the other. I couldn’t point this out to the others, because at this point I started rethinking what I was about to attempt and felt so nervous that I couldn’t speak.

  Steve was a professional and took us to a patch of grass where he showed us some breakfalls for when we were coming in to land. We went over the emergency pull-tag procedures in case things went horribly wrong. Keith was in hysterics but I could tell it was a nervous laugh. He was just as scared as me.

  What the fuck am I doing here? I was asking myself. Let’s just swallow my pride. What is there to prove? An internal war was waging, but the moment of truth had come.

  ‘OK, lads, zero hour approaches. Let’s get the kit on,’ said Steve.

  We couldn’t tell him we were tripping because he’d have gone mad and not allowed us to jump. We went to the plane in the hangar. Keith, Steve and I were the only ones who were going to go for it. The plane looked frighteningly small. Were we really going to do this?

  Steve strapped us into our chutes and I heard every G-clip being snapped into place. Touch started the plane’s twin propellers and a swarm of butterflies in my stomach sprang to life. I felt an urge to quote a Tom Cruise line from the movie Top Gun and turned to Keith. ‘I feel the need, the need for speed,’ I said, luckily waking him from the trance of his tab. We gave it loads to our pals and climbed into the body of the metal dragonfly. Steve told us not to forget to close our mouths as we fell because the G-force would have us dribbling all over our faces.

  There were just four of us on the plane. It tore along the runway and took flight. It was a clear afternoon with blue skies, so I tried to focus on the beauty of Mother Earth. But the drugs were too strong and I kept seeing the maddest images. At one stage there was a huge Michelin man hopping from cloud to cloud; each move that he made freeze-framed across the sky. He stopped and looked directly at me and I closed my eyes. He was sitting cross-legged on a magic carpet and mimicking my facial expressions. Then, suddenly, the padded balloon-man clapped his hands and disappeared in a cloud of pink smoke.

  I opened my eyes and looked around the aircraft. The occupants were all staring at me, and Steve asked if I was OK.

  Keith was having a laughing fit. ‘He’s nervous, can’t you tell?’ he said, laughing at me.

  The most important thing was not to give the game away. ‘Of course I’m all right,’ I said. Keith was holding it down but I knew him like a brother and he was shitting himself. The colours in the s
ky were so intense that I felt energy vibrating from them.

  Steve was looking out of the window and gave us the thumbs-up signal. ‘The drop zone at 7,000 feet is approaching.’

  I didn’t want to jump first and neither did Keith so we flicked a coin. I lost. Before the horror could truly sink in I stood up, hooked my backpack to the static line and moved towards the exit.

  Standing by the small door and looking down towards the ground affected my breathing. Every muscle in my body tightened up. Any slight movement could send me flying through the air. My grip on the metal handle by the side of the door wouldn’t loosen. The jump procedure was for the jumpmaster to tap the arm that was holding the handle as a signal to jump. Steve did so, and my fear seemed to neutralise for a brief moment. Then, suddenly, point break: a rush of 100% pure adrenaline, driven by one of the strongest hallucinogenics known to man!

  Once I had jumped out of the plane, several things happened simultaneously. First there was an incredible sense of weightlessness as I got sucked into the slipstream behind the plane. I was tossed around and couldn’t focus properly. The land and the plane quickly flickered on the edges of my vision.

  The static line pulled the chute out and it suddenly felt as if somebody was ripping my back off. I wished I was at home. My body was still in the same position as when I’d jumped and I was falling at a high velocity, reaching speeds of 80 mph. It seemed like for ever, but in reality it was merely seconds before everything slowed down and the force of the harness got stronger and stronger as the chute cushioned a large chunk of air and opened up fully. For a split second I was motionless and beheld the unique and spectacular beauty of nature. Now I was bouncing my way down, like a puppet on long strings, and the noise of the aeroplane faded until absolute silence reigned.

  I looked up for Keith but my chute was obscuring my view. However, I could see Steve and he was looking good, weaving from side to side. I wanted to try a few moves myself but the ground seemed to be closing in fast and, moving at high speed, I shaped my body into the landing position and prepared for impact.