The Chemical Elements

But I wanted to live in the moment. I wanted to work for six months then spend the next six buying records, fancy trousers and going to nightclubs. You could do things like that back then, in the early 80s … you could get a job then jack it in. Also there was a more slapdash approach to the benefits system. You'd go and sign on and in the queue would be chaps head to toe in brick dust. Or someone with a tool bag and spirit level slung over his shoulder. You could spot a blagger a lot easier back then, which was pretty much what I was.

Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a structureless group. Any group of people of whatever nature that comes together for any length of time for any purpose will inevitably structure itself in some fashion. The structure may be flexible; it may vary over time; it may evenly or unevenly distribute tasks, power and resources over the members of the group. But it will be formed regardless of the abilities, personalities, or intentions of the people involved. The very fact that we are individuals, with different talents, predispositions, and backgrounds makes this inevitable. Only if we refused to relate or interact on any basis whatsoever could we approximate structurelessness -- and that is not the nature of a human group.

I think we’ve all rebelled against it, reviled it (what was minimal more than a gag reflex, a backlash, and the soundtrack to the bloodless achievement of anhedonia after 48 hours on the gear?) but I for one think we should all be concerned by what happened to those shared, loose, social spaces of warm engagement generated by earlier countercultures; angry about how they were transformed into tight, cool (or even cold) privative spaces full of superstars, VIPs, angry bouncers, overpriced drinks, and permissive repression – dance, but keep your hat on, your clothes on, your eyes open, consume, consume, consume, obey the beat, obey the situation, obey the drug, shut up, dance, wave your glowstick, or get the fuck out. Yes, it’s true: there are about six good nightclubs in the world. Maybe a dozen, if you’ve had a few drinks or the pills are good. The rest of them suck. And yet, most people working in groove-based electronic music are utterly dependent on these shitty venues, full of shitty, stiff rules and shitty, shiny people, in order to turn a dime. In the main, electronic music, as a space in the 00s, has been sat on and partly squashed by bleak nightclubs and big box festivals, with some (growing, I think) spaces of hope in the interstices where interesting, creative things still can happen. We should pause and consider the fact that Berghain, for all its flaws, is almost unique. In most cities, in most countries in the world, Berghain would be impossible. And yes, there are exceptions, but they are exceptions. If you want anecdotal ‘proof’ of this, ask anyone you know who’s into music, even into electronic music, but who has not been part of the ‘dance scene’, what they think of it, and they’ll say: queues, expensive drinks, cocks on coke in sunglasses, crazy set times fuelled by amphetamine abuse, bad sound systems, rude staff, violent ‘security’… There are plenty of music scenes that are in to drugs; the ‘dance scene’ is, for the most part, a drug scene that’s kinda in to music – but only the kind of music that enhances being on drugs, and only the kinds of drugs compatible with hedonistic consumerism. And hey, maybe nightclubs are good spaces for these kinds of explorations; I personally think they are also mostly quite hostile to the development of interesting music and social life.

[aside] This war has reached its zenith. I can ascend politics using my historical materialist outlook and bring this to a close