Bleep's History of Techno

[funky_nomad]

Possibly the best (music) thread in the history of BCB. Awesome stuff.

[KeithPratt]

Wax Trax Records and the Industrial sound of the late 80's


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTgvExvAk2c

Industrial had already been born by 1987, but courtesy of fledgling label Wax Trax! in Chicago, the harder, metallic sounds of bands such as Ministry, Front 242, Skinny Puppy and 1000 Homo DJs synthesized with techno for a brief period before embracing the harder sound of metal in the early 90's. This music was heavily based on samples and drum machines. Chicago's industrial scene would have a hedonistic crossover for a very brief time with the clubbing scene, with DJs such as Ron Hardy sometimes playing Ministry or Front Line Assembly records.

Wax Trax, which also licensed Belgian label Play it Again Sam! would become one of the foremost electronic labels in the USA for a few years before experiencing lean times, distributing big UK bands such as Autechre and Underworld. Belgium and the Mid West would briefly have a big influence on the harder sound of techno as the eighties came to a close.

In the UK, taking their lead from Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, Scotland would produce Fini Tribe and slightly later, The Shamen, whose change from psychedelic rock amateurs to rave-orientated industrial synthesis would only take a couple of years. Further south, there was something a bit more funky in the sound - from Swindon emerged Meat Beat Manifesto, with a certain Jack Dangers involved, whilst in London the duo of Danny Briottet and Gary Asquith would meld hip-hop, bass, snatches of film soundtracks and industrial noise in a manner that to my ears pre-empts grime and dubstep by nearly 20 years. Essex mob Nitzer Ebb's "Join in the Chant" would become a bonafide Balearic/Techno crossover classic in 1988.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLTEYkDrH94

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxoe-xUYL8g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlEMJjAL0m0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7hOO9e_dXo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0HsjYtdAKM

Out of Vancouver came Skinny Puppy, originally formed by Cevin Key and Nivek Ogre in 1983, but joined by Bill Leeb in 1985. They released music on Nettwerk, a Canadian label that would become well-known for industrial through the 80's and 90's. Leeb would leave to form Front Line Assembly a couple of years later. KFMDM, originally from Germany, would relocate to the USA and enjoy a relative amount of success in the industrial/pop field. Also from Europe, Switzerland's Young Gods would begin in the same manner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTZaNQkrpJs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWKEzzgqLOw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlO0PGiUV8k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcQf8yCJfwE


Some of this music sounds very much of its time and hasn't dated well. In many respects though it was an intriguing period dominated by the novelty of the sampler, which dominates throughout. Many industrial bands would soon remove the drum machines and replace them with proper drummers, perhaps dissatisfied with the quality of sampling sound available at the time. Tellingly, it would be the bands in the UK that embraced the techno sound more openly.

Next : We travel to the shores of India for another important part in the growth of rave culture.

[Jock]

Finding this very interesting. Thanks Bleep

[the masked man]

This last post documents a scene I was very interested in at the time. Interesting that you mention the connection with metal, as it does lead into an interesting subgenre of metal, occupied by the likes of Fear Factory, Nine Inch Nails and Theatre of Tragedy.

I still listen to Finitribe a lot, and I've recently been buying a load of Nitzer Ebb albums (as they're going for £3 a throw at Fopp); these still sound very strong to me.

[KeithPratt]

Goa and the birth of Trance




Like Ibiza, the idyllic retreat of Goa in India, once part of the Portuguese empire, was already something of a hippy enclave long before electronic music had mutated into a throbbing disco pulse. Places like Vagator and Anjuna had new colonial masters, escapists who sought to retreat from the vagaries of everyday life with full moon parties celebrating acid rock during the 70's. Unlike the Balearics though, this was much more subsistence-level in its ambition, with little in the way of sophistication. There were no clubs, instead parties were held outdoors amongst the skeletal ruins of old empirical buildings.

By the mid-80's though, things began to change, though not without much opposition from Goa stalwarts who had been resident there for over a decade. A young frenchman called Laurent had arrived from Paris and started playing european dance music, mostly italo, ebm and new beat. Because of the high levels of dust, he played with professional tape Walkmans instead, often editing tracks to remove vocals, but with the intention of forming a slightly darker, more psychedelic sound that provided an aural accompaniment to the transition of night time to dawn. Although there were other DJs playing dance music in Goa at this time, Laurent's singular style was probably the biggest influence in the emergence of what would become "trance" music by the early 90's. We'll touch on that later because it needs a vital teutonic input via Frankfurt. Somewhat enigmatic in nature, Laurent still lives in Goa today.

Most of this has come from my friend Dave Mothersole, who visited Goa in the late 80's. You can read more of his article below.

http://www.bleep43.com/bleep43/2010/4/1 ... rance.html


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw97-0fL_Kw

Steve "Madras" Devas recounts how the change came from acid rock to techno.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6FznEt2bDY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwG5j9KdHWk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qnY5wyXOoY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrI715zi5YQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwzZ675nihI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-bf6wtMUqc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRCpHaA8RV4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0hfQZKOnuE

[KeithPratt]

Just a quick word to say that I've not forgotten about this thread, but am just collating more data about the next phase - from 1988/89 things pretty much explode across Europe so there's a lot of tracks and sub-genres to weave together into a coherent manner.

[C]

Robust stuff Toby

Robust stuff

You lost me at Kraftwerk and YMO but never mind

A good read and listen

Good lad






.

[KeithPratt]

Germany '87 - '90, the Love Parade and the emergence of Trance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymniv5WinPs

Two cities in Germany were at the heart of the emerging dance music scene. The very nature of Berlin meant that it would always become a beacon; young West Germans were encouraged to live there and thus avoid national service and the city was being pumped full of money by the West. The influence of two generations of electronic musicians from Conrad Schnitzler and the Zodiac club to Einsturzende Neubauten and Liaisons Dangereuses had propagated a city with the right sort of conditions for it to accept the freeform, party-anywhere culture that seemed to have techno and house at its centre. By the time the Berlin Wall fell down, the city would soon be a haven for parties with techno at its centre. Earlier that year Matthias Roenigh aka Dr Motte had started what would become arguably the world's biggest rave, The Love Parade, with around 150-200 people joining him and his wife on what was originally intended to be a celebration of his birthday and a political demonstration of sorts. The phrase "Friede, Freude, Eierkuchen" was bandied about - Peace, Joy and Pancakes. Within 10 years the Love Parade would be attracting upwards of one million people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4yb9T2uCeI

Given Kraftwerk's status as progenitors of electronic body music, techno and pop in Germany were more naturally aligned than perhaps anywhere else in the world, with the New Beat influence of Belgium also proving to be instrumental in its rise. The last album of music from the classic quartet of Hutter, Schneider, Bartos and Flur, Electric Cafe, had been a tortured affair, with its genesis starting in 1983. Originally called Technopop (and renamed in 2009) the album was apparently rerecorded in its entirety and then remixed in New York. Hutter allegedly went through something of a mental breakdown during this period (apparently having both a heart attack and a serious cycling accident) and the album's relatively subdued nature seemed to bring something of a halt to the band's creative output. Apart from 1991's The Mix and live tour, Kraftwerk's involvement with dance music was coming to an end for sometime. Their influence would be felt however through sampling; until sample clearance became more widespread in 1989, Kraftwerk were by far the most sampled band in dance music - samples of "Numbers", "Home Computer" and "The Robots" were endemic in the german music scene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFXaFFjp5WM

In their place would come a new generation of German techno musicians, many of whom are still active today. At this time this sound was a little basic and unrefined. Max Lenz (aka Westbam - Westphalia Bambatta) was typical of this new wave, releasing records that were very much in debt to both the UK rave sound and the New York groove of Todd Terry.

The other node of influence was Frankfurt, which had a burgeoning cosmopolitan club scene since the late 70's. The city's first real DJ was Talla 2XLC, who had been playing european new wave records and EBM since the start of the decade. He then started a clubnight called "Technoscene" in 1984, which moved to the now famous Dorian Gray club in 1987. Many within the scene seem to be quite defensive about the use of the term "techno" and both cities seem to lay claim to different definitions and who was first. The big difference between the two seems to be that the Frankfurt one has no real affinity with American techno - i.e one with a disco/house slant (i.e Chicago House). It is perhaps of no real surprise that Trance has a spiritual home in Frankfurt. In 1988 The Omen opened - and would become one of the most well-known trance clubs in the world, with residents such as Sven Vath becoming globally renowned DJs.

By 1990 the hypnotic element of techno emerged, encapsulated by records such as The Age of Love, which was one of the first proper trance records.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ET7loy0hC8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct_5jJV80dw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSPfK-lar3U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Grwz3cNb5Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rwia0qoK0sc

[Apollo's Frock]

@Bleep, like anything else I think there are lots of crossovers and ambiguity, what is definitive techno? Does the Reactivate series give it fair representation? And yesterday I was listening to Bam Bam's "Good Morning" - it's maybe tenuous to label this as techno? To me this is more towards happy hardcore, anyway The Orb sampled the very same cockerel in A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain, come to think of it, that bird has probably been around a bit!

[KeithPratt]

@Bleep, like anything else I think there are lots of crossovers and ambiguity, what is definitive techno? Does the Reactivate series give it fair representation? And yesterday I was listening to Bam Bam's "Good Morning" - it's maybe tenuous to label this as techno? To me this is more towards happy hardcore, anyway The Orb sampled the very same cockerel in A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain, come to think of it, that bird has probably been around a bit!

Well that's like saying Napalm Death is rock music or that a bird is an animal. I mean, it's all "techno" in some respects, in that the term can be liberally applied to anything electronic with a 4/4 beat over 100 bpm or so. But there are hundreds of genres nowadays. I'd say something like Bam Bam is hardcore techno - which emerged out of the "hardcore" scene in around 1992 to 1993. It was usually very fast - around 160 bpm or more. Happy Hardcore emerged out of that.

[Apollo's Frock]

@Bleep, like anything else I think there are lots of crossovers and ambiguity, what is definitive techno? Does the Reactivate series give it fair representation? And yesterday I was listening to Bam Bam's "Good Morning" - it's maybe tenuous to label this as techno? To me this is more towards happy hardcore, anyway The Orb sampled the very same cockerel in A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain, come to think of it, that bird has probably been around a bit!

Well that's like saying Napalm Death is rock music or that a bird is an animal. I mean, it's all "techno" in some respects, in that the term can be liberally applied to anything electronic with a 4/4 beat over 100 bpm or so. But there are hundreds of genres nowadays. I'd say something like Bam Bam is hardcore techno - which emerged out of the "hardcore" scene in around 1992 to 1993. It was usually very fast - around 160 bpm or more. Happy Hardcore emerged out of that.

Exactly this I think. Hardcore techno it is then and very good too. I was chatting with someone yesterday who remembered as I do those great days of the big shouts, Fabio, Faver, Grooverider etc.

Interesting about the BPM too, I never thought much about how fast hardcore was or got to. I quite like hard house which I think generally is around the 150 mark.

[Penk!]

Hurrah, this thread's back!

[KeithPratt]

The birth of Acid House and Rave - The UK '88 - '90



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivr57dcs9-E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3APKbMUJh-I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BgIXMuTg08

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzsmIvG3KaA

If there was a sea change in UK culture in the eighties, it was with the arrival of “acid house”. Madchester may have grabbed the attention of the music press a couple of years later, but the undercurrent of the former is still being felt today. Tabloid demonisation had little or no effect on young people wanting to stay up all night and dance to hypnotic music, often in huge numbers, in muddy fields. The second “Summer of Love” in 1988 didn’t have the same sort of tribal focus or attachment on specific events that previous movements had– there was no fictional account of being at the first Sex Pistols gig or being at Spike Island – but all around the country young people were having MDMA-induced musical epiphanies to Chicago house records at 4am in a field.

An era of huge outdoor illegal raves had begun, often reaching 10,000 or 15,000 people in size. These were often put together by shady chancers and elements of peripheral gang violence unfortunately was never far away, especially as MDMA was very much the clubber’s choice of stimulant. Perhaps the most important aspect of this new musical culture is that it broke down the perceived elitism of clubs and other many other social barriers – a new form of musical Esperanto that you could dance to allied with a new drug had a powerful effect. People you shared a dancefloor with became your best friend for a brief time.

In terms of the global amplification of electronic dance music, there is no doubt that the UK provided a dramatic catalyst to the whole movement. Detroit DJs such as Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May, rising stars on account of their records, would be playing to 5000 or 10000 people in the UK compared to 200-300 people back home. And with clubs like the Hacienda in Manchester and the more recently established Balearic sound of Shoom, Spectrum in London, the UK experienced something of a double-pronged musical assault.

As explained previously, the etymology of “Acid House” is a curious one. The term acid originally was slang for “hot” in Chicago and Phuture’s 1987 release “Acid tracks” had a TB-303 bass emulator used to provide a unique sound that would become an essential motif of dance music for years to come. After the initial impact of tracks such as S’Express and M/A/R/R/S in 1987, a new generation of Chicago house and Detroit techno -influenced producers would emerge, providing the bedrock for the next installment of British electronic music. It’s important to note that the innate disco influence on producers in Chicago and Detroit was not apparent here; although it sounds very obvious to say it, this was ultimately much more electronic - noisier, harsher and probably a lot more narcotic in intent.

Gerald Simpson's Derek and Clive sampling "Voodoo Ray" is the period's true anthem - a distinctive, slow-moving oscillating piece of weirdness that somehow became a clarion call for the time. Elsewhere, Simpson's original partners in crime, 808 State, would produce "Pacific State", a supreme moment of Balearic escapism melded to Detroit-style techno that embedded itself in the Top 10 in November 1989 alongside The Stone Roses' "Fool's Gold" and Happy Monday's "Wrote for Luck". Piggy-backing on the acid house movement was the brief phenomenon that was "Madchester".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jQ_bOP0HfY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfuKNUDs28g

Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty's protean KLF project had originated in 1987 but during this period they put out two big records - "What Time is Love" (sampling Anne Clark heavily in the process" and "3AM Eternal". Somehow, along with the ambient album "Chill Out" , they burnt their image indelibly onto the period even if their ultimate game was pop-culture terrorism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J51bRGbaA0

Peter Ford AKA Baby Ford grasped the dynamics of Chicago and Detroit early on and would proceed to become one of the UK's most endearing electronic music producers, with a career spanning over 2 decades.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E7dOvNZIJ8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yud19HbyzRM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JuL1cuS0qs




Although Sheffield had arguably already been host to a pivotal part of the UK's electronic music scene, it would soon experience another eruption. Steve Beckett and Rob Mitchell (RIP) met whilst working at FON records. In 1989 they launched Warp Records with Rob Gordon, initially releasing 500 copies of the Forgemaster's "Track with No Name". This was part of the nascent Sheffield "Bleeps and Bass" scene, which would crystallise into something much more vital, especially when Richard H Kirk released under his Sweet Exorcist moniker "Testone". By the middle of 1990, LFO's "LFO" would gatecrash the UK Top 10. An essential part of dance music's DNA and arguably the most vital label of the last 30 years in the UK was born.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ys9e2m0LTs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6BCK5GCDVo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HROMVIHGpLE

[funky_nomad]

Fuck, yeah!!!

[the masked man]

This thread is outstanding. I loved the Sheffield bleeps and beats scene, and all the early Warp stuff. Another classic of this type was Unique 3's 'The Theme'...though I seem to recall they were from Leeds.

[The Modernist]

Relieved to see no Guru Josh!

[Penk!]

This thread is outstanding. I loved the Sheffield bleeps and beats scene, and all the early Warp stuff.

For someone like me who came to it after the fact, the Warp stuff was vital in building my interest in electronic music. A lot of those records by people like LFO still sound fresh and new where there's always a danger that that kind of thing can date quickly.

[KeithPratt]

"LFO" was the record that probably changed everything in the UK really. It gave Warp a huge financial boost and they were able to start releasing compilations that in the early part of the nineties were defining statements of the time. From a production perspective too, it sounded very modern and futuristic and to be honest I don't think it's dated at all. In fact I'd probably drop it at parties more if it wasn't such a well-known record.

[KeithPratt]

New York 1987-1991

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-sJeTfXmQY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiPijKHP2qU

What had happened to the city that had started it all? From 1972 to the late 80’s NYC was the clubbing capital of the world, symbolized by the bacchanalian excess that was Studio 54. But by 1983 AIDs had hit hard, disco was suffering a backlash and other forms of music such as hip-hop and electro were in the ascendant. Only Todd Terry, re-imaging old disco records with breakbeats was making the sort of music that was having an impact.

Dance music still flourished – of course it did. Until 1987 the city’s venue of choice was the Paradise Garage, a converted carpark that was built as a temple to the talents of Larry Levan, who at the time was arguably the most prominent DJ in the world. Like the Warehouse in Chicago, a genre in itself would emerge from this, namely “Garage” – a catch-all for vocal post-disco music, but ultimately Levan’s approach to music was holistic, selecting everything from the Clash and Bill Laswell to Adeva, Sharon Redd and the Peech Boys. In 1987 the Paradise Garage closed and although other venues strained to keep the momentum going, the city did enter something of a lull musically despite the ascendancy of DJs such as Francois K, Junior Vasquez and Tony Humphries. Levan’s own lifestyle was entwined with the Garage and given his hedonistic urges it was unlikely that he would be able to find another club that gave him such free rein. Within 5 years Levan was dead – like Chicago’s Ron Hardy a DJ that has now entered the realm of myth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCSoxw3eOsQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3idKeqkrz_g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms6JY7vK7Mo

With such a proud and recent musical heritage, it was perhaps understandable that house and techno took a while to obtain a strong foothold on the city’s dancefloors. The first label to really do so was Nu Groove, which ran between 1988 and 1992 and was primarily set up by Frank and Karen Mendez to provide output for the duo of Rheji and Ronald Burrell, a failed R&B act whose soulful house and techno was, in my opinion, at least the equal of Larry Heard. The label would release over 100 records in a very short space of time and although many of them were from one-off production duos or people that never appeared again, the label’s discography does provide a useful barometer to the city’s changing musical style and eventual divergence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t8CJhRR3Ck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkwoJvL_-Yc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chHtoWsoZ0I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iex6sKQl2iM


New York at this time was a curious mix of the soulful and the savage. On the one hand there was the garage-influenced Burrell Brothers, Bobby Konders and the up and coming production maverick Louie Vega – contrasted strongly by the more rave-orientated Lenny Dee and Frankie Bones, both of whom had visited the UK in 1988 and who took their sound from Todd Terry’s Jungle Bros production “I’ll House You”. Their adherence to breakbeats rather than the traditional 4/4 of house and techno was laying the seeds for the forthcoming split in genres to jungle and drum ‘n bass.

Alongside Nu Groove was Strictly Rhythm, set up in 1989. This would become one of house music's biggest labels in the 90's, becoming more commercial in time with the likes of Armand Van Helden, but at the start it was a major element in separating out house from techno, as the two forms, entwined with one another for at least 4 years, began to diverge. House became more sedate, more vocal and groove-orientated whereas the European inflection on techno made it more aggressive, faster and harder.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BPn8oC0ScA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qNc2C41xsk

By 1992, with the emergence of the powerhouse production crew Masters of Work, New York had once again re-established itself as if it had never been away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALsHox5sYCk

If there was one anthem that emerged from this time, it was 19 year old Joey Beltram’s “Energy Flash”, released on Belgian label R & S, which, alongside “LFO” heralded a darker, more introspective sound. The convergence of these sounds would lead to what would be called “hardcore”, which was a darker breakbeat driven genre often called “rave”. Within a year, hardcore records would be populating the UK top 10 on a regular basis.

[KeithPratt]

Rave : 1990 - 1993



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssdqEGFePMw

If Acid House had ultimately been a movement born out of the primary influence of Detroit techno and Chicago house music, then "rave" or "hardcore" was something defiantly British. It took its cue from a number of different elements: the breakbeats of Todd Terry, the previous street sound hip-hop/electro influence of the mid-eighties, the tougher end of Belgian new beat/techno, Warp's early "Bleep" records, vocal samples that would echo garage and a tendency for simplistic melodies over the more subtle grooves of American house and techno. As with all things European in dance music at this time, there was an increasing fashion for the tempo to rise and the mood to darken, and in time this music would bequeath "Happy Hardcore", a curious subgenre, almost cartoon-like in nature, that became increasingly attractive to young kids. This was the time of big warehouse raves, of increasingly unusual choices of fashion and for many, when the golden age was coming to an end. Whistles, glowsticks, masks and white gloves were in evidence, but at the same time it was also when dance music spread far wider across the UK.

Much more importantly, at least from a wider social perspective, Rave was the music of choice for a number of mobile sound systems, many of which would travel around the country, often setting up illegal parties. Crews such as Spiral Tribe, Bedlam, DIY and Desert Storm would slowly mark out their own individual sound through the choice of certain DJs. This ultimately led to the notorious Castle Morton Rave in 1992, a momentous confluence of crews coming together for a free party that lasted over a week. The fallout from Castle Morton led to the Criminal Justice Bill in 1994, which many saw as a direct attack on rave culture.

Rave was also arguably dance music's last tangible presence in the charts, led by bands such as The Prodigy, Orbital, Altern-8, Bizarre Inc, Baby D and others, all of whom placed highly between 1991 and 1993. The first video below is by an early incarnation of FSOL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8tBDMG5z0M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL1t_aQz-js

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKbvJPVJslc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnqAuRHgIsg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SciKyogccN0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSTBFZ-To2E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w63kym-45E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzhZdwZV2PQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb5_ME-03Rw

In hindsight, Rave was a little like early UK punk rock. It had a visceral energy that tended to create narrow-minded adherents who would almost deify the music and culture to the exclusion of anything else. I still know a couple of people my age who are a little like sad old punks with mohicans going out every weekend and listening to the same music that they were in 1992. Many artists who cut their teeth at this time would go onto other greater things quickly. Within 2 years or so the advent of Warp Records would take this form of music onto a different level, especially with the advent of people like Richard D James. Jungle and Drum 'n' Bass in particular would become the refined choice within a couple of years for people who liked their "breaks".

And yet whilst it is easy to dismiss much of this music, it was the launchpoint for many people into dance music, especially with its sustained presence in the charts over a period of two years. Outside of the cosmopolitan areas of London and Manchester, Rave would be the sound for everyone else, the warehouse parties having none of the elitist attitudes that still, to a certain extent, existed. I would argue that, perhaps at least until the advent of the internet, this period, represented the last great stand of alternative culture in the UK.