Rave New World: Confessions of a Raving Reporter
Interview by Esta Maffrett | 06.06.24
Rave New World from Kirk Field takes us through a history of the rave eruption that swept the UK at the end of the eighties. It's a personal and historical tale from the perspective of the dancefloor ravers and revellers who made the movement. The award-winning audiobook travels through air hangars and fields in a time of hope for Britain that changed the cultural landscape. Before embarking on a country-wide tour, stopping at Glastonbury and Edinburgh Fringe, Kirk spoke to us about the messages and moves that made the book.
At the bottom of the interview is a link to the audio for Rave New World Chapter 2: The Lady's Not For Gurning.
How did the book come about?
I didn’t write it to be published. Initially it was written as catharsis to cheer me up in lockdown. I work in clubbing and travel which wasn’t happening and I couldn’t see a way I could ever get back to work and start earning money again. So, I started writing about all these stories that I’ve entertained bored mates with over the years and as it developed I thought about my audience and decided I wanted to write for my children who were in their mid teens at the time. Doing that kept me honest and authentic, a way for my kids to see what their dad had done before he became the person who told them to tidy their room.
So it was really a personal story from the start?
Yeah, it was always very personal. There was never an agenda, it was just being honest. Some things I’m proud of and some things not so much. When I opened my laptop that morning I was feeling very down and I wanted to write about some of the fun things I’ve done in my life, achievements and moments that enriched me or helped me grow. There’s no element of a hero's story in the book, it's just me going through my life, we never expected that culture to be as revered as it is today. And so we would lurch from one party to another part each weekend thinking that could be the last one.
What was your journey into the scene?
By accident. I was sleeping on a mates couch who had agreed to let me stay so long as I answered the phone because he’d just opened a mobile bar service. We were going to be doing bar mitzvahs and rich people’s 50th birthdays, that kind of thing, and the first phone call I took was for an unlicensed event of 4000 people at an equestrian centre outside of London. It started at midnight and they just said it would finish late which I thought was strange. And they didn’t want any alcohol which we couldn’t fathom. We thought it must be a children's party but then why would it be starting at midnight? Our eyes were opened when we saw it was one of those Acid House parties. We saw all these great things, this unity, a brilliant new culture with new fashion and a new drug people were using. It was explained as a unifying drug. Something that made you feel good but wasn’t addictive.
It was the very early days. I’d heard about warehouse parties happening in London but the music sounded so alien to me. All those squiggly sounds, the Roland TR 303 and beats with not many lyrics. I was aware it was going on and had a passing interest but at the time I was in a rock band so I hadn’t paid attention to the dance and club world.
It was a time of big cultural shifts, new music, global fashions, new drugs. Why do you think young people were so quick to embrace it?
It was needed and it came on exponentially. The papers did a huge service to dance music in general, as much as they were telling lies, they were the best ad for a new culture. Posting each week about 5000, 10,000, 20,000 people turning up to these parties. And young people wanted it because we were fed up, especially surrounding London where nightclubs closed at 2 in the morning and had bouncers telling you to wear smart clothes and if you were a girl you just got chatted up all night. God help you if you wanted anything other than a girl looking for a bloke or a bloke looking for a girl. There was no catering for that. It was a very judgemental, strict atmosphere at those clubs at the time. So when these places came along where you could wear what you wanted and talk to who you wanted and it didn’t matter. People could go there to hang out, to stay up, to celebrate their youth. It was such a breath of fresh air and people loved it.
Those freedoms coming to people must have felt so massive. Once culture has shifted like that you can’t really just go back, not if people don’t want to go back, it makes sense why rave culture has been so everlasting and its staying power in youth culture ever since.
I think there’s an awful lot of pressure on young people, probably more so now than ever, but in those days you left school to get a job and get married and settle down. All those big life choices were forgot about at the rave. You quite literally lost yourself in the lasers. Once you’ve had that experience of what it feels like to be in a crowd it never leaves you. Rave changed and has continued to change but for a few months a generation of people experienced what it was like to be together, to not be judged, to not be hit or exploited but to express whatever they felt to dance. That’s freedom. Once you’ve tasted that you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.
My book starts in 89 and finishes in 99 on New Years Eve. It’s a tour through the 90s and the whole rave sensibility, the ethos of optimism and unity and barriers falling down. That was really what was happening inside and out. When we were there we thought we were going to change the world forever and then we saw the Berlin Wall come down and the Soviet Union started disintegrating and then Nelson Maden was released and it felt like things were changing. Westminster City Council started giving livenses out for 6am because they wanted to be like the continent where people stayed up all night to dance and celebrate life. That’s what we wanted to do and we had to fight for it but we changed society. It’s not just dropping a pill and dancing with your hands in the air - things were actually changing. That’s why the book is called Rave New World because it felt it at the time. A time of hope. It really was special.
Original Flyers from Chelsea Louise Berlin.
The book touches on the impact that drugs had on the movement. Can you speak on why this was important and the work you’re doing with The Loop?
The book addresses drugs because they were a part of it. It’s an inescapable fact that a generation of young people who hadn’t formally taken unlicensed, untaxed drugs did so in the 90s. And for the vast majority of them, it was fine, it was exactly that it was recreational drug use. Often books from the dance music perspective will see the protagonist get involved with drugs and have a fantastic time before getting deeper and deeper into it and addiction starts. My book represents the path that the vast majority of people did whereby they partied at the weekend and used drugs recreationally but held their life together and went back to work bleary eyed on Monday morning. Now they’re fine, upstanding members of society, they’ve raised children and hold positions of power because it didn’t ruin their lives. I think it’s important to tell that story.
It’s important to acknowledge that taking drugs comes with putting something unknown in your body and taking a risk. Harm reduction is very important and I address that in the final chapter. I’ve teamed up with a charity called The Loop who have just received the first Home Office licence to do back of house drug testing at festivals and events. You take your drug to them and they test it and tell you what’s in it. It’s important to know the strength of what you’re taking to know how much to take. It’s great they’ve got this licence. Because part of growing up is experimenting and young people do it with their fashion, their hair, their makeup and where they travel. They’re going to experiment with drugs; it's what young people will always do. So we owe it to them to create a safe environment to do so. It used to be very simple, everyone had the same batch of E’s for 6 weeks or 3 months and the strength was pretty uniform. These days, it's a different environment, especially with poly use people are doing more drugs which becomes more dangerous. So we need to address that and accept that and cater for it. As I say in the book, my approach to drugs is just say know.
How would you summarise youth culture and what it means to you?
Youth departs us but youth culture doesn’t. Youth culture never dies. When I put on a Ramones record I feel like I’m 15 because it’s got the power to take you back. When I did the audiobook I had to fight with my publisher to have music underneath certain passages. They said that’s not done with nonfiction work, sound design is for romantic novels and children's books. To me that was irrelevant because if I’m writing about arriving at a rave and the lasers flashing through the sky and the distant kick drum emanating from an air hangar then the sound will evoke those memories from people. I’m happy to say they let me go through with it because they saw I passionately believed in it and now that audiobook has just won an award at the ARIAS. A lot of readers have contacted me to say that they can close their eyes and feel like they’re there not just because of the words but the sound as well. So I think music has a great power to transport you back and that is really the kernel of youth culture. Music is at the centre and wrapped around that is the fashions, the attitudes, the language, the stimulants.
If you could put one object into the Museum of Youth Culture what would it be and why?
Original flyers from the summer of ‘89. Energy, Sunrise, Biology.
What events have you got coming up with the book?
The paperback launching on June 6th is called the extended mix. It’s got three extra chapters that are new to readers. I’m also doing a spoken work presentation that originated as my way of marketing the book and now I'll be going on a theatre tour later this year and a 13 night run at Edinburgh Fringe. It’s a tour through the Acid House year that has me performing and bring the audience in too. It’s entertainment but educational as well.
The paperback of Rave New World by Kirk Field is on sale now.