Some conversations this week about music and squatting in Sydney prompted me to re-publish this article I wrote in 2001.
Sound Systems and Australian DiY Culture:
Sound Systems and Australian DiY Culture:
Folk music for the Dot Com Generation
First published in Free NRG, Notes
from the edge of the dancefloor, edited by Graham St John, published by
Common Ground Publishing, Australia, 2001.
At a recent forum at University of Technology, Sydney
(UTS), Centre for Popular Education on Songs and
Music for
Cultural Action, an elderly gentleman
enquired as to who was
now carrying the mantle of Bob Dylan in the writing of
protest
music. The reply came that modern folk musicians do
not
necessarily carry guitars and that he should look to
techno for
the next ‘We shall overcome’. He wasn’t impressed!
This
chapter explores the use of reclaimed and recycled
technologies
as the basis for this new electronic ‘folk’ music.
Detailing the
history of sound systems, I trace the emergence of
sound system
culture in Jamaica, its evolution in the UK through to
its
presence in Australia, where it has become a
significant element
of local DiY culture.
Australia is following an inexorable global trend for
conservatism and a return to a semi feudal system
dominated
by transnational capital. In sport, entertainment and
the media,
the dollar is the deciding force. The interests of
commerce
now regularly take precedence over public interest. For
example, by-laws introduced in Sydney during the 2000
Olympics, citing the commercial imperative of the
sponsors,
forbade the use of amplification and the distribution
of
information (particularly of a political nature).
Sydney activist,
Louise Boon-Kuo, was threatened with arrest in breach
of this
by-law for using a megaphone and distributing leaflets
highlighting these issues of civil liberty.1 The
attempts by
commercial shipping company, Patricks (aided and
abetted by
the Howard Government) to smash the Maritime Union of
Australia in 1998, was a prominent example of a
private
company attempting to break up what is one of
Australia’s
oldest public interest organisations. In sport, the
David versus
Goliath battle fought by Sydney Rugby League club, the
Rabitohs, to remain in News Ltd’s slimmed down NRL
has,
for many, typified the struggle between big business
and
community-based organisations in contemporary
Australia.
Princeton scholar of international relations, Richard
Falk,
describes this trend as ‘a new medievalism’, with
capital
replacing Christ as the dominating influence.2 In No Logo,
Canadian journalist Naomi Klein comments on the fact
that
the branded company logo (Nike, McDonalds, Shell) has
now
overpowered the traditional authority of church, politics
and
school.3 There are, however,
dissenting voices in this
ideological tussle. As eminent American political
economist
Amory Lovins recently asserted in Sydney: ‘markets
make a
wonderful servant, a bad master and a worse religion’.4
DiY CULTURE — DOING IT YOURSELF
As the issue of commercial versus public interest is
played
out on the streets, in the clubs and in the galleries,
the ideas of
environmental sustainability, community and social
justice
hace informed an emergent sector of the Australian cultural
spectrum. Klein calls this the ‘new resistance’.5 An important
element of this resistance is ‘DiY culture’, which
encompasses
a mix of sixties’ hippy idealism, nineties technology
and
‘noughties’ media savvy. It also includes a smattering
of new
age spirituality which, though possibly ‘end of
millenium’ in
nature, is nevertheless an important constituent. John
McDonald, former head of Australian art at the
National
Gallery of Australia, recently wrote that one valid
aspect of
contemporary art is the continuity of ‘the religious
impulse,
the search for a higher meaning and a community of
belief’.6
DiY culture stems, ironically, from the eighties’
Thatcherite
ideal of the privatisation of politics, yet it has
tempered these
ideologies with a renewed appreciation of ‘community’.
In
England, DiY culture was born of a coalition of rave,
squat and
traveller movements. The indiscriminate use of the
Criminal
Justice Bill legislation by the Tory Government to
defeat the
emerging direct action environmental movement created
an
unholy alliance of the above three factions. There
thus evolved
distinct communities of youth who espoused radical
direct action
solutions and were passionate on single issues such as
the
environment and social justice.
In Australia, similar communities of interest have
evolved
into sophisticated and well organised environmental
and social
justice networks. These alliances have cemented
through
festivals of resistance such as the Jabiluka blockade
and the
Earthdream tour. The internet has been significant as
a
communication and community building tool, joining
remote
and seemingly powerless individuals and groups into
more
powerful organisations. The formation of the Indymedia
network in Sydney, 1999,7 for
example, played a vital part in
the defeat of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment
in
Seattle8 and has gone on to
become a valuable media asset in
building networks in 52 centres around the world. What
has
thus emerged from DiY culture, positioned as it is at
the
junction of politics, art and technology, is a
fascinating
potpourri of politics and pleasure, party and protest.
SOUND SYSTEM — THE POUNDING HEART OF DIY CULTURE
DiY art is centred around techno music which has
become
a universal currency in global youth culture. Techno
music is
delivered through sound systems, consisting of a loose
network
of artists and musicians who base themselves around
the mobile
PA. The PA forms the heart of the collective. The
sound system
is essential to the development of DiY culture. It
provides the
economic, social and cultural unit so vital to the
political and
cultural activities it inspires. Current Australian
sound systems
share a heritage of lo-budget home-built innovative
technologies,
hybrid musical tastes and grassroots political
community
activism with their precedent operators in Britain and Jamaica.
The sound system has its roots in mid ‘50s Jamaica
where
entrepreneurial entertainers cobbled together large
hi-fis on
which to play their music at local dancehalls. Coxsone
Dodd,
Duke Reid and Tom the Great Sebastian are the
recognised
grandfathers of the sound system, playing on the
traditional
single turntable with enormous wardrobe-sized
home-made
speakers.9 These
Jamaicans were unique in adapting new
technologies to their own requirements, cannibalising
radios
to make monster sound systems and shaping a type of
electric
folk music for a new generation.
Karl Irving, originally from Montego Bay in Jamaica,
recalls how the early Kingston sound system operator,
Trojan,
disassembled radios to make speaker boxes and then
installed
these contraptions in an open air dancehall for
all-night parties
in the late fifties.
He took a speaker out of a radio—it was a Morphy
radio—
and put it into a box and then he hung it in what
we called a
booth—it was a dancehall made out of bamboo. We
used to
listen to a station called WINZ which had
Latin-American and
Cuban records playin’ all mixed up without the DJ
talkin’ or
interrup’. We used to get some wicked music comin’
in playing
non-stop. And the people just buy a drink and dancin’ away.10
Like many of his countrymen, Irving emigrated to
England
and started his own sound system, Quaker City, in
Birmingham
in 1964. Quaker City played ska-beat (a mix of calypso
and
R&B) and later reggae at community halls and house
parties
in London, Manchester, Bristol and Leeds.11 In a nod to the
greats in their home country, the emigrant West
Indians named
the sound systems they started in England after the
best systems
in Jamaica. Thus Coxsone in Battersea and King Tubby in
Brixton were both London sounds sharing a name with
their
Jamaican progenitors. The sound system parties
provided a
means for the community to get together and linked
emigrants
in different British cities to each other and to their
home.12
Entertainment styles within the new emigrant community
existed outside of the mainstream and, as a result,
often fell
foul of the law. As Lynval Golding of the Coventry ska
band,
The Specials, explained:
You always got hassle in those days ‘cause British
society,
they’d all go to the pub and when the pubs close at
12 o’clock
they’d go home to bed—That was their night out—and
they
couldn’t understand why we would want to stay up
all night
at the ‘blues’. So at that time the police would
always come
around and try and close the whole thing down.13
A sound system would set up in a private house and,
for a
nominal admission, would play into the late hours.
Many
‘blues’ parties were also called ‘rent parties’,
planned for the
end of the month in order to collect the rent money
for the
landlord. The same tradition of community fundraising
existed
in black areas in New York where this style of event
was known
as a ‘block party’.14
‘Blues’ parties were almost exclusively black affairs
and
the dub music which typified them became progressively
more
bass-driven and moody. Dub reggae was politicised
through its
appropriation by second generation black British
youth. Princess
from Motivate sound system in Wolverhampton explained:
The sound system thing—it was a black thing. It gave
them a
chance to express in their own form and in their
own style,
what they felt about being alienated—reminded that
they’re
not from this country—they look different, they
dress different
and so what comes out on record and through the
sound system
was different. The experience of the youth in the
‘70s was
different to the original sound guys from Jamaica.15
The sound system scene flourished in traditional black
areas such as St Paul’s in Bristol, Handsworth in
Birmingham,
Brixton and Notting Hill in London, and in areas of
Leeds and
Manchester, but essentially remained out of the
mainstream
of British pop. The creation of British dub music
provided a
political and cultural outlet for black acts and
occasionally
threw up crossover acts such as West London’s Aswad
and
Birmingham’s Steel Pulse. The movement of sound
systems
for sound clashes and carnivals between these cities
maintained
lines of communication between communities.
Black Britain opened its doors to its white neighbours
at the
annual carnival events in Notting Hill in London and
Handsworth
in Birmingham. With its roots in Mardi Gras, carnival
consisted
of long processions of dancers behind, at first
calypso bands, and
later mobile sound systems mounted on the back of
trucks. (This
tradition of using a musical ‘happening’ as a focus
for cultural
and political statement sowed the seeds for future
Reclaim the
Streets parties, and DiY culture picked up on this use
of the sound
system party as a rallying point for its constituency
of interest).
The annual carnival events became vehicles for black
expression
but were managed in a heavyhanded manner by the
English police.
The extraordinary police presence contributed to an
outbreak of
violence at Notting Hill in West London in 1976.
Subsequent
carnivals were characterised by the presence of huge
numbers of
police and the black sound systems remained in the
underground.
In the early eighties, Broader musico-political
groups, such
as Rock against Racism, formed the background to the
popular
rise of groups such as Coventry’s Specials and North
London’s
Madness, who featured black and white musicians
playing
infectious ska music. These acts coated social comment
with
a sugary danceable musical style and achieved
widespread
success in the British charts. Britain’s inner city
streets were
rocked by widespread civil disturbance centred in the
black
areas of all the major cities. Attempting to make
sense of this
carnage was the anarchist band Crass who advocated a
type of
socialist anarchism.16
In the underground scene, Adrian Sherwood’s On-U Sound
System were difficult to define in the traditional pop
sense,
but were instantly recognisable as a sound system in
the sense
of being a dynamic roster of artists making music in a
collective
way. Sherwood’s use of anarchist networks to
distribute his
politicised dub music resulted in links to the Black
Rose
Bookshop17 in Sydney’s Newtown, a
connection that was to
have a far-reaching impact on the Australian audience.18
The sound systems moved out of the black areas and
into
the mainstream British subculture with the advent of
the
‘summer of love’ in 1988. Since 1986, sound systems
like Soul
to Soul had been running warehouse parties in London’s
East
End, squatting or hiring warehouses. These sound
systems
originally played soul, but then increasingly house
and acidhouse
to all-night ravers. As the acid house boom took off
in
London, party organisers increasingly turned to the
black sound
system operators (who were accustomed to squaring up
to
police) to provide the sounds for their illegal
parties. As Lynval
Golding observed, ‘Having parties in warehouses and
houses—
that’s what we’d been doing for ages, except we called
them
blues’.19 In Coventry, for
example, Chiba City Sound, a young
white techno sound system had an intimate relationship
with
the West Indian Maccabee Sound System, availing of its
equipment and expertise in staging parties in the Midlands.
With the ensuing media hysteria surrounding the use of
LSD and ecstasy at warehouse parties, it became
increasingly
difficult for the parties to happen due to intense
police activity.
Mutoid Waste, for example were forced out of their
King’s
Cross London Bus Garage base. Parties moved out onto
the
London orbital and admission prices skyrocketed to as
much
as $120 per ticket as commercial players became
involved in
the organising of events.
Partygoers from the urban squat scene, for whom the
warehouse parties had been a cheap and welcome
alternative
to the overpriced city nightclubs, began to look
elsewhere for
entertainment, while links developed between squatters
and
the politically inspired new age travellers who had
been
roaming Britain in converted buses and trucks since
the late
seventies. The new age travellers presented a
readymade
network of countryside festivals (and cheap, strong
and reliable
dance drugs) which were quickly taken up by squatters
and
ravers. The Tory Government in Britain were nervous
about
this novel alliance. Tonka in Brighton, DIY in
Nottingham,
Bedlam, Circus Warp, LSDiesel and London’s Spiral
Tribe
were the most creative of the new style of sound
system,
incorporating the cooperative tradition of the black
sytems but
playing increasingly harder and faster styles of
techno.
Importantly, the parties were run for free, with a
bucket being
passed around to pay for diesel for the generators.
In May 1992, near a sleepy village on common land in
the Malvern Hills about half way between London and
Birmingham, with less than 24 hours notice and with
almost
zero publicity apart from word of mouth, more than 35,000
people came together to dance for 5 days in what is
now
regarded as something of a Woodstock for the Chemical
Generation. The Castlemorton Free Festival prompted
the Tory
Government into action and the Spiral Tribe Sound
System
were taken to court and (unsuccessfully) charged with
organising the festival. The incident did, however,
give the
Tories cause to introduce the Criminal Justice Bill,
which was
remarkable in its banning of ‘music which is
characterised by
the emission of repetitive beats’—techno music. As a
result of
this legal clampdown, many of the traveller artists
moved away
from Britain to Europe, the US, Goa in India, Koh
Phangan in
Thailand and Australia’s East Coast.
The impending passing into law of the Criminal Justice
Bill (1994) created partnerships between civil
liberties, sound
system, environmental and social justice
organisations. Techno
sound systems, such as Desert Storm from Glasgow and
DIY,
had inspired the creation of ‘festivals of resistance’
against
the Criminal Justice Bill. Protest marches in London
ceased
to be simply silent marches with speeches at the end
but took
on a life of their own through a mixture of carnival,
music and
dance. One of my enduring memories is stopping the
traffic
under the shadow of Nelson’s Pillar in London’s
Trafalgar
Square in 1992 to wave through the Desert Storm sound
system
as they blasted out techno to a huge vibrating snake
of dancing
crusties who proceeded to jump into the ornamental
fountains
and dance naked in the heat of the afternoon sun.
Antibomb
protests of the fifties and eighties used ‘Protest and
Survive’
as a slogan, but DiY culture is more likely to
advocate ‘Protest
and Party’.
Though outlawed in England, the techno sound system
carnival idea spread through Europe like a virus and
many of
those artists who had left found a ready audience for
their music
abroad. Spiral Tribe, Bedlam and many other of the
English
sound systems took their cooperative techno ideas to
Europe,
particularly Eastern Europe where it was cheaper to
live, and
audiences took to the new musical ideas with gusto.
The
European ‘Teknival’ free parties, including the annual
Hostimichi festival near Prague in the Czech Republic,
spawned several French, German and Dutch sound systems
which found enthusiastic audiences, particularly in
the squat
centres of Amsterdam and Berlin.20 In contrast to Britain,
where the format had been banned, mainstream Europe
adopted
the free sound system carnival format, now established
in
events such as The Love Parade in Berlin. Indeed, so
popular
is the event in Berlin, where now over one million
young people
take to the streets behind mobile sound systems, that
it has
drawn corporate sponsorship and has resulted in the
creation
of an alternative ‘Hate Parade’, which espouses a
non-corporate
back-to-the-squat ethos.21
JELLYHEADS AND THE BIRTH OF AUSTRALIAN SOUND SYSTEM CULTURE
In Australia, the development of the sound systems centred
around inner city Sydney, Newtown and various groups
working out of the Jellyheads Collective based in a warehouse
in Wellington St near Central Station between September 1990
and April 1993. This was an anarchist run cultural centre which
focussed on community based gigs and sought to forge a sense
of community through the production of music, media, art and
politics. The impetus for the Jellyheads came from a plethora
of punk bands and the organising capabilities of anarchist
squatters who met at Black Rose anarchist bookshop in King
St Newtown. Prior to Jellyheads, Black Rose had organised
all ages gigs at Newtown Neighbourhood Centre. It was cheap
admission and complete with vegan food.22
An ‘artschool’ circle of acts based around media
subversion formed a local scene. These included Kol Dimond,
Jeh Kaelin, Sarah Bokk and Zippy Fokas in the Fred Nihilests
and John Jacobs and Tony Collins (now an ABC journalist) in
Mahatma Propaghandi. A videotape exists of the Media
Liberation Front 1988 gig aimed at closing down the Sydney
Stock Exchange when John Jacobs, Tony Collins and Craig
Domarski, armed with two guitars and a 50watt vocal PA took
on the might of the Sydney money machine in an event which
pre-dated 2001’s M123 demonstration by 13 years.24
An emerging rave scene evolved around small warehouse
parties in Marrickville which were advertised on Skid
Row
radio in Addison Rd. Skid Row broadcast essential
listening
techno shows on Friday and Saturday nights with
information
about party locations and details. Techno DJ’s such as
Abel
and Biz E played at Skid Row during this period.
According to John Jacobs—one of the collective’s
organisers, and who has since had a hand in many of
Sydney’s
underground movements—Jellyheads were heavily
influenced
by punk and the ideas of anarchist band Crass. Jacobs
went on
to play a crucial role in the Vibe Tribe initiative
and currently
plays with Organarchy Sound System.25 He recalls Adrian
Sherwood’s On U Sound and Gary Clail’s visits to
Sydney as
being seminal in the creation of a community-based
sound
system and also paved the way for the progression of
musical
styles from punk into techno music.26
The punk bands had been unable to get pub gigs and so
a
dedicated venue was essential for their survival.
Fundraisers
at the Jellyheads warehouse resulted in the purchase
of a small
PA—the first communal sound system. The techno heads
and
hip hop fans were quick to realise the potential of
plugging in
a set of decks to this PA and the sound system was
born. The
warehouse became a springboard for many Sydney bands.
Frenzal Rhomb and Nitocris were two of the many bands
to
play at the venue in the early days. Video nights were
also
held at the space as were many community events.27 None
more bizarre, says Jacobs, than the celebrated
Tofu-making
workshops led by Willy from the punk band Tutti Parzi.28 There
were many fun actions but there was also the serious
stuff.
Not least of these was the blockade of the Aidex
international
arms fair in Adelaide in 1991. Networks were made with
other
activist communities. According to Jacobs, ‘the forest
activists
showed us urban people a lot about how to use tripods
(to
block roads) and that was a good learning experience’.29
The shift in musical styles from punk to techno was a
gradual one. Jellyheads members Kol Dimond and his
partner
Jeh Kaelin paid a visit to Goa in 1990 and brought back
ideas
about trance which was then popular at the Indian
resort.
There was also an exchange of ideas and music along
the
international traveller route with nearby Koh Phangan
in
Thailand, which was at its hedonistic heights around
1991.
The move towards dance music was also facilitated by a
constant flow of British travellers who brought their
own
style of dance music to Sydney.
While John Jacobs does not claim that Jellyheads was
the
only party organisation in Sydney, it was certainly
true that
the Jellyheads organisation was primarily about
politics,
particularly of a social-anarchist kind.
There were plenty of other people doing rave
parties in
Sydney. From the Rat parties in Marrickville to the
gay
parties at the Hordern. It was all illegal. But we
were
anarchists first and artists second. With us there
was no one
dude with a moblie—we were about people sitting in
a circle
and trying to do consensus decision-making. Putting
the
politics up front. When we sat down with our
community to
organise a gig, we were doing it as a political
action first
and art second. When Adrian Sherwood and Jello
Biafra
came out we hung out at the Black Rose bookshop and
did a
benefit gig at the Settlement Neighbourhood Centre
in
Redfern.30
Following a physical confrontation with police (during
a
concert by punk band, Toe to Toe) the Jellyheads
warehouse
venue was closed by the council on the basis of
licensing law
infringements and insufficient public liability
insurance.
Finding themselves with a sound system and a readymade
audience, some of the Jellyheads collective adopted
the
moniker ‘Vibe Tribe’, and started doing free gigs at
venues
including Sydney Park. The name Vibe Tribe, reflected
the
communal nature of the enterprise and was also a nod
towards
the original UK Spiral Tribe. As Jacobs recalls:
it was exciting and a lot of people were into it
and very soon
up to 1000 people were turning up at Sydney Park.
And there
was no venue, as in no walls or bouncers, so it had
to be
free. The bucket would go around so it was forced
into being
a political thing. Anyone that came along could
feel that
something special was happening. Ravers and homeys, punks
and down and outs. It was a good mixed thing.31
The Sydney Park parties continued until police
violently
broke up the Freequency party in April 1995. Again,
Jacobs
remembers the night:
The police would often come and check us out but
this night
there were more of them and they wanted to shut it
down. And
they weren’t negotiating they were doing it with
batons and
when you start seeing your mates getting batoned on
the
dancefloor you get pretty solid and so everyone
locked arms
around the generator and people were on the mike
saying this
is our right to have our public space. And the cops
went hard
and they did naughty things and bashed people and
arrested
people without charging them. So it came to a head
then, but it
was good for getting the name around and after that
Vibe Tribe
were hugely popular. Just by charging $5 on the
door they
were able to make shitloads of money. So that was
how they
built up the sound system and got the funds for the
bus because
it was always the plan to make the sound system
mobile.32
The continuation of the Vibe Tribe ideal can be
attributed
to the vision of Pete Strong, who went on to form the
Ohms not
Bombs33 sound system in 1995.
Ohms not Bombs operate as a
non-profit making organisation, pumping any money made
back
into the maintenance of their equipment and the upkeep
of their
vehicles. By holding film screenings and hosting
information
stalls on issues of social justice and ecology in
conjunction with
their gigs, the Ohms group inform and educate people
as they
party. Ohms not Bombs promote constructive use of
technology
in achieving sustainable community development. The
Ohms
psychedelic ‘infobus’ is thus a noughties version of
Ken Kesey’s
Merry Pranksters meets a Russian Revolution propaganda train
meets Priscilla, Queen of the Desert!
SOUND SYSTEMS AND RECLAIM THE STREETS
In the early days of rave parties, communication ploys
developed which enabled party organisers to outwit the police.
Locations were kept secret until the last minute to avoid
detection by police and get a critical mass of party-goers inside
a venue before the police became aware of it. The size of the
gig would make it difficult for the police to evict and the party
would continue.
In May 1995 in North London, eco-activists used this ploy
to stage the first Reclaim the Streets34 (RTS) in Camden
High
St. By the time the police were alerted to the event, there were
already so many people in attendance that it was impossible
to move the crowd on. Sound systems, such as the cyclepowered
Rinky-Dink, became a vital part of the early RTS
parties providing the levity which lended the proceedings a
carnival type atmosphere as opposed to the confrontational
mood of previous political marches (the terms ‘Fluffy’ versus
‘Spikey’ were used to distinguish the two atmospheres).35 The
RTS format was adopted in many countries including Australia,
where the first party took place in Sydney in November 1997.
These ‘temporary autonomous zones’, where party-goers dance
to mobile guerilla sound systems, are Situationist events.
Everyone a participant—everyone an artist. In his book DiY
Culture, George McKay describes these protest parties as both
‘a utopian gesture and a practical display of resistance’.36
By 1998, the use of the internet enabled activists to
coordinate RTS parties across the globe. Sydney’s
Glebe Point
Road event merited a mention in Klein’s No Logo as the most
impressive free party in its scale and execution to
happen in
any of the 17 locations around the globe that day.37 Three sound
system stages provided the music on the day. J18,38 1999 took
this co-ordination to a new level when the ‘Carnival
against
Corporate Globalisation’ took place in 43 different
countries
on the same day. The ‘Active’ software developed by
local anarchist media
group Cat@lyst,39 enabled
Sydney activists to webcast their
actions around the world and was later refined to
provide the
backbone to the highly successful media campaign which
made
the Seattle protests on November 30 1999 such a
remarkable
success.40
Exponents of DiY culture are passionate about the
value
of art as a means of expression and not simply a
commodity.
Pete Strong, of Ohms not Bombs, sees today’s society
gripped
by the chains of economic rationalism, totally unable
to grasp
new concepts of social and cultural capital relating
to art
production. He feels that the artistic practice
orbiting around
the sound system, through its co-creation and ability
to unite
disparate groups, adds a new dimension to the lives of
people
who are touched by it—something the music industry and
art
gallery system is unable to provide.41
Sydney’s sound system future is secure with groups
like
Labrats,42 a veggie-oil driven
vehicle with wind-powered sound
system and solar cinema introducing a total renewable
energy
vibe into the mix. Squatspace,43 the
squatted complex in
Sydney’s Broadway which operated from February 2000 to
May 2001 with a gallery, living spaces and free food
nights,
has introduced a new generation to the idea of
establishing a
community around co-operative and renewable resources.
While sound system culture may be an underground and
nonmainstream
activity, it certainly constitutes a principle meme,
mutating and becoming an integral part of contemporary
Australian youth culture.
Paul Gilroy, author of There Ain’t no Black in the
Union
Jack, writes about the ‘diasporic intimacy’
between those of
similar nationalities who are spread around the world.44 Internet
technologies have enabled those involved in DiY
culture to
experience this diasporic intimacy as they set up
global events
like J18 and M1 (closing down stock exchanges around
the
globe on May 1st, 2001). The sound system culture
which is
at the core of the party and protest scene has come
full circle
in its recreation of carnival—reclaiming technology
for the
benefit of community. Folk music for the dot com generation.
1 Sydney Indymedia archive, 18 September 2000. The Act
in question was
‘Homebush Bay Operations Regulation 1999, Reg 3’.
2 Contending Images of World Politics, Greg Fry and
Jacinta O’Hagan (eds),
New York: St Martins Press, 2000.
3 Naomi Klein, No Logo, Flamingo, London,
2001, p.335.
4 ABC Radio National, Background Briefing. Transcript
of speech at
University of New South Wales, Sydney on 4th July 2000.
5 Klein No Logo, p.446.
6 Sydney Morning Herald, Oct 30, 2000..
7 www.sydney.indymedia.org
8 James Goodman and Patricia Ranald, Stopping the Juggernaut, Pluto
Press, 1999.
9 Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, Rough Guide to
Reggae, Penguin, 1997, p.28.
10 Karl Irving, interview with author, Sound System documentary, Virus
Media 1994.
11 Karl Irving, interview with author, Sound System
documentary, Virus Media 1994.
12 Karl Irving, interview with author, unpublished,
1994.
13 Lynval Golding, interview with author, Sound System
documentary,
Virus Media 1994.
14 Lynval Golding, interview with author, unpublished,
1994.
15 DJ Princess, interview with author, Sound System documentary, Virus
Media 1994
16 John Jacobs, interview with author, unpublished, 2000.
17 http://www.web.net/blackrosebooks
18 Lynval Golding, interview with author, Sound System
documentary,
Virus Media 1994.
19 Estimates based on author’s personal experience of Castlemorton
Festival.
20 Scott Manson, interview with author, unpublished,
1997.
21 Global News feature produced by the author, Undercurrents UK #8,
December 1997.
22 John Jacobs, interview with author, unpublished,
2000.
23 http://www.m1alliance.org
24 John Jacob video archive, 1988
25 http://reflect.cat.org.au/organarchy
26 John Jacobs, interview with author, unpublished,
2000.
27 Monique Potts, interview with author, unpublished, 2001.
28 John Jacobs, interview with author, unpublished,
2000.
29 John Jacobs, interview with author, unpublished, 2000.
30 John Jacobs, interview with author, unpublished,
2000.
31 John Jacobs, interview with author, unpublished, 2000.
32 John Jacobs, interview with author, unpublished,
2000.
34 http://www.gn.apc.org/rts
35 Reclaim the Streets, Documentary, Dir. Agustin de
Quijano, Faction Films, UK, 1999.
36 George McKay, (ed.) DiY Culture: Party and
Protest in Nineties Britain,
London, Verso, 1998, p.27.
37 Klein, No Logo, p.320
38 http://bak.spc.org/j18/site
39 http://www.cat.org.au
40 Matthew Arnison, Seminar at the Electrofringe
Festival, Newcastle, unpublished, 2000.
41 Pete Strong, interview with author, unpublished, 2000.
42 http://lab-rats.tripod.com
43 http://www.geocities.com/squatspace
44 Paul Gilroy, “There Ain’t no Black in the Union
Jack”: The Cultural Politics
of Race and Nation, Chicago, University of Chicago Press,
1991.
