by Justin Mccauley

Created on: December 18, 2008

Responsinility Lies With Whom?

So big brother is watching. The government wants all parties legalised. Don't worry, when your two year-old niece is having her birthday party, the SWAT team will scale down your garden trellasses and confiscate all the candy floss and barbie dolls. Watch out for the red cordial too. And coco the clown? He'll be hauled away for supplying the kids with candy and that most addictive of drugs, laughter.

Okay you're not likely to find hardcore narcotics and dancefloor beats at a two year-old's birthday but are we not being a bit too precious about banning fun? When did we take social responsibilty away from the individual and give it to the government? I am not a radical social warrior but I do believe in the freedom of choice for each and every one of us. Were people in government never young or were they born into office at the age of sixty and never had the opportunity to let their hair down?

As with everything illegal which affects social interaction, it exists because there is a need within the community. That is exactly the case with illegal raves. I can't comment on their emergence in America but in the United Kingdom they evolved out of a dire need to listen to and interact with a generation that had been neglected by the wider community. There was nothing sinister going on. It was just that if you wanted to dance away 'til the wee hours of the morning to Acid House or a similar kind of music, then you had no option but to go to an illegal rave. The clubs were stagnated. You would be left at the velvet rope, kicking your heels for any number of transgressions. None of which made sense to the people waiting outside. The music was pathetic. You had to dress up like you were going to a family wedding to get in. You became a beige figure in a grey world of non descript faces.

Then suddenly the M25 motorway arrived around London and all parts of the city and suburban landscape became accesible. Instead of just a couple of hundred people in your area being connected to the same social scene, it became tens of thousands and the kids salivated at the need. Saturday night would be an endless procession of calling vague phone numbers from telephone boxes in different parts of London trying to find directions to the latest offerings. Sometime it would be in a disused warehouse of which there were many on offer. Sometimes it would be in a circus tent in the middle of a farmers fileld. Wherever it was, it was the vibe that drove us on. The

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