This must have been written in mid summer '91 (October issue means comes out in September, monthly mag means a couple of months lead time). Teetering, teetering on the brink - all it would take is one strong pill to push me into the rave maelstrom.
I'm glad the most highly charged bit is on LFO's Frequencies.
Todd L. Burns - who many will remember as the founder of the excellent music webzine Stylus and subsequently helmed various important publications - puts out an unmissable missive, a weekly newsletter called Music Journalism Insider. One of the regular features is called Notes On Process, in which he invites a music journalist to go deep into the background (the writing, editing, etc) of a particular piece.
Todd asked me to do a Notes on the news story I did about the Castlemorton mega-rave at the end of May 1992. I realised that the article that ran in Melody Maker's news section on June 6 was significantly different (more newsy) than the fevered rave convert / eye witness thinkpiece I submitted. So we have both versions up there annotated with queries and comments, discussing the circumstances of the piece, the workings of a weekly music paper, the traveler-raver movement / moment, and the larger question of "the politics of dancing."
Here are the other earlier installments of Notes on Process. And you can subscribe to Music Journalism Insider here.
The missus with a piece from 1994 about the Crusty-Raver-Traveler-Squatters versus the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill.
They always used to intrigue me, those tags carved into the run-out vinyl - "A Porky Prime Cut". Here's a interview with mastering legend George Peckham, done by Nico Sykes of No U Turn. I associate the run-out inscriptions with postpunk and indie records, so it was interesting to see that he carried on all through the '90s and was making his skills available to the drum 'and bass community.
