A silver lining in a very black cloud

Today was one of the darkest days in my living memory. Within hours not only has the countries fate been given over to David Cameron’s army of Tory’s thanks to the treacherous Liberal Democrats, but one of our finest sanctuary’s was forced to cancel due to rising cost’s forced by local money grabbing police. A stark reminder that our civil liberties have no sign of letting up when it comes to them being stripped from us without argument and that money is still the main evil preventing us from having a good time. Now I know next to fuck all about politics, so this isn’t going to be a politically based blog (I was only 7 when the Tories last had the ruling of the UK anyway) and I only ever went to 2 Glade’s so this isn’t going to be one on the history of my time there (Fantastic them 2 festivals were though). But there’s one thing would say I know a lot about and that is the history of music and film and its surrounding cultures, but again most of the stuff I’m going to document hasn’t come from my own personal experiences due to me being full of youth. But I feel that in my time I’ve been able to gather enough research from an addiction to IMDB and questions of curiosity when it comes to meeting people from that particular era as well as obsessing over music from that period. One of the main positives that can be taken from the new Tory government is a possible return to quality guitar music. Brit pop ended in allegedly ended in 1997, partly because of the New Labour government and something to do with Princess Diana generally putting a dampener on things as well, but from what I can see from 1979 to 1997 music, especially British music, was at its peek. Factory Records was a year in and starting to make some noise by 1979 and Thatchers call to power, Joy Division had released their first E.P and shit seemed like it was properly kicking off. Factory records then went on to sign many more influential bands and hold host to many at the notorious Hacienda. By the mid 80’s we had such class Indie music like The Smiths, The Stone Roses, The Fall, James, The Happy Mondays and so on, back when the term ‘Indie’ actually had proper meaning and the bands didn’t all sound the same. The Hacienda can also be credited with the rise of Acid house, ecstasy culture and the rise of raving. Hosting 808 State in 1989 and having reports of some people “crawling through the air vents just to see them” (according to Wikipedia), with this came the birth of free parties, which then led to ‘the law against rave’ also known as the “Criminal Justice and Public Disorder act 1994” which was bought in by John Majors Tory government mainly because of the infamous Castlemorten festival in 1992, where approximately 30,000 people descended on the tiny village for a week! The mighty rave was dealt its first major blow, not helped by the closing down of the Hacienda (although eye witness reports say the club had been truly dead for several years anyway). I’d like to at this point intervene the history lesson to note that the reason I give this period much praise is because of its lack of motivation for profit. Free parties lived up to their name, and got it’s meaning from “being free from the restrictions of legal club nights”, and Tony Wilson with Factory records famously made many calamities when it came to running a club night and a record company by spending more then they was taking. They released L.P’s that cost more to make then they was actually charging for, and literally rinsed all of New Orders profits from their biggest ever-selling Blue Monday single by putting it straight back into the Hacienda. Why? Because they loved music and felt this is how it should be, and from it we was given quality music from many quality bands. Now at this point you’re probably wondering what this has to do with Glade’s cancelation and a new Tory government, but I’ll be getting to that in a minute…. Anyway 1994 marked the first death of Rave (although I’m sure many still went on for a long time afterwards for arguments sake we’ll call the 1994 law the first death). 1994 also bought along a new band, again another Manchester based band 2 lads and a couple of mates who in 2 years went from the dole cue to performing to having the fastest selling debut album of the time and now one of the biggest selling British albums ever and to then performing to 250,000 people at Knebworth. The absolute Rock n Roll dream despite what anyone’s recent opinions of them are there is no doubting that Oasis were a revelation to Rock n Roll and proved that if you wanted to be the best at something all you had to do was rip off what you’ve heard before. There are many aspects to Brit Pop that I love; The Blur V Oasis war, the rise of Glastonbury, the peak of British Rock n Roll, Jarvis Cocker, I even like that an artist like Damien Hurst could be called a genius, literature such as American Psycho coming in from the states and Irvine Welsh writing his tales of decrepit Scotland and Film makers such as Danny Boyle making films like Shallow Grave and Trainspotting. A time when Britain seemed like it actually had some proper balls. Until of course like I mentioned earlier it all came to a bit of an abrupt end with the New Labour government, death of the peoples princess and the release of Oasis highly anticipated, and somewhat disappointing 3rd album, ‘Be Here Now’ from then on nothing happened. Music started to decline, a new Millennium was rung in and bands like Travis, The Darkness and Coldplay, even Robbie Williams was being praised for his excuse for music, Blur and Pulp put themselves on permanent hiatuses and everything else Brit Pop had was almost forgotten about, Glastonbury was then restricted by a massive fence, and television shows such as Pop Idol and then the X-Factor showed that mainstream music was just a tool for a bunch of gormless cunts to produce another production line fad of a performer, tricking the innocent public to come on and lose all their dignity or sell their soul on live television. This has been allowed to continue ever since, despite the brief rise of a new look of Indie music (which was very brief) and being saved by the reformation of a few bands from the old days. Popular music got so shit that I decided to abandon it and find new avenues in Folk and Electronic music with great results. Although the music was fairly bad we have now been given an amazing opportunity through the internet, an opportunity where any of us with a musical note and a lyric can produce a song and put it out to the world via the internet. Yea I know most of it’s shit but that’s not the point, musicians are back to promoting their music and giving it away for free and being more in touch with fans then they’ve ever been.
I think its now time I got to my point well here it is... I like to believe in omens and signs, and I find it more then coincidence that on this black of all days, a community’s legal festival has been stripped from it and the very government that tried to destroy it before is back, I find this more of a coincidence as music, just like the weather or may I be so bold to say the economy, change with every generation and I think a new Tory generation will be just what we need for our muscians, film makers, writers and artists to start giving a shit again and turn Britain back into the super power it once was. The previous Tory government might of stolen your milk, banned you from drinking on the terraces of a football stadium, forced you or a parent out of work due to privatization, and even tried to force a new pointless tax on you. But shit there wasn’t there some great music made under their reign? A Labour government was probably a bit easy on us, we got a minimum wage, tuition fee’s for higher education which could have been paid off by an easy little student loan, as well as a shit load of increased benefits and allowances which will probably now be cut. Now I'm not saying that the past 13 years will be known as the glory years of Britain. Don't get me wrong any government that goes to War illegally, bans the civil liberty of smoking and draws alliance with the dangerous, war mongering, bully Americans is not a good one in my view, but we are working class people and a change over from Red to Blue is against an unwritten social code, which is also why I think so many people voted for the Liberal Democrats this time round... So I ask that on this black of all days you try and have a little hope that beyond the inevitable lower standard of living, us working classes who enjoy our drink, cigarettes, music, films, drugs and parties can look forward to an increase of quality in the arts. It’s been a long time coming and it’s a new decade anyway so its bound to happen, lets use this time not to morn or moan, but to stand up against the new law of the land. I’ve already seen a Facebook group asking for support for a free Glade festival, and with the catalyst of the glorious Internet I’m almost certain that guitar music will return in this of all dark times. The Tories will moan, and living will probably only get worse, my main concern that the greatest institution left in this country, I am of course referring to the mighty BBC, will be allowed to be sold off to the evil Rupert Murdoch, that however is a blog I shall write if the situation arises, but fuck it lets go take in a film, get wasted and then listen to some tunes.
Thanks for reading; Sorry if my Wikipedia based research was all bull shit,
RIP Glade. 2004-2009
Lahm