Spiral Tribe
Famous tribe known for their free parties and their triumph with justice & the law. The tribe split during the mid 90's and each member went on his own way.
From 1990 until 1992, Spiral Tribe were responsible for numerous parties, raves and festivals in indoor and outdoor locations. These mainly occurred in the south of England. The largest and most famous party the group organised was the Castlemorton Common Festival free party in May 1992. Thirteen members of the group were arrested immediately after the Castlemorton event and were subsequently charged with public order offences. Their trial became one of the longest running and most expensive cases in British legal history, lasting four months and costing the UK tax payer £4 million. (1999) Regarding Castlemorton, Nigel South states that "the adverse publicity attending the event laid the groundwork for the Criminal Justice Act 1994" . Low and Burnett opine in Spaces of Democracy that "Spiral Tribe, with their free and inclusive parties, succeeded in constituting an alternative public space, rather than just a secret one. Though no one could say how many lives were touched in their three year tour of duty". (2004)
Parties
Date Location Comments
October 1990 The school house, north west London. First real party organised by Spiral Tribe
July 1991 Longstock The displaced Stonehenge Summer Solstice free festival
July 6-7 mirage winchester devils punch bowl free party all weekend long no problems from the police
July 1991 Bala, Wales.
9-12 August 1991 Liphook, Hampshire Torpedo Town smiling policemen everywhere no trouble at all
August 1991 Chelmsford Original site in an open mine (natural auditorium) was compromised by police whilst setting up. Thousands of ravers wait patiently for hours until a new site is found - permission given for a field on private land.
August 1991 The Cisbury Ring festival, held on a picnic area near Arundel Castle
August Bank holiday 1991 The White Goddess festival for 2 weeks on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall Combined their sound system with Circus Normal (to achieve a sound system of over 25,000 watts RMS) receiving complaints from over 14 miles away. Despite police pressure they partied on until all of the partygoers went home. The event was attended along with a number of other sound systems including Circus Warp and DIY.
September 1991 The Arches, Deptford
October 1991 North west London The green house party
October 1991 Kent The Village Idiots festival
November 1991 Brewery Road
Christmas and New Year's Eve 1991 The Camden Round House, North London. The power was stolen from a light socket owned by British Rail at the back of the building and the system went off at 6:30 in the morning when they turned the lights off. Someone then found an alternative power source.
January 1992 Blackwall tunnel
February 1992 York Road, King's Cross
February 1992 Numbers Farm, Kings Langley, Hertfordshire.
March 1992 Tubney woods Done with the Bedlam sound system
March 1992 Swindon
April 1992 Chobham Common
April 30 – March 3 1992 Lechlade 25,000 people
May 1992 Castlemorton Common Festival
June 4 1992 Canada Square, next to Canary Wharf, London. About 1,000 people manage to dance for a little over an hour before 300 police seal off roads and move in to make arrests.
August 1992 The Cisbury Ring festival The police allowed it to go on over three different sites. The system was supplied by Big Life Records, it also got split up, and at the end of the parties it was misplaced by a number of different tribe members to re-surface in Europe and around London.
Europe
In March 1993, after being acquitted of all charges relating to Castlemorton, the group moved to Europe, doing parties in cities such as Rotterdam, Paris and Berlin. Over the next few year, the collective organised parties and teknivals throughout Europe, then it slowly dispersed with some members taking up residence in Germany and Holland and releasing work on Labworks and many other techno labels. Individual members of the collective joined other sound systems, did squat art events or pursued other interests.
From the summer of 1994 a number of free parties were organised by Spiral Tribe members throughout Europe. When the parties were large festivals with an open invitation to other sound systems and artists to participate, they came to be known as teknivals. In tribute to this collective, the type of music predominantly played at early teknivals came to be known as spiral tekno. Parties included the following:
Montpellier, France. May 1, 1993.
Paris, France. June 19, 1993.
Berlin, German. June 26, 1993.
Berlin, Germany. December 31, 1993 at the Tacheles squat.
Hostomice, Czech Republic. July 28, 1994. First year of festival later known as CzechTek.
Vienna, Austria. August 27, 1994.
Vienna, Austria. December 31, 1994.
Vienna, Austria. March 4-6, 1995.
CzechTek, Czech Republic. July 26, 1995.
Rome, Italy. December 31, 1995.
Milan, Italy. May 11, 1996.
CzechTek, Czech Republic. July 26, 1996.
Vienna, Austria. September 14, 1996.
Prague, Czech Republic. November 30, 1996 at the Cibulka squat.
Vienna, Austria. April 11, 1998.
United States of America
Some members of Spiral Tribe toured the United States of America in 1996 and were hosted by Pirate Audio and S.P.A.Z. Soundsystems on a coast-to-coast free tekno party tour.
In 1997 Spiral Tribe toured America with an impressive rig and crew, joining forces once again with free party systems. They were instrumental in the initiation of the Autonomous Mutant Festival in July of that year.
Sprial Tribe - Members
The notion of member of the tribe was very informal; very fast beyond the initial four hard core members,numerous artists joined them, accompanying them in their trips sometimes for some holidays only, the others in a more long-lasting way, the public tending to consider as Spiral member every artist occurring in one of their free parties.
"Every one can be a spiral tribe" Mark Stormcore
Sebastian, alias 69db
Mark Stormcore
Lol Hammond
Zander
Simon, alias Crystal Distortion
Jeff 23, alias DJ Tal
Ixindamix
MeltDown Mickey
kaos
MC Skallywag
Debbie (aka Pheen X)
Dj Renegad sid
Alex 65
Steve Bedlam
James, alias Jack Acid
Little Ez
Stefnie
Nigel, alias Edge
dj aztek
dj Manic josh
dj Charlie Hall
Hamish
Darren
Doug
The number 23
From its inception, the group was obsessed by the number 23. Images for musical releases, posters, backdrops and flyers featured the number 23. Parties were often organised on the twenty third day of the month. Members sometimes recorded under the moniker of SP23 and of course the record label itself was called Network 23.
Previously other famous figures, especially in the Literary world, had also been obsessed with this number. William Burroughs for example littered his stories with it and was fond of stringing together any encounter with the number to prove that it did not appear coincidentally. He was often fond of recounting his meeting with a ferry captain by the name of Clark, who claimed to have been sailing the same route without an accident for 23 years. That very day, however, the ferry sank, killing all aboard. Later that day, Burroughs was thinking about Clark's ferry accident when he heard that a Flight 23 on a New York-Miami route had crashed. Burroughs recounted how the pilot's name for the flight had also been Clark. The number 23 is also prominent in discordianism, and the work of Robert Anton Wilson, particularly The Illuminatus! Trilogy. Aleister Crowley and Genesis P. Orridge of Psychick TV also tuned into the number. 23 pairs of chromosones in human DNA, 23 being the number of two of the most successful sportsmen in the world (David Beckham and Michael Jordan)
In 1992, some members of the collective signed to the major label Big Life, as a result of the publicity generated from their involvement in the organisation of the Castlemorton Common Festival. Three EPs were released and two albums, one merely a compilation of the tracks from the EPs, the other a full album entitledTekno Terra.
Members of Spiral Tribe also released records on their own highly influential label Network 23.
Simon Reynolds described music at a Spiral Tribe rave in 1992 as follows: "one Spiral-affiliated outfit plays a set of undanceably fast, stiffly regimented, metallic beats that sounds like ball bearings rattling around in a concrete pipe". (1999)
In 1997, Techno Import, a French commercial distributor compiled a CD entitled Spiral Tribe The Sound of Teknival .The CD consisted of previously licenced material via Big Life Music, Rabbit City, Drop Bass Network and Force Inc. It was released without any consent being given by members of Spiral Tribe, was advertised on television and sold at least 30,000 copies. Spiral Tribe made a statements against its release which began F**k Techno Import, Spiral Tribe Is Not For Sale and had to take quick action to ensure the name Spiral Tribe was not copyrighted by Techno Import.
Discography
12" releases (Chronologically)
The EP
U Make Me Feel So Good
Breach The Peace
Forward The Revolution
Forward The Revolution (The Youth Remix)
Spiral Tribe EP
Sirius 23
Spiral Tribe Sound System (The Album)
Tecno Terra
Don't Take The Piss
Definitely Taking Drugs
Expekt The Unxpekted
SP 23
Panasonic
Power House
Power House 02
Probably Taking Drugs
Spiral Tribe 1
Spiral Tribe 2
Spiral Tribe 3
Spiral Tribe 4
Spiral Tribe 5
Full Fill Fromage
Strange Breaks
Fac'em If They Can't Tek A Joke
Note: They also released EP 23 No. 1 No. 2 and No. 3 (World Domination Part 1, 2 and 3), as well as a few untitled promo CDs, but there is little documentation about these vinyls.
Remixes
The Drum Club - You Make Me Feel So Good (Guerrilla records)
Killing Joke - Change (Spiral Tribe Mixes)
Tracks Appear On
Shamanarchy In The UK
Survival! The Dance Compilation
Technohead - Mix Hard Or Die
World Traveller Adventures
Aid Asia Compilation
Quotations
It is our purpose to destroy the inertia that has been responsible for the demise of the life force on our planet. It's time to wake the planet up! (from Tekno Terra)
Make some fuckin' noise! (from Breach the Peace)
Spiral Tribe in the area (from numerous flyers)
You might stop the party but you can't stop the future (from Forward the Revolution).
[
Recent news
A DVD has been released called World Traveller Adventures in an echo of a track (World Traveller Adventurer) on an early Spiral Tribe record, Forward the Revolution. One of the four films, 23 Minute Warning (the name again taken from an early Spiral Tribe record, this time Breach The Peace) features interviews with several members of the collective
In 2005, the label Network 23 Repress was set up to rerelease sought-after and still-played tracks from the Spiral Tribe back catalogue.
See also
Network 23 (record label)
Teknival
Free party
Free tekno
Czechtek
Castlemorton Common Festival
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