<nettime> redone:evolution trhough commercialised media:gabber

["andacaci@dds.nl" <andacaci@dds.nl>]

This is my first piece. Any suggestions on the way i write are
welcome. I am young and still (always) want to learn.thanks.

evolution through commercialised media:gabbers!!!

Gabber:Hypnotic music made around an ongoing beat based on the bass and =
hihat from a drumcomputer going from 140 to 210 BPM.

In mid 1990 a big illegal party was held in a big squat just outside of
Amsterdam. By this time the acid scene was embraced by the clubs and
almost entirely out of fashion. Techno was still just a baby and found to
soft for quite a lot of peope. Old "oi"punks , in other words the beer
punks, needed something to shake their head to, the neo hippies needed
something to get stoned on and dance without thinking of lyrics and
another group of people, for instance yups, needed to have music to get
their daily life frustrations out in the open. A group of 2 to 5000 people
from various, totally different, backgrounds would have fun together. In
Amsterdam an organisation called Multigroove started giving parties and
soon a couple of d.j's would have their name on a lot of flyers and gabber
made it's entrance into clubs throughout the entire Netherlands. At this
time it was called gabber allready. The parties were getting bigger and
people would always go crazy. 

The drugs were always there. In the beginning it was coke and later xtc
came in. People would be fristed at the door and secretly, although not
for the in-crowd, the pills and stuff were sold through people that were
from the organisation. Around 1992 the first drug victims started,
literally, falling. The newspapers wrote page four small items about it.
The stuff on the market got really bad. Some time later Right wing
newspapers like "De Telegraaf" or magazines like "HP de tijd" put headline
stories on the front page and put the whole gabber scene down as one big
drughole. They did not write about the excellent vibe, but just that drugs
were being sold. What was not being told that organisers made small
booklets about the dangers and substences of, for instance, XTC. It was a
series of 5 or 6 that were handed out for free at the parties and were put
down in all the shops that sold gabber records. Another thing was that you
could test your drugs if it was safe for real cheap. This all was done
with money from the organisers. 

At this time they started writing about people going to those parties.
They said the people there were just party freaks that didn't think about
anything, which of course is bollocks. I still can't understand this.
After all this time of hippies, provo's, punks and you name all those
youth-cultures people are putting their own youth down. 

At some point some people shaved their hair of. Nothing more then that,
but what happened. A now big organiser ID&T, from the thunderdome CD's,
started making bomberjackets with on the back their logo on it. Wanting to
have one was and is expensive, so for most people the logical conclussion
was to buy the cheap bomberjackets from the black market. So this is how
the skinhead comparison came to a start. Of course there are people with
right-wing ideas, but forget the fascism. In every scene you have people
that think different from eachother but the line between left and right
or, even more, right and extremely right is small and it's easy to say
boldheaded bomberjacket wearing youngsters are neo nazi's. So that's what
happened. 

What the media never even mentionted is that at that period a couple of
albums were released called "gabbers against racism". The biggest
Amsterdam based label called "Mokum records" places that message on most
of their releases as well. And, as well, that never ever got mentioned.
The gabber scene got to be as big through the whole of = Holland, but the
biggest labels are in Rotterdam that's why people = propably always talk
about Rotterdam gabbers. Mid 1993 the scene got to be a really frustrating
place. Everyone was so fucked because of all the bad publicity, because
everyone had to answer all those questions about it from parents and
family and others, that the atmosphere had changed from "happy partying"
to "a boxingring from hell" were people would get their feelings out in
the open. The music got faster and faster. The fun was out, in got
commercialism. All the parties got to be really expensive while the same
things happened. From the $12 it started with, the prices from '95 untill
now easily can be $30. The halls are so filled with people that you can't
dance. Nobody knows nobody anymore. The organisers all sell CD's,
T-shirts, Jackets. They almost flushed it all down the toilet. A lot of
the old gang stopped going just because of that. 

Mid 1997 an action was taken against the commercial scene it became. Old
d.j's, Buzz Fuzz, the prophet and scorpio to name a vew, that also still
play at the big parties started an anti-movement. In small locations that
can hold not more then 2 t0 300 people started giving "old-skool" parties.
Back to 140/160 BPM instead of the sometime 190/210 BPM it has become. The
old vistitors come back and it is true recognition for everyone. The
Hellraisers and Thunderdome saw this and all the big parties have
different halls, specially for the "old-skoolers". Once again
commercialism has almost destroyed everything. Who said that "You can try
but you can never repeat yourself"................ 

greetings,
robert

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