<nettime> evolution through commercialised media:Gabbers!!!

["andacaci {AT} dds.nl" <andacaci {AT} 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!!!

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 on, 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 togheter. 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 was 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 the started writing about people going to those parties. 
They said the people there were just party freaks that didn't think 
about anything, which offcourse 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. Offcourse 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 bollheaded 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.

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 organiser 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 thrugh 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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