Friday, January 28, 2011

WITBOEK KRAKEN


Krakend Nederland presenteert:
132 bladzijden met meer dan 80 kraakpanden in 20 steden


Het Witboek heeft als doel het publiek en de politiek te informeren over de actuele kraakpraktijk en de huidige generatie krakers. Dit was hard nodig, onder andere in antwoord op het wetsvoorstel van Ten Hoopen, Van der Burg en Slob om kraken te verbieden. Het boek bevat - naast beschouwingen van deskundigen en opiniemakers - een groot scala aan voorbeelden van de vele kraakpanden die Nederland momenteel rijk is. Deze voorbeelden tonen aan dat kraken nog steeds een belangrijke maatschappelijke functie heeft. Kraken draagt bij aan het behoud van sociale huisvesting, het bestrijden van speculatie, het stimuleren van nieuwe culturele initiatieven en het beschermen van monumentale panden.

Het Witboek Kraken is een initiatief van een aantal krakers, ex-krakers en sympathisanten. Zij willen hiermee tegenwicht bieden aan de negatieve berichtgeving over kraken in de media. “Het Witboek Kraken laat een ander geluid horen over kraken, aldus David van der Bree, redactielid van het Witboek. “Krakers zijn doorgaans juist betekenisvol voor hun directe omgeving. Het witboek schetst met 80 voorbeelden een beter beeld van de huidige kraakpraktijk.”
    De makers van het witboek vinden het de hoogste tijd om de stem te laten horen van de kraakgeneratie die nu actief is. Het laatste overzicht van de Nederlandse kraakbeweging, dat geschreven is door socioloog Eric Duivenvoorden, houdt op in 1999. Het Witboek geeft daarom vooral inzicht in de kraakacties die de afgelopen tien jaar hebben plaats gevonden. Het boek bevat beschrijvingen van recente kraakacties in verschillende Nederlandse gemeenten, waarvan er ongeveer 35 cases worden uitgebreid beschreven, in totaal komen 80 verhalen aan bod. Ook wordt context en weerwoord geboden bij incidenten rondom kraken die de afgelopen jaren negatief in de belangstelling hebben gestaan. Daarnaast zijn er wetenschappelijke artikelen en opiniestukken opgenomen die het fenomeen in een breder perspectief plaatsen en die de aanzet moeten zijn om het debat over kraken open te breken.
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! Download hier !
(rechtermuis, opslaan als)
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Bestellen kan hier

DANGER


Seen in the streets of Teheran, Iran

Thursday, January 27, 2011

BUMBLEBEE

By Bumblebee

Monday, January 24, 2011

VERZET VOOR EEN ANDERE MAATSCHAPPIJ

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Het verzet tegen de logica van het grootkapitaal groeit. In vrijwel heel Europa barsten er protesten los en wordt er internationale solidariteit getoont. De onderwijsbezuinigingen, culturele kaalslag, toenemende repressie en burgercontrole, verschraling van sociale voorzieningen, massa-ontslagen en meer zijn een gevolg van de werking van de kapitalische economie. Het kapitalisme zorgt er al langer voor dat een groot deel van de wereldbevolking leeft in extreme armoede, oorlog, hongersnood en milieuvervuiling. Het wordt tijd dat we onze blik verbreden en de handen ineen slaan.

  De deelstrijd rondom kraken/wonen kan samen met andere fungeren als de aanzwengelaar van een strijdbaar verzet voor een andere maatschappij.
 
Her-orientatie en hernieuwde strijd.

Krakers zijn van oudsher activistisch ingesteld en kraakpanden dienen dikwijls als politieke centra van waaruit alternatieve politiek wordt bedreven. Langzamerhand is de kraakbeweging in het algemeen geïntegreerd geraakt binnen de dominante logica van het grootkapitaal en heeft het een gebrek aan een breder politiek kader. Zodoende heeft men geprobeert haar belangen te behartigen via de kanalen van de parlementaire politiek die middels de logica en rethoriek van het grootkapitaal opereerd. Nu het kraakverbod via diezelfde kanalen tot stand is gekomen, is het absolute noodzaak om nieuwe wegen in te slaan.
De kraakbeweging heeft een politieke her-orientatie nodig en zal een hernieuwde totaalstrijd -zo niet verbindingen met andere sociale strijd- moeten ontwikkelen. De kraakbeweging moet haar draagvlak verbreden en de strijd rondom kraken/wonen als onderdeel van een grotere totaalstrijd zien. De maatschappelijke klasse waartoe arbeiders, studenten en anderen toe behoren moeten iets geboden worden om een radicale alternatieve politiek weer relevant te maken. Pas dan wordt strijdbaar verzet weer zinvol en zal die aan politieke slagkracht winnen.

Directe koppelingen tussen deelstrijd kraken/wonen en totaalstrijd.
 
In Nederland is sinds kort het ‘recht van de sterkste’ in ere hersteld door het eigendomsrecht boven het recht op wonen te stellen. Een menswaardig bestaan hangt af van een aantal eerste basisvoorwaarden, zoals het recht op wonen. Pas als men daaraan voldoet kan men verder met vervolgwaarden, zoals het recht op eigendom. Wij als maatschappelijk bewuste burgers moeten er voor zorgen dat het maatschappelijk belang aan waarde wint ten op zichte van het eigen belang.

Een typisch westers symptoom van het kapitalisme is de in Nederland bewust in stand gehouden woningschaarste. Terwijl woningzoekenden lang op de wachtlijst staan en daardoor bereid zijn krom te liggen voor een hypotheek of huur worden er in Nederland op grote schaal goede en betaalbare woningen gesloopt (zogenaamde herstructurering) om woningschaarste totstand te brengen. Zodoende stijgt de waarde van het bezit van vastgoedeigenaren, woningcorporaties en beleggers. En is het goed voor de bouwproductie, voor de bank en de gemeente die hogere opbrengst van grondprijzen krijgt. Mocht een woningzoekende niet bereid zijn om financieel helemaal krom te liggen dan komt men dikwijls terecht bij de explosief stijgende malafide bedrijfstak van anti-kraakbureaus die hun ‘gebruikers’ uitbuit op allerlij rechten, privacy en andere absurde bepalingen.

De op winst beluste commerciële maatschappij probeert overal toe door te dringen, ook in de non-commerciële kunst- muziek- en cultuursector die dikwijls in (ex)kraakpanden ruimtes gebruiken. Deze zogeheten broedplaatsen zijn een ideale voedingsbodem voor creativiteit en kleine bedrijvigheid maar duwen door de vercommercialisering de politieke en ideologische activiteiten weg. Zelfs complete buurten die aantrekkelijk zijn geworden middels de energie, activiteiten en projecten van de oorspronkelijke bewoners zoals kunstenaars, krakers en studenten transformeren ongewild tot commerciële zones. Zodra de vastgoedlobby haar kansen ruikt dwingt men de gemeente te renoveren waardoor prijzen zo hoog worden dat alleen kapitaalkrachtige elite deze kan betalen en de buurt gaat overheersen.
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Original by zwartboek

PISSCOPS

By noisy le sec, Paris

Sunday, January 23, 2011

TEKNO PIC OF THE DAY

By ??

Saturday, January 22, 2011

WIN LIVESET


 WIN aka MAYHEM THEORY (WINPROD recs, FR) - DOPEHEADZ liveset
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! Direct download here !
(rightclick, save as)
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More info on win's myspace here

SPACE DISTORTION



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More info on the artist right here

Friday, January 21, 2011

PUSHEAD

By Pushead

Monday, January 17, 2011

DESERT STORM ARTICLE

    RENEGADE SOUND SYSTEM
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After beating a conspiracy charge, illegal party organisers Desert Storm are unstoppable, says Mark White. Network 23

It was the morning after a very successful day, and James wanted some breakfast. Nottingham Sound System Desert Storm had played their brand of jack-hammer techno at a Reclaim the Streets anti-car Party/Demonstration in Bristol, and the streets had been, well, reclaimed. Traffic was stopped for hours, people danced, advertising hoardings were decorated with slogans, and a protest was made. If a few motorists had been inconvenienced, then that's what it was all about.

But now it was time to eat. James and his girlfriend Liz, who was seven months pregnant, left the house where they'd stayed after the demo. As they did so, a police car pulled up beside them and asked if they could move the Desert Storm truck. James drove it five feet he says. Then the Police appeared from nowhere: about five cars and vans. They were both charged with conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.

"That could mean anything," says James, a few months later. "If you're talking about throwing a beer can across a crowded park, that's conspiracy to cause a public nuisance." He's right. It's one of those catch-all charges that reveals more about the intentions of those bringing the charge than about any criminal act. But although it sounds innocuous, it carries a potential sentence of life imprisonment. In past decades, the charge has regularly been laid against political activists, and more recently against those in the sound-system scene.

Dozens of techno sound systems have proliferated around Britain since the start of the Nineties. They operate on the fringes, defying assimilation into the mainstream of what they see as an increasingly commercial dance scene. They like travelling, illegal parties, the thrill of the chase. Their life is not about playing at their local venue week-in, week-out, to club people in a fashion uniform. It's about living the scene seven days a week, 24 hours a day; about free raves in fields and warehouses, whatever the odds, whatever the law says. It is, they insist, the antidote to the ideologically-barren leisure prursuit that clubbing has become.

The first sound-system to hit the headlines was Spiral Tribe, after they took part in the 25,000 strong Castlemorton rave in 1992. Castlemorton was Britain's largest ever illegal party, and partly inspired by the anti-rave section of the Criminal Justice Act (CJA). The existing public order laws- conspiracy to cause a public nuisance- were used to try 13 defendants, including some of the Spiral Tribe, for their role in 'organising' Castlemorton. The case collapsed - a victim of poor police preparation - and all the defendants were acquitted.

In 1995, a number of sound systems got together and decided to put on an event codenamed 'The Mother' - on a scale of Castlemorton, a calculated snub to the newly enacted CJA. Police carried out dawn raids and arrested a number of people, including members of anti-CJA campaigning bodies United Systems and Advance Party. Yet again they were charged with conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. The event never happened and, eventually, the cases were dropped.

Today, Desert Storm are Britain's best-known and most fearless renegade sound system. They began in Glasgow in 1991. After the CJA and four arduous missions to Bosnia with aid convoys during the Balkan war, they became politicised. Since then they have become regulars at Reclaim the Streets protests and on the European Teknival open-air circuit.

Keith, founder of Desert Storm and still one of the main movers, lives in Nottingham's Forest Fields district. It's not the prettiest street in the world but, in terms of musical counter culture, it's one of the most important: three different sound systems live within a stone's throw of each other.

In his kitchen, Keith leans against the cooker, musing on the situation for sound systems in the years following the CJA. "Once they drew the line, they were going to try to destroy us," he says. "We're still here three years later and we're showing them that we're not going to take their shit. They can pass as many shady laws as they like and it won't stop us."

But although police action may not have subdued Desert Storm - they were confident enough to appear at a Nottingham Reclaim the Streets demo shortly after the arrests - it has slowed them down. Their lorry has been confiscated, along with a large amount of their technical gear. Benefit gigs are keeping them afloat.

James arrives, looking as pleased as anything. Liz had their baby boy, Oliver, a few days earlier. And James has more good news. He has just been told that the charges against him have been dropped. "It's good to enter fatherhood clean apart from the last charge [driving without insurance,]" he smiles.

So why was the charge brought in the first place? "They've had something shoved in their face and they don't like it," he suggests. "They want to find the people responsible and they can't." His solicitor, Lydia Dagostino of civil liberties lawyers Bindman and Partners, confirms that it is "quite common" for such a legal approach to be taken in protest cases. "They're using their powers to the limit," she suggests. "It places protesters in a difficult situation. They don't have their equipment for months on end and the charges are then dropped."

But why Desert Storm? Why now? Keith has an explanation: "I think society is nervous of our lot. We've got more to offer than a nine-to-five job." He stops considering whether he is paranoid of whether they really are out to get him.

Many people involved with outlaw sound systems have made the jump of awareness from dance culture to environmental politics. A scene which was simply about dancing has taken on, or has been pushed into adopting, a radical agenda, and events like Reclaim the Streets offer a convenient forum for the expression of anti-establishment feeling, however vague and unfocused. "It's a lot more than just going along and playing music, argues Kerry, another key part of Desert Storm. "The CJA pushed us out of the fields and onto the streets. They said we couldn't have parties any more, but we've come back."

Desert Storm member D says that the links with the anti-car protest run deeper that the common love of a good party, although he acknowledges the contradiction in protesting about pollution and using a truck and portable generators. "Even though we are doing that," he says, "we are making a point about it. We know that there are other ways to power cars, such as electric power, but we never get told about those because of the billions tied up in the petroleum industry."

There is a line of cactuses in Keith's kitchen window. A cactus can take root in almost any environment, and once it has done so it can survive for years with little support. Desert Storm aren't half as prickly, but they'll be just as hard to get rid of. "They'll not stop us", Keith grins. "No chance." They may be determined but they are not unrealistic. " I don't think that we are public enemy number one," says D. "We are a public enemy but that comes down to the law. The whole party scene is a public enemy, everyone in it."
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Contact for Desert Storm
stormdesert@hotmail.com

Friday, January 14, 2011

RITEK

By Ritek

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

CABARAVE

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More info here
More info on Bassline circus right here

Monday, January 10, 2011

STOP?

By ??

Saturday, January 8, 2011

MISSING THE POINT

 
Further notes on "when raving is not a laugh" and "When a Party is not a Party."

OK, this one goes out to all the Tekno Tekno Tekno got nothing better to do so I'll lose myself in bass bin or lots of lines of K or something else similarly lacking in humn activity with out really interacting with anyone else at all.
You are a Miss the Point raver. 
In some ways the whole tekno scene would be lost without you. But in other ways you are causing the death of free tekno festivals.
Face up to it. Spiral Tribe are not Lords of Hardcore, they were very naughty boys and girls. Take it all a bit less seriously and if you re not having a good laugh and cannot bear to smile at parties - GO HOME - Do something else that doesn't involve tekno and drugs and only show your face when you have some good energy and ideas to bring back to the forum.
Teknivals and Tekno are not the answer to anything. Teknivals are entertainment and inspiration for the next step forwards. It's part of the forward looking spiral, when you are bored its' time to move on and do something else. Identify the gap and go for it. Keep the energy spiral! Don't get caught in a loop! You've just got to move on [read in patronising- condescending tone] Don't Miss the Point!!!
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By dseclipse99@yahoo.com & mickfuzz@rocketmail.com

Friday, January 7, 2011

FULL VIBES ON DESERT STORM

A STORY ABOUT FULL VIBES ... 

by MATTHIEW COLLINS – THE FACE – n°95 - August 1996

It had taken us 36 hours to reach this field from the point on the M25 where Desert Storm had picked me up. We hadn't even know where we were going until we reached Paris, constantly phoning clandestineinformation lines to establish our direction. Late Wednesday night we arrived in the small town of Vitry-le-François, just south of Reims. There we were met by Josy, a small, bespectacled black woman, one of the first French acolytes of Spiral Tribe, converted to the free party cause when the Tribe began operating in Paris in 1993. She and her partner (Vincent), a gaunt, friendly bloke with the shaven head and combat gear that we will soon discover is ubiquitous on the Continental Teknival scene, lead us a convoluted route through farmland and down dark lanes to our final destination.

Here is the site, » Josy says, a little edgy, worried that we might have been followed. « But first you must work. There is a hole in the road. » Work? Hole? What can she mean? She points to a ditch that divides the field site and the lane. « You must fill in this hole. Build a path. » It's 2am, pitch black, and there's no artificial light for miles around except the Desert Storm truck's headlamps. We get digging, shifting soil and rubble using what-ever comes to hand: two small spades, kiddies' seaside bucket, a hammer, a broom, our bare fingers. After an hour's hard labour we are sweaty, dirty and out of breath, but a passage has been constructed wide enough to get our truck over the ditch. A little cheer of triumph goes up a Keith swings the vehicle in: we are the first system here. We have « taken » the site.

This is the 14th Teknival. These free, ad hoc, illicit gatherings, whose title is a combination of « techno' » and « festival », were initiated by Spiral Tribe after they fled Britain in the wake of the Castelmorton festival of May 1992. Teknivals are sound-system jamborees, gatherings of the travelling techno clans. There are 12 rigs on site by Thursday morning. Desert Storm, with which I travelled here, is the sole British system; the others are mostly French, established rigs like Dome, NRV and the Urban Happy Collective, but some appear to be just gangs of lads – enthusiastic amateurs who have hired a speaker stack for the weekend. There are some amazing constructions lashed together from tarpaulin, tree trunks and rope; the Spiral Tribe rig, which is the largest and occupies prime position at the heart of the main drag, even has a fully-stocked bar and a record shop attached.

All of them are playing one of other varity of techno, never pausing for sleep. There's a lot of gabba, the ultraspeed psycho-beat of the Lowlands. Gabba is so fast that it is nigh on impossible to dance to in the conventional sense; in front of the one small rig a lone raver jerks and shudders epileptically, as if he's trying to morph his physique into the post-human shapes that the music describes. Our system, with the five Desert Storm Djs – Danny, James, Keith, Dyland and Fish – is probably the most diverse, switching from blissed-out trip hop and techstep jungle in the sweet sunlight to stark techno and tweekin' acid funk by night.
 
 For the past two years, Desert Storm have been conducting aid trips to Bosnia, regular missions to transport clothes, food and party tunes to the region. These excursions into the former Yugoslavia have honed their battle strategy to a fine art: the truck, equipped with bunk beds, cooker, shower and sound system is ready for action 24/7. A few people who have turned up on site with record bags take guests spots on the rig: one is a fierce, stern-faced woman who loooks eight months pregnant and spins equially fierce, weapons-grade hardcore.

On Friday there is an epiphany of sorts, brought on by some freak metéorology. Every day, burning sunshine has been interspersed with heavy downpours, but today's is extraordinary. Rain hammers down and high winds tear through the site, flattening sound systems' intricately-assembled set-ups. The storm rips out our tarps and scrim nets and the stakes that secure them, and the whole structure comes crashing down. The music goes off all over the site; the only moment of silence in five days. it's here that the unspoken philosophy of Desert Storm is visible: a self-supporting community based on mutual respect and shared passion, a everyone pulls together as one to pack the gear away before retreating into the van. Like the Teknival itself, it's an affirmation of the enduring power of collectivism in a time of untrammelled individualism. Keith, however, is restless: the minute the torrent eases, he's intent on kicking the rig into life again. That night, in the rain, the main drag glistens surreally, lit by flashes of lightning and billows of orange smoke from wood fires, the intermittent rumble of thunder playing a sub-bass counterpoint to the trebly screech of multiple 303s. It's a weird, dark atmosphere that reminds me of one of the final scenes from Apocalypse Now, the wild, godless party at Kurtz's base, oblivion-seeking hedonism set in an infernal tableau. Systematic disorientation of the senses. Raving beyond madness. Ordinary time losing its meaning as techno becomes the temporal notation by which we measure our day.
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Original article here
French version can be found here
More info about desert storm right here