OUR LITTLE LIBRARY HAS BEEN MAINTENANCED

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First of all ZONE of the FREE (ZotF) had it's 4th birthday somewhere this year.. so Happy Belated Birthday and whatnot. Although our activity has decreased we are still alive and kicking. Despite our 725 posts run in 2010 our goal was never to create a blog with regular updates. ZotF was created as a goto source to find information about the history of free tekno. Since that information was scattered all over this internet or disappearing even we took action and found yours truly for everyone to discover and explore.

Today I noticed that a lot of posts people run into posts that contain dead links to our uploads since our fileserver died ages ago. Since our blog is now autonomous I felt the need to make sure all information we ever published is accessible. That includes uploads. So as of today our little library it back online for the time being.. hopefully. All literature under the tags BOOK and EBOOK should be accessible and free to download.

TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ZONE - a book embraced by the rave culture since it perfectly outlines the free party scene. Also available in Dutch and French.

TECHNOMAD: GLOBAL RAVING COUNTERCULTURES - not available for download but worth every cent buying. A cultural history of global electronic dance music countercultures.

FreeNRG: Notes From the Edge of the Dance Floor - a collection of 13 essays written by specialists and affiliates of a spectrum of youth phenomena found at the edge of the dance floor. Especially worth reading if you are interested in the DiY culture.

NO SYSTEM - Vinca Petersen tells you her story as a nomad or (free tekno) traveler with stunning pictures. Again worth buying, no download available.

THE NUMBER 23 FOR DUMMIES - this post contains the everything you need to know about the number 23 since it is so often used in the free tekno scene.

NO LOGO - no space.. no choice.. no jobs, Naomi Klein tells you why.

DAYS OF WAR - NIGHTS OF LOVE - a collection of essays by the CrimethInc. collective. Fighting for personal freedom and against mass-consumerism and capitalism.

EXPECT RESISTANCE - a field manual for a field on which all manuals are useless, a meditation on individual transformation and collective resistance in disastrous times, and a masterpiece that raises the bar for radical publishing
 

L'HOMME RÉVOLTÉ - a book, also known as The Rebel, that documents the development of rebellion and revolution in Western-Europe throughout history.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM - a brilliant book that deals with the study of how man knows himself and the world, and with the issue of human freedom.

ART AND SCIENCE OF DUMPSTER DIVING - the techniques and tactics to dumpster diving. my local supermarket provides me with plenty of free food. with a little effort you can save a good amount of money or even provide your friends a free meal.
 
FREE CULTURE - our freedom to create.. build.. or imagine is at stake and here is why.

WEAK BECOME HEROES - a brilliant inquiry into the visual culture of altered consciousness.

City of Darkness: Life In Kowloon Walled City - interesting read on the self-sustaining city Kowloon, a lawless diplomatic no-man's land rejected by it's government.

A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION TO ANARCHISM - read the title

WRITINGS OF EMMA GOLDMAN - an amazing woman that helped shape political anarchism here in Europe and an important contributor to modern political philosophy.

NO HOPE - a conversation between authors on human origins, anarchy, and the collapse of industrial civilization.

That'll keep you busy. More books to be found under the tags mentioned above. I will update this post if I run into books in untagged posts.

Enjoy your summer!

SQUADSPACE SQUATTERS' HANDBOOK

SquatSpace is an Australian collective of artists and activists.
Want to know more?

The Squatters' Handbook is a resource for homeless people. It provides practical and legal information required by those seeking to find housing for themselves in abandoned buildings. The book does not seek to incite "illegal" activities (trespass is a criminal offence in NSW) but to provide essential information to people who might need it. Squatting has always been a tactic for finding housing in urban areas, all around the world. With the burgeoning real-estate investment market in Sydney, rental properties for low-income earners have become unaffordable in the last ten years. At the same time, the waiting list for public housing grows longer, while the state government sells off its available housing stock to developers. The Squatters' Handbook merely provides information to those already inclined to seek their own solutions in this unfriendly social environment.

Squatters' Handbook Chapter 1

Why Squat? Why Not?
Are you being squeezed out by ridiculously high rents and the gentrification of cities? Tired of waiting for disinterested governments to come to your assistance? Fed up with sleeping in parks/bus shelters/friends’ lounge room floors? Want to create and control your own living space? Take matters into your own hands — Go squat! There have been squatters for as long as the concept of owning land has existed: squatting on land that legally belongs to someone else takes place all over the world. There are probably as many reasons for squatting as there are people who squat — here are just a few of the things that motivate them.

Unaffordable rents
Despite government policies aimed at promoting ‘affordable’ housing, it’s clear that the number of low-income people able to afford housing is rapidly decreasing. The cost of private rental accommodation is increasing exponentially, pushing many low-income earners away from the areas in which they and their friends live. The private rental market is largely deregulated and tenancy laws afford low-income earners little protection from the increasingly exorbitant rents demanded by landowners and their real estate agents. It’s profit margins that count. Look at the scale of urban gentrification in Sydney at the moment — it doesn’t look like abating in the near future does it? Relax. It’s only natural — the strong over the weak. One day, when you can afford to purchase property of your own, you will understand. You too will give the gift of rental accommodation to someone who has enough money to afford it but not enough to return the gift. And they will give you the security you need for further speculation in real estate. Everyone’s a winner!

Why Wait Endlessly for Handouts?
Public housing once may have been an alternative. But with waiting lists as long as they are, and with waiting time of up to 12 years, government housing is not really a viable option for many. As governments become visibly less interested in housing low-income people — by selling Department of Housing land to private developers, cutting back on spending for new housing, outsourcing their role to private contractors in ‘community housing’ — it becomes more blatantly obvious that to rely on their goodwill to satisfy your housing needs and wants is a ploddingly dangerous mistake. People used to squat government-owned buildings before any others because it was thought there was more room to negotiate with ‘public’ authorities with a ‘conscience’, than with ‘private’ property speculators and companies who were more obviously concerned with ‘making money’. Now there are no doubts that such a comforting distinction cannot be maintained. What is ‘public’ space and what is ‘private’ space? They seem to have melded and colluded some time ago, and if they are keeping any secret it is this: welcome to a world without clear borders where power is much more diffuse and consumption (of goods, services, information) is all-encompassing.

If you can’t afford to purchase private property — or simply don’t want to assist private property owners to purchase more property by paying them excessive rent — there is no need to wait for the private rental market and/or the government to provide a solution to your housing needs. There are hundreds of houses/buildings left empty right now while people who are in need are left homeless or live in substandard and unaffordable accommodation. Help yourself and solve your own housing problems — squat in these buildings before the owners let them rot!

Maintain your Independence
Squatting allows you autonomy. Despite the ‘threat of eviction’, squatting actually gives you a high degree of control over where and how you choose to live. It enables you and the others that you squat with to learn a great deal about how to repair a building and organise your living space according to your individual and collective desires — a privilege usually reserved for owners of private property. And when you create that kind of autonomy you tend to actively participate in maintaining it, rather than simply waiting for the government / rental market to try and provide housing for you.

Town planners and ‘housing experts’ have long been perplexed as to why government programs to ‘house the poor’ in Western and non-Western countries fail to satisfy people’s needs for housing and community, while self-help squatter settlements around the world have been so successful. The answer lies in the autonomy that squatters create and maintain for themselves by taking control of their own housing problems.


Continue reading here

FRAKTURA - ISSUE #1

First issue of the zine Fraktura (Spanish) by Eskombros Klan & TeknoCokos soundsystem in collaboration with C.O.K.O. La Kondenada. The zine has several themes such as the (local) free tekno movement, cyberpunk, Mutoid Waste Company, Reclaim the Streets and much more.

- via Tekno con K

GRAB IT HERE

 (The PDF file is too big for Google Transelate, so you will have to copy and paste. That'll keep you busy for a while :D) 

TOP 10 REVOLUTIONARY VIDEOS OF 2011

The Top Ten Revolutionary
Videos of 2011
by Michael Truscello
@ Dissident Voice

LONDON RIOTS 2011 BY ALEC EMPIRE

Blog post on Eat Your Heart Out by Alec Empire on the ongoing London riots. 

Read it here.. 

WORLD TRAVELLER ADVENTURES

EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF THE TECHNO-NOMAD ADVENTURE

Film Documents The European and Middle Eastern Techno-Traveler Movement

New York, NY September 13 — This October, Uncivilized World documents the amazing story of the most underground social revolution with the DVD release, World Traveller Adventures. From the 1990’s to present, several devoted artists of raving and free partying take to the roads through Bosnia, India and even Africa, as they cross geographical borders to export their music through political protest and/or cultural exchange.

Consisting of four exclusive films, World Traveller Adventures marks the first time this movement has been illustrated in images. The historic documents were compiled and filmed by the tribe members of this new genre. The films are: 23 Minute Warning — Spiral Tribe; Storming Sarajevo – Desert Storm; Mission To India – Sound Conspiracy; and African Expedisound – Tomahawk, IOT.

History
The world traveler adventure was born as a result of the U.K.’s illegalization of any gathering of more than 100 people accompanied by amplified music, which “includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterized by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.” New Age travelers (an alternative movement of nomads), squatters encouraged by Thatcher’s repression to leave the cities, along with clubbers frustrated by the closure of clubs and early raves were driven to leave England. They traveled to the South American continent, Africa, Eastern Europe, the United States, Australia, Asia, among other countries, to spread their spirit of freedom and music, inspiring others to follow.

World Traveller Adventures Synopsis

23 Minute Warning
The interviews in this documentary illustrate each person’s opposition within a militant movement using parties and music as a way to communicate a philosophical message. In the same way as the mythical label Underground Resistance, who saw music as a weapon to fight against the barriers between races, Spiral Tribe concentrates its creative energies around the rhythms of nature, music and dance, in reaction to society’s prevailing attitude. Also included are two unique Spiral Tribe video clips: “Forward the Revolution” and “Breach the Peace” in addition to archive images of the Teknival at Tarnos (’95) and Carcassonne (July ’93).

Running time: 23 minutes

Storming Sarajevo – Desert Storm
Desert Storm could be defined as a peace-protest sound-system concerned initially with the Gulf War, and later the war in Bosnia. In 1994 (as a result of the Criminal Justice Act and Desert Storm’s difficulty to throw parties in the UK), they head in the direction of Sarajevo. Relentless snow and bitter cold delays them by three weeks and gets the better of their engines and gearboxes. Storming Sarajevo documents Desert Storm’s adventure as they carry foodstuffs, pens, books, medicine and condoms while they organize a New Year’s Eve party in Tusla and a party in a disco in Sarajevo. Desert Storm organizes a Street Parade, despite 70 cm of snow and temperatures hitting –10 degrees C. A policeman asks the organizers to turn the music up, but to dim the lights please –as the frontline is only 10 kilometers away!
Running time: 30 minutes

Mission To India – Sound Conspiracy
Mission to India is the most epic, the furthest-reaching and the longest mission of a European tribe. Filmed in 2001, this documentary tells the story of Sound Conspiracy, the reunion of three sound-systems: OQP, Total Resistance and Facom Unit who decide to set off the mythical Goa. Filmed by Paula of Sound Conspiracy, the documentary follows a travel log where the collective survived a fast, while crossing Iran, imposed armed escort through Pakistan where brutal robbers lurk, and heavy-handed checks by the omnipresent Turkish army in Kurdistan. They arrive exhausted in Goa at the end of November to organize several parties despite the undreamt-of local mafia implanted in this paradise of electronic music.
Running time: 45 Minutes

African Expedisound – Teknokrates, Tomahawk, IOT
African Expedisound follows three French sound-systems (Tomahawk, Teknokrates, and In/Out/True) as they set off for Africa in 5 converted French army lorries. A dozen people between the ages of 25 and 30 hit the road, with no institutional support, 15,000 km across Morocco, the Sahara desert, Senegal and Mali. Their mission is to find the initial rhythm, to understand the African myth, to live what they consider to be the ultimate quest for the ‘free’ generation brought up on BPM (?) The documentary begins in Senegal and the African Expedisound head toward Mali. Their experience take them through ramshackle routes, towering baobabs, and traditional villages under the baking sun. Local children announce the arrival of the “Whites” who have come to put on these “extraordinary, free parties.
Running time: 52 minutes

Bonus Features – Reclaim The Streets
Bonus features include a 4 minute musical documentary featuring images taken from the ’97 parties organized by Desert Storm in Sheffield, Bristol and Oxford. Musical and ecological activists, Reclaim The Streets (RTS) take the philosophy of the reappropriation of public space through cultural resistance to another level. They swept across the UK with street parties in Manchester, York and Oxford, and also appeared in cities like Tel-Aviv, Sydney, and Helsinki, among others.

About Uncivilized World
After being at the heart of the European cultural scene for 6 years, Uncivilized World became a record label with its finger well and truly on the pulse of quality cultural creativity. Its eclectic catalogue of artists includes the Nigerian Femi Kuti (afrobeat), the pioneering American DJ Jeff Mills (techno), the inimitable ‘French touch’ of The Hacker and Vitalic (electro), the DJing world champions of Birdy Nam Nam (hip hop), and the German big band Mardi Gras (jazz). The label has also joined forces with mk2, the biggest name in the French independent film industry, to create the Electronic Cinema collection of film soundtracks. Uncivilized World has also produced a series of music documentaries that have met with much acclaim at International film festivals: ‘Live At The Shrine’, shown at the Sundance festival and filmed at Fela Kuti’s celebrated Shrine venue, ‘World Traveller Adventures’, revealing the nomadic aspect of the techno adventure, ‘Biomechanik’, about the encounter between two different artistic universes when the sculptor HR Giger (the creator of Ridley Scott’s Alien) meets a hardcore DJ, and ‘Blue Potential’, a philharmonic concert filmed at the UNESCO world heritage listed Pont du Gard site.
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“A fascinating DVD”–Mojo
“You couldn’t ask for a more entertaining and informative look”– Undercover

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DOWNLOAD PAGE
(updated 08/07/2013)

NOLOGO

'How far will we let it go?'

 Reminder post..

 Still for download right here !!

HEAR HEAR!

"Calling all Systems, cyclists, pedestrians,
Road Ravers and road ragers,
workers and shirkers,
dreamers and schemers,
unhappy shoppers,
happy shoplifters
kids, crusties, punks and prophets.
the young at heart...
Let's take back our streets on Saturday 6th June
from the relentless traffic of pollution and consumption.
Let's transform the streets into a place of human interaction
...a football match ...a dance ...the distribution of free food...an exchange of free thoughts...
A celebration for our diversity.
Come and get involved with a South London Street Party
...organizing, publicizing, banner making, blockading, contributing to a kids area,
bringing music, theater, spreading the word...
Come to weekly meeting on Wednesday night."

A call for unity and action from a old Reclaim the Streets pamphlet in London.

AS NOT SEEN ON TV - RECLAIM THE STREETS

Archive Images: Reclaim the Streets '94 - '99

(c) Undercurrents 

Undercurrents hosts a unique video archive of dissent (mostly from 1993 onwards). Collecting video tapes from video activists, campaigners, video journalists and our own networks we now have 2000 hours of Betacam SP and DVCam images of protest.

Read a brief history on the Undercurrents here. 

NO LOGO

"This book is for anyone who has gazed at the homogenized, brand-filled modern commercial landscape and wondered, 'Where did this all come from?' And, perhaps more importantly, 'How far will we let it go?'...Klein is a sharp cultural critic, and a flawless story-teller. Her analysis is thorough and thoroughly engaging." - Nicholas Corman

 NO SPACE, NO CHOICE, NO JOBS

by Naomi Klein 

The final section of 'No Logo' deals with various kinds of opposition and resistance to the superbrands and the kind of society they represent. This can range from the fun but ineffectual—such as parodying advertisements or throwing custard pies at Bill Gates—to the more substantive responses of Reclaim The Streets and the wider 'anti-capitalist' movement. Such activity Klein describes as 'laying the foundations for the first truly international people's movement'.

GRAB IT HERE (right click & save as)NEW LINK 01/07/2013

RECLAIM THE STREETS

Bonus features include a 4 minute musical documentary featuring images taken from the ’97 parties organized by Desert Storm in Sheffield, Bristol and Oxford. Musical and ecological activists, Reclaim The Streets (RTS) take the philosophy of the reappropriation of public space through cultural resistance to another level. They swept across the UK with street parties in Manchester, York and Oxford, and also appeared in cities like Tel-Aviv, Sydney, and Helsinki, among others.

DOWNLOAD PAGE
(updated 08/07/2013)

TECHNOMAD: GLOBAL RAVING COUNTERCULTURES

by Graham St John (Equinox, 2009)

Fresh out of my mailbox: OUT NOW! 
for me personally the most anticipated book in ages.
ordering my hardback print tonight!
grab a copy here: http://www.equinoxpub.com/books/showbook.asp?bkid=392

coverdesign by ThePorg 

"Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures is the most wide-ranging and detailed of all the books on rave. More than the study of a musical movement or genre, Technomad offers an alternate history of cultural politics since the 1960s, from hippies and Acid Tests through the sound systems and 'vibe-tribes' of the 1990s and beyond. Like Greil Marcus's Lipstick Traces, Technomad makes unexpected but entirely convincing connections between people, movements and events. Like Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, St John's book introduces us to unknown heroes, committed geniuses and genuine revolutionaries. Beautifully written, with a genuinely international perspective on electronic dance music culture, Technomad is one of the best books on music I've read in some time."
Professor Will Straw, Department of Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University

Book description:

A cultural history of global electronic dance music countercultures, Technomad explores the pleasurable and activist trajectories of post-rave culture. The book documents an emerging network of techno-tribes, exploring their pleasure principles and cultural politics. Attending to sound system culture, electro-humanitarianism, secret sonic societies, teknivals and other gatherings, intentional parties, revitalisation movements and counter-colonial interventions, Technomad investigates how the dance party has been harnessed for transgressive and progressive ends - for manifold freedoms. Seeking freedom from moral prohibitions and standards, pleasure in rebellion, refuge from sexual and gender prejudice, exile from oppression, rupturing aesthetic boundaries, re-enchanting the world, reclaiming space, fighting for "the right to party," and responding to a host of critical concerns, electronic dance music cultures are multivalent sites of resistance.
Drawing on extensive ethnographic, netographic and documentary research, Technomad details the post-rave trajectory through various local sites and global scenes, with each chapter attending to unique developments in the techno counterculture: e.g. Spiral Tribe, teknivals, psytrance, Burning Man, Reclaim the Streets, Earthdream. The book offers an original, nuanced theory of resistance to assist understanding of these developments. This cultural history of hitherto uncharted territory will be of interest to students of cultural, performance, music, media, and new social movement studies, along with enthusiasts of dance culture and popular politics.

Contents

1. Introduction: The Rave-olution?

2. Sound System Exodus: Tekno-Anarchy in the UK and Beyond

3. Secret Sonic Societies and Other Renegades of Sound

4. New Tribal Gathering: Vibe-Tribes and Mega-Raves

5. The Technoccult, Psytrance and the Millennium

6. Rebel Sounds and Dance Activism: Rave and the Carnival of Protest

7. Outback Vibes: Dancing Up Country

8. Hardcore, You Know the Score


Available in paperback and hardback from Equinox:
http://www.equinoxpub.com/books/showbook.asp?bkid=392

WORLD TRAVELLER ADVENTURES

Four different films, bringing together the experience of the synergy between the travelers/squatters, and the rave scene, that birthed the Free Party movement. More or less explicitly political, these traveling sound-systems have taken the liberatory party across the world, crossing borders, melding cultures, and tackling war zones. The four documentaries are 23 Minutes Warning: The Spiral Philosophy Documentary (1994), on bringing together several interviews with the founders of the legendary Spiral Tribe; Storming Sarajevo (1996), following the adventures of the Desert Storm sound system, in their peace-protests that eventually took them to the war in Bosnia; Mission To India [2001), telling the story of Sound Conspiracy, the reunion of three sound systems that took off on a mythical quest to India; and African Expedisound [2002] follows the encounter between European free-party people and passionate African musicians, as they travel across Morocco, the Sahara desert, Senegal and Mali. 165 minutes in total, with bonus features of Reclaim The Streets party, and trailers. (via AK PRESS)

RAPIDSHARE
http://rapidshare.com/files/281430388/World.Traveller.Adventures.DOCU.2005.DVDRip.XviD.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/281430391/World.Traveller.Adventures.DOCU.2005.DVDRip.XviD.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/281471201/World.Traveller.Adventures.DOCU.2005.DVDRip.XviD.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/281471203/World.Traveller.Adventures.DOCU.2005.DVDRip.XviD.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/281483530/World.Traveller.Adventures.DOCU.2005.DVDRip.XviD.part5.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/281483535/World.Traveller.Adventures.DOCU.2005.DVDRip.XviD.part6.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/281486995/World.Traveller.Adventures.DOCU.2005.DVDRip.XviD.part7.rar

RAPIDGATOR
http://rapidgator.net/file/68ba1f189bf2316cc05b79634d6621b1/=1=23_MINUTE_WARNING.avi.html

http://rapidgator.net/file/dc707dcef16032ceb2a3760ede25890b/=2=_STORMING_SARAJEVO.avi.html
http://rapidgator.net/file/4c93560e7b2c18035ae183f4b73ad00f/=3=_MISSION_TO_INDIA.avi.html
http://rapidgator.net/file/34f1e4c9aaf2ee8a527cafb51c0fadef/=4=_AFRICAN_EXPEDISOUND.avi.html
http://rapidgator.net/file/b212e1b03fcc45b0fb070120a100d048/=5=_Reclaim_the_Streets.avi.html

AK PRESS (BUY)
http://www.akpress.org/worldtravelleradventuresdvd.html