http://exhulme.co.uk Hulme, aka bottletown, aka a inner-city home of cyberpunks, dropouts and losers, was itself an experiment in culture creation by the UK government when it was remodelled as a concrete innercity project in the late 60's. Since it's disintergration it has been the home to many a countercultural experiment. This site charts some of them.

audiotrix, point out the new spiral tribe archive site. The sites got thousands of old flyers, backdrops and photos. And there's the http://www.myspace.com/spiraltribe as well. With loads of good links and videos on it!

If you go down to the woods today, your in for a big surprise. Especially if there's a tekno party in full swing. Expect to be fallen upon by a strange crowd of people, many of who simply stare blankly ahead and dribble slightly when you ask them for their names. Even stranger are the hordes of bodies littering the ground. What madness is this? Is there a lurking maniac around each tree and behind every bush fondling a blood soaked knife? Perhaps they've all been up too long and need some well deserved kip, its hard work unloading a few speakers after all. But, no - the party's only just begun, and the shadows have been checked for murderers and are mainly clear.

Suddenly, a gaunt face peers from the gloom, "oo's got my fuckin plate, I'm tryin to cook!" Curious, and peckish, you push through the comatose bodies to the truck and ask for a sandwich, the face stares past you and mumbles something about fuckin off out of his fuckin van.

Desert Storm SUMMER '96 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN SQUALL Ally Fogg meets Desert Storm the sound system who took techno to the front-line in Bosnia. Sound systems do not have to seek trouble these days. Under attack from a parliament which considers them criminals, they work with the constant risk of arrest and seizure of equipment. Most party crews have sought a quieter life on the more hospitable Euro scene, Glasgow's 'Desert Storm' have found welcoming crowds in the unlikeliest venues of all; the war-torn cities of Bosnia. On a recent 'legit' tour of British venues to raise money for their forth trip in eighteen months, in Manchester's New Ardri club they shared with me a little of the World according to Desert Storm. Although their home base is still in Glasgow, the five crew members I met each come from different cites. "Desert Storm isn't really a crew," explains rob from Sheffield "it's more of a ...thing." "A bubbling blob." offers Danny. "Yeah people drift in and out." At the centre of the blob is Keith, the only remaining founder member. He talks enthusiastically about the origins of Desert Storm throwing 'afterparties' in Glasgow in early '91 against the backdrop of the Gulf War.. The name was his idea, representing not only their 'beats not bullets' message, but also their desire to be seen as part of an army: 'It's an anti-estabishment thing, we want to show them we're organised, but for our own ends not for theirs'. Desert Storm decor does not follow the usual style of techno nights, all trippy fractals and tie-dye wall hangings. Instead they prefer a mass of camouflage netting with khaki and black the dominant colours. The effect is powerful, Desert Storm gigs feel like they are taking place in a bunker with a civil war going on outside. The visual impact of a Desert Storm gig drives home the concept of a revolutionary culture boiling under the surface of modern Britain. In the beginning the parties had an entrance fee, but this was attracting problems.

Spiral Tribe and Mutoid Waste, Bedlam etc in the Czech Republic Summer '94 Nel Stroud. The anarchic free party organisers, Spiral Tribe have allied with the Mutoid Waste Company, a group of artists who sculpt with scrap metal and reconstruct abandoned engines, their medium the effluent of modern society, mutating waste to configurations hailing the millenium, all the post apocalyptic iconography of Dan Dare and Mad Max, Robocop and a warrior sensibility whose ancestor may well have been the mighty Beowulf, Spiral Tribe too have crawled from the underside of the facade that is `civilised' life - their creation is music and that too a mutation, sound generated by computers, a vast nightmarish arcade, twenty K of sound and Bass to make your eyes water. there is certainly no ethno vibes no strumming of guitars around camp-fires with soulful memories, no whimsical talk of the hereafter, for if there ever were a group of people into the here, it's these. From this virtual, military world they emerge and that they reflect, wired up, driving riot vans, camped under camo netting, heavy boots and shaven heads. A rapid growth of the popularity of a few parties in England, and a sweeping hysterical paranoia in the minds of the straight population has lead to the witch hunt of Spiral Tribe and their followers. At a party in an empty house in Acton, the Police feigned a sympathetic attitude, and then late in the night, started banging on the walls and came smashing through breeze blocks, batons flailing. They smashed up the musical equipment and knocked people to the ground. The Criminal Justice Bill validates this fascist Bully boy attitude. It legislates Gypsies and travellers, gatherings, peaceful protests, against techno itself- "music wholly or predominantly characterised by a succession of repetative beats". The result is an exodus to the promised land, Europe and beyond; as England tightens the screws, enforces its consumer monoculture of civil obedience, and staticism, the energy of the scene flows out - tendrils of techno energy and here we are, its the late twentieth century and Spiral Tribe and the Mutoids are in a scorching field way out in the Czech Republic, Eastern Europe.

Harry Maloney reports: After a day of peaceful rampaging through Manchester to celebrate Mayday, reclaiming streets and doing direct action, Manchester people had a surprise party in that old favourite party venue the Hacienda. The Okasional Cafe group had been in the building for 2 days, undetected by the Manchester constabulary, but the main issue was how to get the people in later on May Day before the police cordon went up. The intention was to avoid another "public order situation" like the last time it was squatted last year, and subsequent arrests of lots of people, which looked difficult with heavy police presence all around town, the venue itself and the whole of Hulme throughout the day. A party flier was duly made and distributed and the police were very keen and punctual, arriving at the meeting point (Spider Park, Hulme) half an hour early. While 15 police stood, allegedly quite literally in the bouncy climbing frame rope web, in the children's playground, around 300 people who were invited were lead away in small groups by discrete and strategic means via different routes to the plan B meeting point. Defying the laws of space and gravity, 300 party-seekers stood in someone-who-asked-to-remain-anonymous' garden, no. 23 on an avenue near you. They waited about 23 silent minutes, while the last stragglers were collected up.