The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act was passed into UK law in November 1994. Infamous for targeting events that played music \u201cwholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats\u201d, the act gave the police sweeping new powers to \u201cremove persons attending or preparing for a rave\u201d \u2014 yes, they actually legislated specifically against raves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A rave was defined as any gathering of ten people or more; police could order such gatherings to disperse, and could turn back anyone within a mile radius, with three-month prison sentences or \u00a32,500 fines for non-compliance. The bill also targeted, amongst other things, squatters, eco-protesters, hunt saboteurs and so-called \u2018new age\u2019 travellers, as though the ruling Conservative Party had launched an attack on every single subculture that they felt somehow threatened traditional British decency and law and order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Criminal Justice Bill (soon abbreviated to \u2018CJB\u2019 – it was a \u2018bill\u2019 before it was passed, an \u2018act’ after) was an ill-thought-out, rushed and vindictive reaction to \u2014 chiefly \u2014 the legendary Castlemorton<\/a> festival in spring \u201992. For a week, between 20 and 30 thousand people (estimates vary) took part in one of the single most beautiful expressions of dance music\u2019s power to create community \u2014 or took part in the end of civilisation as we know it via the \u2018Evil acid house cult\u2019 (TM The Sun<\/em> newspaper), depending on your point of view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the time, the co-founder of DiY Sound System<\/a>, Grace Sands, was one half of DJ duo Digs (Grace) and Woosh (Pete Birch RIP). \u201cThe CJB was the response to the Castlemorton Festival,\u201d she recalls. \u201cDiY Sound System were there, playing house, funk and disco, alongside Spiral Tribe, Circus Warp, Circus Normal and other sound systems playing tougher ravey sounds and techno. It was a huge, fun, illegal gathering with waves of people coming over the weekend to shake a booty and get wild. The powers that be weren’t impressed at all! It was bittersweet that such a great week could have such a negative reaction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Credit: Matt Smith<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was a knee-jerk reaction from an establishment shit-scared that ‘we\u2019 \u2014 a mixed bunch of townies, crusties, clubbers, ravers, gays and straights \u2014 could organise ourselves that well.\u201d \u2013 Grace Sands, Digs & Woosh<\/p>\n\n\n\n Simone \u2018Sim Simmer\u2019 Feeney, Spiral Tribe<\/a> co-founder and the Tribe\u2019s MC, felt the full weight of the state\u2019s attention following Castlemorton. \u201cWe were just a bunch of ravers that wanted their music to go on a bit longer than we were allowed to,\u201d she remembers, \u201cbut just from that small action we felt the wrath of politics breathing down our necks, and the reactions at the time were just crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those reactions included police becoming more heavy-handed,\u00a0like when they violently broke up one of Spiral Tribe\u2019s parties in \u201992 using a JCB industrial digger to smash through a wall. Tribe DJ and producer Ixindamix was there that night too. \u201cWe got beaten up by riot police at a party in Acton Lane in April 1992,\u201d she tells DJ Mag. \u201cIt was most certainly police and government intervention \u2014 starting at Acton and culminating with having the sound system, trucks and all our possessions confiscated after being arrested leaving Castlemorton \u2014 that influenced our decision to leave Britain in order to go party elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Criminal Justice Bill (CJB) was the latest in a series of government attempts to end illegal raves, following the failure of the Entertainments (Increased Penalties) Act in July 1990 to have much effect at all, as demonstrated by the flourishing illegal rave scene in \u201991\/\u201892. \u201cThe movement had grown across the summer from \u201991 to ’92 when all the raves moved outside,\u201d Simone says, \u201cand we\u2019d joined up with the travellers and reignited the flame of the free festivals. And then obviously Castlemorton was massive and put the fear of God into the authorities, which is why they took us to court \u2014 it was all a political stitch-up.\u201d Following one of the most expensive trials in UK history, in 1994, all 13 Spiral Tribe members who\u2019d been arrested after Castlemorton were found innocent. \u201cAnd it was shortly after that,\u201d Simone recalls, \u201cthat they introduced the Criminal Justice Bill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s difficult not to view the sections of the act that dealt with raves as a demonstration of how fearful the government were at the sight of thousands of young, often working class people organising themselves through self-made, covert networks and gathering together, often on the land of the Conservative gentry. Grace attempts to sum it up: \u201cIt was a knee-jerk reaction from an establishment shit-scared that ‘we\u2019 \u2014 a mixed bunch of townies, crusties, clubbers, ravers, gays and straights \u2014 could organise ourselves that well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Credit: Matt Smith<\/p>\n\n\n\n Widely criticised by human rights organisations, the CJB was a piece of legislation that was, in the words of DiY Sound System\u2019s Harry Harrison in his book Dreaming Of Yellow<\/a>,<\/em> \u201c…so egregious in its provision that an entire subculture rose up to prevent it becoming law\u201d. Following its announcement at the Tory party conference of October \u201993, dancers, DJs, MCs, promoters, musicians and producers united with squatters, eco-protesters, travellers and \u2018crusties\u2019 to organise a network of protest and agitation, all based around the UK\u2019s travelling sound systems. Fundraisers were held, protests were organised, literature, posters and placards were produced, and coaches to London protests and support for those arrested at the protests was provided. The fight was on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Musician, composer and producer Lol Hammond (Spiral Tribe, The Drum Club), along with Dave Watts of Fun-Da-Mental, Charlie Hall from Drum Club, Miquette Giraudy and\u00a0Steve Hillage, recorded the\u00a0\u2018Repetitive Beats\u2019 EP<\/a>\u00a0in protest at the CJB in \u201894. Lol recalls Mr. C from The Shamen paid for the video out of his own pocket, from royalties from The Shamen\u2019s No.1 smash\u00a0\u2018Ebeneezer Goode\u2019<\/a>. \u201cThe CJB was a total kick in the teeth for our rights,\u201d Lol tells us. \u201cThat stupid \u2018ten people dancing to repetitive beats\u2019 rule… It really politicised people. Our culture has always been seen as very hedonistic, just getting on one and dancing, which is fair enough, but this really galvanised a lot of people \u2014 our whole lifestyle was under threat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lol appeared on the front cover of music paper Melody Maker <\/em>in October \u201894 along with other vocal anti-bill campaigners Andrew Weatherall<\/a>, Dave Watts, Kris Needs<\/a> and Bobby Gillespie<\/a> from Primal Scream above the tagline \u2018Beat Fighting Men line up against the CJB\u2019. Released on Nina Walsh\u2019s Sabrettes label, \u2018Repetitive Beats\u2019 peaked at No.80 in the national charts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a former squatter, long-time supporter of human rights organisation Amnesty, and a rave musician, Orbital\u2019s Phil Hartnoll<\/a> was extremely vocal about the bill at the time. \u201cIt was just another attack on dance music and raves,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd the fuss they made about ecstasy, when how many alcohol-related deaths were there that year?\u201d Phil spoke at a couple of anti-CJB demos, and Orbital released a completely silent \u2018Criminal Justice Bill?\u2019 protest mix of their \u2018Are We Here\u2019 track which reached No.33 in the UK national chart in September \u201894.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still reassuringly angry after all these years, Phil, like so many in dance music, was incredulous at the ridiculousness of the legislation: \u201cIt was all done under the banner of repetitive beats \u2014 so they\u2019re trying to explain what a fucking rave is. \u2018Oh, it\u2019s repetitive beat music\u2019, but I\u2019m like, \u2018Wait a minute, an orchestra can\u2019t play in fucking time with each other if there isn’t a repetitive beat!\u2019 So that was a load of bollocks!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Credit: Matt Smith<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt brought everybody from every background together, hugging on the dancefloor: barristers, window cleaners, teachers, nurses, football hooligans, all together, not giving a shit about what your background was or what your views were…\u201d \u2013 DJ Graeme Park<\/p>\n\n\n\n DiY and Leeds band Chumbawamba collaborated on their \u2018Criminal Injustice\u2019 protest track, while electronicists Autechre put out the \u2018Anti\u2019 EP<\/a> on Warp, a tune programmed to have non-repetitive beats, with profits going to human rights organisation Liberty. Dreadzone\u2019s \u2018Fight The Power\u2019<\/a> was also released in \u201994 to support Liberty in the fight against the bill, and was included on the \u2018Taking Liberties\u2019 compilation<\/a>, which also featured music from Orbital, Galliano, Transglobal Underground, Test Dept, Loop Guru, The Orb, Ultramarine, Zion Train, Aphex Twin under his Caustic Window moniker, and The Shamen. And although Liam Howlett later denied it, it\u2019s hard not to read The Prodigy\u2019s \u201994 album \u2018Music For The Jilted Generation\u2019<\/a> \u2014 with its inside sleeve art depicting a raver giving the finger to the police while heading off to a rave, and its \u2018How can the government stop young people having a good time fight this bollocks\u2019 sleeve-notes \u2014 as a very clear reaction to the bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DJ Graeme Park remembers the CJB well: \u201cEcstasy and acid house meant that you just could not stop people wanting to carry on enjoying themselves communally,\u201d he tells DJ Mag. \u201cIt brought everybody from every background together, hugging on the dancefloor: barristers, window cleaners, teachers, nurses, football hooligans, all together, not giving a shit about what your background was or what your views were… With this stupid, ridiculous, reactionary, nonsense bill they were trying to stop a cultural revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Park recalls receiving a call from dance music aficionado Neil Rushton in early \u201894: \u201cNeil was immediately on the phone, sharp as a knife, and he said \u2018I want to do a quick compilation, \u2018No Repetitive Beats\u2019.\u2019 I was like, \u2018What a brilliant idea\u2019.\u201d Graeme mixed the \u2018No Repetitive Beats\u2019 compilation on Six6 Records, which included tunes from Inner City, Glam, Cool Jack and Terrence Parker. Royalties went to DiY\u2019s All Systems No, a grass-roots response to the CJB from DiY and other UK systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Word about the CJB\u2019s proposed wide-ranging powers spread rapidly through the counter-cultural underground. \u201cWe had an initial meeting with various sound systems from the East Midlands\/Yorkshire area including DiY, Smokescreen, SPOOF, Pulse, Rogue, Babble and Breeze,\u201d DiY\u2019s Harry tells us. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t believe what we were reading, that our way of life was being criminalised. All Systems No\u2019s mission was to raise as much money as possible to fight the CJB, which resulted in us subsidising several coaches to the demos, printing tens of thousands of flyers and booklets to inform people, and the purchase of a \u2018kamikaze\u2019 rig which could be seized by the police without risking our own systems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Credit: Matt Smith<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two of the main organisations involved in the three large CJB London protests in 1994 were The Advance Party and The Freedom Network, a broad coalition of sound systems and party-goers, squatters, travellers, civil liberties groups, road protesters, hunt saboteurs and free party organisers. Photographer Matt Smith went with his Sunnyside sound system to the first two marches, and along with other sounds put on a free party on Wanstead Common after the protest. Matt and some friends had moved to Bristol from London in \u201993, \u201cwith the express intention of opposing the legislation in as many ways as possible,\u201d he says, \u201csimply because we thought it was not right \u2014 and Sunnyside came together through that… We threw parties to raise money and raise awareness, using rave as a networking tool to entertain, amuse and inform and to create information dissemination. We ended up taking Bristol to London on a few occasions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first big protest against the CJB, a march from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square in central London organised by the Advance Party, took place on Saturday May 1st 1994 \u2014 May Day. This was soon followed by a second big mobilisation on July 24th, about twice the size of the first. The first two major protests were largely peaceful. \u201cIt was massively celebratory,\u201d says Matt of the first one, \u201cand we were full of naive zeal that we were going to change the fucking world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Matt, like many in dance music, had begun to think that just maybe change was possible, that perhaps this huge collective opposition might actually make a difference. Sunnyside parked their rig outside the National Portrait Gallery in central London. \u201cA 10k rig on the back of a seven-and-a-half-tonne truck,\u201d he remembers with a mix of delight and pride, \u201cand that fucking moment when we turned the music on, the whole of Trafalgar Square turned round and roared at us like a football crowd \u2014 that was life changing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The third London protest took place on 9th October and, following the rally in Hyde Park, violence broke out after the police turned on the protesters with tear gas and horse charges. As the date for the bill to become law approached, there was a growing sense that the end was drawing near. Lol mentions reaching out to well-known and mainstream figures in dance music at the time. \u201cHonestly, I gave it everything, we really fucking went for it, and I\u2019m sure we did raise awareness a bit \u2014 but not enough,\u201d he says. \u201cDJ Mag, Mixmag, The Guardian<\/em> and Melody Maker <\/em>supported us but it would have been brilliant if we could have got more of the mainstream involved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Matt remembers Labour MPs Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn speaking at the first march, but ultimately Labour Shadow Home Secretary Tony Blair decided not to oppose the bill on its final reading, perhaps not wishing to damage Labour\u2019s prospects in the next election by appearing soft on crime, and the CJA became law in November 1994.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Credit: Matt Smith<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe BBC angle was \u2018Everything finished with Castlemorton\u2019, and I\u2019m like \u2018Bollocks did it!\u2019 Ten years later there were probably more on Steart Beach than there were at Castlemorton.\u201d \u2013 Matt Smith<\/p>\n\n\n\n The accepted narrative is that the act killed illegal raves, moving the scene into licensed venues where profits could be taxed, and closing times, noise levels and quantities of people controlled \u2014 and that this fostered the rise of superclubs like Cream and Ministry. As writer Ed Gillett in his excellent Party Lines<\/em><\/a> book states, post-CJA, \u201cUK dance music\u2019s focus shifted to the booming market of superclubs and festivals \u2014 dancing not as a form of anti-social defiance, but a fully regulated leisure activity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Certainly the act had an immediate effect on the free party scene: in June \u201995 a last-ditch attempt at a large-scale Castlemorton-style free party, the \u2018Mother\u2019 festival, was forcibly shut down by the police. But Gillett also notes that illegal events weren\u2019t ending, they were \u201cretreating into the shadows\u201d, an important point echoed by several of our contributors. \u201cThe police had effectively militarised the South-West in England after Castlemorton,\u201d Harry from DiY says, \u201cso from the summer of \u201893 onwards there was no chance of another big free festival… but from being a huge social movement, the free festival\/party scene simply went back underground.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is a key point in the CJA\u2019s legacy, perfectly illustrated by how Matt spent the decade that followed. \u201cI spent ten years running free parties throughout the \u201890s and early 2000s all over the country, and never got busted once!\u201d he shares gleefully. \u201cThe last thing I ever really got involved with was the 10th anniversary of Castlemorton on Steart Beach in Bridgewater.\u201d The Steart Beach rave, where a huge amount of sound systems \u2014 anecdotally, Matt heard it was forty-eight \u2014 played host to 16,000 people partying for a week. \u201cThe BBC angle was \u2018Everything finished with Castlemorton\u2019, and I\u2019m like \u2018Bollocks did it!\u2019 Ten years later there were probably more on Steart Beach than there were at Castlemorton.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ironically, the protests against the CJB brought many disparate people together in a great cultural networking exercise that ultimately undermined many of the act\u2019s anti-rave aims. \u201cThe repression by the state,\u201d says Harry, \u201chad the opposite effect to that intended in that it brought the systems together in a solidarity which endured.\u201d Rather than completely ending illegal raves, the legislation simply meant that party organsiers brave enough to take the risk had to find new locations \u2014 often returning to cities and squat-parties \u2014 and new strategies to outfox the authorities. \u201cI think the act might have temporarily pushed everyone deeper underground, but it didn’t kill the spirit at all,\u201d Simone tells DJ Mag. \u201cIt made the whole movement gain momentum and become stronger… it pushed it deeper underground and the roots spread. You might stop the party, but you can’t stop the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Credit: Alan Lodge<\/p>\n\n\n\n For many of the UK\u2019s intrepid party creators, the party just relocated, as sound systems like Spiral Tribe, Desert Storm and Total Resistance moved to Europe and kick- started the Teknival movement. Others stayed in the UK, developing a strand of clubbing \u2014 including Lol\u2019s Drum Club night, Megadog, Return To The Source, Tribal Energy, Megatripolis and Whirl-Y-Gig, amongst many others \u2014 which was dedicated to keeping the free festival ethos alive within licensed club nights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s well worth mentioning that the post-CJA rise in legal dance music club culture wasn’t inherently bad, of course; clubbing may have been more expensive and less wild than illegal raves, but there\u2019s no doubt that the club nights that blossomed in the second half of the \u201890s \u2014 Metalheadz, Speed, Bugged Out!, Heavenly Social, Manumission, Stealth, Gatecrasher to name just a few \u2014 were absolutely world beating; and those that had started before the act, such as Cream, Trade, Slam and Back To Basics, all thrived in the second half of the decade too. As Matt notes: \u201cThe criminalisation of the big parties led to more developments in the legal club world… free parties are more of a lifestyle commitment, but by the 2000s everybody was raving and you had the Gatecrasher kids and all those incredible style tribes that came out of that late \u201890s superclub evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n An unexpected effect of the act and the protests was their influence on what became the UK\u2019s festival industry. Matt recalls doing a nationwide tour with a bunch of free party people at the time, many of whom now, like Chris Tofu MBE from Continental Drifts who currently oversees the Shangri-La area at Glastonbury, run the UK festival world. The illegal raves that were created from the unholy alliance between the travellers\u2019 free festivals and the ravers\u2019 parties contained the creative and practical DNA for our current summer-long festival season. As Harry says: \u201cWhat had been dangerous and radical was sanitised, commodified and sold back to the people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, if the CJA aimed to kill illegal raves, it failed. It certainly curtailed them, made the stakes higher for the organisers, and literally drove some UK sound systems out of the country. But as Spiral Tribe\u2019s Ixindamix tells DJ Mag: \u201cPeople will always party and celebrate, dancing to beats is an age-old human instinct. No matter what laws are created, people will always find a way to party together \u2014 it\u2019s inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSimilar acts have been brought in around Europe,\u201d she continues, \u201cwe\u2019ve seen horrendous police violence directed at ravers in France, and at the moment there are particularly harsh laws in Italy promising long jail sentences for organisers \u2014 but the scene is so popular that people will always find ways around the rules, whether it\u2019s finding cunning ways to elude the police, building \u2018suicide rigs\u2019 or simply having smaller events in remote places. The movement will continue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" DJmag HAROLD HEATH 1 May 2024, 14:30 1st May 1994 was the first big London protest against the looming Criminal Justice Bill, the piece of legislation that first proscribed a genre of music \u2014 rave music, \u201cwholly or predominantly categorised … Continue reading ![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/djmag.com\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/djm_23_1035x582\/public\/2024-05\/Criminal-Justace-Bill-1.jpg.webp?w=640&ssl=1\")
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