Sunday. 22:42. Loft Party, Dalston
Every shot this week was taken on a night out last week. As the Cameo track Word Up goes, “Wave your hands in the air, like you don’t care”. Larry Blackman was singing this in the 80s and this declaration suited those times and in some ways that is exactly what has been happening ever since but things feel a little bit different now. I do care and I am concerned but I’m still waving my hands in the air. In all honesty being out and having fun these days seems somewhat at odds with what is currently going on, both in this country right now and globally for what the future holds for us. There really doesn’t feel like there is anything much to celebrate but still we carry on, pretending as if there was. We ‘party on’ to escape the horror because it feels there is nothing else to be done. But it is starting to feel like a very surreal and conflicting experience, the euphroria of a night out squarely at odds with the current anxiety of the day to day.
The ‘real world’ never made a lot of sense to me but squeezing as much fun as you could out of life and living a hedonistic existence always did. Mainly because its when you get to experience people at their happiest and most interactive. It maybe stimulant induced but it doesn’t take away the fact that on nights out you find people come towards each other rather than edge away and (mostly) bring out the best in each other, guard down, prejudices locked away, revealing open souls who want to join as a connected collective, if only for one night.
And what unites people every single time is music. On a lot of the nights out last week I have shown you photographic snipets of, I was not really feeling in the mood when I first went out but invariably I would hear a track and it would lift my spirits, it would bring me back from the pit of despair, it would inject me with life and positivity. One of those tracks was “From Disco to Disco” by whirlpool productions (link) which 2manydjs played at the party I was at on Monday and I was sitting there, feeling pretty wrecked and flat and wondering what the fuck I was doing there and this song came on and in moments I was up on my feet dancing, without a care in the world, uplifted and happy.
I saw the Young Fathers on Tuesday just gone at Brixton Academy and having lived through the week of nights I have shown you in these pictures I was fairly dead on the inside and heavily flatlining. Within ten minutes of their gig, I was reinvigorated and energised, raised from the dead and brought back to life. A pretty impressive achievement which they delivered on and some. Young Fathers are so explosive live, they have such commitment and passion and always give nothing but there all, you cannot help but be swept up by their tide of enthusiasm. Their energy was enough to revive mine. They destroyed my apathy, annihilated my depressed mood. And all just through the power of their music.
Music makes me feel that there is a way forward, its just not the path we are currently on. But the fact that it exists and the effect that it has gives me hope for the human race. And if we could just get the c****s out of the way we would probably be fine.
The problem is that while a lot of my generation saw what the world was really about and said ‘fuck it’, I don’t buy that bullshit, I don’t want to be a part of it, I’m going to go out and have a ton of fun instead, which was fine, but while we were doing that, other members of our gen have been steadily dismantling our society, accumulating all the wealth and power for themselves and we have let them. Our absence and failure to engage left a vacuum that they were able to exploit. Maybe it would have happened anyway, but can’t help feel disappointment that we did nothing to stop them as everything that has gone wrong has happened on our watch. And now its all pretty heavily fucked and it feels that there is literally nothing left to do except to get fucked and watch as the world burns. So guess its business as usual then…as Jim Morrison so wisely once said: “I don’t know what’s going to happen man, but I want to get my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames.” Amen Jim. Actually thinking about it, it didn’t really turn out too great for Jim so mebbe not the best person to listen to…we need a postive role model to lead the way….any suggestions?