When confronted with this question there was something that instinctively made me doubtful. Are illegal raves not also mediums to promote small artists? They’re different in form to the traditional music scene but surely the same in principle? As a Languages student, who only engages in music casually, I didn’t feel qualified to tackle this question alone. So this week I sat down with two musicians involved in the Liverpool music scene to see if together we could reach a conclusion: Lily, a DJ in the free party scene and Alba, a singer-songwriter performing at traditional venues. I also got in contact with Dylan, a DJ based in Bristol, who gave me some further insights.
I started by asking Lily to tell me a little more about what a free party is.
“[A free party] is a great space and opportunity for smaller DJs to get their name out there and also an opportunity to dance, and to enjoy parties, raves, and a sense of community outside the constraints of traditional venues. […] At a free party there’s a mutual understanding that everyone is there just to enjoy the music and have a good time. The environment is more inclusive [than clubs]. They attract an alternative scene because they are illegal which means you don’t get your everyday Joes standing in the corner with their drink judging you and your friends for dancing.”
As I think about all the music movements that started as environments where alternative sub-cultures could enjoy themselves judgment-free, I struggle to see how free parties, inclusive spaces could be a bad thing for new forms of music to develop.
We move on and discuss the differences between the music scenes that Lily and Alba move in. Alba says “The only way free parties could harm the music scene is the way they’re sourcing their music. A club pays a PRS licence, so if my song gets played, I get some [money for it].” A free party is unlicensed, so an artist like Alba wouldn’t get any money if her songs got played there. However, Alba continues and tells me that the publicity from her song getting played at a free party would make it worthwhile, even unlicensed. Lily agrees that these events are more for promotion of smaller artists than commercial opportunity.
From our conversation so far, it’s hard for me see free parties having any downside at all but Lily tells me: “I can tell you lots of downsides to the free party community: environmental damage, drug use, and association with the police as degenerates and vandals rather than people who want to have fun and spread music and community, but none of these downsides are to do with the local music scene.”
So, I ask Alba, if illegal raves don’t harm the music scene, what does?
“I think the death of the local music scene leads back to Michael Gove. In the last few years, 42 per cent of schools haven’t entered any students for music GCSE. The local music scene is dying because funding isn’t in music and music isn’t valued as a career. My sister was told she couldn’t do her flute lessons during lesson time because it’s a hobby not a career – which is mental! I think it goes back to people being told that music is not important, not because people are having free parties.”
Michael Gove was the Education Secretary from 2010-2014, he promoted GCSE reforms that would have more students partake in ‘traditional’ subjects, resulting in a decline in enrolment to arts subjects.
Dylan, the Bristol based DJ, seemed to agree that free parties and struggling music scenes are both symptoms of a lack of funding in music and music spaces rather than one causing the other. He told me:
“If it wasn’t for free parties, grassroots venues and events in the local scene would not exist. Extortionate rent and bills prices are forcing grassroots venues to close down at a concerning pace. If these legal spaces don’t exist, there is no future for music. People turn to the fields for freedom; these temporary anarchist zones are built where people can be free and feel the true power of a soundsystem, but this can only be done by breaking the law.”
Both DJs share the opinion that a big reason why it could be argued that free parties help the music scene rather than damage it is, as Dylan put it, “The money made from soundsystems and party crews […] [goes] straight back into the scene. Unlike major venues rinsing you dry and lining the pockets millionaire corporations with even more money that will never be invested into the local scene.” Free parties are conscious political expression of music and freedom, not just an excuse to party.
At the end of our discussion the three of us agree: the free party and singer-songwriter music scenes exist for the promotion of different kinds of music and therefore can both exist without one harming the other. In fact, the wider breadth of musical experiences people have access to, the more all types of music can flourish.
“Warehouse rave” by Goodnight London is licensed under CC BY 2.0.