Tonight it is off to an apparently legal squat party by Pendulum sound system in SE1 near Southwark.
Walking down the road and a car full of people ask me "where's Southwark Station" with a strange aroma coming from their cigarette which leads me to put 2 and 2 together and make an educated guess; "so you're going to the party then". I am given a lift except the party they meant is another squat round the corner, a huge 6 floor warehouse, not every weekend I stumble across another squat accidentally.
About 150 people were there and a good amount were dancing to drum and bass from Panik and a couple of techno rigs - Crossbones and Stinky Pink. Hedging my bets I met my mate and we went to the Pendulum party which had one room playing acid trance with a lot less people in attendance. "I don't mind" says the guy running it from Pendulum "I'm sticking to this legal venue as I'm sick of the hassle of squat parties". Maybe says something about the scene's current state but as suckers for the "hassle" we spend the rest of the night back at the other party which ended up having at least 6 rigs playing a range of stuff, techno, old skool hardcore, drum and bass through to one room in which we heard those squat party classics Hokey Cokey(!) and lambada(!!).
Fantastic music, large venue, sofas - couldn't find toilets or running water though and still an edge to the party and so a slight reluctance to talk to people we didn't know especially with us having the pleasure of meeting one group who had driven about 30 miles with the intention of "getting fucked". They probably did get "fucked" - i don't know maybe the scene is getting "fucked" but we chose to listen to the music rather than them and so had a good night overall, respect to all crews.
SK
