Charlie Brooker on clubs...thoughts?

[mrdii]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... on.comment
I know Brooker is liked on here and I usually agree with him a lot.

For those that cba to read, here is his view: Clubs are rubbish. There are much better ways to spend money/nights and a lot of the people inside clubs are posers with no personalities.

I am split on this. Some of the best nights of my life have been in clubs. There's something appealing about getting smashed after a hard week of work and just letting go, whilst having a good time with friends. But I certainly see where he's coming from. There's been other moments, perhaps more sober moments when I've just been stuck with a few friends, surrounded by poser morons. More specifically, I'm talking about those who wear chinos, toms and low-cut V-necks to show their muscles and generic tatoo's. Those annoy me.

I guess it's all down to personal experience, but I also think to some extent he is wrong, and is probably far too analytical of clubs to enjoy them.

[wub]

If it's the sort of club that has 'celebrities' doing 'PAs', then I'm not sure it's the type of establishment I'm ever likely to find myself in.

[magma]

Unlike television (which he's normally pretty good at writing about), it's not possible to find everything about clubbing (and hence the good clubs/music) without putting some effort in... Brooker made the mistake of writing an article damning an entire culture based on his own ignorance of the culture. He's only been to the shit bits because those are the most accessible...

Never mind, I don't get the impression he's any great loss to the rave. He's much more suited to making entertaining pictures happen on my tellybox.

[Mr Hyde]

'celebrity guest PAs' and going to clubs 'to get a shag' it a whole different type of night to proper rave culture, he shows a fair amount of ignorance by not understanding that.

[Refuzed]

ive not read itr but clubbing is crap. going to events in a club i think of as something different, whereas hitting your local highstreet dressed in your finest gear drinking jagerbombs and fighting each other sounds like a crappy night too me.

[hudson]

Clubs suck. I hate top 40 music (all they play around here), I hate paying $5 for a beer, I hate not being able to hear anyone, and they're the absolute last place I'd ever want to meet a girl. I've been to clubs for friends birthdays and shit, and I try to enjoy it, but I always just end up drinking alone on a couch and playing with my phone.

[Pedro Sánchez]

Clubs are shit nowadays, even the ones with the good nights on are still full of posing twats hoping for some facebook tagging to make themselves look cool in the history of their timeline. The entry fees are a joke most of the time and the drink prices are on par with the 'wallpapered decor' clubs. Then there is this thing of...the louder a system can go the more enjoyable the music is, even though it just sounds like a distorted mess, hissing all night. Obviously there are a few nights that get it right but they are few and far between and have more chin strokers spoiling the atmosphere. Real 'Raves' are dead and gone and no one on here under the age of 30 has ever experienced one.

[magma]

Real 'Raves' are dead and gone and no one on here under the age of 30 has ever experienced one.

This is ridiculous. It's a bit sad when people fall so far out of touch that they assume everyone else did too... where have you been trying to party?

The rave scene has been much healthier for the last 5 or 6 years. There are thousands of shit clubs everywhere, but there's very little reason to ever go inside one.

[LACE]

i hated living in miami because the club scene was so flashy. couldn't even get in without proper heels on, let alone dance without wanting to kill yourself at the end of night. music was fucking awful.. fuck that. good clubs allow my doc martens. these clubs are the types i frequent..doubt charlie brooker got that experience..

and if you wanted to get away from those flashy people, there was vagabond..which still blew shit because it was full of pretentious hipsters, not wanting to interact with anyone outside there own clique.

[Pedro Sánchez]

Real 'Raves' are dead and gone and no one on here under the age of 30 has ever experienced one.

This is ridiculous. It's a bit sad when people fall so far out of touch that they assume everyone else did too... where have you been trying to party?

The rave scene has been much healthier for the last 5 or 6 years.

Mate, I'm friends with guys of the Hacienda days, real rave heads who are now in their 40's, I've been to so called 'raves' in the past few years with some of these guys and they admit it's not the same,
how old are you?, if you're young and you wanna calls these parties raves, great but it's not a rave in the true sense, musically or socially, sure it's nice to romanticise about an era you were not a part of but it's not that era any more, don't take it as a bashing against your generation.

[DRTY]

Real 'Raves' are dead and gone and no one on here under the age of 30 has ever experienced one.

This is ridiculous. It's a bit sad when people fall so far out of touch that they assume everyone else did too... where have you been trying to party?

The rave scene has been much healthier for the last 5 or 6 years.

Mate, I'm friends with guys of the Hacienda days, real rave heads who are now in their 40's, I've been to so called 'raves' in the past few years with some of these guys and they admit it's not the same,
how old are you?, if you're young and you wanna calls these parties raves, great but it's not a rave in the true sense, musically or socially, sure it's nice to romanticise about an era you were not a part of but it's not that era any more, don't take it as a bashing against your generation.

You're just being nostalgic.

[DrSpliff]

A few years ago I enjoyed going to nights, nowadays even events by the same promoters as the old good parties are no good. Same looking people wearing same looking glasses in their same looking clothes with their same shit attitudes of let's get really out of it and not give a shit about anybody else tonight. No room to dance anymore either, unless you call both arms squashed into the air and jump on one spot dancing, whilst having muscular V-necked guys bumping into you and then trying to fight. We have big outdoor trance parties quite often, but those have started drawing in the same crowd somehow. It's sad really. Wouldn't mind if they came to enjoy the music but seriously, most of these guys hobbies are to try be from the jersey shore tv program.

[magma]

Real 'Raves' are dead and gone and no one on here under the age of 30 has ever experienced one.

This is ridiculous. It's a bit sad when people fall so far out of touch that they assume everyone else did too... where have you been trying to party?

The rave scene has been much healthier for the last 5 or 6 years.

Mate, I'm friends with guys of the Hacienda days, real rave heads who are now in their 40's, I've been to so called 'raves' in the past few years with some of these guys and they admit it's not the same,
how old are you?, if you're young and you wanna calls these parties raves, great but it's not a rave in the true sense, musically or socially, sure it's nice to romanticise about an era you were not a part of but it's not that era any more, don't take it as a bashing against your generation.

I'm 29... certainly wasn't around for 88/89, but I was around for the superclub boom and today's scene is 100 times better than it was when I was 18 or 19. I'd say the spirit of rave has been alive and well in nights like Toxic Dancehall/Goatlab, Bangface* and Braindrop and the free party scene has been really kicking, especially with massive events like Scumoween in the last couple of years. On the Dubstep tip, it's hard to say that dmz doesn't run pretty close to the "proper" rave spirit at Mass... it certainly feels modern, but it gets the vibe pretty spot on.

I'd given up on the rave as a teenager and assumed it was something I was frustratingly *just* too young for, which is mainly why I ended up a hiphop head... if people were going to go to clubs to pose and link women, we might as well've been listening to music worth posing and linking women to. But after moving to London and getting involved with more genuine nights (and then seeing them pop up all over the place), I've fallen in love all over again. Interestingly, my oldest brother who *was* there the first time around agrees with this sentiment, so your Hacienda guys clearly don't speak for everyone.

My housemates go to more mainstream/hip clubs that play electrohouse and the like... I've only been with them a few times and it tends to be a totally different atmosphere to the nights I go to with friends. I understand why people think the magic has gone, but it really hasn't left everywhere.

I think perhaps you've got rose-tinted spectacles for a time where your life was more exciting and so you're assuming the music, people and parties were too... youth and wide-eyed innocence is exciting... you've got to adjust your expectations as you get older. You can't be as impressed as a 17 year old first-timer every month... you'd be insane by the age of 25. If you were heavy into the Hacienda scene in the late 80s/early 90s then I imagine it *is* difficult to get excited about clubbing in your 40s... that kind of lifestyle takes its toll, somewhat. If I'd hammered it all the way through my 20s, I'd expect to be a bit grumpy in my old age too.

*Bangface during 2007 and 2008 was probably the most fun I've ever had with rave music... I've made so many life-long friends on that dancefloor. Never known a club where I know so many regulars by name. That's the rave family right there.

[clifford_-]

apparantly im spoiled by going to good nights then.

never have any of these problems really, apart from the steep drink prices,
which is standard in our culture now unless you drink in a working mens club. (Which i do quite often)

Even when i play in the hippodrome its not that bad, like people in this thread are making it out to be.

[magma]

apparantly im spoiled by going to good nights then.

Nah, you're "spoiled" by having a positive outlook on life breh! Keep loving...

[clifford_-]

apparantly im spoiled by going to good nights then.

Nah, you're "spoiled" by having a positive outlook on life breh! Keep loving...

forward ever, backward never

[apmje]

Been to loads of shit clubs, still do as my friends are just them type of people. I manage to shrug it off with a good friend of mine who isn't really to into either.

At the end of the day, doesn't matter where I am, it's the people I am with. Met my bird in a shit club, playhing shit music and she's sick.

[scspkr99]

might seem cheesy enough now and apologies for there being fellas without tops but these nights were boss back when

[Mr Hyde]

I was going to proper all-nighters in warehouses and fields in the mid 90's, so perhaps I missed the rave heyday by a few years, but certainly seen the changeover to the superclub boom times and a few musical styles and fashions come and go. Seeing Carl Cox playing at the velvet rooms in 95 wasn't that different a scene to seeing Hatcha in 2002 or going to DMZ in 2007, I'm going to a warehouse party this NYE and the last one I went to wasn't all that different to the ones I went to 15 years ago.

Obviously things change, it'd be dull if they didn't, criminal justice act must have made a big difference especially for outdoor things but mostly I'd say its people getting older and nostalgic that put a negative slant on stuff today compared to years ago.

There are still decent events in the spirit of raves rather than the spirit of High Street clubs, the two are completely different things.

One thing that does bother me is the whole thing of people constantly telling the world what they are doing, people just holding up phones filming and constantly taking pictures and updating twitter and facebook while they are out piss me right off.....there have always been people going to events to say they've been there but it seems to have really increased and it brings down the atmosphere.

[jigglypuff]

One thing that does bother me is the whole thing of people constantly telling the world what they are doing, people just holding up phones filming and constantly taking pictures and updating twitter and facebook while they are out piss me right off.....there have always been people going to events to say they've been there but it seems to have really increased and it brings down the atmosphere.

yup agree with you there