Kirk Field begins the epilogue to his memoir Rave New World by stating that he wrote it without any real intention of it being published. Occurrences of this type of claim usually land somewhere between false modesty and outright fibbing, but despite the previous 300-plus pages containing a few tall-sounding tales, the ex-journo and first-time author had a valid reason to, initially, keep this under wraps.
Field was pursuing a new vocation as a justice of the peace, which – if only on account of the British love of curtain-twitching conservatism – sat uneasily with his having spent over a decade colluding in or witness to criminal activity.
Such was life on the frontline of UK club culture as it evolved throughout the 1990s. Field can’t claim to be one of the pioneers, having his proverbial pilled-up epiphany below a pub in 1989, but threw himself into the cauldron with gusto: writing on-ground off-tits reports for Mixmag and others, handling the implausible logistics of illegal off-M25 raves, helping to usher in a subsequent era of licenced ones, pivoting to vocalist on throwaway mid-90s dance-pop minor hits and various other follies.
If wearing all these hats must have required a fair reserve of self-belief, Rave New World is broadly self-effacing. When names are dropped, which is often, it tends to be with a knowing clang, and the further the subject’s distance from clubland the better the story. Exiled Tunisian president Ben Ali and Spanish football crook Jesús Gil fit that brief ably, although an anecdote about Genesis P Orridge sending a Croatian arena into rapturous applause by reciting a 1980s double-glazing advert slogan has its own niche appeal.
It does idly occur to me that all those characters are too dead to question the veracity of Field’s prose, but in the author’s own words, “it’s bound to be a bit blurry round the edges,” and if you’ve a weakness for ravers’ war stories you’ll eat up this compendium of ‘em.
Rave New World: Confessions Of A Raving Reporter, Kirk Field (Nine Eight)
Price: £20. Info: here
words NOEL GARDNER