GVP #101 - Mike Angel - Reflections on Acid House

With 2017 marking the 30th anniversary of the UK partying revolution known as Acid House, music industry veteran and old-school raver Mike Angel returns to offer some perspectives on this movement. The ‘Second Summer Of Love’ as it came to be dubbed, led, in turn, to open-air raves, then the UK superclubs, before paving the way for EDM - or Electronic Dance Music - to be exported to the rest of the world. It’s now a colossal scene, influencing the lives of millions of young clubbers all over the world. We reflect on whether a movement with this level of reach would have been allowed to evolve naturally, or whether it bears the hallmarks of the military intelligence and social engineering institutions, as the original ‘Summer Of Love’ in California has now been shown to have done. Whereas LSD went hand in hand with the psychedelic music of the 1960s, the soundtrack to the electronic dance music of the late 80s and beyond was MDMA/ Ecstasy. Where did all the pills come from, and why were they allowed to be distributed when the authorities could have cracked down much harder if they’d chosen to?