Megatripolis
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Megatripolis was an underground London club night created by Encyclopaedia Psychedelica/Evolution editor and founder of the
Zippie Zippie was briefly the name of the breakaway Yippie faction that demonstrated at the 1972 Republican and Democratic Conventions in Miami Beach, Florida. The origin of the word is an evolution of the term Yippie, which was coined by the Youth Inter ...
movement
Fraser Clark Fraser Clark (d. 21 January 2009), was one of the leaders of the global technogaian movement. As founder and editor of Encyclopaedia Psychedelica, he outlined his views on entheogens and nature, and was a key advocate of the outdoor rave movemen ...
, and partner Sionaidh Craigen as well as a great many others. The club combined
New Age New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars consi ...
ideology with Rave culture to create a vibrant, festival-like atmosphere presenting a wide variety of cross-cultural ideas and experiences.
Club night Club may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Club'' (magazine) * Club, a '' Yie Ar Kung-Fu'' character * Clubs (suit), a suit of playing cards * Club music * "Club", by Kelsea Ballerini from the album ''kelsea'' Brands and enterprises ...
s ran regularly on Thursdays from 1993 until 1996, being the focus of much of the Zippie movement. The club and its related activities also helped to popularise ideas such as
cyberculture Internet culture is a culture based on the many way people have used computer networks and their use for communication, entertainment, business, and recreation. Some features of Internet culture include online communities, gaming, and social medi ...
and the Internet between those years.


History and venues

The club first started at
The Marquee The Marquee Club was a music venue first located at 165 Oxford Street in London, when it opened in 1958 with a range of jazz and skiffle acts. Its most famous period was from 1964 to 1988 at 90 Wardour Street in Soho, and it finally closed whe ...
in London when it was at 105 Charing Cross Road partly inspired by ideas and ideals coming out of the recession of the early nineties. Promoted by evolution / dream and at first as a collaboration with Tribal Energy on Thursday nights in June 1993. The club hosted a lecture by
Terence McKenna Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was an American ethnobotanist and mystic who advocated the responsible use of naturally occurring psychedelic plants. He spoke and wrote about a variety of subjects, including ...
on its opening night with DJs Sequenci, Tribal Energy (Jez Turner), Solar Quest and Mixmaster Morris and featured an "ambient space" in the foyer and a "smart bar" on the terrace which sold various herbal drinks. With techno music playing, about 150 people attended. The club ran weekly. After eight weeks, a disagreement between the Tribal Energy and Evolution / dream crews led to a split. Tribal Energy then continued at the Marquee with a club on the same night, called 'Metropolis', which ran for seven weeks before closing. The Evolution / dream crew consolidated and grew at the so-called Stansted Tree Party in September 1993 – a protest event to prevent woods near
Stansted Airport London Stansted Airport is a tertiary international airport serving London, England, United Kingdom. It is located near Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex, England, northeast of Central London. London Stansted serves over 160 destinations acro ...
in Essex being cleared to make way for housing development. On 21 October 1993, the Heaven nightclub under
Charing Cross railway station Charing Cross railway station (also known as London Charing Cross) is a central London railway terminus between the Strand and Hungerford Bridge in the City of Westminster. It is the terminus of the South Eastern Main Line to Dover via Ashfo ...
became home to the club. 3,000 people attended for the free opening night. Heaven was London's original gay-only nightclub, but had run non-gay (known as Pyramid) nights for many years, including clubs such as Rage, Earth, Spectrum and Land of Oz. The club had the distinction of being full or almost full for every night of its 155-week run at Heaven. The Megatripolis 'Festival in a box' on Thursday nights attracted a diverse audience from a wide age range, many of whom would not otherwise have considered going clubbing. By early 1994, it had also taken over the adjoining Sound Shaft nightclub and turned it into an ambient space with frequent all-night sets by
Mixmaster Morris Mixmaster Morris (born Morris Gould, 30 December 1965) is an English electronica DJ and underground musician who has also recorded as The Irresistible Force. His work in the 1990s blended ambient music and chill-out influences with UK dance ...
on the club's fourth separate sound stage. The club had many DJs from across the broad spectrum of London's underground music scene. Megatripolis also promoted several large parties at Bagley's in Kings Cross and escalated its political agenda by renting an armoured car for the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill protest rally in July 1994. A three-CD album representing the club's music was released in July 1996 on Funky Peace Productions 2000 featuring mixes by DJ regulars and packaged in hemp (tree-free) paper. All production equipment owned by the club was distributed to members of the club's crew. The rented premises under St.Pancras station were handed over to what was to become "Escape from Samsara", a club formed by some of the original Megatripolis crew which went on to run weekly Friday nights for 7 years at The Fridge in Brixton. A Megatripolis event was also staged at the Hacienda in Manchester, and several times at The Rocket in North London with Energique.


Culture and events

Megatripolis proved popular, although some reporting of it suggested a conflict between an avowed downplay of psychedelic drugs and an enthusiasm for substance use by some club-goers. In any event, the club provided a meeting place of like-minded people and served as a platform for social awareness and activism as well as more traditional nightclub fare. The club began on a commercial basis however became underground as it continued. Typical evenings combined lectures and workshops with live musical performances accompanied by live video mixing and theatre. Musical styles were diverse, and included
progressive house Progressive house is a subgenre of house music. The progressive house style emerged in the early 1990s. It initially developed in the United Kingdom as a natural progression of American and European house music of the late 1980s.Gerard, Morgan; ...
,
trance Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli (but nevertheless capable of pursuing and realizing an aim) or is selectively responsive in following the dir ...
, deep house,
minimal techno Minimal techno is a subgenre of techno music. It is characterized by a stripped-down aesthetic that exploits the use of repetition and understated development. Minimal techno is thought to have been originally developed in the early 1990s by Detro ...
and dub. The club played a seminal role in promoting
trance music Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that emerged from the British new-age music scene and the early 1990s German techno and hardcore scenes. Trance music is characterized by a tempo generally lying between 135–150 beats per minut ...
and was the birth-place of 'psy-trance'. Visits from speakers such as
Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
,
Terence McKenna Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was an American ethnobotanist and mystic who advocated the responsible use of naturally occurring psychedelic plants. He spoke and wrote about a variety of subjects, including ...
,
George Monbiot George Joshua Richard Monbiot ( ; born 27 January 1963) is a British writer known for his environmental and political activism. He writes a regular column for ''The Guardian'' and is the author of a number of books. Monbiot grew up in Oxfordsh ...
,
Howard Marks Dennis Howard Marks (13 August 1945 – 10 April 2016) was a Welsh drug smuggler and author who achieved notoriety as an international cannabis smuggler through high-profile court cases. At his peak he claimed to have been smuggling consignmen ...
and
Ram Dass Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert; April 6, 1931 – December 22, 2019), also known as Baba Ram Dass, was an American spiritual teacher, guru of modern yoga, psychologist, and author. His best-selling 1971 book '' Be Here Now'', which has been ...
were common, part of Clark's 'parallel university'. Ginsberg's 1995 appearance on the club's 2nd birthday was made into the archive film '' Allen Ginsberg Live in London''. Guest DJs included James Monro, Colin Faver, Colin Dale, Alex Paterson, Andrew Weatherall, Mr. C, Tsuyoshi Suzuki, Youth and many others, but also featured sound system nights once a month when groups such as Flying Rhino, Zero Gravity, Liberator, Tripship, Sugarlump, Slack and others took over the main dance-floor. The club's resident DJs were Darius Akashic, Sequenci, Richard Grey, and Marco Arnaldi, at least one of them was on the main dance floor every week. Marcus Pennell was resident VJ. Atmospheric music combined with sound effects was played along to films in the "chill-out rooms" set apart from the dance floors. New-age stalls occupied the central hallway selling non-alcoholic energy (or "smart") drinks, body jewellery, alternative "small press" comics and magazines (such as the short-lived, but influential Head Magazine), as well as T-shirts and other clothing. The club also encouraged face and body painters, massage therapists, healers and magicians. Also notable were early demonstrations of the
World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...
at a time when most patrons were just beginning to be aware of what was then termed
cyberculture Internet culture is a culture based on the many way people have used computer networks and their use for communication, entertainment, business, and recreation. Some features of Internet culture include online communities, gaming, and social medi ...
, something seen as an important, if not defining, part of the Zippie future. Underground bulletin boards such as London's pHreak hosted live "cyber events" from the club. In what was seen as very progressive at the time, a live video interview with
Arthur C Clarke Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (16 December 191719 March 2008) was an English science-fiction writer, science writer, futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1968 film '' 2001: A Space ...
was conducted from his home in Sri Lanka on a portable satellite phone system (whose invention he was probably responsible for). Similarly, Timothy Leary was transmitted into the club via ISDN giving a live video interview from his home in the Los Angeles hills,
ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the digitalised circuits of the public switched telephone network. Work ...
having been installed at his house for the link. Leary had been banned from entering the UK in person by the British government in the 1960s, a ban that was still in force at the time. The Dalai Lama also gave a lecture at the club from the Barbican via ISDN on Thursday 18 July 1996. This link didn't work properly and was the final reason for the club's closure in October 1996. Environmental issues were an important part of the club's remit and another part of the Zippie agenda. Anti-road protests were advertised on its internal noticeboards, hemp fashion shows were staged, environmental lectures and debates took place in the talk room called "The Well", and bicycle-powered sound-systems played on several occasions in various rooms. megatripolis was the key mover in climate change promotion at this time and the club was continued at Heaven nightclub after the crew split in early 1995 due to the continued importance of promoting environmental issues. A UK tour took place in the spring / summer of 1996 including venues such as the Hacienda, Manchester, Junction, Cambridge, Zap Brighton and others. Two gigs were also held at the Mad club in Athens, Greece in 1996.


Megatripolis West

An offshoot of the club was started by Fraser Clark and others, in San Francisco in late 1994. It ran for five consecutive weeks before closing. The sixth and final night of the club was a "launch rave" hosted by
Ronin Publishing Ronin Publishing, Inc. is a small press in Berkeley, California, founded in 1983 and incorporated in 1985, which publishes books as tools for personal development, visionary alternatives, and expanded consciousness. The company's tagline is "Life ...
for
Timothy Leary Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. He was "a her ...
's book ''Chaos And Cyber Culture''. In true "illegal UK rave" tradition, patrons were given the event's location at a nearby burger joint. Leary jammed and performed jazz skat with famous Bay Area musician ''Maruga''. He was later kidnapped by the Zippie Soundsystem and forced to release a statement condemning the UK Prime Minister John Major and the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which famously banned outdoor parties with music that included an "emission of a succession of repetitive beats". Leary exerted a powerful influence over the philosophy of the club and the
Zippie Zippie was briefly the name of the breakaway Yippie faction that demonstrated at the 1972 Republican and Democratic Conventions in Miami Beach, Florida. The origin of the word is an evolution of the term Yippie, which was coined by the Youth Inter ...
movement overall. An indication of this can be found in the introduction to his posthumous book ''The Fugitive Philosopher'' (''Ronin Press'', September 2007) written by Fraser Clark. The original title of the piece, published in Clark's online magazine the ''UP!''


Megatripolis in popular culture

Megatripolis is referenced in the BBC TV comedy '
Absolutely Fabulous ''Absolutely Fabulous'' (also known as ''Ab Fab'') is a British television sitcom based on the ''French and Saunders'' sketch, "Modern Mother and Daughter", created by Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. The show was created and written by Saund ...
' and on the Red Hot Chili Peppers album ' Stadium Arcadium'. The club played a major part in creating '
Cool Britannia Cool Britannia was a name for the period of increased pride in the culture of the United Kingdom throughout the mid and second half of the 1990s, inspired by Swinging London from 1960s pop culture. This loosely coincided with John Major's conserva ...
' the UK's culture boom in the 90's and started the UK's major festival scene which continues to this day, 25 years after the club's close. Well-known people who attended the club as visitors included Malcolm McLaren, Lynne Franks,
The Pet Shop Boys The Pet Shop Boys are an English synth-pop duo formed in London in 1981. Consisting of primary vocalist Neil Tennant and keyboardist Chris Lowe, they have sold more than 50 million records worldwide, and were listed as the most successful duo ...
, Björk,
Heather Small Heather Margarita Small (born 20 January 1965) is a British soul singer and former lead vocalist of the band M People. Her subsequent debut solo studio album, ''Proud'', was released in 2000. Career 1987–1998: Hot House and M People Small ...
, and Richard Branson.


Megatripolis Reunion Benefit for Fraser Clark

In 2008 Fraser Clark announced that he had inoperable liver cancer. In farewell to him, a final Megatripolis was held at Heaven on 13 November. He died on 21 January 2009.


See also

*
List of electronic dance music venues A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mu ...


References


External links

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *{{cbignore Nightclubs in London Club nights Music venues completed in 1993 Recurring events established in 1993 1993 establishments in England 1993 in London Electronic dance music venues