Tuesday 18th of April 2006 – One Night in Hackney
On Saturday night I went out on my longest night out ever, we left the house at 7:30 to watch Sack Sabbath: a tribute band to Black Sabbath. This was in Leytonstone, at a lovely pub called Loaded Dog. Ozzy Oddbin (i.e. Ozzy Osbourne) looked uncannily like the real thing and had a plastic bat stuck to his microphone holder. They were all very good musicians and I found myself head banging and now I’m the proud owner of a sore neck.
After that we got a cab to Hackney, there were 5 of us: Scott, Jo, Andy, J and I. We headed off to Tribe of Munt. This used to be a squat party which now has gone legal – and tickets must be bought in advance: that way the ‘nasty’ people (gangs of muggers, basically) tend to stay away. I was so shocked to meet a 12 year old boy selling acid. Well, it turns out that he was 16, but he looked so much younger, and yet when I had a proper look at his face, he looked older than his years… The world can be pretty unjust when it comes to kids and some get dealt a really shitty life. Some people didn’t seem to see a problem with it but they’re not people whose opinion I respect anymore. I was outraged. Not just the selling, but taking psychedelic drugs before the age of 21 (i.e. before the brain is fully developed) can cause serious mental health issues, there’s already a whole generation of people whose brains have been damaged due to too many drugs: too much too young.
I took one pill, which was rather strong, and the night went by in a flash, it really did. I danced, talked, rescued Andy from a fight. Two guys decided they didn’t like the look of him and Andy called me over to help him out because he could barely speak: he’d taken an acid. Everyone shook hands in the end… Another friend took ketamine, went up on stage then fell over: she then went around telling everyone about it, so she wasn’t hurt. I kept filling up empty balloons, which had been used by people inhaling nitrous dioxide, with air and just holding onto them, because the vibration from the music gets amplified by the balloon, and that was my toy for the night. The group we were with consisted of about 15 people. We were all looking out for each other.
At around 8am we all went to another party around the corner: KSS/Malfeiteurs. This was a proper squat party: the biggest one I’ve ever been too, in a massive warehouse, two floors (in Kenworthy Road I think, both parties were very near Hackney Wick railway station).
Somehow we stayed there until 3 in the afternoon, it was nice to sit outside and talk about surreal stuff for ages with our friends. Some had done a lot more drugs than others. Some people mixed ketamine + pills + acid + speed… I’m sure I could not handle all that! I wouldn’t even like to try.
Someone had lost it at the party (I didn’t see it, but everyone was talking about it), andI went upstairs to look for a friend (have to look out for each other in squat parties as they can get nasty) and I saw some very vivid red drops on the floor and I thought how pretty they looked. I followed the trail, and ended up on the window sill, which had a pool of very red blood and a broken window too. We were staring at it for ages trying to figure out what happened.
A Spanish guy came and talked to us, and when he saw that he said: I like spaghetti Bolognese but I’d never have more than one plate of it, otherwise I’d feel sick. I don’t understand why it is that people have this need to do so much of everything. I nodded in agreement as I don’t get it either. Why do so many drugs to the point where you just lose your mind and start going crazy? We saw him come upstairs later, someone was looking after him, his hands wrapped in some dirty cloth, the cloth was soaked in blood. Looked like he cut up an artery, as the blood was bright red. Not sure why they didn’t take him to hospital, perhaps he was so wasted he couldn’t face it…
I also bumped into Tia, a friend I hadn’t seen for years!!!!!!!!! She got me a job at The Register, where I worked until I was about 6 months pregnant, monitoring adds in different languages. It was a dull job, but near home (it used to take me 15 mins on my bike) and the hours were 4 in the afternoon until 11 at night. The money wasn’t bad either, especially for a university student, which is what we all were at that time. We lost touch and then suddenly, we bumped into each other at this party! She and her friend just sat next to us and we looked at each other in complete amazement. I had no idea she went to squat parties!!!! How funny! We talked for ages, it was really nice. Tia knows a guy who’s on urban75, and that’s why they were there.
Quite an unforgettable night, but there’s no way I could do this regularly, there’s so much info my brain needs to process after that, and it still feels a bit mushy. It’s such an intense experience I won’t be doing anything on that scale anytime soon. There were also about 4 huge dogs playing about, keeping everyone entertained during the morning/afternoon.