Stories: Best Party Ever
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Colorado 1997. Log cabin in a steep-walled canyon, a river runs through it. Bonfire, with monster pot of world's best chilli con carne simmering away....magic spores abounding.
A van arrives as the moon rises. Out pours Dave Mathews and Trey and lads from Phish. Proceed to blow me far away into the starry sky.
Magic.
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The Tequila Party (cut & pasted from my site)
I came across an old flatmate on the web a few months ago (did a quick search, after another flatmate wondered what had became of him). I made contact with this august gentleman, now living & working in the Middle East & there followed a flurry of nostalgic emails as we reminded each other how reprehensibly we behaved a century ago...
And today, out & about, I saw a woman who featured in one of those nostalgic reminscences...
Warning: I will be taking off at tangents as I tell this story. Try to keep up.
I don't know what year it was... 1982 or 83 perhaps? I flatted with 4 others on the 9th & 10th floors of a city council flat. It was an awesome place. 4 bedrooms & a bathroom upstairs, a master bedroom, lounge, kitchen & 2nd bathroom downstairs. And a sizeable balcony running along the front of the place.
We spent a lot of time at the Southern Cross Tavern. In fact, one flatmate got himself a job there & is now happily married with 4 kids, to our regular barmaid...
And so we decided to hold a tequila party. I think tequila was decided upon because... well who knows why actually, probably because we saw it as the quickest way to obliterate ourselves.
Invitations made it clear that ONLY tequila would be consumed on the premises. Although the first guests to arrive brought copious bottles of THE red wine of its day Fairhall River Claret, and made an impressive start on this. Which in retrospect - red wine followed by tequila - was a mistake.
I'm starting to feel queasy already...
Anyway, the red wine drinkers were a bunch of women of my acquaintance. One I went to school with & always harboured a crush on. Her best friend, was also at the time, my on & off girlfriend. I was never really sure if we were on or off until the end of any given evening we were together actually. Accompanying them were a tall, attractive librarian (who may or may not have settled down eventually & spawned a daughter called Natalie), and another woman called Josie, who was pretty, and skinny, except that she sported what I shall obliquely refer to as one of the great briskets of her time.
More guests arrived, mostly from the ranks of a very bad rugby team I played for. We were possibly the most motley & worst rugby players to ever take the field.
At some stage early in the evening, Josie asked if she could have a guided tour of the flat. Josie usually came equipped with an overly cool & haughty looking boyfriend. But this night, he wasn't in evidence.
I showed her the downstairs bedroom first, which was not my room. She exclaimed "What a fantastic bed" and launched herself onto it, bouncing up & down.
And to this day I regret that I didn't think "So what if it's not my bedroom & my off & on girlfriend is in the next room, and where's her boyfriend anyway?" and get on the bed with her.
But there you go. I didn't. The rest of the tour was a non event, as was my acquaintance with the attractive Josie, my bed was not bounced upon by anyone & shortly thereafter we were back downstairs.
Whereupon, the librarian asked if she could have a guided tour. And of course gentleman that I am...
This time we got right past my bedroom & into that of another flatmate. At which stage the librarian began casting off her clothes & womanhandling me across the room.
Naive & innocent that I was, I fled downstairs to see if I still had a girlfriend. And she wasn't fazed at all, joking even "my tour of the flat didn't take that long".
But in fact, her initial tour of my flat took much longer. On about our third meeting, she & I had gone home from the Cross... and well... actually, the visit might have been shorter except that in one of those magnificent Wellington coincidences, she had gone downstairs in the middle of the night to get some water, then came bounding back up in a panic to whisper "My ex-husband is asleep on your couch!". And it turned out that my flatmate's boyfriend (NZ Chunder mile Champion at the time) had been best man at her wedding several years before & his mate had come to our place with them to crash.... So in fact we were stuck in my room then (bummer) until this guy & my flatmate's bf had left, sometime late the next day...
Back at the Tequila Party... my Middle Eastern flatmate, who was there with his girlfriend, was halfway up the stairs chatting with other friends, when a naked librarian descended, grabbed him by the arm & dragged him upstairs.
All we knew in the lounge was that someone upstairs was making a hell of a lot of noise. Later, when we pieced the whole story together we realised that first of all a bedroom was trashed, and then they moved to the bathroom, attempted to have a shower together & flooded the 2nd floor. Then they regained the bedroom & passed out.
Meanwhile, in the downstairs bathroom, his unsuspecting, and very intoxicated girlfriend was leaning over the toilet bowl feeling very unwell & introducing herself to one of our rugby comrades who was doing pretty much the same thing.
These two later married, but I wasn't invited to the wedding, possibly because I would have told their parents how they met.
At the end of the evening (not long before dawn), the girls turned their attention to what we were going to do about the librarian & how we would get her home. On inspecting the 2nd floor, we realised pretty much what had transpired & the one sober person present (the Southern Cross barmaid who had been working that night, not drinking) offered to take her home.
But we couldn't find her clothes. So we ended up dressing this woman in a mix of my & my flatmate's clothes, then he & I bundled her into his girlfriend's mini & off we drove to Miramar. And there, we sneaked her into her parents house & left her comatose on the couch dressed in men's clothes.
The next day, we did find her gear, spread all around the flat & in different rooms... & I put them all into a shopping bag & decided that I'd drop them to her at the library on my way somewhere else. When I got there, I asked another librarian if she was in today "No, she phoned in sick" was the unsurprising response. So handing a bag full of clothes, including underwear, jewellery & watch over the counter I said "Can you give these to her when she comes in next? She left them at my place last night."
Always kind of proud of that moment :) The librarian did cross my path again on a couple of recreational occasions, but she never, ever mentioned this episode.
Never saw Josie again as far as I can remember, with or without her haughty boyfriend. My off & on girlfriend was mostly off after that. My school friend, on whom I harboured a crush, and I never managed to both be single at the same time, although I do run into her & her family now & then.
And things in the flat were quiet for a while after.
Until we decided to hold a Home-made Sake party...
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Right.
Dunedin, early 1980s. Only real challenge in attending University is avoiding scarfie bashers. Best means of doing so is to hang about in numbers larger than those of the South Dunedinites that spilled out of passing cars with mayhem on their minds.
With that in mind, the Netherworld Dancing Toys host a massive gig at the Orange Hall. Pretty much the entire university population turns up. The boys introduce Annie Crummer: Annie's voice is the sensation of the night. Gig ends. Walking bus of entire university population heads for home.
With only 50 or so passengers left on the walking bus, we arrive at our place. Our place is pretty shabby, complete with resident rat population, which has established late night and early morning monopoly over common areas of our flat. An impromptu party seems called for. Booze is discovered; dope makes an appearance; lounge furniture (such as it was) is relocated into backyard around a large bonfire. Stereo is cranked up.
Rats, discomforted by invasion, are to be seen relocating from customary habitat.
One flatmate, pathological rat-hating philosophy student, supplements (actually substitutes) university studies with remunerative rabbit hunting in Central. Keeps shotguns in wardrobe in his room. Arrives home pissed with party in full swing, announces his girlfriend has left him, and he's off to bed. Heads off upstairs.
Another flatmate and I, revved by booze and drugs, realise that tnoght's the perfect night to acquire the massive Smurfs banner hanging above the roof of a nearby gas station. He's a Territorial, so we dress up in his camos, berets and boots, black our faces and hands, and head off on our mission. Sneak from shadow to shadow, up onto the roof, achieve objective, return home to general acclamation.
Observe on return substantially increased volume of bonfire, and complete absence of fence palings previously running right around our backyard. Begin to remonstrate with remaining flatmate -- who was obviously intended to be the responsible one, while we others were either crying about lost loves or obtaining Smurf regalia -- when there's a shotgun blast from inside the house, followed by an immense crash. Sentient guests are alarmed.
Territorial and I look at each other, realise rabbitman's topped himself from grief, race indoors and belt up the stairs. At the first landing, I following on Territorial's heels realise a shotgun has two shells. I tackle Territorial to the ground, immediately following which there's a second shotgun blast which takes out the wall of rabbitman's bedroom above the stairs, that explosion of aging plaster and wallboard being accompanied by a dark hairy body part -- rabbitman's cranium? -- covered in blood flying across the stairs to hit the opposite wall and fall on us.
We sit up, and look through gaping hole in rabbitman's wall. Rabbitman beatific in bed, whole, cradling still smoking shotgun. "Fucking rats", he says, and falls unconscious, still smiling.
Guests all turn up and play CSI, then head back out to bonfire now supplemented by most of our lounge and dining room furniture. Irritated by remaining flatmate's continuing irresponsibility, Territorial and I decide we can take no more: we climb out onto the garage roof, and share a heavy spliff. Completely ripped now, I can see images of ourselves sneaking from shadow to shadow, still in our camos and blackface, but carrying guns. And walkie talkies. And looking a bit more professional than us.
I tell Territorial I'm hallucinating. Territorial tells me he is, too. Then we're spotlit, and the AOS makes its presence known. Indepth inspection of our flat, confiscation of rabbitman's armoury, immediate orders to terminate festivities, and comply with request to see our guests safely home.
Later we hear some South Dunedin yobs were surprised to discover pissed students heading homewards, otherwise absolute targets for scarfie bashing, under armed escort.
Excellent party.
Oh, and while I'm here.
Mid-1980s: Auckland.
Am working parttime for catering outfit, which wins contract to cater Chuck and Di's Government House garden party, attended by various community, disabled, and sporting groups. And disabled sporting groups: pay attention, this become important.
After making it through security checks, am to be circulating waiter, carrying trays of canapes. Am thoroughly briefed. No approaching royalty. Required to be aware of guests' infirmities: crouch to serve people in wheelchairs; place food in hands of the blind; only half fill glasses of spastics (hey, it was the 80s: what did we know); apprehend requirements of the mute. No eating of food ourselves; no giving food to other staff.
Head off on tasks: discover blind bowlers partial to cucumber sandwiches, wheelchair rugby players not satiated by anything short of complete tray of sausage rolls each, and deaf basketballers oddly standoffish, and avoiding mixing in with rest of happy crowd.
Filled with milk of human kindness, decide to broach deaf basketballers' solitude. Approach one - 6' 8", hearing aid, wearing nondescript team blazer - face directly, and with best enunciation ask "Would You Like A Sav-Ou-Ry Cheese Puff?"
Observe look of non-comprehension on deaf basketballer's face, and start to repeat, now with accompanying sign language, when he swings away, holds hand to hearing aid, and directs an enquiry at the surrounding trees. I follow his gaze, to see another deaf basketballer sitting high up in the branches. With a hearing aid. And same formal blazer. And binoculars. Deaf birdwatchers? And a rifle. Standing with mouth agape, holding out with frozen gesticulation my tray of deflating cheese puffs, my deaf basketballer talks to me: "Fuck off, son, we're working".
Ahh: DPS. Staff. No cheese puffs for him at all.
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I went to a party when I was 17 or 18, my boyfriend's band was playing at a gig way out in the bush somewhere. A whole group of us tagged along, as you do. Anyway, when we got there the large crowd of westy bogans dressed in black were already tanked on beer in the barn and they wanted some music.
Unfortunately, the only song the band played was The Jack by ACDC. No, their repotoire wasn't incredibly small, rather, everytime they tried playing something else they were booed and the crows started getting agro. So they played it over and over and over.
It was so crazy. A friend of mine slipped over when we left the barn to escape another round of The Jack. We soon realised that she had slipped in what can only be described as a makeshift toilet area out the back.
We laughed alot. I don't think the band ever played it again.
She's got the jack, she's got the jack
She's got the jack, she's got the jack
She's got the jack, she's got the jack
She's got the jack, she's got the jack
She's got the jack, jack, jack, jack, jack, jack, jack
She's got the jack -
I was at a dance party at Squid (in Auckland, last century), called The Island of E. There had been a problem with the lighting ... namely they had no power to their lights. So the top bar was lit with a few tealights and one solitary pin spot aimed at a mirror ball that wasn't moving -- so all you had was shafts of light but absolutely no movement. For some reason no-one seemed to mind, the music was pumping, and the party went til sun up.
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So many half-remembered parties. One on a traffic island on Bealey Ave – entry was a D-cell battery for the stereo – which the cops were incredibly cool about. I recommend having a designated chick in any flat (she’ll be the same one who makes people wash the dishes) whose job it is to talk to the police or noise control and gets them to, y’know, just leave again. She must be able to sound incredibly reasonable when drunk, and preferably be distractingly hot. One party I went to dressed as a Green Orion Slave girl and woke up (came to) in the morning with not a trace of body paint on anything but my eyelids. One I had to go back to the next day and ask if I could please have all my clothes back. One where we seriously considered setting fire to stuff in the back yard so we could have a full slate of emergency services call-outs.
But the party story that comes to mind is this one. For a couple of months I flatted with some people I never really got to know in Wainui St. One evening, I was headed off with friend’s to another friend’s pyjama party. As we were leaving, flatties appeared to be settling in for the night with all the lounge furniture in the back yard. Nothing unusual.
We went to our party, and in the wee, wee hours of the morning I stumbled home again. I walk in the back door accompanied by a couple of friends, dressed in pigtails, eyeliner freckles, bare feet, and a Garfield nightshirt that says ‘you may as well take all of me, the parts you want don’t come off’. The flat is deathly quiet, and completely dark. Later, this last turns out to be because there’s not a lightbulb left in the place. No sign of life anywhere. Just an inch-deep layer of broken glass and that unidentifiable miscellaneous crap that covers the floor the morning after parties. The boys carry me and my bare feet to my room and we go to bed. (There’s no light bulb in my room either, and my bedside lamp just makes alarming damp zzzztt noises.)
In the morning, the devastation is even more impressive. But, y’know, we’re nineteen, nobody’s going to SAY anything, it wouldn’t be cool. Any residual annoyance over the state of my room is entirely removed by the look on my ‘ubercool’ flatmate Kelvin’s face as he watches me make three cups of coffee for breakfast. I never did find out what happened, but I don’t think anyone who lived in that flat will ever be running for public office.
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Excellent! Say, are you owning to being distractingly hot?
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Oh, Andrew, I couldn't possibly comment. I will own to having an eleven year old son...
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Ok, shove over, my turn.
T'was oooo early 90s, Dickens St flat in Grey Lynn.
A 70s pardy - yeah, themed, therefore inherently fascist, but stay with me.
The house is stripped of everything, all walls and windows are lined/ covered with black polythene. Hired oil lights, smoke machine, monster strobe, mirror ball, pin spots, and created sundry number 8 wire light contraptions with turntables, cardboard and light bulbs are set up. Hired crappy 70s videos play on upside down tellies. Someone arrives with two trays loaded high with Palmy North shrooms so nibbles are sorted.
Then add unknown numbers of cossied-up derelicts, dancers, media types and musicians with several car loads of fully-feathered Sth Auckland drag queens and shake until befuddled.
Around mumble mumble o'clock first stereo explodes, never fear three to go, so out comes the second biggest. Water is dripping from the ceiling, with the drops looking lovely when caught by the strobe while descending through the fug. Two guests return in their cop uniforms and enjoy scaring the bejeebus out of those who could still focus before settling on a Village People-type vibe. Second stereo fails. As third is dragged out, it's decided that the time would be best filled by mass leaping up and down on beds. Beds fail. Third stereo soldiers on till dawn. Nice. -
Water is dripping from the ceiling, with the drops looking lovely when caught by the strobe while descending through the fug.
One of the nicer things I've ever seen was was light drizzle falling through the light of an outdoor strobe at a huge Mutoid Waste Company party in London. It was like a constant shower of sparkly glitter. Well, that's how it looked at the time ...
Actually, that was a completely amazing party. The Mutoid Waste Company has been responsible for two of my Top 10 nights ever.
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I will own to having an eleven year old son...
Never fear! An idle question only. I found that having an honest face & manner worked well with the council (landlord) and coppers.
Unless I'm distractingly hot, but I suspect not.
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No worries.
To be fair, I always found the cops in Chch a lot easier to get on with than the ones in my home town, Timaru. Much less aggro, much better at calming things down rather than winding them up.
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Sad to think how many great parties I probably just can't remember now. I remember waking up numerous times thinking: "Wow, that was the time of my life". But I'm fuzzy on the details.
One that I do remember all the details of, because it was my 20th, occurred in 2000. There was a few people, in that flat on Symonds St (193a - Now some goth hang out), turning various ages so we thought we would have the mother of all parties. We organised five bands to play. Basically they were the bands that used the space to rehearse. One of them was called the Rolling Red Knuckles and I can't remember the rest.
Being poor and entreprenurial I thought -let's get sponsored. So I spent a couple of afternoons calling up marketing managers for booze companies to see if I could con anyone into giving us free stuff. One conversation I had with the Marketing Manager for British American Tobacco was funny: "Hansel, I'm sorry but we can't just give you cigarettes, we would love to be able to just give cigarettes away. They're addictive it'd be great for sales, but we aren't legally allowed to". There went the plan to have trays full of cigarettes lying around.
I had this patter going about how the whole thing was going to be live on some television station that I'm not sure actually existed, that this Japanese film crew were recording the Knuckles for a live action video game, that that. It really didn't work so well because then I had no idea about how to approach corporate marketers. However I did get lucky when I talked to the guy that ran Auckland Breweries (Since purchased by the guys that own the Cock & Bull taverns) who said yeah why not. We'll give you some posters, half price on the kegs and some bottled product.
Now this flat was basically a concrete rectangle with windows at both ends, overlooking the streets, and some badly constructed bedrooms in the middle. Most surfaces were concrete so nothing really mattered. The place was impossible to damage. The day of the party was fairly relaxed. Bands organised themselves, I had to go pick up our five kegs. By about 12pm things just went nuts. Bands were playing, beer was flowing, everywhere. One of my friends, who arrived late, asked me why he had to pay $5 on the door. I had to go down and tell these two random girls to stop charging people money to get into our mutual birthday party. I reckon they made $50 each in twenty minutes but they gave me $20 and came upstairs. The stairs in that place are lethal. Smooth molded concrete. 10 steps, a small landing, and then another 10. Our neighbour was too drunk and was trying to leave, said good bye and walked backwards into thin air hitting each step on the way to the landing. Where he stopped in a heap moaning about being broken. When he tried to stand up again he stumbled and did the remaining ten in about 3 backwards somersaults. The next day his body was covered in perfect stripy bruises. Zebra like if you will.
At some point there were way too many people and eventually I passed out in my own bed. Each of the other bedrooms was a small private party which had evolved complicated knocks in order to gain entry.
I think what was most impressive was the mess in the morning. The main toilet looked like a punk had exploded. You could actually identify the half digested bits of food stuck to the ceiling. Aside from all the broken glass there was a 1 cm puddle of beer that extended throughout the west facing half of the flat. Nothing in the house had not been used to drink out of. Even the little thing that the toilet brush usually sat in. Even that. We never did manage to properly clean the floor. We eventually just painted over it.
Funny thing about reading these stories is the sense of pride that comes through. And you know what I think? Fair enough, because spending time and effort on creating a completely unique/crazy/stupid event that some people will never forget is something you should be proud of. I've never had the energy to try anything on such a large scale again. Maybe one day -
The main toilet looked like a punk had exploded.
Genius.
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This one comes from my teenage years and occurred during that phase where you've discovered beer and are trying to discover girls. It's not the best party I've ever been to but it's certainly one I remember. At the time my friends and I were very big on finding a parent free place on a Saturday night and drinking ourselves into a complete state of paralytic dysfunction.
And for you temperate types it was a case of how we were drinking AND what we were drinking! Vodka and orange in a cask and 16 year old boys go together kind of like Serbs and Croats. Explosive and messy. Still it was the done thing in those days and if I could remember more about it I'm sure I might regret some of it.
Anyway the weekend arrived when my parents were going to be away so it was my turn to provide the venue. My parents weren't complete fools, having raised teenage boys before, so my mother gave me a stern lecture before they departed. Lots of talk about how I was not to have a party, and how they'd know if I dared try such a thing. Like the devious teen I was I simply nodded agreement while trying to figure out how I could score their brandy without them noticing.
Message received, understood, and totally ignored.
Sure enough later that day my friends duly arrived well and truly stocked up courtesy of the Motueka Hotel which, in those days, was a notoriously soft touch for teens seeking alcoholic refreshment. Apart from a minor fatal incident involving a Morris Minor and a duck that was in the wrong place at the wrong time things started out reasonably calmly.
Predictably it didn't last long. With the stereo blaring and drinking games well underway the evening descended into a rosy alcoholic haze. It was somewhere between the sophistication of Whiz Boing Bounce, and the elegant simplicity of Next that things started to go horribly wrong.
For some peculiar reason in those days I had a very silly habit of trying to hide while drunk. Tree tops and roofs were my speciality. Unfortunately for me my efforts at trying to conceal myself on the top of the water tanks on the top of the house were a spectacular failure. I'd left an errant leg out in plain sight and a good friend , who went by the nickname Sickie (more on him soon), spied said leg and gave it a tug. Yours truly falls off the top of the house, landing on my back, on the river boulder paved area beneath. If I hadn't have been completely munted at the time I suspect it would have hurt like buggery. Needless to say my evening came to a premature end as my friends bundled me off to bed.
It spared me from some of the horror that was to come.
I awoke the next morning with a King of hangovers and a seriously stuffed back. It was one of those mornings when you're so bad that it takes you a good half hour just to sit up. So here I was clawing my way through my misery and I heard the worst words a teenager can ever hear when he's had an illicit party in his parents' home.
"I've leaned it up and I think it's OK".
Oh bollocks!
It turns out that after my evening came to an end that of my friends, and in particular Sickie's, continued in fine form. Single-handedly he managed to demolish a 3 litre cask of vodka and orange mix (this stuff was so vile you wouldn't even want to use it as paint stripper) and then passed out on the couch. At some stage in the wee hours of the morning his stomach decided it wasn't going to put up with this cruel and unusual punishment and voided its entire contents on the floor.
Right in the middle of the living room.
Let me make it quite clear this wasn't your everyday chunder. It was no hiccup with solids, it was the full stomach stretch. You know, the one that exercises every muscle between your thighs and your eyes. Sickie (you might understand how he came by his nickname by now) left a veritable lake of vomit on the floor.
The problems arose when another of my friends, who for decency's sake shall remain nameless, attempted to clean it up. His intentions were noble, but his abilities fell well short of the mark. He vaguely remembered something his mother had once told him about talcum powder being good at removing stains and tried to match theory to action. Dumping half a container of talcum powder on a very large, and very liquid, puke puddle produced a morass that quickly set like concrete.
This is where I came in. To a group of teenage boys, surrounded by empty beer cans, and the occasional bourbon bottle, looking intently at one of the worst examples of ecological terrorism I've ever seen. Naturally they thought it was hilarious. I was less enthused for patently obvious reasons.
So my colleagues in crime were hastily evicted while I was left with 8 hours to remove the evidence. All the windows were opened in a vain attempt to get the stench of puke out of the air. A heater was switched on high and set in place to dry the stain. A stain, which I swear expanded the more I looked at it. As portions of it dried I attacked it with a stiff broom blasting particles of puke and talcum powder into the air and across the living room. A duster and vacuum cleaner were then hastily enlisted to the cause.
After hours of labour I was left with a huge pale splodge in the middle of the living room. To my mind I was a dead man walking as there was no way I was going to get away with it. In a last fit of desperation, even as I spied my parents driving up the road, I rolled the couch over the top of the evidence then sat down and put on the best facade of cool calm and collected I could manage.
In walked my parents.
"How was the weekend?"
"Not bad, pretty quiet" said the nervous son.
"I see you've cleaned the place up a bit - oh and moved the couch"
"Yeah I thought it being winter and all it'd be nice to have it a bit closer to the fire"Silence. Nervous sweating. Apprehension. And then - nothing.
Blow me down if I didn't get away with it!
Well not completely of course. When spring came round and the weather warmed up and the couch was rolled back .... then there were some issues.
"WHAT THE HELL?!"
"Umm you know that weekend you were away and told me not to have a party and told me you'd know if I did ... well ..."
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Parties - been to a few, can't remember that many. From the days of yore and those innocent shindigs in the 7th form when all my friends and I were virgins, nonsmokers and mondoers of other myriad things to the flat in Franklin Rd in 1983 that had 5 rooms and 12 people living in it, and a shower that was outside and best approached in footwear, and parties that sometimes never started at all, because someone always made vodka jellies and induced others to knock them back before they set, and those that had partaken ended up with alcohol poisoning so severe that they required hospitals ; to the flats in Kingsland and Grey Lynn and back to Freemans Bay again; to London and beyond, and now in my forties where a good BBQ with good friends seems to be the norm.......best parties I ever went to though were two of my own. When I was 10 and danced on the table and generally showed off so much, that all my guests were sent home early; and my 21st at the Regent Hotel, in a private dining room where I crawled under the table and sat there for much of the night delivering witty (I thought) comment on the night as it progressed. Had everyone in stitches at the time, not sure why now. Hardly legendary, I guess, but I have fond memories!
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I'll get to the best party if i can remember it, but I do remember a party moment that's worth sharng in these anti-police times. It was the very earlier 90s, before the traffic cops and police merged.
It was in Whangarei, and a sole traffic cop and a St Johns crew were trying to deal with the results of a minor smash outside a very drunken party. Their efforts were being hampered by a drunk, obnoxious bogan hurling abuse at them from the driveway. In those days, the traffic cops couldn't enter private property, so he was having a ball taunting them.
Until the police arrived. He spotted them and scapered up the drive about 2 seconds too late. They pursued him, restrained him with a fairly minimal amount of force, and directed him back down the driveway to the street.
Once there, they made him apologise politely to the St Johns crew for abusing them, then let him go.
Straight-laced and fair policing at its finest.
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Surely someone should have mentioned the legendary Pope Party at the Lyall Bay home of Kerry Annett in 1986? I certainly remember it as it was my first time meeting Janice (loosely associated with Russell's Brixton yarn), Alex, Ross and a host of other deviants. It was the 2nd time that I met Kerry and the future babe of my dreams.
Anyway, apart from some toilet demolition, we burnt a large upside down cross (as you do) in the uphill back garden, just in time for John Paul to do his drive-by. Just beforehand the police turned up and told us we had to put it out. I jumped up in my best leather jacket, ripped jeans and docs, and politely enquired "You can't make us do that!?"
"Yes we can" the mild mannered bobby replied. "You're living in a police state, son".
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I've also got very fond memories of a series of London dance parties from the early 90's run by a mob called Pushca.
Those people really knew how to pull out all the stops when it came to organising a party ........
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A friend of mine hosted a flatwarming party at his new residence in Remuera and asked if I'd DJ for it. He organised a nice big sound system in the basement, a tonne of free carlsberg beer and gave me a chilli bin full of red bull for my troubles.
I started playing at about 8 o'clock as people started to arrive, kicking off with a little light hip hop and downbeat stuff. People arrived, started getting down and I ended up playing just about everything in my record bag, and all the good stuff off my computer - Hip Hop, House, Electro, Drum & Bass, Retro, even some good Alt Rock for the hip punters, and at about 2.30-3am I think it was, I literally ran out of music just as the party wrapped up and the music had been as loud as it could go all night. No fights, no police, no noise control (incredibly) and the hit track of the night was The Tutts' "K" which absolutely blew the roof off.
Thanks to all the Remuera residents who didn't complain, and word spread to friends in Canada and Europe of not only how good the part was, but the rockin DJ that played. Stoked.
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I guess the classic would have been climbing out the window, but it was nine floors up at Brooklyn.
I lived in a flat on the top floor of Brooklyn for a couple of years. It has six floors, but it certainly felt like the ninth if you had to go down the stairs, or the 15th if you had to walk up them.
I'm 46 and I can't remember a truly great party on any continent, but measured on the open-ended O'Neill scale of hangovers, 35 Priory Avenue in aptly named Turnham Green (west London) in around 1983-84 would have scored highly, or badly, depending on your PoV.
No one stole our furniture, as far as I can remember - the Kiwis, Aussies and Poms who lived there scored most of it from nearby skips - but a gatecrasher tore Frank Zappa's graduation photo off the wall one night. And I was still thin enough in those days to be able to go into my bedroom at the end of one New Year's Eve party, remove my clothes, pull the covers over my head, fall asleep and not be seen by my then girlfriend, my sister or her boyfriend... Resulting in a worried search party being sent out all over Chiswick, looking for a wandering, naked drunk.
Naked walks in the middle of winter were the sort of thing my friends and family thought I did in those days, apparently.
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That image closed down this discussion sharpish, didn't it. :-)
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