Music Cults

william_kent

william_kent

Well-known member
WashYourHands said:
Thought I saw a new age traveler today, but it was just a pissed up crusty

What’s the difference? With NAT’s you’d have convoys of em

Possibly extinct but more likely to have bought nice gaffs round the West Country after inheritances were cashed in, Brew Crew still around in drips and drabs
Click to expand...

Tipi Valley is still going, there's still elderly peace convoy people sitting in rusting coaches on patches of land that they bought, from what I gather others got degrees and, like you say, those inheritances came in handy for some

big shock when I was in Wisconsin - saw a beat up van with "Brew Crew" painted on the back - turned out it's what the hardcore fans of the "Milwaukee Brewers" baseball team call themselves - I bought a t-shirt as joke for a friend who has never dared to wear it - took some effort as well, in one shop I asked and they were like "we don't sell t-shirts" and I could see a whole rack behind the guy

1629313385654.png
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
woops said:
it's weird but there's just a certain type of person who for whatever reason has the psychology that leads them to set up as a charismatic leader
Click to expand...
Yeah that's exactly what I was trying to get at when I said that it's about selling the leader, the actual message is irrelevant...
 
woops

woops

is not like other people
william_kent said:
Tipi Valley is still going, there's still elderly peace convoy people sitting in rusting coaches on patches of land that they bought, from what I gather others got degrees and, like you say, those inheritances came in handy for some

big shock when I was in Wisconsin - saw a beat up van with "Brew Crew" painted on the back - turned out it's what the hardcore fans of the "Milwaukee Brewers" baseball team call themselves - I bought a t-shirt as joke for a friend who has never dared to wear it - took some effort as well, in one shop I asked and they were like "we don't sell t-shirts" and I could see a whole rack behind the guy

View attachment 7995
Click to expand...
how about some details about what the "brew crew" is exactly, it's something i've only seen mentioned in passing in Energy Flash
 
william_kent

william_kent

Well-known member
woops said:
how about some details about what the "brew crew" is exactly, it's something i've only seen mentioned in passing in Energy Flash
Click to expand...

TLDR; the "brew crew" were the scourge of the UK free festival / new age traveller circuit / early free party scene / squatting scenes

so here's my condensed alternative history of the UK:

Stonehenge Festival 1982 - biggest one yet, as it's time to leave site people are like "where now" - "let's support the wimmin at Greenham Common", someone paints "Peace Convoy" on their double-decker and the Peace Convoy is born - hundreds of vehicles form a convoy and head to Greenham Common for the "Cosmic Counter Cruise Carnival" ( fun rumour - reports of an acid eating competition, Nik Turner, then of Inner City Unit, the number one acid punk band, wins at 72 tabs consumed ) - Stonehenge 1983 and '84 are even bigger - over a 150,000 people, it's getting out of control, the Tories really don't like it..

so, the convoy has to go..

the police ( tooled up, thirsty for blood, and trained in action by the miner's strike ) battered the Peace Convoy at Nostell Priory in 1984 and then again at the "battle of the bean field" in Wiltshire ( 1985 ) and then yet again at Stoney Cross (1986 ) there was a marked reduction in the older travellers - when your home is your vehicle and the police have trashed it over and over, then some people just had enough, some fled to Europe, some bought their comfy homes, set up a tipi in Tipi Valley, etc., - but around the same time there was a change in the squatting laws making it harder to occupy residential premises which lead to younger people leaving the cities and buying a vehicle and going "on the road" and living on site, becoming "New Age Travellers" - notice I'm not calling anyone hippies here, because they were always in the minority and most got scared off by the police and state sanctioned violence - the Peace Convoy were hard as fuck on the whole - there was a huge crossover with the anarcho punk scene in the early 80s, loads of punks, ex-bikers, ex-squaddies, and general reprobates went on the road - but.. by 1986 the Peace Convoy has been trashed multiple times and you've got a pissed off and harassed bunch of travellers and the older heads who had always insisted on no class As on site had got scared off the scene, some survivors have turned to "self-medication", and there is an influx of urban youth from the dying squatting scene, some attracted by the Tory government's branding of the Peace Convoy / New Age Travellers as "wandering medieval brigands" - violence can be attractive and there's a guaranteed ruck every year at Stonehenge at Solstice - it's around this time that the "Brew Crew" appear, so-called because of their habit of drinking copious amounts of Special Brew - they didn't care for any of the older generation's ideals ( 'hippy shit' ) and would just use violence to take what they wanted - having smack habits didn't help either so they would just steal from vehicles and destroyed any sense of trust on site - free festivals in the late 80s could be dark and dangerous places ( I'm not saying they weren't before 1986, they were, just that the danger element increased dramatically ) - there were some nasty incidents - 1988 festival at Ribblehead viaduct saw an old timer get their vehicle burnt out by the Brew Crew ( the story I heard was that he was a housing association type who had got some people evicted for dealing smack, they saw him at the festival and caved his head in ) - people getting taxed on site, punters at festivals seen as fair game, stabbings, etc., - I think @WashYourHands has mentioned before that the Brew Crew could be guaranteed to ruin a party / festival and I will second that opinion...

or as WYH says above...
 

Attachments

  • 1629325989607.png
    1629325989607.png
    876.7 KB · Views: 6
WashYourHands

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
martin said:
A think tank once paid me to research the brew crew subculture and come up with a conclusion. Here's the result

BEYOND THE IMPLODE 3 - BRITISH AIRWAYS 0: "FESTIVAL!"

seagullscreamingkillherkillher.blogspot.com seagullscreamingkillherkillher.blogspot.com
Click to expand...

Click to expand...
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
woops said:
it's weird but there's just a certain type of person who for whatever reason has the psychology that leads them to set up as a charismatic leader and then there is the type of person who is vulnerable (or gullible) enough to follow those leaders and that's just what they do. it's similar to conmen who run pyramid schemes and so on - literally the day they are released from prison for running a scam they start running the next scam and were probably running one inside prison as well. it's just what they do and there's not a shortage of people willing to play along with the con either.

i mean if you're willing to believe that x person is the mouthpiece of the universal force of life then you're that much more willing to believe them when they say they've calculated wrong, or that the archangel raphael has transmitted a new date for the ascension, or whatever. sad but true.
Click to expand...
I've just been thinking about this again. And one thing that comes to mind is the way that people often say that with Brexiters (could be anything but I've seen it loads in this context of course cos that's what is happening at the moment) it is extremely hard for someone who has invested a lot of time in an idea - believing in it, fighting to make it happen, defending it afterwards etc etc - to admit that they are wrong because that would probably mean that they were wrong at the start, they have always been wrong and they have wasted so much time and effort and who knows what resources in this enormous error. For someone in this position, even if doubt is kinda creeping in; if at the back of the mind in a dark corner hidden away as well as possible there is the horrible understanding that they fucked up, lurking, ready to pounce, it is psychologically much easier (in the short term at least) to just ignore that and lie to yourself and simply soldier on, blocking any inconvenient truths from your mind.
I don't know if i have ever seen this second part stated explicitly but feels to me that this idea is implying that there are a number of brexiters where this barrier is the only impediment to them agreeing that they had made a mistake, people who are really stuck on the wrong side of the argument, people who know deep down that it was a fucking stupid thing to do and that it has been done badly, and if they could find a way to either, overcome, or if possible (though I am not sure what it would mean in practice) just kind of avoid that barrier - in other words if they could just magically switch sides - then would love to do it. Cos then they could argue in good faith, for something that they truly believed in, which of course is much less stressful than constantly lying to yourself, which can only be a recipe for unhappiness right?
It seems to me that the situation of a member of one of those whackadoodlel flocks could be seen as parallel to that of some brexiters, but where the brexiter argues with Remainers about whether it is working or not, I imagine that the christian dupe is having to constantly reassure himself that science and rationality are wrong. And when Amazing Randi debunked that guy completely and showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was lying, stealing from his flock etc etc surely that meant that his flock were forced to go through that psychological barrier, at that stage it became easier to admit the truth than to keep following a man who was most likely in jail or whatever. And yet... and yet, even if they had passed that barrier and were free, when the very Reverend Thieving Bastard came back and set up again, a load of those who had made it out and escaped were apparently happy to get back into their cage....
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
I still think the best study into the psychology of music cults is Fred Vermorel's "Starlust".

Mainly it is concerned with incredibly intense letters sent to pop stars. There is no correlation between the fame or good looks of the star and the intensity of the letters from what I can recall. Some of the most out there ones were written to Nick Heyward of Haircut 100.

A lot of it is very individualistic devotion but there are communities of women fans of Barry Manilow that are remarkable.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
john eden said:
I generally don't read huge blocks of text with no line breaks but I am sure Rich is makng some good points.
Click to expand...
I can't remember but I think it was basically about how brexiters are literally unable to accept their terrible error and thus unable to process or, in extreme cases, even read the awful truth without severe psychological distress.
And then it went on to something else I think.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
its not that you start reading and get bored, you cant even get close enough to see the words. very curious literary effect.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top