Fierce Dancing: Adventures in the Underground

by C.J. Stone, Eldad Druks (Illustrator)

It began with a small band of Hippies and moved through Punk, Rave, and New Age mysticism. Does hope really lie in the wearing of nose rings? Can we counteract the forces of repression by making sure our margarine contains no animal fats? C.J. Stone, acclaimed columnist for the GUARDIAN and the BIG ISSUE investigates the curious state of modern thinking.

Genres: Nonfiction, Journalism

243 pages, Paperback

First published April 5, 1997

About the author

CJ Stone wrote a column for the Guardian Weekend from 1993 till 1998. It was called Housing Benefit Hill and won the writer much acclaim. He has also written columns for the Big Issue, for Mixmag, for Radio 4’s The Afternoon Shift, for Prediction magazine and for Kindred Spirit, as well as writing regularly for the New Statesman and the Independent on Sunday, amongst others. Currently he writes a fortnightly column for the Whitstable Gazette and is a working postman.

CJ Stone has had six books published. Fierce Dancing (Faber & Faber, May 1995), The Last of the Hippies (Faber & Faber, May 1999), Housing Benefit Hill (AK Press, June 2002), The Trials of Arthur (Thorsons/Element, June 2003), The Trials of Arthur Revised Edition (The Big Hand, June 2012), & The Empire of Things, (Gonzo Multimedia, Nov 2013).

"Stone writes with intelligence, wit and sensitivity." Times Literary Supplement

"Wry, acute, and sometimes hellishly entertaining essays in squalor and rebellion." Herald

"The best guide to the Underground since Charon ferried dead souls across the Styx." Independent on Sunday

"Passionately serious, irresistibly compelling, and hilariously good-humoured." Professor Ronald Hutton, Bristol University

Reviews

[beatriz geada]

3.5 ★

There’s something particularly beautiful about reading a book that directly relates to what you’re experiencing. Good writing already has the ability to transport you somewhere, but there’s something special about looking up from the pages and realising you’re actually surrounded by the world you’re reading about. For me, Fierce Dancing was the peak of that experience this summer.

I started reading it at Waking Life and continued during a beautiful camping trip in the UK countryside, surrounded by people who seemed to all be DJs and who loved house and techno music. I’m by no means the most knowledgeable person when it comes to this scene, but I’ve been to a few parties and raves and what I felt in there makes me want to keep going. One thing I’ve noticed is how real the sense of freedom and community can be. With or without drugs, there’s something about dancing together that creates a sense of oneness.

That’s what I found so interesting about this book. Fierce Dancing looks at the history of the UK’s free festival and underground scenes, tracing connections between the New Travellers, punk, rave culture and much older traditions of ritual and communal gathering, reaching all the way back to Stonehenge and its ancient significance. Stone’s gonzo-style journalism makes it feel as though these movements are part of one long attempt to create spaces outside the structures of everyday society.

At times, though, I felt that the focus on some of the people Stone crossed paths with, or who were part of his world, went on for a little too long. I found myself wanting more of the bigger narrative he was building around the New Travellers of the 60s and 70s, the Crass and Wally Hope crowd, and it's connection with the beginnings of the 90s rave scene. Those more personal sections sometimes interrupted the momentum for me.

Still, I enjoyed the writing and found so many of the ideas fascinating, one being that I don’t have to choose between being a hippie or a punk. C.J. Stone introduced me to a marvellous hybrid: rainbow punk.

One passage especially stayed with me because I could see it happening around me as I was reading. Stone talks about how these gatherings often happen in nature, and how it almost feels as though the trees themselves are responding to the music, moving and dancing along with it. When I read this, I was at Waking Life. I looked up from the book and, sure enough, the branches were moving and grooving.

[Mogg Morgan]

Not quite enough dancing and musick - a how to would have been welcome. A saturnine, slightly jaundiced view of the 1980s counterculture. Essential reading, the author surely right to say "The Battle of the Beanfield" is one event that should never be forgotten, especially the unholy alliance of the police, the government, English Heritage and The National Trust.

[Luke Winter]

important history of free festivals of early 90s. Some colour of the dancing scene. A couple of powerful descriptions of the counter culture's place in society. Lively writing. But in structure and focus, the book is as shambolic as the people it critiques. Much about what the author had for breakfast.

[Daisy Riley]

Really good. Something very different.

[Christopher]

Born in 1953, CJ Stone just missed the height of the UK counterculture of the 1960s, and in the 1970s and 1980s he remained somewhat on the periphery of the later alternative scenes described in such books as McKay's Senseless Act of Beauty (essential pre-reading for anyone interested in Stone's work who is from outside the UK). However, he has a keen interest in Britain's hippies, travellers, neo-Pagans, and underground music fans, and his interactions with people from these scenes is the subject of Fierce Dancing, published in 1996. The book opens with a visit to an early 1990s rave, but mainly looks further back in time.

The book is loosely structured, based to a large degree on anecdotes from CJ Stone's personal life, which can be somewhat tiresome, a sort of cock and bull story where one waits to hear what his point is. However, there is a great deal of interesting facts, trivia, and rumour about the UK counterculture here, from what happened to some hippies after the golden age of the Sixties (surprisingly, many were sucked into Scientology or other cults) to rumours about the death of free festival organizer Wally Hope. What Stone calls the “dark heart” of the book is his description of the “Battle of the Beanfield”, as the violent police dispersal of the 1985 Windsor Free Festival has become known. This was a shocking case of police brutally beating harmless people (including pregnant women), captured on video, and the documentary film "Operation Solstice" that Stone claims should be mandatory viewing in schools for every child in Britain can now be freely watched online.

While I am mainly interested in the Sixties underground, Stone's book is an occasionally interesting investigation into what happened next, and it's encouraging that a man who was in his late 30s as the book opens nonetheless managed to integrate well into scenes dominated by younger generations, but of course with his greater age and experience he could offer a critical perspective and note how certain features are cyclical of protest scenes.

[Joseph Heaven]

Fantastic read. If you were one of those people in the late eightees or early ninetees dancing all night with your shirt of bug eyed and hugging strangers this is a MUST READ. Highly entertaining and revealing look at UK E culture from back in the day when pills were £20 and gave you a euphoric and loved up high that would last all night and people were nice to eachother.

Halcyon days.

[Paul]

Witty and insightful view of 80's UK counterculture.

[Christine Flanagan]

Brilliant read

[Simon Cox]

Excellent journey through the underground as it was in the late 90's. Very reminiscent descriptions of free parties and free festivals especially Castlemorton in '92.

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