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1996

  
  

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Cat Chant
20:25 / 20.10.03
What were you doing in the summer holidays in 1996?

Responses from those who were 16/17yo girls in the UK at the time especially appreciated.

[Why do I ask? Oh, no reason, la la la {hides Potterfic behind back}]
 
 
gingerbop
20:33 / 20.10.03
I was a bridesmaid for my sister in early summer, and my first niece of said sister was born in late summer. Her dress had to be expanded a few inches every time she tried it on before the wedding. In all the photos, her stomach is cunningly hidden behind flowers.

I believe I wasnt a 16/17yo girl in the UK at the time though. I was a 9 year old boy.
Ok, the last bit was a little lie.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
21:51 / 20.10.03
Herk, *cough*. I loathe to say it but the highlight of that summer was Oasis at Knebworth Park. Oh shut up all of you. I was 14/15, very involved in witchcraft (I'd just about hurdled over the common wicca bias by that time and was beginning to think about incorporating shamanism a bit.), also I was eating a lot of ice cream and hanging around by the local swings. Hanging around wishing I was straight so I could go and pull the boys like the other girls did every Friday at the local youth wotsit except the whole idea was screwing with my sense of honesty because I was getting over a tall skinny Beth Orton-a-like called Becky who gave me her Elastica tape and then fucked off due to her school-phobia. (Becky what happened to you? You were fucking gorgeous) Ah, first girl love!
 
 
Tryphena Absent
21:53 / 20.10.03
Oh hang on a second that bitch broke my poor heart. I never even got to confess my passion for her so the school could pass rumours around about me and I could become the leading lady bisexual of Hertfordshire. Screw you Becky!
 
 
Mourne Kransky
22:07 / 20.10.03
Cashed in an insurance policy and spent it on ten glorious days on holiday in London that Summer. We had been together only a year and it was all still fresh and wondrous. And it laid the seed for the pair of us moving here several years later.

We're such old and battered boots now.
 
 
Mazarine
00:42 / 21.10.03
Well, I was a 16 year old girl in the U.S., but here goes: we went to Sweden for a couple weeks. The ocean was so shallow you could walk out for a mile and only be in up to your waist, and farmers brought their cows out to play in the water. The sun rose at four in the morning, didn't set till eleven at night. Violinists from the Moscow Orchestra played on the streets. We took the ferry to Denmark early one morning and walked throgh Elsinore before anyone got there. The sky was bright blue, and the clouds matched the swans swimming in the moat.

Last summer I temped. And now I'm very nostalgic and depressed.
 
 
gotham island fae
03:48 / 21.10.03
Honestly, it's one the haziest periods of my life aside from the 'womb to trike' years. It even beats out 'the summer of the drugz' in '97. I was twenty-two and a fledgling drunk. I was probably still playing old Soundgarden and Pearl Jam cd's while watching Star Trek.
 
 
Harold Washington died for you
05:55 / 21.10.03
One word: Macarena
 
 
Sax
07:11 / 21.10.03
Herk, *cough*. I loathe to say it but the highlight of that summer was Oasis at Knebworth Park. Oh shut up all of you. I was 14/15, very involved in witchcraft (I'd just about hurdled over the common wicca bias by that time and was beginning to think about incorporating shamanism a bit.), also I was eating a lot of ice cream and hanging around by the local swings. Hanging around wishing I was straight so I could go and pull the boys like the other girls did every Friday at the local youth wotsit except the whole idea was screwing with my sense of honesty because I was getting over a tall skinny Beth Orton-a-like called Becky who gave me her Elastica tape and then fucked off due to her school-phobia. (Becky what happened to you? You were fucking gorgeous) Ah, first girl love!

Ah, if I was ten years younger, Anna...

So, 1996. Let's see. I think I'd just come out of a rather long relationship which was like extracting myself from a huge swampy pit of Bostik, and as I ran away from it all manner of grief stuck to me in the style of the story of Brer Rabbit and the Tar-Baby. It was a summer of festivals for me... Glastonbury, Reading, and, I think, Tribal Gathering and Big Love, the latter being built around the then-big Underworld because they couldn't make it to Tribal Gathering. Of course, this could be 1997 - someone might have to check for me.

It was a time of loose morals, lots of substance use, a personal dichotomy regarding techno and guitar music and which I loved more, and, I seem to remember, the year I amassed a huge number of designer T-shirts - possibly a subconscious reaction to suddenly being "free" after a stifling relationship.

Oh, and I was 26 at the time. So none of this really helps, does it?
 
 
illmatic
07:37 / 21.10.03
Good year. Had just finished Uni and moved in with a good mate of mine. So was smoking a fair amount of weed and listening to all his old records - The Fall, Television Personalities, The Kinks and a million others. Still veggie at that stage as were a lot of my friends - I remember when people used to give you two choices of milk ("Soy milk or Cow's milk?") and it didn't seem weird). A few people I knew worked in a veggie food co-op. Signing on and working in a Floatation tank on the side which was ace because all you had to do was fish people out once an hour and play Doom the rest of the time. Doing a lengthy (semi) daily magickal practice which I kept up for over a year. Still loads of site parties going on (outdoor parties at travellers sites or quarries or wherever) and so on, with DIY being the funky house sound of choice. The parties were still rocking because fucking Ketamine had hardly turned up yet so the vibe was still there.

Damn you Deva, you're making me all nostalgic! Is this material for a novel or story? Care to give us more details?
 
 
Scrubb is on a downward spiral
08:07 / 21.10.03
I was that girl! Well, I was a 17/18 y/o girl and it was the summer between finishing A-levels and going to university, so I did a big bagload of stuff. There was travelling on my own around Ireland with my fiddle, going to folk festivals and pub sessions and suchlike. Sleeping in youth hostels and tents with one arm around my violin to prevent theivage.

Then there was Outward Bound up in Loch Eil; riding in a minibus with the 10 boys from Scottish Power singing "Wannabe" because this was of course the summer that the Spice Girls came to power. Night-hikes out to a bothy in the middle of nowhere with more stars than I've ever seen before.

And yeah, dealing with the hideous aftermath of The First Relationship. Not dissimilar to The First Evil, Buffy-fans.
 
 
Ex
08:22 / 21.10.03
Had just left a tiny University in a Welsh village, so my pop culture topicality will be way off - our social life was built round a Friday night pub disco. It was as predictable as a formal ball, you could book your partners for different dances - the Grease Megamix, Saturday Night, the Macarena (yes, Harold Washington Died, I share your mystic communion of stupid slappy unison dancing) and then Born Slippy and chucked out at quarter to twelve and back down the dark and muddy track home.
Worked in a scotch egg factory, briefly. Never eat scotch eggs.
Went to London Pride wearing a silk shirt and leather trousers. Thought I'd suggest sensual bohemian mystery. Every woman there wore the same thing - including the friend who accompanied me, who hissed that everyone would think we were together and she wouldn't pull. Field packed, covered in crap, nobody could sit down (I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring).
Confused relationship - about to hit the fuckwit crossroads and make a break for maturity.
 
 
Whisky Priestess
08:46 / 21.10.03
Second year of Uni, I was 19/20, discovered Popular Music in the form of Pulp, Blur, Oasis and the Spice Girls all at once and much, much too suddenly. I bought all the album to educate myself and the only one I still listen to is Common People. Duh.

I seem to remember doing lots of hanging out on the grass and acting and partying because I didn;t have exams. Had the worst hangover of my life (Pimms) after an all-day punting party. This is probably not the typical experience though and now I sound like a ponce.
 
 
Olulabelle
09:21 / 21.10.03
I left University that year and got my first job; my official job title was 'someone to kick'. I remember doing a lot of skulking around the streets of Soho feeling poor and untrendy.

Weekends were spent travelling round the country attending various VW Beetle festivals (Bugjam, Run to the sun etc) as my boyfriend at the time was a/ seriously keen on Beetles and b/ a writer at Volksword magazine.

Oh, and I don't know why I remember this, but I went to a New Years Eve party dressed in a purple chiffon crossover blouse, red bra, black hipster flares and a pair of red patent leather platform shoes a la Vivienne Westwood.

But I was a very ancient 23 so this is all irrelevant.
 
 
No star here laces
09:50 / 21.10.03
Was 20. Most memorable summer event was going to Happiness Stans in London for my friend's 21st. Music was northern soul and what would now be stale "fresh breaks". Got arrested for possession by a squad of plainclothes coppers wearing YSL shirts tucked into their jeans.

Other period details - red bull and vodka, aftershock, sea breezes. Girls in short a-line ish skirts and boots. Retro ski-wear. Those Nikes with the red air bubble in them. Reebok classics. Smoking bongs with ice cubes in them.

Jump-up jungle - Shy Fx "the chopper", DJ Hype "peace love and unity", Krust - "War head". Baggy trousers with the bottoms ripped off. Rohan trousers worn as clubwear, and synthetic materials generally. People smoking e in spliffs (euch). Tight silver trousers and crop tops on boys. Coloured hair spray.

Combat trousers x 50 - every fucker was wearing. "Candy flipping". Drum n bass on car ads. Spiritualised played at every chill-out session ever.

Jamiroquai - "space cowboy" inescapable on radio (think it was that one). Lots of Tory sleaze. Tommy Hilfiger! Mobb Deep.

Rectangular sunglasses, Antoni and Allison t-shirts. i-D magazine reading like a gallery catalogue.

Reclaim the Streets parties, Orbital got shit then got good again. Daft Punk. Ikea asking everybody to chuck out the chintz. Hearts won the Scottish Cup. Those really huge heavy gauge earrings starting to appear.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
10:51 / 21.10.03
I was 18 and waiting to go to university. Still in full adolescent rebellion, so refused to go on holiday with my family and stayed in the house on my own instead, smoking fags and making the place smell like a brewery (as my Mum said when they came home) and pathetically watching Withnail and I more times than could ever have been necessary. Also trying to interest myself in the Wars of the Roses as prep for university, but I think this was a failure. I don't recall going outside during the daytime very much...

I went out a lot to the local indie nights: the Bassment on a Wednesday, Scandals on Thursdays, Images on Friday and the worst of the lot, Kaos on Saturdays (on South Parade Pier). Also lits of awful indie gigs at the Wedgewood Rooms. My chief musical memories are of really dodgy indie bands - Marion, Thurman et al - and a few good 'uns (Super Furry Animals; and I was still obsessed with the Manics that year, and 'Everything Must Go' had just come out). Recall going paddling after coming out of the clubs by the pier - not a very good idea...

I wore some really horrible clothes, all of which I loved: bottle-green cord flares, a long lurex fish-scale pattern skirt, blue velour mini-skirt, really lurid paisley shirt, shaggy fun-fur coat etc... I snogged a chap called Goth Rich at Chaos and I really really fancied him. I remember that he was wearing a silver dress and a feather boa at the time. He was super cute.

I remember going to a party after my A-level results had come out, getting really drunk and having a tab, though not much happened (think it was a bit stale). Someone smashed their hand through a door and cut it badly and I walked all the way home from North End crying because I thought I'd let people down by not getting straight As in my results...

Oh! That was the year we went on holiday to somewhere in Dorset, booked a small house and everyone fought with each other and I stayed up all night drawing because the E was making my fingers tingle. In fact it was probably rather like Teen Big Brother only with more substance abuse and more general indie sullen-ness. I remember that was when Simon and Tony snogged each other on Eastenders.

Also I went on a school orchestra trip to Lake Geneva - we were old enough to drink so bought loads of cheapo red wine and got plastered every night with the tacit permission of the staff. Just about made it bearable...

Gosh. Anyone got any more madeleines?
 
 
Sax
10:59 / 21.10.03
Wow. Coming-of-age-novel-a-go-go.
 
 
Saveloy
12:27 / 21.10.03
Was 1996 the year that you couldn't turn on the telly, open a paper or lift the toilet lid up without seeing Chris F-----g Evans' face gurning back at you?

And am I right in thinking that it was roughly around then that the New Lad business started to recede (Euro 96) and New Ponce (all that Nathan Barley stuff, hi-tech fetish, wooden floors etc) started to take off? Obviously you can't put a precise date on that sort of thing, but I've got it arranged in my brain as being around that time.

ASIDE: I'd love to see a web site which did this for every year in living memory. All the key cultural and political events, plus personal memories etc. Anyone know if such a thing exists?
 
 
illmatic
13:11 / 21.10.03
Yeah, but that'd that ruin the thrill of getting it wrong and the weird memor overlap pileup of personal reminescnes - y'know the way you always think that something happened 5 years ago and actually it was back in the early 80s. Actually, maybe that would be a good thing. I'd love to reinvestigate the late 70s and 80s, all those forgotten TV shows and things now gone forever.
 
 
ibis the being
13:23 / 21.10.03
I turned 18 in the summer of 96, had just graduated high school (US). I was torn between a heavy crush on one of my best friends, who was maddeningly ambiguous all the time, and an older boy who was pursuing me with all kinds of flattery and guitar songs.

the friend lived in a shack he built with his buddies and we used to go there and drink Genny Cream and listen to Blues Traveler/Pink Floyd/Descendents/Tom Waits. I spent a night there, we ambigously kissed, and I painted a Bukowski poem on the wall the next morning before he left to have lunch with another girl. Then he started working as a garbage man and going to bed at 9 and I rarely saw him.

the older boy and I used to roam about or hang out on his buddy's fishing boat and drink rum & coke. once he played me a song on the beach at night, up on the lifeguard stand, and once we made out in a graveyard minutes before a thunderstorm. (I was blind to the cheese-factor.) he pursued me all the way to college and eventually we began the first and worst adult relationship of my life....

I can remember little else about that summer besides those 2 boys.
 
 
cusm
13:54 / 21.10.03
It would have to be the summer of '96, wouldn't it? I spend most of it naked, tripping, and playing Angband. Its one of those times the folks I shared the naked tripping parts with still look back fondly upon and share stories from at parties. Like the time my friend and I answered the door for my roomate, handcuffed together and wearing only our girlfriend's slips, one red and one black, a lovely couple of crimson degeneracy. The look on her face was priceless. So was the acid, which is largely why we had so much of it...

And just for the geeks, I did eventually beat Angband after 9 months of play with a High-Elf Mage without using save files (If you're not playing Hard Core, why the hell are you playing?) But man, after that long of staring at the screen, I was dreaming in ASCII by the end of it.
 
 
Ex
15:12 / 21.10.03
Alcopops! I swear that was the year someone had the revolutionary idea of sticking booze in squash and giving 12-year-olds something to drink apart from Archers and Lemonade. Much moral panic. After the scotch eggs, I worked in an alcopop factory (for one night) and watched all the cans of orange Hooch (and Two Dogs) crunching out into the world to pollute the young.
 
 
Baz Auckland
15:40 / 21.10.03
...I was 17/18, heading into my last year of high school, and spent the summer running around downtown, hanging out in various places and poses, and busking to save money to go to NYC for a week, which I did in August.

NYC remains the best bit of the summer. 8 days running around the city with my best friend, walking at least 130 blocks a day, sitting on the sidewalks, in gardens, bathing our feet in the fountains and taking lots of pictures. (sigh).
 
 
deja_vroom
16:14 / 21.10.03
Was 18 at the time. Moving to Rio, fucked in the head. Horrible clothes, bad teeth, no sense of humor. Taste in music could have been a lot better. Was afraid of women (and deluded myself thinking I wanted them more than anything else in the world). Angry, opinionated, misinformed, misunderstood, afraid of everything. Didn't know anyone, so I was alone mostly, with nothing to read - no money to buy books, magazines, anything - or listen to - didn't have money for a CD player. Saw the ocean (wasn't really impressed)
Had fights with everybody all the time, wasted hours musing about suicide scenarios... Some people will fight to their deaths in order to avoid adulthood.

Started having computer lessons in order to try to get a decent job. Made a friend there, started going out more. Geeked out with Call of Cthulhu for a while. Stared way too much at the street lights during the hot nights. Found out the Internet - this really cool #mirc channel where you could ask the dj's for a tune, and they would play it! You could listen to it instantly in your Winamp. One of the sweetest usages of the Internet I've seen so far.
 
 
Not Here Still
16:15 / 21.10.03
Would have been 19/20 at the time, end of first/ start of second year at Leicester Uni...

First house (as opposed to halls) away from home, just off the London Road. Looking out across Leicester at dusk. Living in about three pubs on Granby Street. Indie discos and, to a lesser extent, 80's nights which I never understood because I only started listening to pop in '89.

Never mind Archers and lemonade, I started drinking Archers and Two Dogs (like Hooch, alcoholic lemonade, went bust I think - you never see it anymore) around then, and what I believe is now referred to as a 'turbo shandy.'

Remember being delighted that Jarvis had shook his arse at Michael Jackson at the Brit awards and pissed off with the tabloids afterwards; being in mourning that the Stone Roses were not only breaking up, but doing it in the worst, most drawn out, painful way possible, with that year's Reading sounding horrendous; "speed garage" being used to describe tunes such as Professional Widow by Tori Amos or Sugar is Sweeter by CJ Bolland (both as remixed by Armand Van Helden) and my personal favourite, RIP Groove by Double 99; waiting for ages with a massive build up to D'Y Know What I mean by Oasis, and realising it was a bit crap; going to techno nights at the Que Club, Birmingham, an old church which had aisles like a football terrace looking down onto the main dancefloor; Paul Oakenfold making a mint by playing 'goa' trance; Tupac dying...

Hating football but still being taken aback by Beckham's goal from the halfway line.

Britain still being Tory, though it seemed to everyone it was just a matter of hanging on in there til next election.
 
 
The Strobe
16:26 / 21.10.03
naked, tripping, and playing Angband

Jesus H fucking christ on a motorbike. That's a mental image and a half.

I hate Angband.
 
 
Brigade du jour
23:14 / 21.10.03
Worked all summer to earn enough money for my first term's rent at university. Aah, it were fucking hot in that office, and me in a shirt and tie too.

I bought more singles that summer than ever before or since, and I have no idea why but I still have them because I'm a proper old hoarder who is physically incapable of throwing things away.

I kicked my football against my bed. I got the fuck out of mid-Essex. I was 21 in body but about 17 in mind. Yeah, it was quite nice really.
 
 
captain piss
11:51 / 22.10.03
First summer in London- a fairly shy, druggy, workaholic 22-yr old.
Listened to lots of jungle (“attentshun all janglists!!” as the annoying CD compilation telly ad of the time yawped).
Talked in an overly Ewan MacGregor-ised Scots accent – Trainspotting was still all the rage, and this seemed an amusing thing to do (and I was quite shatteringly horny- always trying to pull in clubs- don’t suppose that’s changed much).
The Prodigy’s Firestarter blared from many a car stereo or Firkin pub. I wore Manga t-shirts and a shiny black jacket (and red jeans!- shriek!).
Would get up on weekends, buy the Invisibles and Preacher and sit and read them in the pub, over a pint.
 
 
Saveloy
15:38 / 22.10.03
Now for the important stuff:

What happened in the Archers in 1996
 
 
Mourne Kransky
16:53 / 22.10.03
I know I had the body of a middle aged man, but I had the heart and stomach of a 16/17 year old girl, and a 16/17 year old girl in the UK too, so here are some memories of 1996.

Spice girls, Number One for 7 weeks with Wannabe. Ginger Spice and her Union Jack dress, reclaiming it from the Right Wing fringe. "Cool Britannia" at the end of the year, shortly after Newsweek declared London to be the coolest capital city on the planet.

Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet and the film of Trainspotting, and all those glorious tunes from the sountracks. Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. Great Star Trek movie: First Contact with Alice Krige a model for aspiring dominatrices everywhere.

This Life, with Anna a model for everybody everywhere.

Sunday 14th July went to T In The Park in Strathclyde Park, Hamilton, and saw Placebo, Whipping Boy (shit but got a good t-shirt), Wannadies, Manic Street Preachers (again), Dogstar (everybody zooming in to see Keanu at close range and then leaving right away because the music was crap), Black Grape (who were great), Pulp (who headlined celestially), and the Afghan Whigs (best gig of the day).

Pride was on Clapham Common that year but can’t remember much about it. I think we went from the Popstarz tent there straight to Popstarz proper to dance the night away to indie and retro.

Oh, happy daze!
 
 
grant
17:04 / 22.10.03
Three fingers up, back of hand against forehead: "What-EVER!"

It was either 96 or 97 that I first went to Burning Man. We snuck in, some of us, but made a kick ass camp event thing. There was a WhatEVER camp, I recall.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
03:11 / 23.10.03
Deva, I was going to confess this before on the 96 music thread but didn't: in 2000 I got the idea for a zine that was all about 1996. I started ripping up my diary from 1996 and pasting together the entries in a cut-up. Which I can't find, but it was angsty as hell. Anyhow I didn't ever do the zine, but if I ever find the cut-ups I'll paste them here.

1996 was a caution. I turned 21. In the 95-96 summer I was living in college and worked at an Italian takeaway in a shopping mall. All my friends had moved to the groovy bohemian suburbs and it was the first summer I'd spent by myself, not with my family in the country. We all smoked huge amounts of dope, bong after bong after bong with the TV turned to music videos. In around January I got kicked out of college for not paying my fees and found a similarly bonghead sharehouse. At the beginning of the year I was wearing long black velvet skirts, tight nylon see-through 70's shirts, Doc Martens, a lot of black eyeliner and far too much mascara... By the end of the year I had short hair and was trying out the baby butch look, tight pinstripes, white t-shirts, boxer shorts.

Ah, 21, the great era of masochistic attractions leading to disaster. A boy who was constantly asking me whether I was a dyke or not (at this stage, not) but who in retrospect I am certain was gay, although he had a girlfriend. A 48-year-old tantric healer from Georgia, USA named Bud who offered me 'massages' that ended in tantric sex instruction. The girl I'd had a crush on for a year who finally decided she was in love with me but called it off after a weekend because she wanted to date this French friend of ours who, incidentally, I'd been flirting with. The other girl I got a crush on, we were just 'friends'. Once she took me to a party at which she would hold hands with me, but only when her ex was in the room -- making the girlfriend jealous, supposedly, and spreading a fake rumour all the way back to my mother that I was bonking this girl.
 
 
No star here laces
03:45 / 23.10.03
NMA, dude, those speed garage tunes were 1997. Like, duh.
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
09:52 / 23.10.03
I was 20 in 1996, although only about 2 in terms of maturity and life-experience. Although I was at university I didn't have a summer holiday because I was in the middle of a paid work placement at Walsall Library. It was quite handy really as it allowed me to buy a replacement video recorder and hi-fi as my previous ones had been stolen the previous Christmas when there was no-one in our student house, and pay off my overdraft so that when I finished my university course the following Summer I came out with a clean slate and no crippling debts (it also allowed me the chance to get the missing issues of Vol. 1 of the Invisibles and Mark Millar's Swamp Thing run).

My main abiding memories are the weird users we had who looked like they'd got chucked out of a daycare centre. We had The Starer, who would sit at the back of the library and watch unblinkingly whenever anyone came in the room. And there was an old guy who had helped design tanks during the first or second world war but had fucked his lungs up in the process so had a horrible disgusting cough and was now old and bitter so would make a fuss if anyone happened to be reading the Telegraph or FT whenever he came in to check his shares.

My other abiding memory is that there was no air conditioning so we had to have the small windows open in the summer. Unfortunately we were right on a busy main road so we had the fumes coming in. Then also, I don't know if it was peculiar to that year or a regular occurance the drains, which just happened to run under the library, began to reek.

The Town Hall next to the library was used as the police station in Dalziel and Pascoe, the day after my last day they apprently turned up to do some filming...
 
 
Not Here Still
11:40 / 23.10.03
Jefe - you sure? I could have sworn I heard Professional Widow and that godawful Sneaker Pimps remix that year at least - I remember because I looked for Professional Widow when I moved into that house in Leicester at the end of that summer and first got my decks. Then it got hammered, I got sick of it, and BPM on Granby Street lost a sale.

Though you might be right on RIP Groove, and it probably wasn't called speed garage then.

Anyway, I'm an old man and my memory isn't what it used to be...
 
  

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