DJs performing in London clubs will continue to be forced to provide their real names, date of births and private addresses after a committee of British politicians decided to keep Form 696.
The increasingly notorious document also requires promoters to tell police in advance what musical genres performers will play, giving possible examples including ‘bashment, R'n'B, Garage’.
"We just think it (form 696) is totally immoral, really inappropriate and just a very ugly idea,” music industry spokesman Fergal Sharkey told the BBC on hearing the politicians’ decision.
"It is just deeply saddening and deeply depressing that the Government are not prepared to put their hand up and accept responsibility for a situation that ultimately they created,” he complained,
At least 70 venues in London now have to fill out the four page form and send it back to the police for approval weeks before each event with promoters facing fines of up to £20,000 if they fail to comply.
Guardian writer Tim Guest, a self confessed ex raver, discussed the new legislation in a long feature on the rise of Britain’s free party scene of the early 90s and the draconian police crackdown which quickly followed.
“In Britain, legislation continues to eat into our freedom to gather and party. New security regulations for live performances include a long list of prohibitive restrictions, including the need for police checks on performers,” said Guest.
“It's hard to see what motivates such control on the part of the state, except for fear,” he suggested.
“What is it about young people gathering together that provokes such a severe, sometimes brutal, response? Villages can have fetes, children can have fairs, but something about so much youth in one place scares someone,” he said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jul/12/90s-spiral-tribe-free-parties
(‘For a brief moment, at vast and lawless raves such as Castlemorton, a generation glimpsed an alternative way of life . . .’)
http://www.met.police.uk/events/forms/form_696.doc (download the form here- one click)
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