The Sunday Times suggested a new wave of Woodstock style modern hippies are dominating British culture this week, declaring that ‘never before have British urbanites made such a brave effort at embodying the spirit and ideals of that epochal time.’
Identifying a ‘new spirit of self-sufficiency’ and ‘free love’ the paper said partying in Ibiza and Goa are now official counterculture hippy pastimes, going on to brand ketamine ‘the new LSD’. Activist minded new hippies should also enjoy protesting about Heathrow and coal fired power stations (‘a vital show of community spirit), sleeping in a tepee at Glastonbury and becoming a Buddhist, the Times revealed.
After-Life ambient producer and anti WIFI activist Steve Miller, however, was deeply unimpressed.
“Anyone who uses the term hippy these days is simply reflecting a fashion statement and nothing more,” said Steve.
“Buddhists are not hippies, they are Buddhists. People who start growing their own vegetables are vegetable growers and girls who wear hippie chic are
just following the latest fashionistas trying to be cool,” Steve pointed out.
Fellow ambient guru DJ Pathaan was similarly dismissive though said he’s less uncomfortable with the term generally.
“I am and always will be a ‘hippy’ in my own personalised way,” said Pathaan.
“Though I would say many people become a ‘hippy’ for the weekend, which is complete bollocks. If you’ve ever been to a festival you can see the difference between ‘hippies’ and ‘fashionistas’, which in my opinion the Sunday Times article talk more about.”
The fashionistas the Times identified as new hippies included Kate Moss, Jade Jagger (‘party hippies), Marianne Faithful (Old Hippy), Scheherazade Goldsmith and Elle Macpherson (Euro hippies). ‘Neo hippies’ such as Peaches and Pixie Geldof love Hackney (East London’s notoriously grim badlands) and gain ‘top marks for knowing someone who was on a (traveller/ hippy) convoy in 1990’, the paper suggested.
While Steve attacked the Times’ categories (‘they are simply lazy journalism and do not bear serious consideration’) Ibiza legend, DJ/ producer and self confessed ‘freak’ Lenny Ibizarre was more measured in his response.
“I've been called a hippy since I was 15, but never felt like one,” Lennytold Skrufff, “I'm probably more of a beatnik by heart.”
Praising the 60s counter culture for popularizing ecology and ‘bringing unrestricted love and tolerance to rigid minds’, Lenny suggested the original hippies expropriated their non-conformity from the beatniks and earlier free thinkers anyway.
“I also believe the founding spirit that brought about these terminologies (hippies and beatniks) has returned to its original form: Bohemianism,” said Lenny.
“And its strength is measured not in numbers of members, nor protests nor fashion statements, or even ecological consciousness; but purely in the rich trail of arts, literature and music it leaves behind,” he suggested.
“But I have to ask: do these new hippies the Sunday Times writes about worry about the essence of their existence? Do they rethink everything that they've been spoon-fed by society? I ask this because of the trouble I have with the confidence with which these various movements postulate their claims,” he explained.
“In general the answer is definitely a ‘No’. But, on the other hand, something is always happening somewhere, albeit in small quantities or hard-to-find places. It is still happening right now as you read this, scattered under those floorboards of corporate advertisers and news media that keeps true novelty hidden away, deep down in the basement,” he said.
Steve Miller, who recently developed an allergy to Wifi and has moved to Cornwall to escape it, saw similar grounds for optimism.
“I think it's a good thing that people generally are waking up to the stark realities of what is really happening in the world and hopefully they will fight the New World Order that those in power are trying to enforce upon the world's population. That includes the criminal use of microwave telecom technology, bullshit wars about oil, and banks that take the piss and our money,” said Steve.
“These are the greatest threats to mankind's health but this has been so for the last 4000 years, ever since mankind discovered the brutality of war and oppression for profit so the whole hippie thing was just part of a reaction to war as were the conscientious objectors in the 1st and 2nd World Wars.
“For further reading on this subject may I refer you to the works of the
great Hunter S Thompson, in particular "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and
"The Great Shark Hunt",” Steve added.
“Hippies were hip, today the jet set is hip,” Lenny added, “Luckily for them; the term jetties is available.”
http://www.ibizarre.com (Lenny Ibizarre’s online world)
http://www.myspace.com/stevemillerisafterlife (Steve Miller)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/asiannetwork/pathaansmusicalrickshaw (Click here to listen to Pathaan’s weekly BBC radio show).
