Megatripolis
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Megatripolis was an innovative, underground London nightclub created by Encyclopaedia Psychedelica/Evolution editor and founder of the Zippie movement Fraser Clark, partner Sionaidh Craigen and partners JJ and Bugsy as well as a great many others. The club combined New Age ideology with Rave culture to create a vibrant, festival-like atmosphere presenting a wide variety of cross-cultural ideas and experiences. Club nights ran regularly on Thursdays from 1993 until 1996, being the focus of much of the Zippie movement. The club and its related activities also helped to popularise ideas such as cyberculture and the Internet between those years.
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Megatripolis proved popular, although some reporting of it suggested a conflict between an avowed downplay of psychedelic drugs and an enthusiasm for substance use by some club-goers. In any event, the club provided a meeting place of like-minded people and served as a platform for social awareness and activism as well as more traditional nightclub fare.
Typical evenings combined lectures and workshops with live musical performances accompanied by live video mixing and theatre. Musical styles were diverse, and included progressive house, trance, deep house, minimal techno and dub. The club played a seminal role in promoting trance music. Visits from speakers such as Allen Ginsberg, Terence McKenna, George Monbiot, Howard Marks and Ram Dass were common, and part of the club's 'Parallel Youniversity', one of Fraser Clark's concepts. Ginsberg's 1995 appearance was made into the film Allen Ginsberg Live in London.
Guest DJs included James Munroe, Colin Faver, Colin Dale, Alex Paterson]],Andrew Weatherall, Mr C, Tsuyoshi Suzuki, Youth, and many others, but also featured nights when Dragonfly T.I.P or Flying Rhino records took over the main dance floor which was the birth of Psychedelic Trance, the upgrade of Goa Trance. The club's resident DJ's were Darius Akashic, Sequenci, Richard Grey, and Marco Arnaldi. at least one of them was on the main dance floor every week. Marcus Pennell was resident VJ. Atmospheric music combined with sound effects was played along to films in the "chill-out rooms" set apart from the dance floors.
New-age stalls occupied the central hallway selling non-alcoholic energy (or "smart") drinks, body jewellery, alternative "small press" comics and magazines (such as the short-lived, but influential Head Magazine), as well as T-shirts and other clothing. The club also encouraged face and body painters, massage therapists, healers and magicians.
Also notable were early demonstrations of the World Wide Web at a time when most patrons were just beginning to be aware of what was then termed cyberculture, something seen as an important, if not defining, part of the Zippie future. Underground bulletin boards such as London's pHreak hosted live "cyber events" from the club. In what was seen as very progressive at the time, a live video interview with Arthur C Clarke was conducted from his home in Sri Lanka on a portable satellite phone system. Similarly, Timothy Leary was transmitted into the club via ISDN giving a video interview from his home in the Los Angeles hills, ISDN having been installed at his house for the link. Leary had been banned from entering the UK in person by the British government in the 1960s, a ban that was still in force at the time. The Dalai Lama also gave a lecture at the club from the Barbican via ISDN on Thursday 18 July 1996.
Environmental issues were an important part of the club's remit and another part of the Zippie agenda. Anti-road protests were advertised on its internal noticeboards, hemp fashion shows were staged, environmental lectures and debates took place in the talk room called "The Well", and bicycle-powered sound-systems played on several occasions in various rooms. megatripolis was a key mover in climate change promotion from this time.
A UK tour took place in the spring / summer of 1996 including venues such as the Hacienda, Manchester, Junction, Cambridge, and others. Two gigs were also held at the Mad club in Athens, Greece in 1996.
Megatripolis West
An offshoot of the club was started by Fraser Clark and others, in San Francisco in late 1994. It ran for five consecutive weeks before closing.
The sixth and final night of the club was a "launch rave" hosted by Ronin Publishing for Timothy Leary's book Chaos And Cyber Culture. In true "illegal UK rave" tradition, patrons were given the event's location at a nearby burger joint. Leary jammed and performed jazz skat with famous Bay Area musician Maruga. He was later kidnapped by the Zippie Soundsystem and forced to release a statement condemning the UK Prime Minister John Major and the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which famously banned outdoor parties with music that included an "emission of a succession of repetitive beats".
Leary exerted a powerful influence over the philosophy of the club and the Zippie movement overall. An indication of this can be found in the introduction to his posthumous book The Fugitive Philosopher (Ronin Press, September 2007) written by Fraser Clark. The original title of the piece, published in Clark's online magazine the UP![1], was Timothy Leary Was A Saint Who Will Be Remembered & Celebrated Long After Jesus, Mohamed and Elvis Are Forgotten
Megatripolis in popular culture
Megatripolis is referenced in the BBC TV comedy 'Absolutely Fabulous', and on the Red Hot Chili Peppers album 'Stadium Arcadium'. Well-known people who attended the club as visitors included Malcolm Mclaren, Lynne Franks, The Pet Shop Boys, Björk, Heather Small, and Sir Richard Branson.
Megatripolis Reunion Benefit for Fraser Clark
In 2008 Fraser Clark announced that he had inoperable liver cancer. In farewell to him, a final Megatripolis was held at Heaven on 13 November. He died on 21 January 2009.
See also
