Did cocaine kill clubland?

The last great youth culture revolution of the 20th century witnessed a massive implosion in the past 18 months. Club culture, dance culture, ecstasy culture – call it what you will – is no longer a force to be reckoned with; the implosion was swift, and looks, at this point, irreversible.

In the past year, the advertising world has dismissed clubland as a niche market no longer worthy of tapping. High profile superclubs like Cream and South have been forced to shut their doors (Cream’s weekly crowds dropped from a late nineties peak of 3,000-plus to just a couple of hundred in 2002). Many smaller underground clubs have fallen by the wayside, and the majority of high profile Irish DJs have seen their bookings decrease to such an extent that many are now in, or at the very least looking for, part-time jobs.

Many theories have been advanced to explain the phenomenon. A common Irish analysis is that changes in the licensing laws made clubbing less attractive on a number of levels. But that ignores the fact that across the Irish Sea, the pubs still shut long before midnight and dance clubs there are just as empty as our own. A more interesting hypothesis, however, has recently been put forward by influential industry figures, including former BBC1FM DJ Danny Rampling – whose seminal club Shoom was pivotal in the London acid house boom of the late eighties – and Eddie Gordon, the ex-Manifesto Records boss, whose Wise Buddah company provides most of the weekend dance programming on BBC1FM.

Both have been publicly critical of the massive rise in cocaine use among DJs and clubbers alike. Gordon, in particular, blames dance music’s rapidly falling vinyl sales – down by up to 40% in 2002 according to distributors – on DJs who are so coked out of it that they see god-like greatness in their performances and productions.

From an Irish perspective, 2FM’s Mister Spring is in agreement. “Coke killed the scene from the top down,” he says. “Some labels, DJs and clubs have been toppled by coke abuse. It alters brain chemistry in long-term users – you begin to believe your own bullshit if you do coke.”

A decade ago, society’s traditional view that all drugs are bad was challenged by the arrival of ecstasy.

“Britain was dead in the ’80s,” recalls Noel Gallagher in a recent issue of Jack. “Why it changed was ecstasy. It was very exciting when it first happened.”

On the dancefloors of the early ’90s, ecstasy’s effects certainly seemed positive: social barriers and prejudices were dispensed with, as loved-up clubbers of all backgrounds embraced with carefree abandon – it mattered not from where you came, how you spoke, or what way you dressed – and joyous self-expression and communal love and respect abounded as we bid farewell to the slow set and the fight on the way home. (In the UK, Ecstasy use has been widely credited with the massive decreases in racism and football hooliganism throughout the ’90s).

As happy pills became the main drug of choice for a generation, the new sub-culture flourished musically – producing many of the decade’s highlights and influencing everyone from Madonna to U2. A multi-million pound clubbing industry was born, DJs became the new pop stars, and sales of turntables and mixing consoles soared as guitar shops closed. (The early scare stories about the new ‘killer drug’ were proven unfounded too: the total number of ecstasy-related deaths in the past decade considerably less than the number of alcohol-related fatalities in any one of those ten years).

A turning point seems to have been reached around the turn of the century, when cocaine became more affordable and much more widely available in Europe. Until then, cocaine was a luxury drug for the elite few in clubland who could afford it – DJs and promoters, in other words. Society’s failure to properly educate people about the differences between so-called Class A drugs is a factor here – cocaine and ecstasy are very different indeed. But now that it was both cheap and available coke became the fashion drug of choice for the majority of kids in their late teens and early 20s.

The argument put forward by Gordon and Rampling is that the massive rise in cocaine’s availability and use since Y2K has mirrored the gradual disappearance of the heart and soul of, and the passion and enthusiasm for, the original acid house/ecstasy culture ethos from DJs and clubbers alike.

Successful UK DJ Lisa Pin-Up is one of many to notice a substantial change of mood in clubs. “You can really tell the difference in the atmosphere caused by the two drugs,” she points out. “Clubbers on E seem happy to meet new people, but on cocaine clubbers can be paranoid and unsociable. When it became more popular, people did not seem to be enjoying themselves as much as they used to.”

Lisa insists that coke use has dropped off in the UK clubs she frequents – but in Ireland, €50 bags of the drug remain omnipresent, and the impact in clubs has been obvious.

For a start, there has been a huge increase in alcohol consumption, compared to a few years ago. Dance clubs are no longer the enemy of the bar manager hoping to shift massive amounts of beer and spirits, but frustrated by tee-totalling, water-guzzling ecstasy users. Cocaine users drink copious amounts of alcohol compared to their pill-popping peers, and Mister Spring is one of many observers to note that “nobody does coke without drinking too much.” He believes that “it’s neither the coke, nor the booze kick they seek, but a third kick resulting from the mix of the two in high doses.”

The fundamental mood change in the clubs has, as you would expect, been negative: the happy, loved-up spirit of old is gone. Lisa Pin-Up insists that coke and alcohol “definitely seem to make people more aggressive,” and many Irish DJs have reported more in-club fights in the past twelve months than in the previous ten years.

It’s a perspective that the authorities will be slow to acknowledge – but the truth is that the demise of ecstasy is as big a factor as the consumption of alcohol in the upsurge of violence that has been causing widespread concern recently.

Couple this with a sea-change in the musical direction of most clubs caused by, as Gordon and Rampling attest, cocaine-using DJs and producers – happy, uplifting music replaced by dark, edgy, often depressing grooves – and it’s quite understandable why clubs are no longer magnets for young fun-loving types.

“Coke is a pretentious, self-oriented buzz,” says successful Leeds DJ ilogik, “whereas the E buzz is more communal and happier.”

So the zeitgeist has changed, but has it really changed for good? For while pills seem to have had their day as the drug of choice for Ireland’s young, ilogik believes the newly available MDMA powder could turn youth culture on its head again.

“MDMA Powder will definitely catch on,” he believes. “It just needs to be more readily available to clubbers. Once this happens it will have a positive impact. Already I have noticed a change in the UK scene as more people are taking it. The vibes it creates feel like the way it did at the beginning of the scene.”

The acid house revival could be just around the corner. Watch this space.