Walking up the high street, my head is full of music playing from shops and cafés. A Rick Springfield song bleats out of a fancy restaurant. Anonymous trance streams from a beauty salon.

The kids like Psy-Trance and Breaks. There is no house music. There are no house nights in Sydney. Deep, personal music is gone. On the coast, they just love Ben Harper and Spearhead.

“What about the music lovers?” I ask.

The two men look at each other and explain, “I suppose there may be one or two about. Here and there, you know…”

“Do you think this is just part of a natural cycle?”

“No, It’s a change. It’s over.”

The night before I was at dinner with two lovely people. They described what it used to be like.

“But, what if you just started a night?”

“Naw…”

“Why not?”

“Dunnoe…”

While Mixmag was championing house music, the world seemed to tolerate it. Now that they’re into live bands (rock bands) and bad breaks, the world is listening to bands and bad breaks.

“Why aren’t there any more beach parties or renegades?”

“Awh mate, the time for getting away with those has come and gone.”

The two men exchange a sad smile.

“There must be somewhere to go…”

“That’s just it. There is. Everyone’s happy with things as they are. There’s a crew who throw an old school night every six weeks or so, a couple decent festivals and plenty of rock clubs. there’s just no feeling of oppression to call for any sort of renegade sound system.”

“Wow.”

“Thanks for coming to visit.”

“Right, thank you.”

“Our pleasure.”

What I didn’t ask was what are the lonesome, the broken, the heartsick, and the damaged doing? Where do they go out? Have they all healed up and decided that depth and dance, drums and deepness are no longer required? Is it really Ben Harper for everyone out at the beach?

As a San Franciscan, coming into this by accident in a gay club almost twenty years ago, who felt like he’d finally found what he had been looking for all of his life, I will never understand what it means to tap your toe to a Miguel Miggs mix as you sip vodka and red bull at the bar.

As a San Franciscan, an American liberal, I will never understand what good can come from over marketing the soundtrack to life-changing events, break-ins, lock-ins, bird sanctuaries, or full moon parties for the benefit of “everyone else.”

Driving a tempo into oblivion, stripping the lyrics until you can’t tell the difference anymore, putting nude women on the cover and establishing a distribution operation which will saturate, and eventually choke the life out of any organic, grass roots, independent musical movement is beyond comprehension to me.

I do understand the fear, and the selfishness which comes as a component of being a producer, musician, promoter or a DJ. That’s what colors, shapes and changes a local scene. It’s what makes you who you are. The fact that anyone survived the 1980′s, or maintained any kind of a career through the later 1990′s is a miracle. That endurance, those shortcomings, build character. That character shapes a scene, defines its sound. What you do, how you like it, really depends on what you went through, and what you had to do to survive it i guess.

As a San Franciscan I can definitely say that house music is not for everybody. I would say that house music is mine and you can’t have it, steal it, or take it away from me. But after you have torn it out of my arms, exploited it, tossed it away and explained “House is dead mate, no one’s into it.” I sigh… I look at the floor, defeated. You didn’t rape my sister, you raped me. You raped everyone I know, everyone I love.

Was there a house scene in your city?
Is there now?
What drove/drives the scene?
Is it guests from out of town? Big names?
Or, is it people who love it, devoted to the sound?
Do you feel it?
Who were those people dancing beside you, filling up the club?
Where did they go?
Did you take the time to meet any of them?
Would it have been better if you didn’t?

The homogeny of the new world, its look and feel, its bald lack of ideas and regurgitation of the last 50 years is a completely natural thing. when I was a kid, every rebel wore the same style of bellbottoms. They combed their hair with the same brand of comb. They listened to the same style of music. The dispute was whether or not John Bonham was the best drummer in the world or not. Was Keith Moon better or what? The rebellion was purchased in a chain store, and worn with a scowl and the bright orange badge of defiance. It didn’t matter if you were a lowrider or a highrider, a stoner or a jock, you still bought a stock model car, and suped it up with off-the-shelf “custom” parts. It was the escape into punk rock, into hip hop, into house which provided an alternative identity apart from everyone else. There I found a place to be ok. A place to breathe, safe from the judgments and impossible comparisons.

Sitting here, on the balcony of an apartment in a city unimaginably far away from my home, I spend days walking the streets, watching people, and wondering. Where exactly did those judgments come from? It may have begun as effective abuse from my peers in school, but it was I who carried on the tradition.

Looking into the blank eyes of a seventeen year old, half staring girl selling perfume on the side of a bus, I am not filled with promise, or with hope. I am revolted.

There is beauty… but there is no peace.

Even in my home town, my beloved and revered San Francisco, the faces have all changed. The sound of the record stores has shifted, everything is in transition. I meet and re meet the same people all the time, all over the world…. It’s not the place. It’s the past. And the past, I am almost heartbroken to admit, is gone.

I am going to see the Gang of Four’s reunion tour. Dave Allen is on bass again, so it’s the original band. I’m also going to see the Avengers play at café du nord. They were my favorite band when I was 13.) I am zipping up my boots, going back to my roots. Heading back to where I got these ideas in the first place. I need to see what it is I left behind, what I overlooked, didn’t understand completely at the time. I need to go off half cocked a while with the safety on for a change. I need to digest the rest of this meal before i self destruct… Before I set the timer on this bomb I’ve spent the last 30 years building.

I need to go home, only there is no home to go back to.

Nothing left to do but pack my things and move in whichever direction the signs are pointing toward. Which ever way the breeze demands.

I need to stop fighting…