No! You would've heard it if that was the case. By the time I turned up it was all very "post-Gen". And this isn't the type of thing that'll lend itself well to historification but it was more about making friends and acquantances who were curious about life, culture, counter-culture and ideas in the same way that I was, in the space before the internet.
It may have been a lot more unpleasant up close with Gen, but some things he's saying in that article are total bollocks i.e. no fucking way on Earth TOPY had 10,000 members. Someone once said the interview is Gen's best medium by which they meant he gives good copy, but with scant regard to truth (i.e. he gave an interview (to Re:Search? I can't remember - where he basically takes the credit for inventing acid house and the rave scene). I think the author there is giving his hyperbole too much credence, and mixing it up with what he's read on cult psychology.
It may have been a lot more unpleasant up close with Gen, but some things he's saying in that article are total bollocks i.e. no fucking way on Earth TOPY had 10,000 members. Someone once said the interview is Gen's best medium by which they meant he gives good copy, but with scant regard to truth (i.e. he gave an interview (to Re:Search? I can't remember - where he basically takes the credit for inventing acid house and the rave scene). I think the author there is giving his hyperbole too much credence, and mixing it up with what he's read on cult psychology.
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