All language subtitles for I Am Weekender (Chloé Raunet, 2023)

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Truthful, trippy, romantic,
revolutionary, hectic, heroic,

and as close to the heart of the generation
as you can get.

There's not very many pop videos
you can say that about

and not be sent to hell.

'Weekender' is a small glimpse
into that beginning of club culture.

It absolutely represents an era
when we were all going out

and it totally nails it.

I just call it iconic.

Just one word, iconic.

It still gives me goose bumps
when I see it.

'Weekender' it's just like 'Fantasia',
reminds me of 'Fantasia'.

I would describe it as a mini...
mini masterpiece movie really.

It gives me the feeling of five in the morning
after one of those parties.

It's really the first proper meditation,
in a way, on the rave scene.

It's the first artwork produced
about the rave scene.

'Weekender' is not just a film.

It's an important cultural artefact,
and it's one of the very...

in some ways, one of the last
very genuine cultural statements

that we've been allowed to make
in this country.

Some films are a voice for people.

Some... some films are.

You see yourself in it
and you're given a voice.

And I think if that happens to you
and you see something like that,

it never leaves you, always remains
something very important to you.

So it was... it was a wild time.

And now, even thinking about it now,
I have to pinch myself

that it really did happen.

I suppose it's become... it's become
the legacy of Flowered Up.

I had been playing drums
with Liam's younger brother

in just a local estate band,
just jamming around with no real purpose.

And his brother Joe,
who became the guitarist of Flowered Up

and his friend Andy,
who was a bass player,

they already had a drummer
who was much better than me.

So I suggested it to Liam
after this gig

that he became the singer
to this band,

which the other three guys
would make up the rhythm section

and I would manage
because I wasn't a very good drummer.

The first time I clapped my eyes on Liam
I had no idea that he was in a group.

But ten, 15 minutes later,
when Des told me that he was in a group,

I thought, "Oh, my goodness."

And then a couple of minutes later,
when he told me

the group was called Flowered Up,
I thought, "Oh, shit, can I sign you?"

And he said,
"Do you wanna hear something?"

And I said, "Not really. I probably
just rather not and sign you anyway.

"It'd be terrible if it was rubbish, but I
kind of get the feeling it's not going to be",

because he had the face
of the times.

He had the wardrobe of the times.
He was the face.

I mean, as simple as that.

I used to work with Factory Records
and I worked with Happy Mondays,

and I worked with New Order,

and that often got me into clubs
and... and opened a few doors for me.

And it also got me hassled to fuck
by people wanting me

to introduce them to Bez
or get them on the front page of the "NME".

Des and Liam wanted both of those things
and I was actually quite happy to oblige.

I got put in touch with Flowered Up
via a bloke called Andy Weatherall,

God rest his soul.

He'd heard through the grapevine

that Flowered Up were looking
for a new keyboard player.

So he put me forward
for the job.

Nice little middle-class bloke

ends up somewhere
in the depths of South London

meeting these nutters
for the first time.

Des was cheeky, funny,
charming... very naughty.

And Liam was this cool kid.

He was a wild fucking monkey,

he was all over the place

and an unbelievable frontman
and creative.

This was kind of one of the first group
that really, certainly in London

and London was a bit behind the times
in terms of bands.

The club scene was fantastic,
but this was the first group

that came along that was inspired
not only by the dancefloor,

but also by what Happy Mondays

and the Stone Roses
brought to the club.

That night that I met Liam,
I went away

and I wrote a manifesto in my mind
about how we do this.

And the first thing was
first press, "Boy's Own",

first gigs, in clubs.

It wasn't rocket science,
but it was bloody exciting.

So we got involved and we did a couple
of singles and things were going good.

But you know,
we were making a lot of noise

and the majors were constantly
sniffing around

and I kind of knew that we weren't
gonna be able to keep them.

Someone was gonna offer them
silly money and they did.

There was this fantastic gig,
Shoreditch Town Hall,

really, really brilliant, brilliant,
brilliant show.

And... and that was it.

Then London
just got the cheque book out.

Quarter of a million quid, boom.

Crazy, crazy, crazy money.

They couldn't say no,

whether or not they knew
they had to pay it back eventually

in that it was an advance.

Whether they cared about that,
I don't know.

But yeah, that was it.

It was only ever gonna end in tears.

I was permanently scared.

So off they went,
made a crap record with very poor guidance.

But they weren't really paying
as much attention as they should have been.

Gigs were great.
The record sadly wasn't.

The gigs continued to be great
and the group were getting better, actually,

But yeah, the album
was a damp squib.

It didn't live up to hype and a lot of people
were out there to kick them.

We got them on the cover of the "NME"
and the "Melody Maker"

before a single came out.

There was always this aura
of fucking danger, edge and energy

surrounding Flowered Up.

Going on tour with them
was quite an experience.

They were pretty raucous.

My role, more or less, was just to cause
as much chaos as I can.

Yeah, they just liked to take risks,
all of them the entire time

and just push the envelope as far
as they could with all sorts of behaviour.

Well, what was it like?
It was just mental energy.

We were untouchable, we thought.

Lawless, bandits,

and it just came naturally,
just going around causing chaos

and I think it just carried on
from the football days.

Flowered Up were a real
contradiction to their name, weren't they?

Despite all that,
they were actually just such great guys,

really lovely, really lovely blokes.

And they really looked after me
on tour.

They were one of us.
They went to the raves,

they went to the parties, they went
and bought tickets with everyone else.

They wore the same clothes.

They drunk bottles of water
the same way we drunk it.

So when they made a record,
the record they made was out of reality.

Liam and me, I suppose, cos we'd been
out clubbing for quite a while

up until that point, we literally were out
for seven nights a week

for about two years solid,

and... and as every sort of scene
or whatever, it gets diluted down,

it becomes more media-led

and then it's less and less underground
and things like that.

It becomes... it loses
its kind of special sort of thing

it had at the beginning.

The end of '87 up to about '92
when it started...

all of that sort of scene changed,
was just fantastic.

Everyone was so friendly,
was so nice.

A mixture of people back then.

You're going out with in clubs
with lawyers

and it'd be lawyers and doctors
and nurses and firemen,

just every walk of life.

It was just, "Hey, do you want
some of my Ribena?"

Small clubs,
dry ice, anonymity

and just other people allowing other people
to express themselves

without laughing or sniggering.

'Weekender' lyrically...
and maybe musically as well,

was a response to the dilution
of the acid house scene

that we'd experienced
leading up to that point.

Back then,
when all this was going on,

there was a real rejection
of formality, of corporations.

It was still the time
of Margaret Thatcher,

so it was very oppressive
and depressing and...

...politically and culturally, I think acid house
was a little crack of light in the sky,

a little bit of colour that cut through
the grey clouds of Thatcherism.

That horrible
British class system,

which I think possibly has gone back
to being what it was before that period.

But for a time there was partying,
specially within the rave scene,

and people were mixing with each other
from all walks of life.

All of a sudden, people who had
normal, everyday jobs

stopped doing those in order
to get into doing music related stuff.

And we were sort of steering away
from all of that corporation type entertainment

because we were creating
our own entertainment.

So it was a really good time,
when all my friends and people I knew

who were like-minded were actually
getting involved

in setting up record companies,
running club nights,

doing club promotions, deejaying,
getting in the studio.

I opened my shop
on something that was called

the Enterprise Allowance Scheme,

where the government used to give you
?200 a month to start a business.

This was Maggie Thatcher,
when Maggie Thatcher came in.

And suddenly
there was ?200 a month.

We were just like,
"We're entrepreneurs now!"

It was like this crazy, liberating,
and kind of hedonistic

and kind of dark and light,
a wild time.

For us, Black kids,
especially the London clubs

they'd almost have a quota.

"We've already got six, that's enough.
Sorry, no one else is coming in."

So the whole rare groove culture
was very much a part

of the Black music scene
in London.

It taught us
how to get around the law,

how to ignore the law
and to do our own parties.

We all came together
and we all came together,

got sweaty together with ecstasy,
in ecstasy, on ecstasy.

This was also taking place
at a time of real change in Britain,

where you had the de-industrialisation,
mass unemployment

and working class people particularly
not really finding a place in the world

and then suddenly you've become part
of this, not just national,

but international brotherhood
and sisterhood.

You felt alive and you felt
that anything was possible

and you felt just like...

Every Saturday night
was the best night of your life.

I think there was a feeling
that you could be freer,

wild at the weekend, that you could be
anything you wanted to be.

Before acid house, there was
a kind of gender apartheid almost

and I never really got to know
my mates' girlfriends and wives and all that

until acid house and we went out.

I suddenly found out
that some of my mates' wives and girlfriends

were far, far more interesting
than my mates.

I could dress
like a naughty St. Trinian's girl,

always one of my vibes, but I was always
non-sexualized in my head.

I was just expressing who I was
and nobody would lay a finger on me.

It was a moment of optimism
and it did seem like a lot of music

made by new bands
was becoming very popular.

You just have to watch
these "Top of the Pops",

they're repeating "Top of the Pops"
at the moment.

And the difference between
a "Top of the Pops" from 1990

and a "Top of the Pops"
from 1987 or 1988

is just another world and it was
much more exciting for young people, I think,

to see people like themselves
on stage performing

or making records and so on.

'And a new entry at number 34,
Flowered Up and "Take It".

'This next band is a new name to us all,
Flowered Up have their debut "Take It",

'a new entry at 34.'

You know, if you're good
at something you can make it look easy.

So we must've been good
at what we did.

And then the influence
and all the kids that would go,

"Oh, look, well, they can do it,
we can do it."

I must have got a call from someone.

And you know, "Are you interested
in redoing one track from the first album?"

And I listened to it and it kind of fitted
into the Madness sensibility inside me.

And I said yes.

To be honest,
I was pretty scared of meeting them.

Yeah, I did spend a lot of the time
worried that I'd end up in a police cell.

On the first session at West Side,
which is a studio we had in West London,

I had a couple of Es in my pocket,

and so when Des walked in,
I said, "Do you want half an E?"

But I just wanted them to know
everything was fine.

All of a sudden Liam
had come to me and said,

"We've got this thing now,
but it's like a 40-minute jam."

And I think literally all he had
was like the "Weekender" refrain,

"Go out, have a good time."

They came to West Side
and we're doing "Crackerjack".

We did a reasonable version.

But when we came to the end
of that session,

probably a two day session,

they were just jamming
and they'd just jammed this song.

Somewhere on tape
exists like, this 20-minute epic version

of "Weekender" of just us jamming

when they were just setting
all the equipment up around us.

"Woah! Now we're talking.

"Let's... if we're allowed to,
let's do that."

We got it down to 12 minutes 53
for the vinyl.

And that's as short as it could be
and still make sense.

Seemingly out of nowhere,
bang, came this tune.

It was like a present,
the musicality was really good.

Then the lyric over the top,
it was just... it was an adventure.

Like, "Fuck, yeah!"

It was kind of quite a strange time
that post-rave scene,

in that straight up rock 'n' roll bands
didn't have much reference to a lot of people.

And I thought this song came along
and it was a really nice marriage of the two.

It's definitely not like punk
or post-punk.

It's quite '90s, late '80s kind of rock,
stadium kind of rock,

except with a working class urchin
from Camden singing about his life.

With Liam doing his sort of rapping,
poetic, talking, speech thing,

I mean, that was fresh!

We realised
we had something unique

because obviously
this wasn't gonna be a top 20 record.

It was gonna be a great critically
acclaimed piece of music,

but wasn't gonna sell bucketloads,

and it wasn't gonna get us
on "Top of the Pops".

We weren't concerned with that.

But London Records,
their inevitable response was,

"How are we gonna edit it
to three and a half minutes?"

Des was like, "They don't fucking get it."

I was like, "They don't get it?"

"Nah, it's too long to go on the radio."

I go, "Who gives a fuck?"

That voice, the energy, the power,

but the musicianship,
the production, the arrangement,

it's fucking got street classical choirs.

It's got... it's just got everything!

When a group
makes a bad debut record

it's pretty damn hard
to come back from,

but to follow it with something
so magnificent and such a statement as that.

I want a part of that.

So I was like, "All right,
tell London to fuck off, right,

"and come back to Heavenly."

I can't remember the intricacies
of what happened,

but we managed
by way of Columbia stepping in.

We managed to get out
of the London Records deal

and the record was able to be released
on Columbia Records

but appearing on the Heavenly label.

Sticking to our guns
with Des and Liam,

I think having that ability to tell people
to just fuck off,

"We're doing
what we wanna do",

compared to let's say,
a group like Blur.

If they'd done something like that,

the record company would say,
"Oh, no, you can't do it."

"OK, yeah."
They would have caved in.

I said, "We're gonna make a film.

"This is gonna be a film,
we've got to back up this track.

"We have got to make this
a statement too,

"you need a label
to make a statement here."

We had a deal at the time
with Sony

and the guy we were dealing with
was Rob Stringer

and Rob shared our enthusiasm.

Jeff Barrett and the rest of the guys
on Heavenly, Martin...

they had the balls to sort of
take the band back on and push it.

We'd already worked
with a guy called WIZ

on a previous single
called "Take It".

It was probably our best
and most accomplished promo to date.

He was coming
out of the culture,

he was involved in the culture,
he was going to clubs.

He liked bands like Primal Scream
or Flowered Up,

or the Mondays or the Roses.

He was friends with people
like Weatherall, Jeff Barrett,

so I think it was very important
that the director had to be somebody

who was of the scene
and who was young and who was living it.

One night
we'd been to the Diorama.

I'd left the venue
and I was trying to get a cab home.

I was stood on the side of the road
waiting for a taxi

to take me down the Euston Road
to Shepherd's Bush.

Instead, I got a pimped up Mini
with WIZ in the driver's seat.

Like that.

"Do you want a lift home?"
I was going, "Actually, I do.

"And this is fortuitous, this is good.
I've got something I want to play you."

So I sat WIZ down
and I turned the lights off.

I gave him a drink,
maybe a cup of tea, I don't know,

but sat him there,
right between the speakers,

I flicked the lights off
and I buggered off to the kitchen

and I played an acetate,

I put acetate of the track for him,

and soon as I could tell that it had finished,
I opened the door,

flicked the light back on
and I said, "And?"

He's going, "I've got it.

"I know exactly what you're looking for,
I know exactly what to do here."

It could have been a load of people
dancing around in the field.

I mean, that would have been fine.

But the fact that it went right into your psyche
and into your imagination,

which was amazing.

It looks fantastic,
it tells a story. It's a film, not a video.

It's... I think people approach it
as curio, "What is this?"

And have their socks blown off.

It was about discarding
your sort of regular, mundane lives

and going out and becoming
the thing you aspired to be,

you wished you were or...
basically living a fantasy really.

It's a kind of
social realist rave film,

in the way that "Quadrophenia"
was a social realist mod film.

The acid house culture
was very much influenced

by mod culture in London.

You see it very much
grew out of that...

"Whatever work we do
during the day,

"we're kings for the weekend,
we're queens for the weekend."

But it needs
to be remembered

that "Quadrophenia"
was actually shot in 1980

and that was a long time
after the beginning of the whole mod scene,

which is what it was about.

So it took that long
to get that film made.

So to get rave culture
while it was still happening

was particularly fulfilling
and a great achievement, I think.

There were a lot of people
who were living this 9 to 5 life

and then they discovered acid house,
ecstasy, clubbing,

music that they probably
wouldn't have listened to before.

And it literally changed the way
they lived their lives for quite a few years.

When I'd first seen "Weekender",
I could see the references.

And then of course,
there's that famous line from Jimmy,

"You can take your franking machines
and stuff it right up your arse!"

It's not just this kind
of kitchen sink realism,

it's more crafted than that.

Here's a wonderfully impressionistic,
magical representation of a long weekend.

It's not pretentious either.

It's that balance,
it's that harmony,

and it's style and substance together,
which is a rarity.

And it's hard to find the middle ground
of those two.

It's Ken Loach and Ken Russell
meeting to make a rave film.

There's a lot of frames
I could just freeze and just look at.

It's very beautifully shot and realised.

Originally it was for Liam
to take the lead role as Joe,

which would have been really, really cool
if he'd have been into it.

But he wasn't, I don't know why.

I don't know if it kind of scared him
or something.

I don't know if it was something to do
with his frame of mind at the time, maybe,

but yeah, he didn't wanna do it,
which I was pretty gutted about.

I think WIZ was a bit gutted about
as well.

So then we had to find somebody
to kind of fill that role.

And then it became a case
of getting someone in

who could act basically,
who could be directed.

I knew Des through mutual friends
and all that in North London.

I think at the 11th hour, Sacha said,
"Look, I know Lee Whitlock

"and I'm sure he'll do it.

WIZ had shared the outline of the story

and I knew that Lee would be able
to do that in his sleep.

Yeah, I got a call from WIZ,

and at first I thought he was sort of
winding me up on the phone,

cos he kept going, "My name's WIZ".

I'm like, "Leave it out, shut up,
I don't even know you."

And then he said, "Look,
I've got your number from Sacha,

"we're doing this video
and we haven't really got any money."

Story of my life,
"We haven't got much money."

"Would you do it?"
I was like, "Yeah."

Simple as that, "Yeah, I'll do it.
When do you start?"

He went, "Tomorrow."

He was perfect.
His face was absolutely perfect.

Lee used to come
to all the parties.

We knew Lee really well,
so we spent many a time in a field

shaking our heads
and eyes rolling to the sky

with big grins on our face
and hugging each other.

It's not like I had to go and rehearse
for weeks on end or anything to do it.

It was pretty much,
"Yeah, let's go, let's do it."

Glad I did.

The shopgirl
becoming the main hero,

I think it's one
of the best things about it.

When she's taken out of context
in the club when she becomes

this kind of goddess of acid house,
it's such an evocative thing.

Somebody is just like ringing up their stuff
and doing their job

and maybe not the in the best or high status
employment that they would want,

but they're just getting through the day
and suddenly it's like they just emerged

from this chrysalis and are gonna swoop
like a butterfly all over the dancefloor.

Everybody can relate to,
everybody's seen that,

everybody's been in that position.

The first scene that we filmed,
as far as I can remember,

with me in it anyway,
was the love scene.

It was going to be somebody that I knew
was gonna be playing the male part,

which would have been probably
a lot easier.

But then WIZ said, "Oh, no,
we've got Lee Whitlock to play it."

He used to be in a TV series
called "Shine on Harvey Moon",

which I used to watch as a kid.
So that made it even worse.

Yeah.

They actually
wanted us to be naked,

but I remember Anna going, "I don't
wanna do this, I'm not gonna do that."

I was like, "Well, if you don't wanna do it,
you don't wanna do it,

"just get flesh-coloured underwear
or whatever."

The first time I met him
I was wearing this flesh-coloured leotard

and I had to kind of smooch
with him.

And so, yes, it was awful.

I completely identified
with the whole 'working class

living for the weekends',
because you're in a shitty job,

you live in council estate,
you maybe live with your parents,

maybe you don't have a lot of money,

but at the weekends,
you could look forward to the weekend.

You could dress up,
go out and have a good time,

as he sings in the lyrics
and then back to reality again,

Monday morning with the comedown,

you have to go back to work
or school or college.

I do love the way he portrayed
both heaven and hell,

without getting on this preach box.

He did it in a way
that wasn't cliched.

One thing that "Weekender"
really shows really, really accurately,

what it was like
when you first walked into a door

with thousands of ravers,
sweating ravers.

It was like going
to a different world.

It's so rare to see this sort of vibe
presented on film and it look real.

The thing about a lot of people
in England at that time

we were kind of world class
drug takers.

That's the one thing
we were fantastic at doing.

What WIZ showed in "Weekender"
was the reality of what taking too much

and how much fun it is
when you have a little bit

and when, boom,
when you have too much.

When they're on the dance floor
and they're sniffing amyl

and then the record just cuts out.

And that's actually happened to me.

The record's slowing down
in the bathroom.

It was just picture-perfect
and it's just so visceral as well.

There's so much feeling in it.

That was a brave thing to do,
to put that out.

And I remember
doing interviews at the time.

I remember getting absolutely roasted
on BBC Radio One Newsbeat

for it depicting drug-taking
and this sort of thing.

And the woman was absolutely
trying to roast me for it.

I was just like, "Just go out any weekend,
you will see this within the country.

"All we're doing is being honest about it.
We're not glamorising it.

"We're just documenting
what goes on out there and showing it.

"And that's what the video's about."

We were actually using
real poppers, real amyl nitrate,

and we filmed it several times

and then we were all just like, "Really?"

WIZ was definitely capturing
a real moment there, but it got too much.

We're all getting headaches
and we had to tell him to stop.

We had to fill the bottle with water.

The toilet scene is great as well.
I love that.

I had to grab my boyfriend

and throw him into the back
of the toilet cubicle

as if I were gonna make love to him.

What you see inside club toilets
is normally very naughty and nefarious.

It's something that you sort of...
I don't know, in music video or music film,

I think a lot of people dismiss that,
especially now.

I think it would be very
kind of champagne and big and bling,

"We're not gonna show toilets."

So to show the toilets and then also
have it in a kind of elevated way again

and just... the cinematography
is very considered,

is just super powerful
and something I love.

I like the record shop scene,
because I remember.

Roy The Roach, who's the DJ
at the beginning and had the shop Quaff,

and we'd all go down there
and buy the new imports and stuff.

And it was just great to see that scene
with everyone in there getting the records.

And that's... I guess
that's a rare thing now

where it was a pilgrimage
to the record shop to get the latest import.

Now I guess you order the MP3.

I don't know, you download...
It's just not the same.

The slogan for my shop
back then was "Covering Club Culture".

And it was about nurturing
that whole culture of clubbing,

which was not just about dancing
and listening to records.

It was about the way you thought,
the way you dressed,

the way you associated
with the people around you.

It was a way of life.

And that's what I love
about "Weekender".

And I think that's why
it's still poignant today,

because it goes beyond the music.

As much as it's about
that wonderful record,

it was about the culture,
it had a soundtrack.

It was about what changed our lives.

You had your little set
of ceremonies.

You'd go to the record store,
you go hang out with your mates,

smoke a joint, listen to records,
get ready and then go out

and just have nights that were actually
just incredibly inspiring.

And I think that comes across
in "Weekender".

I remember the meeting
with WIZ and he had this incredible chart,

it was like a sort of spreadsheet

and it was sort of the excitement levels
and the bits of filming against the time.

It was a sort of big, lumpy, wavy thing
that he did.

He had the whole thing mapped out
and this was right at the beginning of filming.

WIZ is such a voyeur.
He sees...

He's scanning every little detail
of a situation

and that's what you get
in the film

because there's all these details
that most people have missed.

There's this scene at home
where he's sort of questioning his life.

He's looking at his mum
and he's looking at sister

and the kind of weird little knickknack things
they have in the house.

And you can see he's almost rebelling
against his humdrum lifestyle.

And then you see him in the bath

almost looking like a foetus
or something, curled up.

There's actually something
in that bath that WIZ told me,

there is a toy, a spongy toy
of "Dennis the Menace".

And that was WIZ's little kind of
Dennis the Menace ecstasy reference.

At the very end,
you see him looking at the little penguins

going over to...
I don't know where they're going,

they're going up a little slide thing
and slide down.

And it's like the drudgery of going through life
and sort of tipping over the edge.

Lee's character is so multifaceted.

He's a three-dimensional kind of man.

We see masculinity, we see vulnerability,
we see doubt, we see a love interest.

And they're all things
that everyone experiences.

I don't think Lee
would mind me saying,

sometimes he was burning the candle
at both ends, like we all were.

We'd go to parties the night before
and then just go straight to work.

The shot that always really gets me
is the shot of the guy on the crane,

when he's lying there.

Just the intensity in his face
and that's it, you're hooked.

We were up 24 storeys

in an outside window cleaner's
wobbly metal carriage

that went up and down
on a pulley.

I was so scared
that in the video you can actually see

where I'm lying down on my back,
there's a bucket of water,

and it's next to my leg, and you can see
the ripples in the bucket from my leg shaking.

And if you look carefully
where I'm holding the sides of the cradle

the white of my knuckles from holding
onto the side of this crane

because I'm so sure
that it was gonna fall or drop.

And people were saying up the top,
"Can you take your hands off the side?",

I'm like, "F off, no way, no, shut up, no.
Let's just do this."

Because it's quite a scary shot,
it's quite a scary place to be,

it actually captures the kind of the horror
of being back at work.

The way the guy
just doesn't really do anything,

he just sits and lies there,
and thinks.

I mean, if I was in that position
and I was on a comedown

and I was supposed to be washing windows
and I was lying there

I'd be too scared to stand up.

There's so much psychology
that you're like,

"OK, what's he going through?
What's he feeling?"

Back then, I was still out
partying a lot anyway.

I think a lot of us were
while we were filming.

When we were shooting
the supermarket scene in "Weekender",

we were in Queensway
and we had a specific budget,

we've got a certain amount of time.

And we've taken over
the whole of this supermarket

and the electrician
makes this almighty F up

and brings two cables together
and connects something

that should never, ever be done,
it's like a cardinal rule.

And he manages to blow
the whole electricity system.

The whole of Queensway
was thrown into darkness

and all of the food started to defrost
because they couldn't solve the problem.

It was an absolute,
unmitigated disaster.

And now with the passage of time,
unfortunately,

I can't remember
how it was resolved

because I think we had to do a reshoot
the next day.

The club scenes,
it wasn't staged.

The adult party shots
were from a proper free party

that we threw for that purpose.

I'm a professional makeup artist

and on this one occasion
WIZ said to me,

"Listen, we want everybody to be involved
and we want people to look genuinely

"like they're at a rave,
so you can basically party."

I'm like, "So what, drop a pill?"
And he's like, "Yeah."

The dancing with the children
and that I thought was absolutely wicked.

To be there and watching Lee,
he's quite a good dancer, actually.

I remember turning up
on the day, "So what are we doing?"

They said, "Just stand there

"and we'll put all the kids around you
and dance."

I was like, "It's sort of a bit weird."

So I took I think half an E
and waited to come up

and then danced with the kids
cos it was a bit weird dancing

with all these little kids around me
going, "All right, yeah."

We were filming
in Des's mum's house

and in their whole little estate
down in North London.

One of the great things
about Flowered Up

was that they came
from a community.

Everybody knew everybody

and they were really treasured
by those people on that estate.

I think everyone had a sort
of cameo role of just a normal job.

My dad got to be in the video
and that was fun for me,

because my dad was great.

You'd be privy
to all these amazing stories

and these North London boys

and getting to spend quality time
with people whilst working,

but on a slightly different level
than you would do with normal artists

because they're more accessible
and you've got your culture in common.

You could see with WIZ
the talent,

like the way his sort of head was working,
what he could see and all that.

Yeah, and he'd always show me like,
"This is how it's gonna look."

First time we're doing
a proper, proper video shoot,

and he made you feel comfortable.

He said, "Right, Baz,
you're gonna be the bookie.

"I want you to sit behind a counter
and just sort of half daydream."

But it was fun, just sitting down
and meeting different sorts of people,

seeing the ins and outs
of filmmaking.

WIZ would always refer to us,
give us specific jobs,

ask us to do research,
come back and have meetings,

and we'd co-create
these incredible shots.

And of course, it was all
coming through WIZ and his lens.

But he would allow,
he was generous as a director.

WIZ is his own kind of filmmaker,
a chameleon I guess,

always trying to do something
really interesting.

He doesn't want to tell you
how the party is done.

He wants to push the envelope,
he wants to be provocative.

He's a bit of a freedom fighter as well.

I used to be so surprised,
after I started working with WIZ,

how many people would know him
that didn't know directors,

because of "Weekender".

This videocassette in the late '90s
circulated in Russia, well, Moscow.

Who brought it there,
I don't know,

but I think that opened the mind
for many, many, many young people like me.

Within seconds
you're just immersed in this world

and that's really intoxicating.

If you elevate the every day,
it suddenly makes filmmaking democratic.

There is an element of magic.

It's a very special thing because
then you see someone that's like you,

you're like, "Wow", it sort
of transports you there even more.

And I think it changed the way
we started portraying

perhaps drugs and youth culture,
in movies, in the media, etc.

It opened the conversation.

I actually find "Weekender"
hard to watch

if I'm to be brutally honest.

I find it very hard to watch
and kind of painful in a very good way.

If I was to show this film
to any of my nieces,

I would probably say
this was a representation

of what we were doing
with our lives.

But unfortunately partaking
with drugs has its highs,

but it also has a massive downside.

And, really sadly,
both Liam and Joe from Flowered Up

obviously took the brunt
of the bad side of drugs.

And it really can have
a life devastating effect.

Drugs lead us down
all sorts of different paths.

I guess what Liam
was trying to say in his lyrics

and WIZ was trying to say
in the film was that

it's great to go out
and do these things,

but actually where's it gonna go,
it's not gonna last.

Is it really the answer?

I was surprised by Joe
because he wasn't a junkie

when we did "Weekender".

Liam was getting there
and I was made aware of how he was

and his whereabouts and things like that,
and what a mess

or he's getting better
or he's starting a group

or he's reformed Flowered Up
or he's...

And if ever I saw him,
it was kind of lovely.

But he'd been killed by heroin,
he'd been killed early on.

It took a while for him to die
and it's sad.

Liam was a beautiful soul.

Think he had a hard life.

And I wish he was alive
because he was a beautiful guy.

He'd do anything for you.

And he was only geezer I know,
well, he's the only mate I know

that would let him stick a bottle
up my back door.

We were both
working class kids

who probably really didn't have much
of a future going for us really,

and I was very lucky
otherwise I could have easily ended up

where Liam ended up,
which is not on this planet.

What happened to the brothers
from Flowered Up is very tragic.

And again in their music
there's an untapped darkness,

hints of it in the film itself,

of the way it could go either way
with drugs,

it could be heaven, it could be hell.

That adds another
sadly tragic element to it,

another element of authenticity,
of realism to the whole thing.

'How does it go?'

'Four and twenty blackbirds...'

'In case I'll sell this
to "The Sun".'

WIZ probably didn't have
any other thought in his mind

apart from just making something
that was truly honest.

And that's why
it has remained timeless.

That's why it has remained
the seminal film

about the acid house movement.

You just have to look
at certain things through time

and just sort of see
how well they've stood the test of time,

not just in their own scene,
but in society over all.

It still continues
to have an influence on me.

I made a video for The Streets
called "Blinded By The Lights",

and yeah, "Weekender"
was a huge influence on that.

And I also did a few episodes of a series,
a programme called "Skins",

and again used "Weekender" as a reference
and showed that to a lot of the actors.

It just still looks real
and now.

It was not just a genuine statement
about the culture,

but was also a genuine statement
from the culture,

which is very, very rare
in any kind of art.

It works on every level,
the lyrical narrative and everything,

but the way
that WIZ has made it,

it just works as a film
with an incredible song.

Most people are gonna go,
"Well, drugs suck."

Unless you go around saying,
"Drugs are absolutely fuckin' fantastic

"and they're great," then you can have it
how you want it. "Suck drugs."

You can shove 'em up your arse, drugs,
you can do anything you want with them.

Just make sure
what you're doing makes you happy.

I think I might have that
on my epitaph.