82 And finally...
Covered: Acid house, design
obsessions
Rave flyers hen I was a kid I used to collect football stickers, then I started a small film poster collection, too. The flyers were just the next thing that I latched onto. The illustrations and colourful designs were what drew me in.” Now with a collection of around 15,000 flyers filling 91 display books it’s fair to say DJ and all round rave enthusiast Jonny Miller is obsessed. “I would equally look forward to leaving a rave as much as arriving at one,” he says. “At the end of the night lots of people handed out flyers for events. More than half are ones I collected from raves and record shops back in the early ’90s. I’m always bidding on something (via ebay) and I doubt I’ll ever stop, as there’ll always be a rave flyer that I want. Unfortunately, there aren’t many printed flyers for new nights worth getting. The Fabric ones are really nice but I don’t collect them as they’re just too common.” So when was flyerdom’s golden age? “I’d say 19901994. There was lots of illustration and imaginative design back then in a world before Photoshop. Some of the designs were ripped straight from fantasy artwork books or films. Fractals and eye-popping design concepts were commonplace just to add to the trippy rave spirit. If you put some of the rare flyers on ebay; ones from ’88/’89 or something from a small rave that wasn’t widely promoted, people will pay good money for them. Recently, some early flyers have gone for silly money: £40 and the like, just because the event is a classic. I doubt I’ll see them again though – I got outbid.” Jonny is a producer and DJ. Hear his nostalgic One Step Beyond mixes at www.soundcloud.com/jonnymiller Jonny has a new online radio show coming soon; follow @jonnymiller on twitter for more details
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words: elLiott lewis-george photography: matt reynolds
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