Explaining Rave Culture to Americans

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  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    Do you get fucked up?

    There.

  • bassiebassie 11,710 Posts
    I get pretty fucked up once a month, thanks very much to biology.
    Too many uses!

    Lit?

  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    Are you experienced?

  • DelayDelay 4,530 Posts
    Replace it with whatever you like, but using it runs the risk of sounding REAL sleezy.

    i heard some dude say "you aint got no party" and i was feeling that tho

  • finelikewinefinelikewine "ONCE UPON A TIME, I HAD A VINYL." http://www.discogs.com/user/permabulker 1,416 Posts
    Frank said:
    Delay said:
    Basically anyone that thinks this amounted to a culture, or sub culture, is TRIPPING. You took drugs and danced like an idiot... congrats

    Exactly!

    Rave Culture = Perfect Oxymoron

    My job in Berlin in the early 90s got me in touch with many of the promoters, djs, designers, club owners etc of the techno scene. Most of those individuals were leftovers from various 80s music scenes who because of lack of talent, vision or creativity had never amounted to anything the first time around. The obvious stupidity and mental bleakness of these individuals was staggering and it was completely alienating to see how these guys managed to never allow for a bright moment in which they would have had to realize what an empty bubble this whole "culture" really was. Not only empty, this was basically an intellectual, spiritual and cultural vacuum. The only art I could notice was the art of embarrassing yourself in the most ridiculous ways in front and together with a big mass of other useless bodies. A herd of lemmings, sadly without a cliff in sight.

    More or less grown people jumping up and down (their idea of dancing) like a pack of lobotomized children, waving glow sticks in the air... I had to attend numerous of these raves and had the most vivid napalm phantasies imaginable.

    The end of the Love Parade, although much too late and not remotely as bloody as I would have wished for made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

    Frank, I agree with very much you said, I can see were you're coming from. A big part of this scene is disgusting. Especially those large scale events are aweful. The bigger they get, the shittier. This music has to be enjoyed in small dirty basment clubs. At the underground end of the scene lot of interesting and good stuff is happening. I'm talking about proper house music here, not pounding 140 BPM techno. I had an absolute blast at this kind of parties in the past. Maybe you never had the chance to experience it in the right environment? When done properly, the atmosphere can be as intense as it was at your Soul Explosion parties, imho.

  • FrankFrank 2,373 Posts
    HarveyCanal said:
    Do you get fucked up?

    There.

    Guilty as charged although the severity of post-40 hangovers and the continued effort to control the beer gut have forced me to some moderation some of the time.

  • bassiebassie 11,710 Posts
    HarveyCanal said:
    Are you experienced?




  • FrankFrank 2,373 Posts
    finelikewine said:


    Frank, I agree with very much said, I can see were you're coming from. A big part of this scene is disgusting. Especially those large scale events are aweful. The bigger they get, the shittier. This music has to be enjoyed in small dirty basment clubs. At the underground end of the scene lot of interesting and good stuff is happening. I'm talking about proper house music here, not pounding 140 BPM techno. I had an absolute blast at this kind of parties in the past. Maybe you never had the chance to experience it in the right environment?.

    I've been to a bunch of house and tech house events that were amazing but wouldn't have qualified as "rave" which for me is a mass event with thousands of squares on E which I thought was what the original post was about.

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,244 Posts
    Frank said:
    finelikewine said:


    Frank, I agree with very much said, I can see were you're coming from. A big part of this scene is disgusting. Especially those large scale events are aweful. The bigger they get, the shittier. This music has to be enjoyed in small dirty basment clubs. At the underground end of the scene lot of interesting and good stuff is happening. I'm talking about proper house music here, not pounding 140 BPM techno. I had an absolute blast at this kind of parties in the past. Maybe you never had the chance to experience it in the right environment?.

    I've been to a bunch of house and tech house events that were amazing but wouldn't have qualified as "rave" which for me is a mass event with thousands of squares on E which I thought was what the original post was about.

    whenever I hear someone wax nostalgic about the good ol' rave days, they're not referring to the little underground party they went to in a dank basement. It's usually the kind of thing Frank is describing, y'know, those great big parties where no one knew where the warehouse was and then thousands of people showed up and everyone was on E and you had the acid with that cartoon character on the tab. Usually it ends with the person remembering how the whole scene took a dark turn and they went to one last rave where they didn't take E and realized how stupid everyone looked.

  • DelayDelay 4,530 Posts
    ppadilha said:
    Frank said:
    finelikewine said:


    Frank, I agree with very much said, I can see were you're coming from. A big part of this scene is disgusting. Especially those large scale events are aweful. The bigger they get, the shittier. This music has to be enjoyed in small dirty basment clubs. At the underground end of the scene lot of interesting and good stuff is happening. I'm talking about proper house music here, not pounding 140 BPM techno. I had an absolute blast at this kind of parties in the past. Maybe you never had the chance to experience it in the right environment?.

    I've been to a bunch of house and tech house events that were amazing but wouldn't have qualified as "rave" which for me is a mass event with thousands of squares on E which I thought was what the original post was about.

    whenever I hear someone wax nostalgic about the good ol' rave days, they're not referring to the little underground party they went to in a dank basement. It's usually the kind of thing Frank is describing, y'know, those great big parties where no one knew where the warehouse was and then thousands of people showed up and everyone was on E and you had the acid with that cartoon character on the tab. Usually it ends with the person remembering how the whole scene took a dark turn and they went to one last rave where they didn't take E and realized how stupid everyone looked.

    church

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    ppadilha said:
    Frank said:
    finelikewine said:


    Frank, I agree with very much said, I can see were you're coming from. A big part of this scene is disgusting. Especially those large scale events are aweful. The bigger they get, the shittier. This music has to be enjoyed in small dirty basment clubs. At the underground end of the scene lot of interesting and good stuff is happening. I'm talking about proper house music here, not pounding 140 BPM techno. I had an absolute blast at this kind of parties in the past. Maybe you never had the chance to experience it in the right environment?.

    I've been to a bunch of house and tech house events that were amazing but wouldn't have qualified as "rave" which for me is a mass event with thousands of squares on E which I thought was what the original post was about.

    whenever I hear someone wax nostalgic about the good ol' rave days, they're not referring to the little underground party they went to in a dank basement. It's usually the kind of thing Frank is describing, y'know, those great big parties where no one knew where the warehouse was and then thousands of people showed up and everyone was on E and you had the acid with that cartoon character on the tab. Usually it ends with the person remembering how the whole scene took a dark turn and they went to one last rave where they didn't take E and realized how stupid everyone looked.

    Yeah, that sounds vaguely familiar.

    For a while, though, it was a lot of fun and I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

  • jamesjames chicago 1,863 Posts
    ppadilha said:
    Frank said:
    finelikewine said:


    Frank, I agree with very much said, I can see were you're coming from. A big part of this scene is disgusting. Especially those large scale events are aweful. The bigger they get, the shittier. This music has to be enjoyed in small dirty basment clubs. At the underground end of the scene lot of interesting and good stuff is happening. I'm talking about proper house music here, not pounding 140 BPM techno. I had an absolute blast at this kind of parties in the past. Maybe you never had the chance to experience it in the right environment?.

    I've been to a bunch of house and tech house events that were amazing but wouldn't have qualified as "rave" which for me is a mass event with thousands of squares on E which I thought was what the original post was about.

    whenever I hear someone wax nostalgic about the good ol' rave days, they're not referring to the little underground party they went to in a dank basement. It's usually the kind of thing Frank is describing, y'know, those great big parties where no one knew where the warehouse was and then thousands of people showed up and everyone was on E and you had the acid with that cartoon character on the tab. Usually it ends with the person remembering how the whole scene took a dark turn and they went to one last rave where they didn't take E and realized how stupid everyone looked.
    But doesn't this fairly describe the trajectory of everyone ever's love affair with any musical culture/subculture they've ever been deep into? "I went to this underground reggae/disco/rap party, and everyone was weeded/ski'd/pilled, and man, everyone was vibing and shit was so great and I went every week/month for two/three/five years, but then I went one last time and didn't smoke/sniff/take anything and I realized how wack it all seemed, and I haven't really been back since."

    Most scenes are much more alike than different, and I think a lot of anti-rave grievances are window dressing for the fact that the plaintiff just doesn't fucking like rave music.



  • * i dont like the rave music

  • RAJRAJ tenacious local 7,782 Posts
    I'll forever associate "rave culture" with the late 90s -- glow sticks and Jenko's Jeans.

  • When I was at Penn State in the late mid nineties I had a friend who grew up clubbing in Florida, and when she came to school in PA and couldn't find anyone into house music she was like "I guess people here just don't like having fun". It definitely was "culture shock" to her since everyone she had grown up with was into the same things.
    She eventually found others like her and ended up throwing the first few raves at PSU.

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,244 Posts
    don't forget the invisible ball they were always juggling

  • FrankFrank 2,373 Posts
    I'll never understand the appeal of mass euphoria. Shit always makes me get the fuck out as fast and as far as possible.



















  • All I can think of is B.O. :oof:

  • yuichiyuichi Urban sprawl 11,332 Posts
    I've been guilty of listening to this shit for a second and have gone to the Vegas clubs and one or two outdoor festivals. It's fun but just as fast as I was on it, I'm pretty much over it. And yes, for the most part these events are synonamous with 21year olds, wearing Hundreds caps, and maybe dropping a pill or two.

    It's just not a sustainable form of music either.

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    We're really entering classic Soul Strut "so many bad looks in this thread" territory now.

  • skelskel You can't cheat karma 5,033 Posts
    yuichi said:

    It's just not a sustainable form of music either.

    ^^^^^^^
    GOT SOLD A DUD E

  • white_teawhite_tea 3,262 Posts
    Delay said:
    church

    Gone to quite a number of -- and here's the term we always used -- parties. At churches, bowling alleys, factories, warehouses, funeral homes, campsites, arcades, bars, etc. I missed the real heyday of the "culture" in Chicago but in the mid- to late-1990s, there were some large-scale parties where the promoters would throw a lot of $$$ at talent, who would in turn play brand new records. And that's what I always loved about it -- the house, techno, hip-hop, drum and bass, ambient was (at the time) very forward-thinking and if not that, it was new. There is just something special about seeing a DJ such as Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk, dressed like a regular dude, playing disco on the South Side of Chicago. And it was about the dancing -- talking jackin', couples, stepping, breaking. Good dancing. Sure there was a lot of jail-bate from the suburbs dressed in idiotic clothes, including myself, but I have great memories and I'm proud to have been part of the "scene."

  • Isn't there anyone here Stateside from Chicago or Detroit with fond tales of the late 80's/early 90's?

  • djannadjanna 1,543 Posts
    Early 90s San Francisco was pretty intense. I raved. Hard.

  • DocMcCoy said:
    We're really entering classic Soul Strut "so many bad looks in this thread" territory now.
    frank has it covered

  • phatmoneysackphatmoneysack Melbourne 1,124 Posts
    djanna said:
    Early 90s San Francisco was pretty intense. I raved. Hard.

    Was that the scene that DJ Garth was involved in?

  • yuichiyuichi Urban sprawl 11,332 Posts
    DocMcCoy said:
    We're really entering classic Soul Strut "so many bad looks in this thread" territory now.

    All them Euros do it. Why not?

  • SPlDEYSPlDEY Vegas 3,375 Posts
    Frank said:
    I'll never understand the appeal of mass euphoria. Shit always makes me get the fuck out as fast and as far as possible.

    I'm with Frank on this one! I'll pass.

    - spidey

  • jamesjames chicago 1,863 Posts
    Frank said:
    I'll never understand the appeal of mass euphoria
    Wait--you're the dude who used to regularly dj some giant funk party, right?

  • jamesjames chicago 1,863 Posts
    DocMcCoy said:
    We're really entering classic Soul Strut "so many bad looks in this thread" territory now.
    Godwin's Law is a motherfucker.
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