Updated 2 years ago
“Our emotional state of choice is Ecstasy. Our nourishment of choice is Love. Our addiction of choice is technology. Our religion of choice is music. Our currency of choice is knowledge. Our politics of choice is none. Our society of choice is utopian though we know it will never be.
You may hate us. You may dismiss us. You may misunderstand us. You may be unaware of our existence. We can only hope you do not care to judge us, because we would never judge you. We are not criminals. We are not disillusioned. We are not drug addicts. We are not naive children. We are one massive, global, tribal village that transcends man-made law, physical geography, and time itself.
We were first drawn by the sound. From far away, the thunderous, muffled, echoing beat was comparable to a mother’s heart soothing a child in her womb of concrete, steel, and electrical wiring. We were drawn back into this womb, and there, in the heat, dampness, and darkness of it, we came to accept that we are all equal. Not only to the darkness, and to ourselves, but to the very music slamming into us and passing through our souls: we are all equal. And somewhere around 35Hz we could feel the hand of God at our backs, pushing us forward, pushing us to push ourselves to strengthen our minds, our bodies, and our spirits. Pushing us to turn to the person beside us to join hands and uplift them by sharing the uncontrollable joy we felt from creating this magical bubble that can, for one evening, protect us from the horrors, atrocities, and pollution of the outside world. It is in that very instant, with these initial realizations that each of us was truly born.
We continue to pack our bodies into clubs, or warehouses, or buildings you’ve abandoned and left for naught, and we bring life to them for one night. Strong, throbbing, vibrant life in it’s purest, most intense, most hedonistic form. In these makeshift spaces, we seek to shed ourselves of the burden of uncertainty for a future you have been unable to stabilize and secure for us. We seek to relinquish our inhibitions, and free ourselves from the shackles and restraints you’ve put on us for your own peace of mind. We seek to re-write the programming that you have tried to indoctrinate us with since the moment we were born. Programming that tells us to hate, that tells us to judge, that tells us to stuff ourselves into the nearest and most convenient pigeon hole possible. Programming that even tells us to climb ladders for you, jump through hoops, and run through mazes and on hamster wheels. Programming that tells us to eat from the shiny silver spoon you are trying to feed us with, instead of nourishing ourselves with our own capable hands. Programming that tells us to close our minds, instead of open them.
Until the sun rises to burn our eyes by revealing the dystopian reality of a world you’ve created for us, we dance fiercely with our brothers and sisters in celebration of our life, of our culture, and of the values we believe in: Peace, Love, Freedom, Tolerance, Unity,Harmony, Expression, Responsibility and Respect.
Our enemy of choice is ignorance. Our weapon of choice is information. Our crime of choice is breaking and challenging whatever laws you feel you need to put in place to stop us from celebrating our existence. But know that while you may shut down any given party, on any given night, in any given city, in any given country or continent on this beautiful planet, you can never shut down the entire party. You don’t have access to that switch, no matter what you may think. The music will never stop. The heartbeat will never fade.
The party will never end.”
– The Raver Manifesto, 1995
Raves in NYC are pretty much dead, killed off on the East Coast by the BTS. Trances have taken the lead, and transmogrified the format into something more refined and Less Ghetto.
In general practice, a “rave” usually refers to a party, usually all night long, open to the general public, where loud “techno” music is mostly played. The number of people at the event is unimportant; it can range from 50 people to 25,000 people.
The cost of attendance is also unimportant – there have been good raves and bad raves at both ends of the cost spectrum (though in practice, the higher the price, the more commercial the event, and the lower the quality).
At a rave, the DJ is a shaman, a priest, a channeller of energy – they control the psychic voyages of the dancers through his choice in hard-to-find music and their skill in manipulating that music, sometimes working with just a set of beats and samples, into a tapestry of mindbending music.
A large part of the concept of raves is built upon sensory overload – a barrage of audio and very often visual stimuli are brought together to elevate people into an altered state of physical or psychological existence.
The “Vibe” – the actual concept of raves is not new – it is as old as time itself. As the base level, raves are very comparable to American Indian religious ceremonies, i.e. pow-wows, and also to the concept of the Shaman in Eskimo and Siberian society – where music is the key towards pulling oneself into a unique emotional and psychological state, a state in which one experiences washes of sensations and visions, not delusions, but visions. Sounds very hokey in print, but I’m sure MANY of you out there know what I’m talking about.
The hypnotizing effect of techno music coupled with the seamless transitions and thematic progressions of rave DJ’s as the night progresses can be QUITE intoxicating, resulting in what could be closely compared to a religious experience.
Music, in general, has always been able to sweep people off their feet, but what distinguishes raves is the concept of the shared experience; a feeling of unity often arises, and people are open and friendly to one another. There is a loss of that “attitude” that is omnipresent in normal clubs and even in life in general. People are celebrated for who they are, not what they aren’t.
There are many better ways to explain the above, and more than a few can be found at the web site hyperreal.com.
Also be sure to read this excellent book just out on Amazon: Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House (Serpent’s Tail) by Matthew Collin
Will Pulsing `Techno’ Sound Rev Up Music Business?
By Patrick M. Reilly
The Wall Street Journal 01/27/97
When Tommy Tunes, Frankie Bones and Adam X took the stage recently at the Asbury Park, N.J., Convention Hall, it didn’t look like any ordinary rock concert. Instead of guitars, the performers jammed on computer gear and sound machines. One performer wowed the crowd with a PC, his fingers flying over the keyboard and unleashing brief snippets of recorded music and sounds from the machine’s hard drive. They filled the arena with an entrancing sound known as ” techno “: electronic dance music with a driving beat, psychedelic sound distortion and occasional lyrics that consist largely of hypnotically repeated phrases.
Long played in the underground culture of “raves,” all-night dance parties fueled by the euphoria-inducing drug Ecstasy, techno music is breaking into the mainstream. And record companies — desperate for the Next Big Thing amid two years of flat music sales and a sense that”alternative” rock is flagging — are starting to place their bets on the growing genre.
Its stars include the influential Chemical Brothers, on the Astralwerks label of EMI Group PLC; the powerful U.K. band Prodigy, on the independent label Mute Records; Orbital, a duo on the Ffrr label of PolyGram NV; and Goldie, another Ffrr artist who features a ” techno/jungle” sound that mixes soul, hip-hop, reggae and pulsating beats of 160 per minute or higher.
EMI’s Caroline Records, known as an alternative-rock launching pad, is trimming its rock roster to make a big push for techno. Influential radio stations are now playing more techno music; KROQ in Los Angeles has had Orbital and Prodigy on its closely watched playlist, and have played the Chemical Brothers. “Music for the Jilted Generation,” a two-year-old record by Prodigy, has seen sales shoot up in the past six months, and now Time Warner Inc. is trying to snap it up.
“Until the sales of Chemical Brothers and Prodigy made noises, there was no point in the majors investing,” says Mark Fotiadis, general manager of Prodigy’s U.S. label Mute Records. “But they like to say sales can cure cancer.”
But the selling of techno poses some significant marketing problems for the music industry. The genre has few recognizable performers who look good on videos and album covers. Its stars are as much producers, engineers, and DJs as they are performers. Furthermore, turning atmospheric electronic tracks into hit singles will be tricky, since they usually don’t fit the three- to four-minute format of most radio hits and rarely have lyrics. (Chemical Brothers’ breakout hit “Setting Sun,” has a spacey, mantra-like refrain: “I tell you that it’s just too bad.”)
“The challenge is to establish clear-cut artists in the dance techno market. Club people love it, but how do you spread it to a wider demographic?” says Gary Arnold, vice president of marketing of Best Buy Co., a major music retailer. Mr. Arnold says techno ‘s popularity mystifies him. “As a consumer, I don’t get it — but my 18-year-old daughter loves it.”
Mystifying as it may be to an older generation, the techno sound is starting to creep into American pop culture. The Gap plays the electronic artist Goldie on its in-store music tapes. TV ads for the Microsoft Network use a techno-like sound from the Los Angeles producers known as Dust Brothers. MTV, bellwether of virtually every music trend of the past 15 years, cut its hours of rock and rap videos and added a new techno show called “Amp.” U2, whose brooding alternative rock made it one of the world’s most popular bands, is shifting gears on its March release with several songs its label executives describe as “more electronic, techno, more experimental.”
The U2 record will open “a lot of pop and rock people’s minds to new sounds,” says Jim Welch, a former director of artists and repertoire at Sony Corp.’s Sony Music’s Columbia Records. “It will be a new kind of crossover.”
Record executives say the techno trend also heralds a turn in American youth culture. They say young concertgoers and CD buyers are burned out on the anxiety and grit of alternative rock and rap, the last two genres that ignited blockbuster music sales. Last year, anticipated releases from alternative rock groups like Pearl Jam had disappointing sales, while the number of radio stations with rap formats declined.
Perhaps in reaction to rock’s intensity, there’s a market today for a more upbeat, unconfrontational sound. An executive at a major U.S. record label sensed the signs of a new market when he caught a recent New York show by the Chemical Brothers, “The dancing never stopped and there wasn’t a bad vibe in the room,” he says.
The rave scene still carries with it an association with drugs, the kind needed to stay up all night and dance. But as raves and techno music go mainstream, safer alternatives are appearing. To counter the stereotype of drugs at raves , Robb Hart, a co-head of the Watermark label, runs a sister company called Pure Children, which puts on squeaky-clean raves — complete with security battalions to check for weapons and drugs. “The rave scene gets a bad rap,” says Mr. Hart. “Most kids are there to hold hands. They are lost and need to hold somebody . . . It’s very communal.”
At the New Year’s Eve rave at Asbury Park, where teenagers danced from 11 p.m. to 9 a.m. to the beat of techno music, 20-year-old Andrew Deming was on hand for more than just the music. “What I like about raving is it’s a place you can go for 12 hours and be warm and listen to music with friends,” he says. “You can do what you want and be yourself. There aren’t many places like that anymore.” What about alternative rock and grunge? “Pearl Jam and Soundgarden are all sold out and cheesy and played out on the radio. Everybody sounds like them,” says Mr. Deming.
How do you know you’re an old raver?
You snicker when you hear someone say “PLUR“.
You finally realized that phat pants are heavy and unpractical.
You refrain from dancing unless the circle is of rather large dimensions.
When you do dance, you “battle”.
You learn to spin, and therefore have graduated to the “superior rave status”.
You find out just how crooked promoters really are.
You hate massives.
You blame candy kids for everything retarded in the scene.
You say “the scene” a lot.
You find out how much better European electronic music really is.
You find out that glow sticks were cool TEN years ago in the UK.
You have pretended to be rolling at a party just to get a quick laugh out of your friends.
When you ARE on E, you do your best to act normal.
You realize how cool Drum n’ Bass is.
You realize how lame progressive trance is.
You find out that American DJ’s are completely overrated.
You have close friends who don’t give a fuck about raving.
You think that maybe YOU don’t really give a fuck either.
The smell of Vicks makes you physically sick.
You can’t help but laugh when someone tries to give you a “glow stick show”.
You learn to break.
If you want to actually “roll,” you have to eat about four pills at once.
You can get those four pills for the same price that everyone else pays for one.
You drink beer at after-parties.
You quit collecting fliers.
You have unsubscribed from your rave mailing list, because “none of those fucking little kids understand a thing about raving, dammit!”
You can’t remember the last time you went to a party and didn’t think it sucked.
You can’t remember much in general.
You realize that ravers aren’t nearly as genuine as the hippies were.
You wouldn’t mind if that kid with the whistle accidentally swallowed it and died.
You are actually called by your real name.
You realize that the general public shouldn’t be blamed for hating raves.
You think ECKO is the sickest gear money can buy.
You talk shit as much as possible.
You value things in terms of vinyl, (ex: “that’s an eight record pair of pants.”)
You DESPISE Happy Hardcore.
You DESPISE candy.
You have seen a thirteen-year-old “raver” on ecstasy and felt
like leaving the party because of it.
You know what a 303 is.
You no longer feel the need to advertise your “rave-ness” to the world.
You realize shell toes are shitty shoes.
You can’t count how many pairs you have owned.
You know that post-rave sex is awful.
You’ve punked kids who tried to get in a circle that was outta their league.
You can determine where a raver is from just by the way they dance.
You know that LA ravers can’t dance worth a shit.
You find out that underground parties still happen quite
frequently, despite what 98% of the raving populous thinks.
You party sober and now understand how stupid you looked when you didn’t.
You know who PRODUCED your favorite tracks, not just which DJ bought it and put it on a mix CD.
You read URB.
You have day-dreams that involve the Telletubies and a large rusty chainsaw.
Your parents gave up on you becoming normal a long, long time ago.
You know why GHB and special K are for fucking idiots.
You understand electro and minimal techno now.
You hate rave ho’s.
You could out-dance any boy band, any day, while smoking a cigarette.
You begin to notice how often big DJ’s blow mixes.
You think sweaty guys who run around the party shirtless should get thrown out.
You act like a punk-ass bitch to security, police, and any other authority.
You purposely wear way too much clothing to parties, because you know that dancing in a turtleneck sweater looks fucking ill.
You say “ill” a lot.
You have replaced Caffeine, JNCO, and Adidas with Technic,
Vestax, and JBL.
You know that raving is all about the music, but RAVERS are not.
You find the jungle room much more appealing now.
You can actually dance to jungle.
You hate Feelgood and Coolworld.
You laugh out loud when you walk into Jamba Juice and they’re playing dance music.
You see guys from your high school football team at a party.
You know raving is mainstream as fuck.
The bigger the flier, the less you want to go to the party.
You can re-tell the story of how raving came to America quite accurately.
You hate Anthem tracks.
Your sleeping and eating habits are completely fucked up.
You sit around with friends and tell old “rave disaster” stories.
You are amazed that you are somehow still alive.
