Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture (73 page)
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Authors: Simon Reynolds
BOOK: Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture
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Like most of the sub-generic turnover of the late nineties, speed garage reflects the fact that rave-and-club music seems to have reached an impasse. The extremes in every direction have been probed. The only way to advance seems to be through ‘internal’ hybrids (house + trance = ‘epic house’, for instance) or by mounting strategic, one-step-back-two-steps-forwards retreats in order to explore a path prematurely abandoned (as techstep did by reactivating elements of 1991-era Belgian hardcore). With micro-genres like harsh-step (techstep + gabba) and nu-breaks (midtempo jungle? ‘intelligent Big Beat’?!) on the horizon in early 1998, rave music seems to be being torn everywhichway by linked-but-opposed processes of disintegration and reintegration. For every new subgenre that breaks off from its progenitor style, a new hybrid coalesces that reconnects parts of the shattered whole that was once ‘rave’.
The rampant proliferation of hybrid sub-genres like speed garage may smack of hype or hairsplitting to outsiders, but it’s actually a sign of house music’s continued vitality, proof that it’s still evolving. But I can’t help feeling that in the broader cultural sense, house music and the club circuit are fundamentally conservative. At its more populist end, house has reverted back into mere disco, the soundtrack to traditional Saturday Nite fever. As for the more ‘discriminating’ house sub-scenes, these are simply pre-rave metropolitan clubland élitism back in full, coked-up effect.
Rave was to club culture what punk was to rock: a kind of internal revolt within the broader musical formation. Punk didn’t really change the sound of rock that much, but it changed the attitude and it revived the late sixties’ exorbitant expectations of what the music could do (change the world). While rave as music was initially identical to the music played in clubs, rave as a subculture inverted all the guiding principles of clubland: rave was anti-élitist, anti-cool, pro-inclusivity, pro-abandon. Eventually, that spirit, that new subcultural context, changed the music itself, resulting in hardcore, jungle, trance, gabba and all the other mongrel mutations of the Detroit/Chicago blueprints. For me, the idea and ideal of
raving
– mass communion, communal freak-out – seems crucial. When dance subcultures revert from full-on rave madness and ‘go back to the clubs,’ my enthusiasm begins to wane.
raving
– mass communion, communal freak-out – seems crucial. When dance subcultures revert from full-on rave madness and ‘go back to the clubs,’ my enthusiasm begins to wane.
If Britain’s house mainstream has distanced itself from the psychedelic, freakbeat element of rave – noise, aggression, riffs, juvenile dementia, hysteria – it has also reneged upon rave’s counter-cultural utopianism. House clubs are now a hi-tech leisure industry, offering the paying customer the opportunity to step inside a drug-conducive, sensorily intensified environment of ultra-vivid sound-and-visuals. No sacrifices are required to participate, beyond the financial; no ramifications extend into everyday life, beyond the drug hangover. As the late Gavin Hills put it, ‘Ecstasy culture is like a video-recorder: an entertainment device, something you use for a certain element of pleasure. The club structure now is like the pub structure, it has a role in our society.’
It also has a role in the economy. The dance record and nightclub industries generate huge amounts of taxable income. Big-capacity ‘superclubs’ like Ministry of Sound, Cream and Renaissance are closer to corporations than the traditional notion of the club promoter; these are businesses with staffs, payrolls, profit-margins and long-term expand-and-diversify strategies that encompass merchandising, club-affiliated CD compilations, sponsorship deals, even transporting their legendary vibe to other cities in the form of the ‘club tour’. Alongside the corporate clubs, the other big earners in dance culture are the first-division DJs – like Sasha, Jeremy Healey, Carl Cox, Pete Tong, Judge Jules, John Digweed and Paul Oakenfold – who charge fees in the region of £1,000 – £2,000 for a two or three hour set. Thanks to the ‘guest DJ circuit’ that links one-off commercial mega-raves and the superclubs, these DJs can play several gigs
per night
at weekends. Factor in mid-week gigs plus all the other sources of income (mix-CDs, making tracks, radio shows, remixing pop groups), and it’s clear that some of these guys must be close to becoming DJ-MILLIONAIRES.
per night
at weekends. Factor in mid-week gigs plus all the other sources of income (mix-CDs, making tracks, radio shows, remixing pop groups), and it’s clear that some of these guys must be close to becoming DJ-MILLIONAIRES.
Beyond the amount of tax revenue the dance industry creates, club-and-rave culture has contributed – alongside the Britpop explosion of retro guitar bands like Oasis – to the global perception that ‘England is Swinging, Again’. Despite this, the establishment attitude to rave-and-club culture is deeply conflicted. Both John Major’s Conservative government and its Labour successor have maintained the war against recreational drug use. Following the media and public outcry in 1996 about Ecstasy deaths, MP Barry Legg drafted the Public Entertainment Licences (Drug Misuse) Bill. Passed just before the downfall of the Tories in May 1997, the law gives local councils and police forces the power to close down nightclubs if it is believed that drug-consumption is taking place on the premises. Given the endemic use of Ecstasy, amphetamine, acid and marijuana (a 1997 Release survey conducted in nightclubs revealed that 97 per cent of British clubbers had tried drugs, and that just under 90 per cent were planning to take some kind of illicit substance
that evening
), this law ought to mean that every dance venue in the UK should be closed down.
that evening
), this law ought to mean that every dance venue in the UK should be closed down.
If the political establishment were to take a more realistic and cynical point of view, they might conclude that recreational drug use is not only an established component of British society, it’s an
essential
component. Ecstasy culture is a useful way of dissipating the tensions generated by wage-slavery and under-employment; it’s an agent of social homeostasis, in so far as the loved-up ambience of clubs and raves offers youth a sort of provisional utopia each and every weekend, thereby channelling idealism and discontent out of the political arena altogether. ‘I reckon that if it wasn’t for Ecstasy, there’d have been a revolution in this country by now,’ declared The Prodigy’s Maxim Reality back in 1992; although he clearly meant to praise MDMA, others might read that remark as an indictment.
essential
component. Ecstasy culture is a useful way of dissipating the tensions generated by wage-slavery and under-employment; it’s an agent of social homeostasis, in so far as the loved-up ambience of clubs and raves offers youth a sort of provisional utopia each and every weekend, thereby channelling idealism and discontent out of the political arena altogether. ‘I reckon that if it wasn’t for Ecstasy, there’d have been a revolution in this country by now,’ declared The Prodigy’s Maxim Reality back in 1992; although he clearly meant to praise MDMA, others might read that remark as an indictment.
Irvine Welsh, ‘rave author’ and icon of ‘the chemical generation’, confronts this idea of Ecstasy as counter-revolutionary force in his novella ‘A Smart Cunt’ (from
The Acid House
). A left-wing militant is attempting to recruit Brian, Welsh’s most autobiographical protagonist. ‘I’m thinking, what can I do, really do for the emancipation of working people in this country, shat on by the rich, tied into political inaction by servile reliance on a reactionary, moribund and yet still unelectable Labour Party?’ muses Brian. ‘The answer is a resounding fuck all. Getting up early to sell a couple of [political pamphlets] in a shopping centre is not my idea of the best way to chill out after raving . . . I think I’ll stick to drugs to get me through the long, dark night of late capitalism.’ Could it be that the entire project of rave and post-rave club culture has amounted to little more than a survival strategy for the generation that grew up under Thatcher, a way of getting by? A culture of consolation, where the illusory community of the Ecstatic dancefloor compensates for the withering away of the ‘social’ in the outside world, ever more deeply riven by class divisions and rich – poor disparities? The explosion of pent-up social energies that occurred in the late eighties has been channelled and corralled into a highly controlled and controlling leisure system. The rave as temporary autonomous zone has become the club as pleasure-prison, a detention camp for youth.
The Acid House
). A left-wing militant is attempting to recruit Brian, Welsh’s most autobiographical protagonist. ‘I’m thinking, what can I do, really do for the emancipation of working people in this country, shat on by the rich, tied into political inaction by servile reliance on a reactionary, moribund and yet still unelectable Labour Party?’ muses Brian. ‘The answer is a resounding fuck all. Getting up early to sell a couple of [political pamphlets] in a shopping centre is not my idea of the best way to chill out after raving . . . I think I’ll stick to drugs to get me through the long, dark night of late capitalism.’ Could it be that the entire project of rave and post-rave club culture has amounted to little more than a survival strategy for the generation that grew up under Thatcher, a way of getting by? A culture of consolation, where the illusory community of the Ecstatic dancefloor compensates for the withering away of the ‘social’ in the outside world, ever more deeply riven by class divisions and rich – poor disparities? The explosion of pent-up social energies that occurred in the late eighties has been channelled and corralled into a highly controlled and controlling leisure system. The rave as temporary autonomous zone has become the club as pleasure-prison, a detention camp for youth.
Nineties house culture in Britain also seems utterly in tune with the apolitical, consumerist spirit of the Thatcher – Major era. House clubs offer their customers the prospect that each and every weekend can be a miniature Ibiza, a vacation from the workaday. One catchphrase seems to sum up house’s ‘work hard/play hard’ conservatism:
having it,
or, pronounced authentically
, ’avin’ it
. Used as an adjective (a havin’ it club, a havin’ it crowd) or as a hedonist war-cry (‘we’re ’avin’ it LARGE, ’avin’ it
major
!’), the buzzphrase captures the voracious greediness of house culture, its spirit of pleasure-principled acquisitiveness, a sort of psychedelic materialism. Neck those pills, snort some lines of charlie, puff on a big fat spliff, guzzle down those import lagers, chase the lot down with a wrap of billy whizz; let’s get fucked up good and proper.
having it,
or, pronounced authentically
, ’avin’ it
. Used as an adjective (a havin’ it club, a havin’ it crowd) or as a hedonist war-cry (‘we’re ’avin’ it LARGE, ’avin’ it
major
!’), the buzzphrase captures the voracious greediness of house culture, its spirit of pleasure-principled acquisitiveness, a sort of psychedelic materialism. Neck those pills, snort some lines of charlie, puff on a big fat spliff, guzzle down those import lagers, chase the lot down with a wrap of billy whizz; let’s get fucked up good and proper.
For me, the exhilarating thing about rave was that it was
psychedelic disco
, a mindblowing merger of rock delinquency and club culture’s science of sound. At the time of writing, the most vibrant sound in dance music is the rave’n’roll hybrid called Big Beat, as purveyed by The Chemical Brothers and the Skint label’s Fatboy Slim and Bentley Rhythm Ace, amongst many others. Resisting the tyranny of good taste and ‘intelligence’, Big Beat has brought back a sense of messy, ‘mindless’ fun.
psychedelic disco
, a mindblowing merger of rock delinquency and club culture’s science of sound. At the time of writing, the most vibrant sound in dance music is the rave’n’roll hybrid called Big Beat, as purveyed by The Chemical Brothers and the Skint label’s Fatboy Slim and Bentley Rhythm Ace, amongst many others. Resisting the tyranny of good taste and ‘intelligence’, Big Beat has brought back a sense of messy, ‘mindless’ fun.
Reared on the neo-psychedelic turmoil of My Bloody Valentine and that most riff-driven of rap groups Public Enemy, then radicalized by their experience of acid house during their college days in Manchester, The Chemical Brothers bring a punk-like attack to techno by accentuating the same blaring mid-frequencies supplied by distorted guitars. Take ‘Loops of Fury’, a black-and-white riot of stuttering beats, convulsive fuzz-riffage and floor quaking electro sub-bass; when they unleashed this monstertune at New York’s Irving Plaza in 1996, I found myself pogoing for the first time in fifteen years!
The Chemicals’ second album
Dig Your Own Hole
was even more rockist. In interviews, the duo – Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands – testified to the influence of sixties garage punk and freakbeat groups like Tintern Abbey, and even sampled psych-rockers Lothar and the Hand People on the awesomely monolithic mantra-stomp of ‘It Doesn’t Matter’. On their breakthrough single ‘Setting Sun’, they teamed up with the biggest rock star of the day, Oasis’s Noel Gallagher, for a track that sounds like a fusion of The Beatles’ ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ and Public Enemy’s ‘Rebel Without A Pause’. Unlike those other rock/rave crossover giants Underworld, though, The Chems stay true to the most radical aspects of house and techno; they mostly shun songs and vocals, and rarely resort to melody, yet still manage to enthral through texture, noise and sheer groove-power alone.
Dig Your Own Hole
was even more rockist. In interviews, the duo – Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands – testified to the influence of sixties garage punk and freakbeat groups like Tintern Abbey, and even sampled psych-rockers Lothar and the Hand People on the awesomely monolithic mantra-stomp of ‘It Doesn’t Matter’. On their breakthrough single ‘Setting Sun’, they teamed up with the biggest rock star of the day, Oasis’s Noel Gallagher, for a track that sounds like a fusion of The Beatles’ ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ and Public Enemy’s ‘Rebel Without A Pause’. Unlike those other rock/rave crossover giants Underworld, though, The Chems stay true to the most radical aspects of house and techno; they mostly shun songs and vocals, and rarely resort to melody, yet still manage to enthral through texture, noise and sheer groove-power alone.
The mentality of the milieu from which The Chems emerge – clubs like The Heavenly Social, the Big Kahuna Burger and the Big Beat Boutique, labels like Wall of Sound and Bolshi, bands like Monkey Mafia and Death In Vegas – is decidedly rockist too. It’s all a bit
Loaded
-laddish and lager-loutish, a tad too close to Britpop’s boy’s own boorishness. Perhaps that’s not so strange when you consider that The Chemicals, Fatboy Slim and Bentley Rhythm Ace all have indie-rock skeletons in their B-boy closet: Fatboy’s Norman Cook played bass in jangle-pop hitmakers The Housemartins, while Bentley’s Richard March was in Pop Will Eat Itself. (Indie’s revenge: Norman Cook remixes Cornershop’s late-Velvets pastiche ‘Brimful of Asha’ and it gets to Number One!)
Loaded
-laddish and lager-loutish, a tad too close to Britpop’s boy’s own boorishness. Perhaps that’s not so strange when you consider that The Chemicals, Fatboy Slim and Bentley Rhythm Ace all have indie-rock skeletons in their B-boy closet: Fatboy’s Norman Cook played bass in jangle-pop hitmakers The Housemartins, while Bentley’s Richard March was in Pop Will Eat Itself. (Indie’s revenge: Norman Cook remixes Cornershop’s late-Velvets pastiche ‘Brimful of Asha’ and it gets to Number One!)
Then again, these dodgy origins could be Big Beat’s secret strength. At a time when so much electronica suffers from anal-retentive complexity, the Big Beat outfits ‘regress’ to those eras when rave music itself was most
rock’n’roll
in its druggy abandon: Madchester’s indie-dance, breakbeat hardcore, acid house and the late eighties DJ records of Coldcut, Bomb The Bass et al. Big Beat simultaneously uses rock ’n’ roll’s hell-for-leather attitude to show up how too much of today’s electronic music is po-faced, while deploying club culture’s arsenal of drug-tech effects to make trad guitar bands look terribly dated. Of course, this hasn’t stopped dance purists dissing Big Beat as rock ’n’ roll tarted up with ideas ripped off techno and house, or trad-rockers dismissing it as inane party music without the redemptive resonance of your Verves and Radioheads.
rock’n’roll
in its druggy abandon: Madchester’s indie-dance, breakbeat hardcore, acid house and the late eighties DJ records of Coldcut, Bomb The Bass et al. Big Beat simultaneously uses rock ’n’ roll’s hell-for-leather attitude to show up how too much of today’s electronic music is po-faced, while deploying club culture’s arsenal of drug-tech effects to make trad guitar bands look terribly dated. Of course, this hasn’t stopped dance purists dissing Big Beat as rock ’n’ roll tarted up with ideas ripped off techno and house, or trad-rockers dismissing it as inane party music without the redemptive resonance of your Verves and Radioheads.
Guilty as charged on both counts, for sure – but so what? Big Beat’s sole
raison d’être
is to generate excitement and intensity: what could be more rock ’n’ roll, more rave, than that? Big Beat tracks are crammed with crescendos, drops, builds, explosions, crowd-inciting drum rolls and wooshing sounds that pan across the stereo-field. These roller-coaster thrills ’n’ spills carry over to Big Beat DJing, a style-hopping frenzy closer to a jukebox than to the house/techno DJs seamless mixing. Where the latter is designed for MDMA’s sustained plateau of bliss, Big Beat’s jagged, epileptic-eclectism reflects the polydrug norms of the late nineties. Where once the E in ‘Generation E’ stood for Ecstasy, now it stands for
everything
.
raison d’être
is to generate excitement and intensity: what could be more rock ’n’ roll, more rave, than that? Big Beat tracks are crammed with crescendos, drops, builds, explosions, crowd-inciting drum rolls and wooshing sounds that pan across the stereo-field. These roller-coaster thrills ’n’ spills carry over to Big Beat DJing, a style-hopping frenzy closer to a jukebox than to the house/techno DJs seamless mixing. Where the latter is designed for MDMA’s sustained plateau of bliss, Big Beat’s jagged, epileptic-eclectism reflects the polydrug norms of the late nineties. Where once the E in ‘Generation E’ stood for Ecstasy, now it stands for
everything
.
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