From: wicked@netcom.com
Subject: Dance History (was Rave History)
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 93 9:57:15 PDT

As is the case with popular music over the past forty years or more, it tends to move between continents - import/export. Rock & Roll, Punk, what have you. House music originating in Detroit and Chicago was directly influenced by European outfits such as Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode.

Also in the early days in Chicago DJ's like Frankie Knuckles would program drum rhythms and play disco records over the top of his beats in the club environment.

American House music was being played in the Gay Clubs in England for a good two years + before any sign of acceptance in the straight scene (circa 1985 - 1987) and even a few chart hits like 'Jack your Body' and 'Love Can't Turn Around'.

During the Eighties in London a warehouse party scene developed that featured soul music ie. Hip-Hop, Disco, Uptempo R&B, Rare Groove, Jazz Funk etc. This directly gave rise to Pirate Radio, notably Kiss FM - a weekend station that was listened to by over a million people. There has always been a strong underground soul scene in England ever since James Brown & Co . invented the Funk.

Sometime in 1987 a few unconnected groups of people started throwing all-night House parties. 'Schoom' and 'Phycic T.V '. Schoom was agroup of South - London soccer 'fans' from the soul-side whereas Phycic T.V came from the Industrial edge. These small parties grew in size and started to attract the 'Trendies' (i.e fickle club kids). Inject a new designer drug (Ecstacy) and stir with a nice helping of media and ....... Acid House.

Of course this shit started to get played on the radio, with a whole host of new fly by night pirate stations springing up. Larger and larger parties. You wanted to go to a party you listened to the radiothey told you where the map point was. Out-of-Control! So much so that the British Government paniced. All these people gathering together and no trouble? They don't like that. Keep everyone divided and oppressed. Also they weren't getting their cut ($).

Markie !)

From: Miles Pearce <Miles.Pearce@bristol.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1993 10:24:00 +0000 (GMT)

Hiya Folks,

May I add what I percieve to be the History Of Raves....

What we loosely term as house music definately had its' origins in Detroit/Chicago with artists like Mr Fingers. It has roots in the Gay club scene as a progression of Hi-Energy Disco.

It was subsequently picked up by the Clubs here in the UK and I remember local DJs playing Jack and Garage as early as '85. Then in '86 tunes like Love Can't Turn Around and Jack the Groove made the UK Top 40. Clubs were full of the this early stuff.

'87/'88 saw the advent of Acid House as it became known - lots of sqeaks and and samples.

Meanwhile in the UK in the Summer of '88 the first summer of love occured mainly around Londons' M25 Orbital Motorway - mostly illegal gatherings - a large stage, huge PA, Lasers, lights, E not Acid and thousands of people having the eexperience of a lifetime in Unison. These events had parallels with the Clubs on Ibiza, where house had also taken a stronghold.

Acid House was a term picked up and used by the sensationalist low market press and twisted to portray some sort of link with the drug. 'Evil pusher/innocent teenager syndrome stories. This was a misconception taken up by punters new to the scene - hence is use now at raves.

Raves are basically large outdoor dance parties that go on all night - that's what they were called in the UK in '88.

Incidently the Raves now are nothing like those in those good ol' summers of love.

Cheers'

Miles

From: jsl@netcom.com (John S. Lee)
Subject: Re: Dance History (was Rave History)

It is very cool and strange how things leave different continents only to come back, like a boomerang, in a new form.

In terms of "house", I was under the impression (I know that we are on the rave tip at this time) that it began right after disco "died". Things were driven underground and flourished. I think I saw it on two documentaries on dance, one was on this video tape "dance International", the otehr was on "Rave" (some show on cable), and the other was a PBS special on Dance.

The comment I made about it started here in the US is flawed at best. Seeing as by the time it was driven undeground it had already had much infusion by the "techno" of the time (Kraftwerk, et al.), and rap was beginning to take off as commercially viable.

American House music was being played in the Gay Clubs in England for a good two years + before any sign of acceptance in the straight scene (circa 1985 - 1987) and even a few chart hits like 'Jack your Body' and 'Love Can't Turn Around'.

It usually takes a long time before a straight scene acquires something new. The funny thing is how the music had changed and then was embraced by the straight scene. Most of the vocals, hi-hats, timbales, that characterized the music at the time had been replaced by harder bass beats, and signal processing. It's even funnier that people like vocals, as long as they are tripped out & processed (unless it's a morning set). As soon as those divaesque vocals appear you will see damn near every straight guy run for cover away from the dance floor ;).

Of course this shit started to get played on the radio, with a whole host of new fly by night pirate stations springing up. Larger and larger parties. You wanted to go to a party you listened to the radio- they told you where the map point was. Out-of-Control! So much so that the British Government paniced. All these people gathering together and no trouble? They don't like that. Keep everyone divided and oppressed. Also they weren't getting their cut ($).

That is IT isn't it? The main reason wherehouse parties are shut down is due to the city not receiving ANY revenue from the venture. The stuff about safety, although true, is nothing more than a smokescreen for greed. Because if the REALLY cared they would be in the middle of converting those wherehouses to some good use (housing for the homeless is not the city's idea of good use since it makes them no $$$).

Anyway,
John

I would also note that the first combination of MDMA/dancing actually occured in Dallas of all places(early to mid Eighties?), when the Southwestern distributor of the then-legal drug decided to sell to nightclubs. I don't know the type of dance music involved. Not exactly rave, but that's what got the ball rolling so to speak. Check out the book E is for Ecstacy by Nicholas Saunders for an overview, it's available in the hyperreal.com archives.

Of course, people have been taking different substances and dancing all night for millenia, but lets use MDMA as a jumping off point here...

David

On 20 Jan 1995, PeTrI pIeTiKaInEn wrote:
Hi!
I was talking once with one of my class mates, and we started arguing about that were there actual rave parties first in Europe or in States? He told me that 1st raves were in UK and from there the idea went to States and from there to rest of Europe...

So? Any opinnions? Facts?

I'm not pretending to be any kind of expert but I think that Ibiza was where the first "raves" started with the so-called balearic (sorry about my spelling) beat. This was and still is quite a popular holiday resort with the British and so quite alot of people got intrested with the idea. From there the British scene developed and combined this music with the acid/house music that had been around in America for a couple of years. This was all at about the same time that extacy emerged as a recreational drug in Britain. The upshot of this was that 2am never quite seemed to be the right time for the music to finish, promoting the so-called warehouse parties after-hours.

So, I think that it may be fair to say that the rave culture did start in the UK but it was very much influenced by what was happening around Britain in Europe and the USA. Even today when I have been reading the newsgroup I have seen refrences to phrases used back in 1987-88 by "ravers" (though I hate the term) in Manchester such as:
top-on,
sorted,
night was rockin'.
I'm sure they did not all originate in Manchester but it was the Manchester scene that did so much to promote house (in all its guises) and its legacy seems to live on.

If this information is contrary to what other people think then OK this is just one side of the story anyway. House music is about a spirit and an ethic. It was born out of musical mediocraty to become a way of life for many. It therefore seems very unlikely that what happened in one place did not happen elsewhere. House started in the USA, as did techno but rave so to speak I think happened in Britain.
Hope this is of some use,
Matt.

I guess most of the credit/blame would have to go to the entrepreneur who decided to move beyond selling MDMA to researchers and therapists. He dubbed it "Ecstacy" and started selling it to Texas nightclubs. I don't think Shulgin ever promoted it as a party pill. On the other hand, MDA was available since the 60's, who knows what would have happened if MDMA was not rediscovered...

I guess that's one for alt.history.what-if.raves

David

I would assume that raving on E would have started in the states, since the re-inventor of MDMA was Dr Alexander Schulgin, who lives in San Francisco. He re-invented it in 1960, and it was banned in America in 1985.

Ellman Elliot@ellioth.demon.co.uk

From: paulus@sirius.com (Paul V.)
Subject: Re: History of raves?

Raves arose simultaneously from the cultural centers of Chicago, Manchester, Ibiza, and Goa (India). In this day and age cities are no longer isolated and news of an event can spread instantly around the world. Actually, raves originated long before house music. They owe as much to tribal gatherings, Woodstock like concerts, and Greatful Dead shows as they do to the late eighties early warehouse parties.

From: mike@mik.uky.edu (Mike Mattone)
Subject: Re: History of raves?

I'm reading a book, _LSD_on_Campus_, written by two journalists in the sixties, one from Time and the other from Life magazine, as an attempt at an unbiased presentation of the upsurge of the recreational use of LSD in the mid- to late-sixties. In one particular account, there is a police report of an "all night LSD party" where the participants gather in all sorts of freakish attire, paint their bodies in some cases, listen to strange electronic music, etc., and other activities which reminded me of a contemporary rave or house party. I'll get the book and post the excerpt from the report if anyone's interested. Maybe our parents weren't as backwards as we think. (Yeah, right.)

From: moonstar@well.com (Farmer Tea)
Subject: Re: History of raves?

The Acid Tests of the '60's can easily be compared to the raves of the '90's. The foci of both gatherings were the same: stay up all night doing psychedelics and listening to the most technologically advanced music of the times. The Grateful Dead have always had the most advanced technology in their shows, from film loops and oil projections in the sixties, to computer graphics and animations in the 90's ... and the impressions made on the elder generations were much the same ... what are those young freaks doing? Dancin', smokin', trippin', smilin' and lovin'!!

Farmer Tea