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Authors: Simon Reynolds
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BOOK: Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture
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And of course, it does almost without saying, but I’ll say it: love and thanks to my wife Joy Press, my boy Kieran and my little girl Tasmin.
Acknowledgments to the Original 1998 Edition
Massive shout to Sam Batra for getting me into this raving caper in the first place; thanks for all the adventures. Big shouts to the rest of the Batra possee (Claire Brighton, Glenda Richards) and other clubbing comrades (Susan Masters, Jane Lyons), not forgetting the original jungle-theory crew (Kodwo Eshun, Rupert Howe).
Thanks to the following for providing information/contacts/clippings, loaning/taping records or radio transmissions, general theory-stim, and diverse forms of assistance: Adrian Burns, Jill Mingo, Sarah Champion, Kodwo Eshun, Jim Tremayne @ DJ Times, Rupert Howe, Jones, David Pescovits, David J. Prince, Steve Redhead, Pat Blashill, Rick Salzer, Erik Davis, Chris Scott, Dave Howell, Stephanie Smiley @ Domestic, Burhan Tufail, Achim Szepanski, Daniel Gish, Sebastian Vaughn @ Network 23, Tom Vaughan, Mike Rubin, Bat (A. Bhattacharyya), Chris Sharp, Barney Hoskyns, Matt Worley, Craig Willingham a/k/a I-Sound, and Ian Gittins (cheers for the Bez anecdote!). Apologies to anyone I forgot.
Special thanks to my brother Jez Reynolds for the music-technology lowdown and for taking us to Even Furthur, to my parents Sydney and Jenny Reynolds for the cuttings supply, and to Louise Gray for the archival material.
Extra special thanks to my wife Joy Press for keeping my spirits up, cracking the whip, being the book’s first reader, and generally acting as the serotonin in my life.
Big thanks to my agents, Tony Peake and Ira Silverberg, and editor Richard Milner.
Gratuitous shout to Foul Play for making (and remixing) some of the rushiest records of all time. Condolences to FP’s John Morrow concerning the tragic death of partner Steven Bradshaw in August 1997.
Thanks to those who granted interviews specifically for this book: Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Eddie “Flashin’” Fowlkes, Kevin Saunderson, Carl Craig, James Pennington, Mark Moore, Paul Oakenfold, Barry Ashworth, Louise Gray, Mr C, Jay Pender, Joe Wieczorek, Gavin Hills, Jack Barron, Helen Mead, Steve Beckett, Doug Baird of Spiral Tribe, Chantal Passamonte, Dego McFarlane, Marcus formerly of Don FM, Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin, John Aquaviva, Wade Hampton, Frankie Bones, Heather Hart, Dennis “the Menace” Catalfumo, DB, Scotto, Jody Radzik, Nick Philip, Malachy O’Brien, Scott and Robbie Hardkiss, Steve Levy, Todd C. Roberts, Les Borsai, Daven Michaels.
This book contains “samples” from my journalistic output of the last ten years. Thanks to the following editors for giving me the space to explore ideas: Mark Sinker and Tony Herrington at The Wire, David Frankel and Jack Bankowsky at Artforum, Matthew Slotover at Frieze, Ann Powers and Eric Weisbard at Village Voice, Matthew Collin and Avril Mair at iD, Paul Lester at Melody Maker, Nick Terry at The Lizard, and Philip Watson at GQ. (Parts of “Chapter 11: Marching Into Madness” first appeared as “Gabba Gabba Haze” in GQ, October 1996).
Author’s Note
This expanded edition of
Energy Flash
does not contain the discography or bibliography in the original 1998 version. Partly this is for reasons of space, but also because during the ten years since the book came out, the unevenness of the original discography has become steadily more apparent, and the idea of rectifying that (let alone expanding it to cover the last decade) made me feel all weak at the knees. For those who feel the absence, go to
http://energyflashdiscogbibliog.blogspot.com
, where you will find the original discography and bibliography. The latter is enhanced with a further reading list, a selection of useful books and significant articles that have come out since
Energy Flash
was first publishing.
Energy Flash
does not contain the discography or bibliography in the original 1998 version. Partly this is for reasons of space, but also because during the ten years since the book came out, the unevenness of the original discography has become steadily more apparent, and the idea of rectifying that (let alone expanding it to cover the last decade) made me feel all weak at the knees. For those who feel the absence, go to
http://energyflashdiscogbibliog.blogspot.com
, where you will find the original discography and bibliography. The latter is enhanced with a further reading list, a selection of useful books and significant articles that have come out since
Energy Flash
was first publishing.
Preface to the Updated Edition
Every so often this past decade, someone has asked me what I’d do differently if I was writing
Energy Flash
now – what do I feel I missed? Is there anything I got wrong or where my ideas have turned 180 degrees? And usually I’ll make some noises about maybe making the book a bit more comprehensive and impartial: having more on house as it diversified in the nineties, being less dismissive of trance and progressive. Or I’ll say that I would maybe deal more with the prehistory of rave: the ‘street sounds’ culture of the UK in the eighties, electro and things like that; post-disco club styles; or the way industrial in America and Electronic Body Music in Europe fed into rave.
Energy Flash
now – what do I feel I missed? Is there anything I got wrong or where my ideas have turned 180 degrees? And usually I’ll make some noises about maybe making the book a bit more comprehensive and impartial: having more on house as it diversified in the nineties, being less dismissive of trance and progressive. Or I’ll say that I would maybe deal more with the prehistory of rave: the ‘street sounds’ culture of the UK in the eighties, electro and things like that; post-disco club styles; or the way industrial in America and Electronic Body Music in Europe fed into rave.
If I had actually done all this,
Energy Flash
would certainly be more even-handed and authoritative. It would probably be twice the size. But it would be half the book. Because what makes
Energy Flash
work is the partisan zeal burning through it, the unbalanced ardour for one particular sector of electronic dance culture: hardcore rave and all it spawned. This is what makes the book an authentic testament of obsession and belief. And if you think about it, that’s how all true musical fandom manifests. In the abstract, I’m patriotic for dance culture as a whole; I’m on its side, every last bit of it. But in practice, there’re certain zones that I really feel passionate about. And that’s how it is with rock fans and hip-hop fans too. In certain contexts, rap or rock as a whole is the Cause, something you stand by. But once the focus shifts internal to the genre, your passion is focused around certain areas or artists. Other subgenres within the larger formation now become the enemy, because they are letting down the side; they don’t live up to all that rock/rap/rave can be. Hence the oscillation within
Energy Flash
between bigging up the Rave-Dance-Electronic Project as a whole and championing particular strands of it, those genres I consider the forward sectors.
Energy Flash
would certainly be more even-handed and authoritative. It would probably be twice the size. But it would be half the book. Because what makes
Energy Flash
work is the partisan zeal burning through it, the unbalanced ardour for one particular sector of electronic dance culture: hardcore rave and all it spawned. This is what makes the book an authentic testament of obsession and belief. And if you think about it, that’s how all true musical fandom manifests. In the abstract, I’m patriotic for dance culture as a whole; I’m on its side, every last bit of it. But in practice, there’re certain zones that I really feel passionate about. And that’s how it is with rock fans and hip-hop fans too. In certain contexts, rap or rock as a whole is the Cause, something you stand by. But once the focus shifts internal to the genre, your passion is focused around certain areas or artists. Other subgenres within the larger formation now become the enemy, because they are letting down the side; they don’t live up to all that rock/rap/rave can be. Hence the oscillation within
Energy Flash
between bigging up the Rave-Dance-Electronic Project as a whole and championing particular strands of it, those genres I consider the forward sectors.
This tension between impartial and partial also comes about because I’m what social anthropologists call a ‘participant observer’. My, cough, methodology is to get involved with the subjects of my research (dance subcultures) in their natural environment (clubs, raves), where I throw myself wholeheartedly into the rituals while standing slightly outside them. It’s a tricky place to write from, and the result, in
Energy Flash
, is a constant shifting back and forth between calm ‘omniscience’ and enflamed monomania. But I wouldn’t want to have one without the other. Neither an academic study nor a ‘Generation E’ memoir but some impossible mishmash of the two is the goal.
Energy Flash
, is a constant shifting back and forth between calm ‘omniscience’ and enflamed monomania. But I wouldn’t want to have one without the other. Neither an academic study nor a ‘Generation E’ memoir but some impossible mishmash of the two is the goal.
This updated and expanded incarnation of
Energy Flash
doesn’t alter the main body of the book as published in 1998 (except for correcting a few errors) but adds four new chapters covering what happened in the last decade: the resurgence of trance, the 2step garage explosion, the retro-electro eighties revival, and – in a sweeping overview – the crisis and consolidation of dance culture that took place this decade and the emergence of noughties-defining genres like microhouse, breakcore, grime and dubstep. Restored to this edition is a chapter on DJing and remixing which originally appeared only in the American version of the book but is here updated to include developments since 1998. Finally, there’s a megamix of my general and theoretical ideas about dance culture, woven partly from interviews given over the last ten years, and constructed as a dialogue with an imaginary interlocutor.
Energy Flash
doesn’t alter the main body of the book as published in 1998 (except for correcting a few errors) but adds four new chapters covering what happened in the last decade: the resurgence of trance, the 2step garage explosion, the retro-electro eighties revival, and – in a sweeping overview – the crisis and consolidation of dance culture that took place this decade and the emergence of noughties-defining genres like microhouse, breakcore, grime and dubstep. Restored to this edition is a chapter on DJing and remixing which originally appeared only in the American version of the book but is here updated to include developments since 1998. Finally, there’s a megamix of my general and theoretical ideas about dance culture, woven partly from interviews given over the last ten years, and constructed as a dialogue with an imaginary interlocutor.
If the tone in the new material added to
Energy Flash
shifts discernibly towards the objective, it’s still pretty clear what my bias is: each new development is ultimately measured against the early nineties surge-phase of rave. Over the years since
Energy Flash
came out, loads of people have contacted me because of the book, and I’ve noticed that people touched by the rave adventure seem to have a compulsion to narrativize their experiences, turn all that glorious disorder into a coherent story, their own journey through rave music and dance culture. So if at times my undying allegiance to hardcore seems to distort my perception, all I can say is:
This is my truth. Tell me yours
.
Energy Flash
shifts discernibly towards the objective, it’s still pretty clear what my bias is: each new development is ultimately measured against the early nineties surge-phase of rave. Over the years since
Energy Flash
came out, loads of people have contacted me because of the book, and I’ve noticed that people touched by the rave adventure seem to have a compulsion to narrativize their experiences, turn all that glorious disorder into a coherent story, their own journey through rave music and dance culture. So if at times my undying allegiance to hardcore seems to distort my perception, all I can say is:
This is my truth. Tell me yours
.
Simon Reynolds
INTRO
I’m lucky enough to have gotten into music at the precise moment – punk’s immediate aftermath – when it was generally believed that ‘the way forward’ for rock involved borrowing ideas from dance music. ‘Lucky’, in that I arrived too late to get brainwashed with the ‘disco sucks’ worldview. My first albums were all post-punk forays into funk and dub terrain: Public Image Limited’s
Metal Box
, The Slits’
Cut
, Talking Heads’
Remain In Light
. Any mercifully brief fantasies of playing in a band involved being a bassist, like Jah Wobble; I learned to play air guitar only much later.
Metal Box
, The Slits’
Cut
, Talking Heads’
Remain In Light
. Any mercifully brief fantasies of playing in a band involved being a bassist, like Jah Wobble; I learned to play air guitar only much later.
In the early eighties, it didn’t seem aberrant to be as excited by the electro-funk coming out of New York on labels like Prelude, as I was by The Fall or The Birthday Party. As much time and money went into hunter-gathering second-hand disco singles and Donna Summer albums, as sixties garage-punk compilations or records by The Byrds. Starting out as a music journalist in the late eighties, most of my rhetorical energy was devoted to crusading for a resurgent neo-psychedelic rock. But I still had plenty of spare passion for hip hop and proto-house artists like Schoolly D, Mantronix, Public Enemy, Arthur Russell and Nitro Deluxe. In early 1988 I even wrote one of the first features on acid house.
That said, my take on dance music was fundamentally rockist, in so far as I had never really engaged with the milieu in which the music came into its own: clubs. This was perhaps forgivable, given that eighties ‘style culture’ dominated London clubland. Its posing and door policies, go-go imports and vintage funk obscurities, were anathema to my vision of a resurrected psychedelia, a Dionysian cult of oblivion. Little did I realize that just around the corner loomed a
psychedelic dance
culture; that the instruments and time-space coordinates of the neo-psychedelic resurgence would not be wah-wah pedals and Detroit 1969, but Roland 303’s bass-machines and Detroit/ Chicago 1987.
psychedelic dance
culture; that the instruments and time-space coordinates of the neo-psychedelic resurgence would not be wah-wah pedals and Detroit 1969, but Roland 303’s bass-machines and Detroit/ Chicago 1987.
My take on dance was rockist because, barely aquainted with how the music functioned in its ‘proper’ context, I tended to fixate on singular artists. This is how rock critics still tend to engage with dance music: they look for the auteur – geniuses who seem most promising in terms of long-term, album-based careers. But dance scenes simply don’t work like this: the 12-inch single is what counts, there’s little brand loyalty to artists, and DJs are more of a focal point for fans than the faceless, anonymous producers. In the three years before I engaged with rave culture on its own terrain and terms, I accordingly celebrated groups like 808 State, The Orb, The Shamen, Ultramarine, on the grounds that they were making music that made sense at home and at album length. Today I cringe to remember that, reviewing the second Bomb The Bass LP, I proposed the term ‘progressive dance’ to describe this new breed of album-oriented artist. Cringe, because this divide between so-called ‘progressive’ electronica and mere ‘rave fodder’ has since become for me the very definition of ‘getting it completely wrong’.
I finally got it ‘right’ in 1991, as one drop in the demographic deluge that was 1991 – 2’s Second Wave of Rave, carried along by the tide of formerly indie-rock friends who’d turned on, tuned in and freaked out. It was some revelation to experience this music in its proper context – as a component in a system. It was an entirely different and un-rock way of using music: the anthemic track rather than the album, the total flow of the DJ’s mix, the alternative media of pirate radio and specialist record stores, music as a synergistic partner with drugs, and the whole magic/tragic cycle of living for the weekend and paying for it with the midweek comedown. There was a liberating joy in surrendering to the radical anonymity of the music, in not caring about the names of tracks or artists. The ‘meaning’ of the music pertained to the macro level of the entire culture, and it was so much huger than the sum of its parts.
‘What we must lose now is this insidious, corrosive knowingness, this need to collect and contain. We must open our brains that have been stopped and plugged with random information, and once again must our limbs carve in air the patterns of their desire – not the calibrated measures and slick syncopation of jazz-funk but a carnal music of total release. We must make of joy once more a crime against the state.’ This single paragraph by
NME
writer Barney Hoskyns, written about The Birthday Party in 1981, changed all my ideas about music. It set me on a quest for the kind of Dionysian spirit that Hoskyns located in The Birthday Party. As a fan I found it in Hendrix and The Stooges, as a critic in bands like The Young Gods, Pixies, My Bloody Valentine, to name just a few. But apart from the odd barechested maniac or bloody-shirted mosher, I’d never witnessed the kind of physical abandon imagined by Hoskyns on any mass level.
NME
writer Barney Hoskyns, written about The Birthday Party in 1981, changed all my ideas about music. It set me on a quest for the kind of Dionysian spirit that Hoskyns located in The Birthday Party. As a fan I found it in Hendrix and The Stooges, as a critic in bands like The Young Gods, Pixies, My Bloody Valentine, to name just a few. But apart from the odd barechested maniac or bloody-shirted mosher, I’d never witnessed the kind of physical abandon imagined by Hoskyns on any mass level.
The last place I’d expected to find a modern Dionysian tumult was in the cool-crippled context of dance music. But that’s what I saw in 1991 at Progeny, one of a series of DJ-and-multi-band extravaganzas organized by The Shamen. The latter were pretty good, and Orbital’s live improvisation around their spine-tingling classic ‘Chime’ was thrilling. But what really blew my mind were the DJs whipping up a
Sturm und Drang
with the
Carmina-Burana
-gone-Cubist bombast of hardcore techno, the light-beams intersecting to conjure frescoes in the air, and, above all, the crowd: nubile boys, stripped to the waist and iridescent with sweat, bobbing and weaving as though practising some arcane martial art; blissed girls, eyes closed, carving strange hieroglyphic patterns in the air. This was the Dionysian paroxysm programmed and looped for eternity.
Sturm und Drang
with the
Carmina-Burana
-gone-Cubist bombast of hardcore techno, the light-beams intersecting to conjure frescoes in the air, and, above all, the crowd: nubile boys, stripped to the waist and iridescent with sweat, bobbing and weaving as though practising some arcane martial art; blissed girls, eyes closed, carving strange hieroglyphic patterns in the air. This was the Dionysian paroxysm programmed and looped for eternity.
BOOK: Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture
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