Rave

For other uses, see Rave (disambiguation).

For the genre "rave music", see rave music.

A rave (from the verb: to rave) is distinguished from other types of parties by its intensity and size. They originated mostly from acid house music parties, and typically feature amplified electronic music and light or laser shows. At these parties, people dance and socialize to dance music played by disc jockeys (colloquially called DJs) and occasionally live performances. The genres of electronic dance music played include house, trance, techno, jungle, breakbeat, eurodance, liquid funk, drum and bass, drumstep, hardstyle, hardcore techno, gabber, UK hardcore, happy hardcore, psychedelic trance and most other electronic music genres with the accompaniment of laser light shows, projected images, visual effects, paint, glow sticks and smoke machines.

In Vienna, Austria in 2005

Definitions

According to Gibson (1999) rave is a spatial practice, which is done through the harmonization of dance, music and lighting. A part of a growing global subculture, and a powerful entertainment industry, the rave party is an event through which individuals can experience trances, religious rapture, deal with personal issues and of course have a really good time.

St. John (2003) claims that raves pride themselves on their friendly atmosphere and welcoming attitude, by both the employees of the event and the guests. With a specific code of conduct, and a developing spiritual philosophy, rave culture can, according to St John, be viewed as part of new religious movement, as well as a re-invention of shamanistic or pagan spiritual practices.

History

In the late 1950s in London the term "Rave" was used to describe the "wild bohemian parties" of the Soho beatnik set. In 1958 Buddy Holly recorded the hit "Rave On," citing the madness and frenzy of a feeling and the desire for it to never end. The word "rave" was later used in the burgeoning mod youth culture of the early 1960s as the way to describe any wild party in general. People who were gregarious party animals were described as "ravers". Pop musicians such as Steve Marriott of The Small Faces and Keith Moon of The Who were self-described "ravers".

Presaging the word's subsequent 1980s association with electronic music, the word "rave" was a common term used regarding the music of mid-1960s garage rock and psychedelia bands (most notably The Yardbirds, who released an album in the US called Having a Rave Up). Along with being an alternative term for partying at such garage events in general, the "rave-up" referred to a specific crescendo moment near the end of a song where the music was played faster, heavier and with intense soloing or elements of controlled feedback. It was later part of the title of an electronic music performance event held on 28 January 1967 at London's Roundhouse titled the "Million Volt Light and Sound Rave". The event featured the only known public airing of an experimental sound collage created for the occasion by Paul McCartney of The Beatles – the legendary Carnival of Light recording.

With the rapid change of British pop culture from the mod era of 1963–1966 to the hippie era of 1967 and beyond, the term fell out of popular usage. During the 1970s and early 1980s until its resurrection, the term was not in vogue, one notable exception being in the lyrics of the song "Drive-In Saturday" by David Bowie (from his 1973 album Aladdin Sane) which includes the line "It's a crash course for the ravers." Its use during that era would have been perceived as a quaint or ironic use of bygone slang: part of the dated 1960s lexicon along with words such as "groovy". The perception of the word changed again in the late 1980s when the term was revived and adopted by a new youth culture, possibly inspired by the use of the term in Jamaica.

In the mid to late 1980s a wave of psychedelic and other electronic dance music, most notably acid house-music and Techno, emerged and caught on in the clubs, warehouses, and free-parties first in Manchester in the mid 80's and then later London . In many ways what would become known as the Rave scene, was influenced by the Northern Soul scene which throughout the late 1960s and through the 1970s and 80's had involved large groups of mainly working class kids dancing all night to rare US soul records. When Margaret Thatcher's policies in the late 70's lead to the closure of the UK's textile industry in the northwest, suddenly large mills and warehouses became empty and unauthorized parties were held in them. The first warehouse parties in Manchester were organized by the group The Stone Roses back in 1985, when to get around the licensing laws they would play a gig and book a line up of DJs under the disused arches of Piccadilly train station.

These parties were then advertised as an all night video shoot, and the kids who bought tickets for £5 would have a 1p piece sellotaped to the back as their fee for being extras in a video shoot, thus for several months the forces of law were kept at bay. Dance music was always prominent with big electro, Jazz Funk and early house tunes being played in a somewhat balearic mix alongside New Order, The Clash and The Smiths. House music caught on very quickly in the north and midlands from 1986 onwards, even being played in mainstream night clubs. In 1988 London suddenly adopted this scene, and rebranded it, so records which a week earlier had been House Records, were suddenly Acid House-music and smiley badges and other marketing paraphernalia became involved. These early raves were called Acid House Music Parties.

They were mainstream events that attracted thousands of people (up to 25,000 instead of the 4,000 that came to earlier warehouse parties). Acid House Music parties were first re-branded "rave parties" in the media, during the summer of 1989 by Neil Andrew Megson during a television interview, however, the ambience of the rave was not fully formed until 28 May 1991. In the UK, in 1988–89, raves were similar to football matches in that they provided a setting for working-class unification, in a time with a union movement in decline and few jobs, and many of the attendees of raves were die-hard football fans.

In the late 1980s, the word "rave" was adopted to describe the subculture that grew out of the acid house movement. Activities were related to the party atmosphere of Ibiza, a Mediterranean island in Spain, frequented by British, Italian, Irish and German youth on vacation.

British politicians responded with hostility to the emerging rave party trend. Politicians spoke out against raves and began to fine anyone who held unauthorized parties. Police crackdowns on these often-unauthorized parties drove the scene into the countryside. The word "rave" somehow caught on in the UK to describe common semi-spontaneous weekend parties occurring at various locations linked by the brand new M25 London Orbital motorway that ringed London and the Home Counties. (It was this that gave the band Orbital their name.) These ranged from former warehouses and industrial sites, in London, to fields and country clubs in the countryside.

United Kingdom

See also: Second Summer of Love, Acid house, House music, Techno, Electronica, and Electronic dance music

By 1991, organisations such as Fantazia, Universe,N.A.S.A "Nice And Safe Attitude", Raindance and Amnesia House were holding massive legal raves in fields and warehouses around the country. One Fantazia party, called One Step Beyond, was an open-air, all-night affair that attracted 30,000 people. Other notable events included Vision at Pophams airfield in August 1992, with 40,000 in attendance and Universe's Tribal Gathering in 1993.

In the early 1990s, the scene was slowly changing, with local councils passing by-laws and increasing fees in an effort to prevent or discourage rave organisations from acquiring necessary licenses. This meant that the days of legal one-off parties were numbered. By the mid-1990s, the scene had fragmented into many different styles of dance music, making large parties more expensive to set up and more difficult to promote. The happy old skool style was replaced by the darker jungle and the faster happy hardcore. Although many ravers left the scene due to the split, promoters such as ESP Dreamscape and Helter Skelter still enjoyed widespread popularity and capacity attendances with multi-arena events catering to the various genres. Particularly notable events of this period included ESP's Dreamscape 20 on 9 September 1995 at Brafield aerodrome fields, Northants and Helter Skelter's Energy 97 event on 9 Aug 1997 at Turweston Aerodrome, Northants.

The illegal free party scene also reached its zenith for that time after a particularly large festival, when many individual sound systems such as Bedlam, Circus Warp, DIY, and Spiral Tribe set up near Castlemorton Common. In May 1992, the government acted. Under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, the definition of music played at a rave was given as:

"music" includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.
Template:Nb10–Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994

Sections 63, 64 & 65 of the Act targeted electronic dance music played at raves. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act empowered police to stop a rave in the open air when a hundred or more people are attending, or where two or more are making preparations for a rave. Section 65 allows any uniformed constable who believes a person is on their way to a rave within a five-mile radius to stop them and direct them away from the area; non-compliant citizens may be subject to a maximum fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale (£1000). The Act was officially introduced because of the noise and disruption caused by all night parties to nearby residents, and to protect the countryside. However, it has also been claimed that it was introduced to kill a popular youth movement that was taking many drinkers out of town centres, where they would drink taxable alcohol, and into fields to dance and go wild. In November 1994, the Zippies staged an act of electronic civil disobedience to protest against the CJB.

After 1993, the main outlet for raves in the UK were a number of licensed venues, amongst them Helter Skelter, Life at Bowlers (Trafford Park, Manchester), The Edge (formerly the Eclipse [Coventry]), The Sanctuary (Milton Keynes) and Club Kinetic.. In London, itself, there were a few large clubs that staged raves on a regular basis, most notably "The Laser Dome", "The Fridge", "The Hippodrome", "Club U.K.", and "Trade." "The Laser Dome" featured two separate dance areas, "Hardcore" and "Garage", as well as over 20 video game machines, a silent-movie screening lounge, replicas of the "Statue of Liberty", "San Francisco Bridge", and a large glass maze. At capacity "The Laser Dome" held in excess of 6,000 people. Events proved to be one of the main forces in rave, holding legendary events across the north-east and Scotland. Initially playing Techno, Breakbeat, Rave and drum and bass, it later embraced hardcore techno including happy hardcore and bouncy techno. Judgement Day, History of Dance, and now REGENeration continued the Rezerection legacy. Scotland's clubs, such as the FUBAR in Stirling, Hangar 13 in Ayr, and Nosebleed in Rosyth played important roles in the development of these dance music styles.

These were nearly all pay-to-enter events; however, it could be argued that rave organisers saw the writing on the wall and moved towards more organised and "legitimate" venues, enabling a continuation of large-scale indoor raves well into the mid-nineties. One might remember that the earliest house and acid house clubs were themselves effectively "nightclubs". Public perception of raves was also overshadowed in the press by the 1995 death of Leah Betts, a teenager who died after taking MDMA; journalists and billboard campaigns focused on drug use, despite Betts cause of death being water intoxication in her home, not an MDMA overdose at a rave.

Genuine illegal raves have continued throughout the UK to this day and unlicensed parties have been organised in venues including disused quarries, warehouses, and condemned night clubs. The rise of the Internet has both helped and hindered the cause, with much wider and more accessible communication resulting in bigger parties, but consequently increasing the risk of police involvement.

The 2006 M.I.A. song "XR2" is an ode to the rave scene of early 1990s London.

There are also types of Rave clothes, such as 'pumps', 'Three button Shirts', 'Fluorescent Yellow Jackets', 'White Gloves' and White belts. This is known as 'Rave gear'.

As well as clothing there were a range of accessories carried by many ravers including: Vicks VapoRub, which ravers find pleasant under the influence of MDMA, pacifiers to satiate the need to grind one's teeth (bruxism) caused by taking MDMA, and glow sticks which adjunct the mild psychedelia of MDMA's effect. This led some clubs and event organizers to search participants on entry and confiscate such items due to it being evidence of drug use inside the venue.

United States of America

American ravers, following their early UK & European counterparts, have been compared to both the hippies of the 1960s and the new wavers of the 1980s, due to their interest in non-violence and music.

In the 1990s, one of the most influential Rave organisers / promoters in America was San Diego's G.U.N., Global Underworld Network known as Nicholas Luckinbill and Branden Powers. They were made famous for organising and throwing the internationally known OPIUM and NARNIA raves that reached in size of 60,000 plus people in attendance, a feat unheard of at that time. Narnia which would become famous for a morning hand holding circle of unity was featured on Mtv and twice in LIFE magazine being honored with Event of the Year in 1995. Narnia quickly became known as the "Woodstock of Generation X". These festivals were mostly held on Indian Reservations and Ski Resorts during the Summer months and were headlined by well known DJs such as Doc Martin,Dimitri of Dee-lite,Afrika Islam and the Hardkiss brothers from San Francisco.

They also featured exceptional local San Diego DJ's Jon Bishop, Steve Pagan,Alien Tom,Jeff Skot and Mark E. Quark. Global Underworld's events were the first prop-heavy, themed parties in America. Global Underworld Network were also the first production company to throw Raves within Mexico, thus launching the entire rave culture movement within South America as well. The iconic fairy and pixie craze with ravers getting fairy tattoos and wearing wings to parties all started from an image of a winged fairy on the first Narnia flyer. The Crystal Method played their first out of town show for Global Underworld's Universary event. Fearing reprisals from the police Global Underworld Network advertised the event as "A thousand Points of Light" referring to the power of healing crystals and not the obvious drug reference of the Crystal Methods name. A fact that tickled the upcoming artist so much they would refer to it years later in their biography.

The Chemical Brothers were also in awe of Nicholas and Branden's Global Underworld headquarters in downtown San Diego. A multi story building of the arts, much like Warhol's factory. There Global Underworld fed starving artists and provided space for all the arts. The Chemical Brothers played an intimate show at Global's offices in front of a few hundred lucky fans on the eve of a Global event that was shut down by the authorities. In an interview with Virgin Airways The Chemical Brothers referred to Global Underworld as a cult with cult like followers, a fact that wasn't too far from the truth. Nicholas Luckinbill step grandson of the late Lucille Ball and Branden Powers were the Tim Leary and Ken Keaseys of the Rave Generation, and were instrumental in creating their political movement called RTD or RIGHT TO DANCE. RTD was a non violent protest held in San Diego and later in Los Angeles on the steps of the Cities administrators proving that Rave was about community, peace, love and not a dirty word. These protest by Global Underworld helped lay the foundation for future growth within the rave scene.

In contrast to many other "youth cultures," older people are often active members of the U.S. scene and are well represented at events. Certain facets of dance music culture in the UK, Europe and globally, are also welcoming to the older generation (especially the free party/squat party/gay scenes). However, rave and club culture remains on the whole very much a youth-driven movement in terms of its core fan base. Although rave parties are commonly associated with illegal activities (e.g. drug use), raves themselves are more often considered to be legal gatherings in recent times. In late 80s and early 90s, there was a boom in rave culture in the Bay Area. At first, small underground parties sprung up all over the SOMA district in vacant warehouses, loft spaces, and clubs like DV8 and 1015 Folsom, and basement of Jessie Street that had permits to run to 6am as long as no alcohol was served. The zero alcohol rule fuelled the ecstasy-driven parties to a much larger crowd, and soon followed were the first large scale raves. Every weekend a few hundred revellers would show up at venues like the Townsend warehouse, the King Street garage, and other mid-size warehouse's located in the SOMA and south San Francisco area.

Rave crew's started to become famous not only for their quality of music and the smoothness of the parties thrown but also for the 'vibe'. Crews grew to legendary status at this time: 'the gathering', 'toontown', 'wiked', 'rave called sharon', 'the church', and 'osmosis'. Small underground raves were just starting out and expanding beyond SF to include the east bay, the south bay area including San Jose, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz beaches (where the notorious 'full moon raves' took place at Bonny Dune beach every month). In late 1991 raves started to explode across northern California, and cities like Sacramento, Oakland, Silicon Valley were taking off every weekend. This proved to be the turning point in northern California's rave history. No longer were raves a secret, where one had to know the right people to gain access to map points. Now rave flyers were to be found up and down the Haight Street at stores like Anubis Warpus, Amoeba clothes, Behind The Post Office, and newly opened Housewares. Raves were exploding at an enormous rate and no longer were hundreds of revellers heading out, now there were thousands of ravers living for every weekend. The second generation of raves were just starting to be realised.

Toontown's NYE 91 rave, which took place in the basement of the Fashion Center in SF was the first 'true' massive in the bay area. Over 8,000 people helped welcome in the new year and at the same time put SF as a must visit city for the burgeoning world wide rave scene. Similarly, a year later, "The Gathering' held New Year's Eve of 1992 in Vallejo had over 12,000 people in attendance. The massive parties were taking place every weekend now from such disparate locations as outdoor fields to aeroplane hangers and hilltops that surround the valley.

San Francisco has long been a Mecca for ravers from all over the world and true to form a lot of the early promoters and DJs were from the UK and Europe. For almost ten years after the initial raves took place, one could find up to 2 to 4 parties happening a weekend and sometimes on the same night. There was no curfew in place, which allowed the SF scene to explode by the late 90's when venues would have up to 20,000 people every weekend; 'Homebase', and '85 & Baldwin' were the largest venues to be used in the Bay Area. Many amazing venues were used by crews that held clout or members that were tied to the city or knew the appropriate ways to navigate the permit maze. Thus, in the late 90's some of the most memorable raves took place in locations such as the SOMA art museum, 'Where the wild things are' museum on top of the Sony Metreon, and in the venerable Maritime hall that was used for many parties from 98-02. Some old locations appeared again brand new, such as the concourse that saw thousands of ravers in 92, now saw the same amount in late 99. The galleria that once held a 'concert' in 92 with artists such as Moby, Aphex twin, Prodigy, Space time continuum, was now used for a few one-off events that utilised all 5 floors of the building with a different music style on each floor.

The mid part of the 90's saw a general loss of the first generation of ravers, causing the scene to take a short dive. In this time, however, a new West coast sound was formed and developed by DJs such as jeno, tony, spun, galen, solar, harry who?, Rick Preston to name but a few. Venues and parties such as Stompy, Harmony, CloudFactory, Cyborganic lounge, Acme warehouse among many others started to fuse the Breakbeat sound from hardcore trax with the more melodic pace of house. West coast funky break-beat was born from this and stormed the dance scene. By the end of '94 all the people that had left a gap in the rave scene in '93 were long forgotten as twice as many people now found the new sounds completely and utterly funky. The LA Scene had promoters such as Vince Bannon and Phil Blaine throw gigs for Electronic acts like 808 State, Aphex Twin, Prodigy, and Massive Attack to name a few.

This time period saw the rise of the many facets of EDM. It came to be that many genres of electronic dance music could be enjoyed by anyone willing to go out to any of these parties. Raves could be found in many different kinds of venues, as opposed to just basements and warehouses. Promoters started to take notice and put together the massives of the late 90's with many music forms under one roof for 12 hour events. Parties were known to attract tens of thousands in venues like Homebase or 85th/Baldwin for a night of continuous dancing. San Francisco became a notorious destination for raves in the United States, and to a lesser extent, the world at large. DJs from all corners of the globe began performing in San Francisco.

The year 2000 saw the demise of massive raves as curfews were placed on permits handed out to promoters throwing parties. Instead of all night and into the next day, parties now had to end at 2 a.m. Two of the largest venues closed down soon after, and there wasn't enough momentum to sustain parties that catered to tens of thousands of people. As if a nail was drove into the coffin of the SF rave scene, the Homebase warehouse that held parties from 96-00 burned down to the ground in a spectacular 6 alarm fire in 04. Smaller, intimate venues continued just like they had from the start and underground raves became the norm in the years after the tech boom of the 1990s.

While San Francisco's crowd attendance and variety of DJs might have peaked, it still maintains a much smaller but dedicated cadre of various crews, DJs, promoters and producers. Every weekend, many events are still dedicated to the various forms of electronic music across the greater Bay Area. Through the mid 90's and into the 00's the city of Seattle also shared in the tradition of West Coast rave culture. Though a smaller scene compared to San Francisco, Seattle also had many different rave crews, promoters, Djs, and fans. Candy Raver style, friendship and culture became particularly popular in the West Coast rave scene, both in Seattle and San Francisco. At the peak of West Coast rave, Candy Raver, and massive rave popularity (1996-1999,) it was common to meet groups of ravers, promoters, and Djs who frequently travelled between Seattle and San Francisco, which spread the overall sense of West Coast rave culture and the phenomenon of West Coast "massives".

Continental Europe

See also: Love Parade, Street Parade, Hardcore techno, Gabber, and Electronic body music

Rave party in Salento (August 2009)

By 1987, a German party scene, started by Tauseef Alam, based on the Chicago House sound was well established. The following year (1988) saw acid house making as significant an impact on popular consciousness in Germany and Central Europe as it had in England. In 1989 German DJs Westbam and Dr. Motte established the Ufo Club, an illegal party venue, and co-founded the Love Parade. On 9 November 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, free underground Techno parties mushroomed in East Berlin, and a rave scene comparable to that in the UK was established. East German DJ Paul van Dyk has remarked that the Techno based rave scene was a major force in re-establishing social connections between East and West Germany during the unification period.

In 1991 a number of party venues closed, including Ufo, and the Berlin Techno scene centred itself around three locations close to the foundations of the Berlin Wall: the E-Werk, Der Bunker and the now legendary Tresor. In the same period German DJs began intensifying the speed and abrasiveness of the sound, as an acid infused techno began transmuting into hardcore. This emerging sound was influenced by Dutch gabber and Belgium hardcore. Other influences on the development of this style were European Electronic Body Music groups of the mid-1980s such as DAF, Front 242, and Nitzer Ebb.

Across Europe, rave culture was becoming part of a new youth movement. DJs and electronic-music producers such as Westbam proclaimed the existence of a "raving society" and promoted electronic music as legitimate competition for rock and roll. Indeed, electronic dance music and rave subculture became mass movements. Raves had tens of thousands of attendees, youth magazines featured styling tips, and television networks launched music magazines on House and Techno music. The annual Love Parade festivals in Berlin (in the Metropolitan Ruhr area onwards) attracted more than one million party-goers between 1997 and 2000. Meanwhile, the more commercial sound of happy hardcore topped the music charts across Europe. Nowadays there are only a few popular raving acts on the case in Germany, but many underground acts in Berlin and Frankfurt (Main). That is why Berlin (especially the east side) is still called the capital city of electro music and rave. Although electro composer Paul Kalkbrenner from Friedrichshain, Berlin made "Berlin Techno" world popular again, he is touring on his Berlin Calling (named after the movie he acted the main character and the soundtrack he produced for) tour through Europe and America.

Culture

File:Brunswick Street Free Rave 1994 - Melbourne Australia.jpg

Brunswick Street Free Rave 1994

As a part of the post-modernist cultural wave, ravers and raving have appeared as a youth subculture that associate electronic music, and personalized dance, with a disengagement and disassociation with mainstream society. Despite this neo-conservative perspective, the act of raving holds a more spiritual element where in it serves as a space where participants can use the combination of sensory stimuli and the removal of physical and interpretive surfaces as a platform for self-improvement and spiritual healing. Dance ritual has been employed by various indigenous cultures, such as the Numic peoples of the Great Basin, as a temporal and spatial escape. Here an individual would attempt through rhythmic dancing and chanting to disconnect from their plane of existence and create a connection with the metaphysical entities that govern their belief system. In order to achieve these instances of supernatural experience, the rituals were organized on the basis of 4 basic principals: location, music, lighting (in regards to time of day and the use of a fire), and finally dance.

Location

Prior to the commercialization of the rave scene, where large legal venues became the norm for these events, the location of the rave was kept secret until the night of the event, usually being communicated through mobile messaging, secret flyers, and websites. This level of secrecy was necessary for avoiding any interference by the police, on account of the illicit drug use, enabled the ravers a location they can stay for 10 hours at a time, and it also promoted the sense of deviance and removal from social control. Today, this level of secrecy still exists in the underground rave scene, however "after hours" clubs, as well as large outdoor events, create a similar type of alternate atmosphere but focus much more on vibrant visual effects, such as props and décor.

Some Raves are lavished in pagan symbolism. Modern raving venues attempt to immerse the raver in a fantasy like world. Indigenous imagery and spirituality can be characteristic in the Raving ethos. In both the New Moon and Gateway collectives " pagan altars are set up, sacred images from primitive cultures decorate the walls and rituals of cleansing are performed over the turntables and the dance floor" This type of spatial strategy is an integral part of the raving experience because it sets the initial "vibe" in which the ravers will immerse themselves. This said "vibe" is a concept in the raver ethos that represents the allure and receptiveness of an environments portrayed and or innate energy. The geographical landscape is an integral feature in the composition of rave, much like it is in pagan rituals. For example, The Numic Ghost Dancers ritual's, would be held on specific geographical landscapes considered to hold powerful natural flows of energy. These sites were later represented in the rhythmic dances, in order to achieve a greater level of connectivity.

Other more recent raves have a more simple hedonistic approach.

Dancing

A sense of participation is among the chief appeals of Rave music and dance is its immediate outlet.

Raving in itself is a syllabus free dance, whereby the movements are not predefined and the dance is performed randomly, dancers take immediate inspiration from the music and their mood. Rave dance refers to the street dance styles that evolved alongside rave culture. Such dances are street dances since they evolved alongside the underground rave movements, thus without the intervention of dance studios. Sometimes club-oriented dances would be danced to rave music, too, for example, tecktonik is sometimes danced to fast-paced electro house.

Such dances are usually freestyle in nature, since they are very rarely choreographed in preparation for such events (although some ravers may create personal dance routines). Dances like Jumpstyle, Tecktonik, Liquid and digits, Melbourne Shuffle and Industrial dance may be sometimes highly dependent on pre-planned choreography for performances at raves, therefore such dance styles may be practised professionally. Nonetheless, rave dance styles can be completely freeform due to their simple footwork and arm movements.

Light shows

Some ravers participate in one of four light-oriented dances, called glowsticking, glowstringing, gloving, and lightshows. Of the four types of light-orientated dances, gloving in particular has evolved beyond and outside of the rave culture. Another type of light-orientated dance that is often included with "gloving" is orbits. Orbits involve tying together 4 LED lights into a cross shape, and then using two strings to create different spinning designs. Other types of light-related dancing include LED lights, flash-lights and blinking strobe lights. LEDs come in various colours with different settings. The "low intensity" setting causes a strobe effect, leaving trails of dots, while the lights offer a psychedelic effect that often harmonizes the drug usage experience.

Gloving has evolved into a separate dance form that has grown exponentially in the last couple of years while still keeping its rave roots. The origins of gloving is often credited to Hermes who put together 10 Rav'n lights into a pair of white gloves in 2008. Since then the culture has extended to all ages, ranging from kids in their early teens to college students and more. The traditional Rav'n lights are limited now, but many stores have developed newer, brighter, and more advanced version of lights with a plethora of colors and modes -- modes include solid, stribbon, strobe, dops, hyper flash, and other variations. What was once an extension of the Rave culture has now blossomed into a hobby or a form of dance. Annual competitions such as the International Gloving Competition and monthly B.O.S.S competitions hosted by Emazing Lights exemplifies its growing popularity as thousands flock to those events. Past winners of International Gloving Competitions includes Munch and Thumper. Even though gloving originated in Southern California, it can now be seen in Northern California, Florida, New York, and many other states in the US. In college, you can see a gloving club called Ambience, which has spread into University of California Irvine, University of California Davis, University of California Berkeley, University of California Santa Barbara, University of California San Diego, and other colleges not just limited to California.

Allegations of drug use

In the U.S., law enforcement agencies have branded the subculture as a purely drug-centric culture, usually drugs such as Marijuana, MDMA, 2CB, LSD, DMT, Amphetamine and Ketamine, similar to the hippie movement of the 1960s. However, this is almost universally a false association, as the vast majority of raves and similar events are legitimate social gatherings, most commonly organized by local businesses or entertainment companies, and rarely, if not almost never, condone or promote illegal activities.

Groups that have addressed alleged drug use at raves include the Electronic Music Defense and Education Fund (EMDEF), The Toronto Raver Info Project, and DanceSafe, all of which advocate harm reduction approaches. Paradoxically, drug safety literature (such as those distributed by DanceSafe) is incorrectly or falsely used as evidence of condoned drug use. Other groups, such as Drug Free America Foundation, Inc., slanderously and falsely characterize raves as being rife with gang activity, rape, robbery, and drug-related deaths. Again, this is universally a falsehood, as organized raves are often more safe and supervised than 'normal' parties held by individuals in their homes.

In 2005, Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, advocated drug testing on highways as a countermeasure against drug use at raves. However, this was shot down as profiling and false association between legitimate social gatherings and implied drug use.

In recent times, as opposed to the past decades, rave venues have taken to hiring local law enforcement to reduce drug use.

See also

• Acid house – Forerunner of raves typically originating from Chicago, Illinois.
• Circuit party
• Doof
• Free party – The modern, illegal version of raves.
• Melbourne Shuffle – A rave dance style culture that has evolved in Melbourne, Australia over the past 15 years.
• Merry Pranksters – Their early escapades were best chronicled by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
• New Rave – A new genre of music mixing elements of rave culture, disco and rock.
• Rat Parties – When Sydney's gay dance party scene opened up to the broader community in the 1980s.
• RAVE Act – An American law targeting raves.
• Rave Board Game – 1991 board game based on the UK Rave scene
• Rave music – Music and music styles at raves
• Thunderdome - Dutch hardcore raves, running since 1992.
• Tecktonik, a dance style based on rave music, developed in Paris, France and well known throughout Europe.
• Zippies

Further reading

• Del Pinal, Janelly. Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy and Acid House. London: 1997 : Serpent's Tail – How rave dances began in Manchester, England in the Summer of 1988 (the Second Summer of Love) and the aftermath. ISBN 1-85242-604-7
• Reynolds, Simon. Generation Ecstasy: Into the world of Techno and Rave culture. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1998. ISBN 0-316-74111-6
• Ott, Brian L. and Herman, Bill D. Excerpt from Mixed Messages: Resistance and Reappropriation in Rave Culture. 2003.
• Evans, Helen. Out of Sight, Out of Mind: An Analysis of Rave culture. Wimbledon School of Art, London. 1992. Includes bibliography through 1994.
• St John, Graham (ed). 2004. Rave Culture and Religion. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-31449-6

• St John, Graham. 2009. Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures. London: Equinox. ISBN 978-1-84553-626-8.
• Griffin, Tom. Playgrounds: a portrait of rave culture. 2005. ISBN 0-646-45135-9. Official Website [1] WALLAWALLA
• Kotarba, Joseph. 1993. The Rave Scene in Houston, Texas: An Ethnographic Analysis. Austin: Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse.
• [2]
• Thomas, Majeedah. "Together: Friday Nights At The Roxy" 2013. ISBN 978-1630005788. Official Website [3]

External links

• Rave Timeline 1987-1993
• Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture
• Volterock Archive: Rave culture, communities, dance, art, and history
• Gridface: Reviews from 1996 to present
• Raveguide Eflyers Listings and more
• Zines, flyers and mixtapes from 1990 to 1999
• mixed tapes and rave culture in early 1990s Los Angeles
• Rave Footage from 1988 to 1994
• – History of the Northeast of England Rave Scene 1990+
• Rave FAQ from 1995.
• Template:Dmoz
• Chronicles the Toronto rave scene through flyers and music
• Movies About Raves
• Rave Diaries from 1992
• Raver's Guidebook est. 2001
• North American Rave Flyers and Zines from 1992-present