raving History and information

History of clubbing & raving from the eighties to now

A rave is an all night dance event where DJs and performers play electronic dance music and rave music. The slang expression rave was used by people of Caribbean descent in London during the 60s to describe a party. In the late 80s, the term began to be used to describe the subculture growing out of the acid house movement begining in Chicago and New York and flourished in the USA and UK "club scene".

In 2006 a police spokesman said early intervention prevented large numbers of people from gathering at sites and enabled them to shut any event down before any problems arose. He added: "Illegal raves can cause misery for those living nearby as well as there being a potential for criminal damage and issues surrounding drugs and public safety.

The availability of drugs particularly ecstasy has caused raves to be targeted and criticized by law enforcement officials and parents' groups.

In 2006 A Kent MP urged the government to outlaw raves following two events in the county in the last year. Julian Brazier said residents near Denge Wood, in his Canterbury constituency, had complained to him about the noise and disruption. The Conservative MP told the Commons that trees were uprooted and human excrement was left behind. The leader of the Commons, Geoff Hoon, said action would be taken if the law had been broken.

A squat party is a party that takes place either in a disused building (broken into and secured for the party) or in an already existing squat.

Teknivals are illegal free parties which take place in locations across Europe every summer. They vary in size depending on factors such as accessibility and reputation, with most increasing in fame every year. The parties normally take place in venues far away from residential areas such as squatted warehouses, empty military bases, forests or fields. The teknival phenomenon is a grassroots movement which has grown out of the rave scene and spawned an entire subculture.

A free party is a party "free" from the restrictions of legal club scenes. Typically a sound system plays electronic dance music from late at night (usually a Saturday) until organisers decide to go home, which is usually 1 day or 2 later. The parties can be thought of as autonomous zones where all people present create and enforce rules. This means drugs are readily available and noise levels are illegally high. The word free is not used, in this context, to describe the entry fee but the atmosphere, as in free from external laws and restrictions. Having said this, most parties do not ask for money but some (most often indoor events) ask for a donation on the door to cover costs but these are not commercial ventures. Motivations for organisers range from political protest, e.g. free parties were a big feature of the M11 link road protest, to those that are run by people who just want to have fun. Typically organisers make little profit and even lose money putting them on. The term free party is used more widely in Europe than in US, in Canada and some parts of Europe they are refereed to as Freetekno parties. Some worry that orgnaised crime uses these event issues to make money. The drug industry is run like any multi national corporation and these are the crowd that these "companies" want. Free parties are much like other rave parties, their main distinction being that the venue is free to use. The result is that they are often held in isolated outdoor venues or abandoned buildings, where they are also known as squat parties. If the building has a power source that is used but if not then the organisers will use generators.

They often also involve a lot of dance drug use. The music played at free parties is very bass heavy. It is for this reason that they are usually held in isolated venues or places where police interference is unlikely, such as protected squatting residences (particularly in the UK, where police used not to be able to enter a squat easily.

The types of music played are usually various forms of dance music with fast repetitive beats, but, due to the lack of a commercial interest, the genre chosen is often far from popular main-stream tastes and is decided purely by the tastes of the DJs who play for the sound systems putting the event on. Each sound system has its own music policy, following and entourage. The current trend is towards breakcore and gabba or, in another musical direction, psy-trance but many sound systems still play traditional techno. Some parties in England now incorporate elements of performance art ("synthetic circus") as well as electronic dance music.

In 2005 North Wales Police said they used the internet to help track down six men who organised an illegal rave, where a policeman was injured.

In 2005 A farmer was launching a campaign calling for tough action to stop raves being held near her animal pens. Hundreds of party goers have twice descended on fields at Chasewood Farm near Witney in Oxfordshire, where Olwyn Godfrey rents land for her livestock.

Mainstream raves began in the late 80s as a product of, reaction to, and rebellion against, trends in popular music, nightclub culture, and commercial radio.

In an effort to maintain distance and secrecy from the mainstream club scene, warehouses, rental halls, and outside locations most often served as raves' venues. In an effort to control and curtail rave parties, some police and governmental bodies outlawed raves in some areas. Such laws forced regional electronic dance music events to move to formal venues, such as nightclubs and amphitheatres.

Early raves were dIy only a small number of people contributed to event production and promotion. Self styled production and promotion companies have increasingly organized raves; the companies were unofficial or loosely defined. Some of the more well known rave promotion companies have included Brotherhood of Boom, Mushgroove, Freebass Society, and Pure.

As law enforcement agencies increasingly began paying attention to raves, concealing a party's location became important to any event's success. sometimes the event can be organised just by word of mouth, or would only reveal the date and location of the event to subscribers of an electronic mailing list or via voicemail. Some even went so far as to provide a series of clues or map checkpoints that ultimately led to the location of the rave.

After the emergence of the Acid House parties in the late 80s up to 4 000 people were known to attend a rave. These events happened almost every weekend. The noise and disturbance of thousands of people appearing at rural locations caused outrage in the national media at events, such as Genesis '88. The government branded them Public Enemy Number 1 and made the fine for holding an illegal party £20,000 and six months in prison.

Police crackdowns on these often illegal parties drove the scene into the countryside. The word "rave" somehow caught on to describe these semi-spontaneous weekend parties occurring at various locations outside the M25 Orbital motorway that now attracted up to 25 000 . It was this that gave Orbital their name.

In the early 2000s illegal parties still existed, albeit on smaller scales, and the number of sanctioned events seemed to be on the rise. The few constants in the scene include amplified electronic dance music, a social network built on what they said was an ethos of the acronym PLUR, "Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect", (Yet in reality this was often justy organised crime) percussive music and freeform dancing as a basis for drug use, and an ambivalent attitude toward "club drugs" such as ecstasy, methamphetamine, speed and ketamine, also known as "special K." Increased cocaine usage, preponderance of adulterated ecstasy tablets and organized criminal activity has been detrimental to UK-based rave culture, although free parties are now on the rise again.

The upsurge in popularity of rave culture in the USA at a certain period in time often lends it characteristics common to a movement or subculture. While raves have existed in the USA as long as in any other nation, the sudden explosion of mainstream popularity in the late 90s led to more common approaches to defining rave culture as a youth movement. Because the movement and music both embrace and incorporate so many different elements, a common thread can be hard to find. Further, some of the descriptions are only appropriate to groups within the USA.

Freetekno is the name for both a type of music and a cultural movement that is present in both Europe and North America. Freetekno sound systems or tribes form in loose collectives, frequently with anarchist philosophies. These sound systems join together to hold parties wherever a viable space can be found - typical locations include warehouses, fields, abandoned buildings or forests. Because freetekno parties are usually held illegally this sometimes leads to clashes with the police, as was the case at both the 2004 and 2005 Czechtek festivals and many other, smaller parties around the world at different times.

Types of ravers
The following are loosely defined stereotypes generated by the USA rave community. They are generalized, inconclusive, and are not necessarily complete or current.

Gumby Raver - A relatively old-schooler who has made big appearances on the rave scene in early to mid rave days, always on drugs .
Groovers - listen to hard house or happy hardcore, a kind of electronic music with faster tempo and beats. Dancing between two groovers is called "battling." This is to show off moves and different combinations for respect among the other groovers.
Old school raver - refers to someone who has been a raver for some time, whereas a baby raver or a newbie refers to someone who is new to raving or at their first rave. Old school ravers are sometimes called pure ravers or true ravers or partykids. Something can be rave or have raveness.
Jaded raver - has been in the rave scene for a long time or someone who is growing tired of 'the scene' and raving. They may be annoyed at what the raving experience has become, or they may be lackadaisical about certain aspects of raving that they once held a fondness for. Quite often a jaded raver will not appreciate the influx of new ravers into the scene, because the new ravers are viewed as contributing to the scene's decay. Most of the time, they will either give up raving or their jaded attitude (which eventually, logically, has to apply to not going to raves at all, in which case, they can move onto the next trendy "scene," such as the hip hop scene, or even further down the rave/electronica sub-culture, such as "househeads" and "junglists").
Club kids - the self proclaimed "original" ravers and nightlife circuit attenders, predominantly a major urban centere culture type. Most club kids came from the early gay and house music scenes, many are transgender or crossdress. The most famous examples of "club kids" would likely be Michael Alig, the convicted murderer and subject of the 2003 movie Party Monster, or RuPaul, arguably the world's most famous drag queen.
Candykid or Kandikid - often wears brightly colored and child-like fashions such as day-glo wide-leg pants (aka phat pants), black light-reactive or glow-in-the-dark bracelets/necklaces, fur pets and t-shirts featuring cartoon characters.
Junglist - refers to a sub-culture of the rave scene defined by drum and bass and jungle music.
Dark raver or Graver - the raving equivalent of a goth. Gravers tend to wear darker clothing and makeup and frequent events called dark raves.
Cyber kids - Sometimes considered a hacker, but in the rave scene they are somewhat of a mix of a candy kid and a graver. They will often wear the baggy pants with straps and accessories common to the graver, but they choose the tight or loose fitting colorful shirts of the candy kids.
E-tard A primarily pejorative or derogatory term used to refer to ravers under the obvious or apparent influence of illegal drugs, most commonly ecstasy, but may also apply to people affected by acid, 5-Meo-DIPT and/or GHB.
Goaheads or psytrancers, a subculture that grew out of raves that is centered around parties which primarily play Goa trance (outdoor parties are usually preferred among Goaheads). These kind of ravers are generally more "hippy"-like in dress and philosophy, and sometimes prefer to distance themselves from the "rave" scene, avoiding the term "rave" when referencing their parties and culture, even though there is some crossover in philosophy, music, and origins of the subculture.
Polo Raver - A common type of raver dress style that became popular around 1995 until about 2000, particularly in the New England area and New York City.

In may 28 2006 Hundreds of revellers were dispersed by police on a Saturday night after officers were tipped off an illegal rave was about to take place.
The unauthorised event was being set up on land at Micheldever, Hampshire, when police arrived. The rave's organisers were told to pack up their music equipment and remove all vehicles under public order laws. A police spokeswoman said officers remained until "several hundred persons attending had been dispersed".

In june 2006 a22-year-old was banned from organising illegal raves in Oxfordshire by an anti-social behaviour order.

On Sunday, 2 July 2006, Police were called to the site of an illegal rave which has attracted up to 2,000 people. Officers from Northamptonshire Police were called on Saturday night to a site about one mile from the A43 near Walgrave. Police warned organisers that their equipment would be seized if they did not leave the site. Ten complaints were made to police from residents about noise levels and the number of vehicles parked at the site.

List of of some sound system
UK, !nspya, 2B3, 6tms Anon, Aardvark, Abacus, ABT, Aba Shanti-I, Acme, Bedlam, Brainfuel, BWPT, Bezerkers, Black Moon,
Bust The Box, Mutant Dance, Mutant Pollutant, Warped, Wobbleberrys, Xombie, Zero Tolerance

birthplace of Indian Presidents

birthplace of British PMs

birthplace of Australian PMs

birthplace of Canadian PMs

birthplace of Irish PMs

Index of web pages on the subject of shares, stocks, FOREX and Finance.

An Index of web pages on Geography

An Index of web pages on the subject of shares, stocks, FOREX and Finance.

A to B - B to A Travel and fact guide

Birthplaces of Scottish First ministers, and other Scottish leaders

Worst regimes of the 20th century

index site of luxury goods