Table of Contents
Title Page
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Preface
INTRO
PROLOGUE
ONE - A TALE OF THREE CITIES
The Techno Rebels
Off to Battle
The Detroit-Chicago Alliance
Disco’s Revenge
New Jack City
Everybody Needs a 303
Paradise Lost
TWO - LIVING A DREAM
Revolution in Progress
Absolute Beginners
Love Thugs
Mantra for a State of Mind
Keep Taking the Tabloids
Mental Mental Radio Rental
Motor City Madness
Warehousing Benefits
Into Orbit
Raving Mad
THREE - TWENTY-FOUR -HOUR PARTY PEOPLE
Acieed Casuals
Trip City
White Punks on E
After the Luv Has Gone
FOUR - ’ARDKORE YOU KNOW THE SCORE
Low Frequency Oscillations
Dance Before the Police Come
Mentasm Madness
Metal Machine Music
Monsters of Rave
Speed Freaks
White Label Fever
Juvenile Dementia
Rage to Live
FIVE - FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO PARTY
Terra-Technic Terrorists
Bummer in the City
Criminal Injustice
Part-Time Crusties
Guerrilla Parties
SIX - FEED YOUR HEAD
Furniture Music
Surfing on Sinewaves
Turn On, Tune In, Drop Off
Lie Down and Be Counted
Ambient Fear
Texturology
Metronomic Underground
Food For Thought
SEVEN - SLIPPING INTO DARKNESS
Chaotic Chemistry
Drowning in Love
You Got Me Burnin’ Up
Journey from the Light
Voodoo Magic
Darkness Lingers
EIGHT - THE FUTURE SOUND OF DETROIT
Combat Dancin’
Knight of the Hunter
Forbidding Planet
Razing the Speed Limit
We Are the Music Makers
Keeping the Faith
NINE - THIS SOUND IS FOR THE UNDERGROUND
Fuck the Legal Stations
Renegade Soundwaves
You Know the Key
Pirate Utopias
TEN - ROOTS’N FUTURE
Renegade Snares and Brutal Bass
B-Boy Meets Rude Boy
Africa Talks to You, the Concrete Jungle
Gangsta Rave
Under Siege
ELEVEN - MARCHING INTO MADNESS
Mindwar
Bald Terror
Bounce to the Beat
Only the Happiest of People Need Apply
Wargasm
Slaves to the Rave
TWELVE - AMERICA THE RAVE
Hardcore, Only 4 the Headstrong: New York Rave
Live Fast, Dream Hard; San Francisco’s Cyberdelic Visions
Moonstruck
Take It to the Limit: the Los Angeles Rave Explosion
Crashing the Party: US Rave Descends into the Darkside
Tweaked Out
Trend of an Era
Southern Death Cult
THIRTEEN - SOUNDS OF PARANOIA
Living in my Headphones
Mind-Movies
Rebirth of the Cool
Prophets of Loss
Tricky Kid
Can’t Get No Satisfaction
Dub Wisdom
Cheap Thrills
FOURTEEN - WAR IN THE JUNGLE
Shadowplay
Ghetto Technology
The Fusion Con
Rough Stuff
Soldiers of Darkness
Apocalypse Noir
Future-Shock Troops
FIFTEEN - DIGITAL PSYCHEDELIA
Beats + Pieces
The Body Electric
Ghosts in the Machine
Slaved to the Rhythm
Reinventing the Machine
Songs Versus Soundscapes
The Imagineer
Special Effects
The Now-Machine
SIXTEEN - FUCK DANCE, LET’S ART
Twisted Science
Kinder-Tekno
Rhizomatic Renegades
Party for Your Right to Fight
You Make Me Feel Mighty Unreal
My Funk Is Useless
SEVENTEEN - IN OUR ANGELHOOD
The Politics of Ecstasy
Church of Ecstasy
Androgyny in the UK
Nowhere People
EIGHTEEN - OUTRO
NINETEEN - TRANCE MISSION
TWENTY - TWO STEPS BEYOND
TWENTY-ONE - IN THE MIX
TWENTY-TWO - BACK TO THE FUTURE
TWENTY-THREE - CRISIS AND CONSOLIDATION
TWENTY-FOUR - FLASHBACKS
Index
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
First up, thanks to Lee Brackstone for catalyzing the idea of Energy Flash Mark 2.
Thanks to my editor Richard Milner and to all at Picador, and to my agent Tony Peake.
The updated portions of Energy Flash 2008 drawn on articles written between 1998 and the present. There’s too many magazines and editors to mention, but in particular I would like to thank Heiko Hoffman at Groove, the Wire collective (Tony Herrington, Chris Bohn, Rob Young, Anne Hilde Neset), Chuck Eddy at Village Voice, and a series of music editors at Spin (Will Hermes, Sia Michel, Charles Arron). ‘Trance Mission’ is partly based on a feature that appeared in Spin magazine, June 2000 and ‘Two Steps Beyond’ remixes material from features in Spin (November 2000) and Vibe (April 2001).
I’d also like to thank the inventors of Blogger for enabling me to waste thousands and thousands of hours of my life, in the process generating vast quantities of wordage and thoughtage on grime, micro-house, dubstep, and other facets of post-1998 dance culture, which have naturally fed into this updated Energy Flash. Seriously, though, Blogger – it’s a wonderful thing, and it was both splendid and necessary to have an outlet while occupied with Rip It Up and Start Again.
An inventory of all the people I’ve had fruitful and fun conversations about dance music this past decade – in person and/or via email and/or through interblog debate – would make for a document running to several pages. But I must mention Paul Kennedy, Matthew ‘Woebot’ Ingram, Bat (a.k.a. Anindya Bhattacharyya), Bethan Cole, Luke ‘Heronbone’ Davis, Geeta Dayal, Michaelangelo Matos, Andy Battaglia, Tim Finney, Philip Sherburne, Simon ‘Silverdollar’ Hampson, Martin Clark, Mark ‘K-Punk’ Fisher, Tony Marcus, Nick ‘Gutterbreakz’ Edwards, Kode 9, Tobias Rapp, DJ Ripley and Kid Kameleon (big up ya chests for helping with the DJ chapter), Jess Harvell, Ronan Fitzgerald, DJ Clever, Derek Walmsley, Brendan M. Gillen. Many of these folk I’ve shared dance floors with. Thanks to all who turned me onto stuff through tips or acts of musical generosity. Extra-large big up to those who sent me pirate tapes from Blighty, bless you all, especially Bethan C. Burhan Tufail (RIP, miss you), Simon Silverdollar, Luke Heronbone . . .
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 th
is 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In the early eighties, it didn’t seem aberrant to be as excited by the electro-fun
k 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.
Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture Page 1
