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ProQuest Information and Leaming 300 North Zeeb Road t Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 • Barbiers wearing "phat" pants: rave culture, emergence to convergence \D 99 each Barbie® or Ken 1. Happenin' Haïr Barbie. Her hair changes colour when weI. 50-0651 ·0. Reg 17.99 2. Cool Lookin' Ken. • 50-0655-2. Reg 18.99 T..McCalI Graduate Program in Communications McGili University, Montreal August 2000 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts. • © Tara McCall2000 National Library BibliothèQue nationale 1+1 of Canada du canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 WIIingIDn Street 385. rue WI5ngeDn oea-ON K1A0N4 oaa-ON K1A0N4 CMIdI c.na The author bas granted a non­ L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive pennettant à la National Library ofCanada ta Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distnbute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies ofthis thesis in microfonn, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sm papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership ofthe L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts from it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may he printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son pemusslon. autorisation. 0-612-70298-7 Canadrl • Acknowledgements Thanks to everyone who collectively made this thesis possible. My advisor: Will Straw. My editors for this and associated essays: Majero Bournan, Juliana Hodgson, Mark Bryan, Robin Dwarka, Paul Cairns and Kevin McCall. The ravers and promoters who kindly allowed me to interview them: Beverly May, Jacques Chamberlain, Karl Borst, Max Izod, Natasha McDowell, Anton Belov, Paul Cairns, Kevin McCall, Robin Dwarka, John Crossley and Monique Bergeron. Special mention goes to the ravers, promoters, DJs and producers in Toronto, Montreal and Los Angeles whose participation and involvement in raves inspired my interest and maintained my dedication ta this important project. • Caver illustration: Canadian Tire Flyer tram Dec. 1999 Caver design: Catalyst Design • 2 • Abstract Since its beginnings a decade ago, the mass media, niche media, subculturalists and participants alike have fumbled around cumbersome descriptions and depictions of the essence of rave. For outsiders, rave may symbolize difference, defiance, escapism and meaningless hedonism. For insiders, rave can mean transgression, transcendence, treedom, unity and meaningfulfun. Ali rave elements, such as the lights, lasers, stomping teet, raised arms in ecstatic bliss, the DJ and the ceaseless beats seem to synchronize in a unifying pulse. As communal as rave's tacade may seem, the experience is wholly personal. Rave has been disseminated to undeveloped nations, and remote towns; as it grows in one area it • decays in another and morphs into another sub-scene, dress code, venue, and soundscape. As an insider stepping outward, 1 peer into my memories of rave and catalogue of blissful moments in an attempt to articulate its essence and its cyclical perpetuation. • 3 • Résumé français Les soirées rave ont débuté il y a une dizaine d'années. Depuis ce temps,les médias de masse, les médias spécialisés, les subculturalistes et les participants ont élaboré diverses descriptions et analyses concernant l'essence même d'un rave. Pour ceux nly ont jamais pris part, le rave symbolise la différence. Clest un geste de défi, une évasion de la réalité et un hédonisme dénué de sens. Pour les amateurs de ces soirées, le rave revêt un sens de transgression, de transcendance, de liberté, d'unité et d'amusement. Tous les éléments d'un rave, tels que les lumières, les lasers, les lourds bruits des pas, les mains en l'air, les signes de bonheur suprême, le dise-jockey et le rythme continuel semblent être synchronisés dans une même unité rythmique. Au premier abord, le rave • ressemble avant tout à un phénomène collectif. L'expérience est toutefois totalement personnelle. Le rave a sa place partout, que ce soit dans les pays en voie de développement ou dans des villes isolées des grands centres urbains. S'il perd en popularité dans une région, le rave en gagne dans une autre. Il peut aussi se transformer en une sous-scène, en un style vestimentaire différent, en un autre décor ou en un autre son. Du point de vue d'une ancienne participante aux soirées rave, je garde ces précieux moments dans ma mémoire dans le but d'en articuler l'essence même et la perpétuation cyclique. • Contents Acknowledgements 1 • Abstracts 2 Introduction 5 phase 1 Rave's beginnings 8 Honeymoon of "e" love 10 Toronto starts ta rave 13 The role ofthe media 15 Media, myth and drugs 15 Drugs for hedonism 21 Stagnant discourses 22 19305 Marijuana 23 1960s LSD 25 19905 Ecstasy 27 The "kid next door'i starts ta rave 30 PerpetuaI life of myth in the media 36 pance 38 A rationale for dance 38 Rational views vs. non-rational views of dance 41 Dancehalls 43 Discos 44 Raves 45 Marginilization of dance 47 Dance as an inscription of social values 49 African dance 55 • Dance as it exists within the rave setting 59 Get lost in sound 60 The function of dance 64 phase Il Rave flourishes 66 Mainstream rave vs. underground rave 67 Constant change 70 Toronto's big divide 72 Competition mounts 74 The darkside 78 phase III Rave is commodified 82 Style 83 Growing industries 90 Rave is everywhere 94 Hippy ys. Raye 97 Relationship to drugs 98 Sounds of a subculture 99 Reactionary politis vs. the polîtics of partying 102 Different drugs for different times 109 The hippy disco 110 Coclusjon: raye's last days 112 • BjbUgraphy 115 5 • Something magica/ happens to me during those twilight hours early Sunday moming. l've never been ta church. / didn't think / be/ieved in a higher power. But it is on the Sabbath moming that / a/ways find my gode 1am as nomadic a fol1ower as the others wandering from warehouse ta warehouse ta have our soufs awakened in these earliest of hours. The music thunders through our flesh, the notes swim within our veins. DJ's spin their scriptures with eloquence, zest and assurance. The bass ratt/es my lungs and beats in unison with my heart. If you close your eyes you can watch your flesh melt away and your soul rise between the spaces ofsound. • • 6 November, 22, 1997. Los Angeles. A rave called "Oz". 1pick up my tickets at a "hip" clothing store in Santa Monica where we are given a map to the whereabouts of the party (the promoters final anempt at maintaining an "underground, n "old-schoor charm). • The location is a decrepit downtown hotel. Hundreds of colourful teens wait outside as the music pumps through the walls, ran/es the windows and escapes into the street, they are bobbing and swaying anxiously on the sidewalk needing so much to get inside, needing so much to dance. Amongst the kids on the sidewalk a man lies bel/y up, no one's really sure what to do, is he dead, passed-out, should we shake him? A woman walks by in f1uffy, pink slippers carrying her baby. A ghostlike apparition ofpoverty and decay she is bare/y noticed. Ravers on the inside doing "en. Homeless people on the outside doing "crack". 1guess we ail enjoy the euphoria we can afford. My first stop at the party is the bathroom. The only one is upstairs. This, however, seems like mission impossible as the stairs are jam packed with ra vers. Crazy ta say the least. They squish by one another on the staircase full ofbodies, sweat, colour and energy. Sorne are travelling up the stairs, sorne are going down, but somehow those going up are simultaneously pushing the others down...the only way ta move is ta catch the momentum of everyone else. Everyone does a whole lot of squeezing and squishing, and the feat of getting to the bathroom seems an unattainable joumey. And as awful as it may seem, it's lovely. You just don't get this close without having sexe n Total strangers, boys, girls and "undescribables , squeezing their way together in the pursuit of music, inebriation, liberation and dance. Everyone has the appearance of Technicolor; every cartoon character in existence seems ta be squished together in one frame. As we pass by one another we radiate our colours, only ta suck back the energy • we just projected with a smile. After the party ends at about six in the moming, we are ail ushered outside Iike canle.