state of London underground

[rhythmtech]

well house prices are dropping over here by a rate of €27 a day they reckon, and interest rates are starting to soar.. only problem is that the youths are to busy sticking coke up their noses to care about anything beyond themselves.. and the rest of us are to bloody tired to fight anymore!

[AcidTrash]

Well if you look at the late eighties/early nineties, there was a massive youth unemployment problem. (the devil made work for idle hands). We've since solved that by openning up the debt market and bundling them off to do david beckham studies at grantham and newark community university. However, the credit market is freezing, the state expenditure of failed grads is unsustainable and most of these universities will probably be haemorraging students by the end of the decade. Then you might actually see some real signs of youthful exhuberence. Especially when they realise that evryone has a multimedia design degree right down to the bloke doing your plastering.

[speed-it-up]

you might actually see some real signs of youthful exhuberence.

nah, they will go to a shit rave and do ketamine

[AcidTrash]

thats soooooo 2005.

[AcidTrash]

Let's face it... we're all just old.

[speed-it-up]

thats soooooo 2005.

get a grip son.
are you seriously saying the credit crunch will start a new wave of phat raves?
or are you wibbling on about some wider social context?

[AcidTrash]

I'm just hypotheseizing that mass music movements tend to coincide with econimic downturns and youth unemployment.

At present we have a whole host of things to keep us in on friday nights.... sky TV, internet, our own media centres... soon as that goes down the pan, we might actually wanna get out and start meeting each other in person again.

[force]

I'm just hypotheseizing that mass music movements tend to coincide with econimic downturns and youth unemployment.

True, the rave/acid house scene started and flourished in about 87/88 whilst the country was in the grip of the last recession..

[nekro]

the Trafalgar square party was to do with Reclaim The Streets and not exclusively acid techno music, RTS demos incorporated many different styles of music. i think a certain small number of ravers may have thought they were 'acid techno anarchists' but the mass majority were there just to take ketamine and didn't give a flying **** about any political agenda

[People_Mover]

On a personal note, back then I had my own agenda - to keep my job no matter what. Come to think of it, that still applies today. Selfish? No, just practical.

[AcidTrash]

the Trafalgar square party was to do with Reclaim The Streets and not exclusively acid techno music, RTS demos incorporated many different styles of music. i think a certain small number of ravers may have thought they were 'acid techno anarchists' but the mass majority were there just to take ketamine and didn't give a flying **** about any political agenda

Sure but we're not saying any specific event triggered the dance movement, more a backdrop of economic and social conditions which were a catalyst.

[nekro]

a backdrop of economic and social conditions which were a catalyst.

such as? i think it was just a continuation of acid music into another sub-genre. you make the music sound as though it's really politicised when it isn't

[AcidTrash]

The music wasnt politicised and nor was the scene but lets take a look shall we.

The second world war was the end of the empire and the end of the victorian social order. The post war industialisation and wider availability of goods created the first mass consumer society. Women during the war had been allowed to take the same jobs as men in the fields and factories and demanded that remained. During the 50's the generation which had sacrificed so much were demanding much more and weren't going to let the morality of the older generation dictate. This gave rise to the rebellion of the James Dean era and to a xcertain extent rock and roll and elvis etc.. leaping forward we have the american civil rights movement and vietnam which brought rise to the hippy mobement and its subsequent offshoots of psychedelia which gradually infected the UK.

We had an actual revolution followed by a cultrual and moral revolution and by the time the post war socialist state was begninning to cripple industry we had yet another social revlotion which brought rise to the Pistols and Punk.

Spot the pattern? Every time there is a rejection of the cultural and political status quo there is a new movement within music and youth culture.

The Thatcherite reforms were no less of an economic and social revolution. The shift from stagnant statism to free flowing individualism and some say selfishness. (see privatisation)

The opponents of which, or at least thatcherism, were always the reclaim the streets/animal right/SWP far lefty types. They were always inextricably linked to the squat "scene" and I've yet to meet an acid house DJ of the era who didnt have links with one or other organisation who were routinely waving placards or in running battles with the rozzers.
The first ravers would have been ex punks, and hippies of the Levellers/NMA pursuasion and anarchy types.

The arrival of ecstasy and mass availability of electronic gear was coincidental but tunes and pills do not a scene make. DJ's had to draw on audiences and where better to find them than at protest squats etc.

To say that the birth of rave was entirely apolitical and just a random mutation of genres based on technological advances doesnt sit well for me. That kind of thing happens all the time. its happend a dozen times since the birth of acid house.

What makes it a movement with political undertones is in evidence by the ensuing moral panics and media hype.
The great nichtomorph of the 90's.

In this case the catalyst was a drug but that drug appearing at any other time since, and the result would have looked entirely different if it happened at all.

Ideas only survive if they have a sea to swim in and such conditions only tend to be apparent in times of economic or social uncertainty.

[Gus]

The music wasnt politicised and nor was the scene but lets take a look shall we.

The second world war was the end of the empire and the end of the victorian social order. The post war industialisation and wider availability of goods created the first mass consumer society. Women during the war had been allowed to take the same jobs as men in the fields and factories and demanded that remained. During the 50's the generation which had sacrificed so much were demanding much more and weren't going to let the morality of the older generation dictate. This gave rise to the rebellion of the James Dean era and to a xcertain extent rock and roll and elvis etc.. leaping forward we have the american civil rights movement and vietnam which brought rise to the hippy mobement and its subsequent offshoots of psychedelia which gradually infected the UK.

We had an actual revolution followed by a cultrual and moral revolution and by the time the post war socialist state was begninning to cripple industry we had yet another social revlotion which brought rise to the Pistols and Punk.

Spot the pattern? Every time there is a rejection of the cultural and political status quo there is a new movement within music and youth culture.

The Thatcherite reforms were no less of an economic and social revolution. The shift from stagnant statism to free flowing individualism and some say selfishness. (see privatisation)

The opponents of which, or at least thatcherism, were always the reclaim the streets/animal right/SWP far lefty types. They were always inextricably linked to the squat "scene" and I've yet to meet an acid house DJ of the era who didnt have links with one or other organisation who were routinely waving placards or in running battles with the rozzers.
The first ravers would have been ex punks, and hippies of the Levellers/NMA pursuasion and anarchy types.

The arrival of ecstasy and mass availability of electronic gear was coincidental but tunes and pills do not a scene make. DJ's had to draw on audiences and where better to find them than at protest squats etc.

To say that the birth of rave was entirely apolitical and just a random mutation of genres based on technological advances doesnt sit well for me. That kind of thing happens all the time. its happend a dozen times since the birth of acid house.

What makes it a movement with political undertones is in evidence by the ensuing moral panics and media hype.
The great nichtomorph of the 90's.

In this case the catalyst was a drug but that drug appearing at any other time since, and the result would have looked entirely different if it happened at all.

Ideas only survive if they have a sea to swim in and such conditions only tend to be apparent in times of economic or social uncertainty.

I think ;uch of this is true. But , some would say sadly, there is another major fator in at least two of the most creative of these cultural revolutions - huge quantities of freely available L.S.D. - something I have no interest in but its influence on music is undeniable.

[nekro]

so acid techno was born because of dissillusionment with the thatcher era? :/

i really don't think that many of the artists, people involved in organising the squat parties in London or the 'ravers' were motivated by these reasons, some maybe, but the majority not. i was there week in week out at underground sounds, immersion, virus, bedlam, restless natives etc.etc. and this is not how i remember the scene being.

[AcidTrash]

The point being that the east end london activist scene was very much vibrant because of the thatcherite reforms. While they themselves maynot have been responsible for the scene as we know it, it was almost certainly the sea through which the idea initially swam.

[AcidTrash]

Just thinking. Turning it on its head, what notable sea changes in music have occured in times of economic prosperity and stability?

The blues were born of slavery, psychedelia was born of the hippie movement during a social revlolution, why is it so implausible that rave was a counter reaction to to the birth of modern consumer captialism as we know it?

[Gus]

Just thinking. Turning it on its head, what notable sea changes in music have occured in times of economic prosperity and stability?

The blues were born of slavery, psychedelia was born of the hippie movement during a social revlolution, why is it so implausible that rave was a counter reaction to to the birth of modern consumer captialism as we know it?

Disco ? Its the only one I could think of that didnt fit your hypothesis.

[AcidTrash]

Disco ? Its the only one I could think of that didnt fit your hypothesis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis

Hardly a quiet decade of peace and stability. Although the origins of disco and or any social movement associated with it is outside my area of interest.

Probably the collective hangover of the hippie movement.

Can I phone a friend?

[Gus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis

Hardly a quiet decade of peace and stability. Although the origins of disco and or any social movement associated with it is outside my area of interest.

Probably the collective hangover of the hippie movement.

Can I phone a friend?

Then again theres usually some heavy stuff going on in the world so you can always find something that was going on. I really dont think Disco was inspired by any sort of bad times though. However disco is mostly shite so maybe you could have a point - decent music is inspired by hardtimes.