"God Is A DJ"
This is my church
This is where I heal my hurt
It's a natural grace
Of watching young life shape
It's in minor keys
Solutions and remedies
Enemies becoming friends
When bitterness ends
This is my church
This is my church
This is where I heal my hurt
It's in the world I become
Content in the hum
Between voice and drum
It's in change
The poetic justice of cause and effect
Respect, love, compassion
This is my church
This is where I heal my hurt
For tonight
God is a DJ
This is my church
Table of Contents
Introduction ... 4
Chapter 1: Introduction to Rave Culture ... 6
1.1 Techno and house music ... 6
1.2 UK acid house and the birth of rave culture ... 8
1.3 Elements of rave culture ... 11
1.4 Social reactions ... 13
1.5 Rave culture in the Netherlands ... 14
1.6 Auto-‐ethnography ... 17
1.7 Rave experiences ... 18
Chapter 2: Introduction to Rave Studies ... 21
2.1 Cultural studies ... 21
2.2 Critique ... 22
2.3 The rave as a ritual ... 24
2.4 Connectedness and religious experience ... 27
Chapter 3: Thomas Luckmann and the Secondary Institution ... 30
3.1 Invisible religion ... 30
3.2 Relevance for the study on rave culture ... 35
3.3 Later research and critique on Luckmann ... 36
Chapter 4: Methods of the Study ... 38
4.1 Type of research ... 38
4.2 Research population ... 38
4.3 Data collection ... 39
4.4 Data analysis ... 40
4.5 Introduction of the interview participants ... 41
Chapter 5: Results ... 42
5.1 Initiation stories: becoming a raver ... 42
5.2 After initiation: freedom and togetherness ... 43
5.2.1 Experiences of freedom ... 44
5.2.2 Experiences of togetherness ... 48
5.3 Beyond rave: consequences for personal narratives ... 51
5.4 Participant observation report ... 54
5.5 Participant observation review ... 57
Chapter 6: Analysis ... 59
6.1 Recapitulation ... 59
6.2 Rave culture as a secondary institution? ... 60
6.3 Other literature ... 61
6.4 What does it all mean? ... 62
Conclusion ... 65
References ... 67
Appendix A ... 72
Appendix B ... 74
Matthijs ... 74
Bob ... 87
Menno ... 97
Marieke ... 110
Frank ... 118
Nikki ... 126
Introduction
God is a DJ is a famous record by the British dance act Faithless, released in 1998. It
indicates that there might be more to what is called 'dance culture' or 'rave culture' than meets
the eye. The song lyrics mention that it functions as a church, where one might come to 'heal
his hurts'. This might not be what directly comes to mind when thinking about the concept.
But if it is there, it is worth investigating.
This thesis arises from two personal passions: a passion for rave culture and a passion
for the sociology of religion, specifically an interest in contemporary forms of
non-institutional religion or belief. Combining these two passions makes for a thesis that is not
only a research project on the relationship between rave culture and religion, but also a
research project on myself. My personal connection to both of these fields of interest is what
drives me to know more about them and answer questions about the value and meaning of
rave culture and the role of religion in contemporary western society.
The conviction that rave culture carries value and meaning is based on experience and
the perception that rave culture or variations thereof have a great influence on popular culture
today. Musically, electronic dance music has been a constant factor in hit charts since its
development during the 1990's, and the contribution to the leisure industry is enormous.
There are numerous dance events to be found every weekend throughout the country and
annually there are more festivals than days in the year, both attracting millions of visitors. A
prime example of this is the Amsterdam Dance Event, according to their website 'the leading
electronic music platform and the biggest club festival in the world for the whole spectrum of
electronic sub-genres'.
1It is hosted annually in October and attracted 375.000 visitors in 2016
over the course of five days. Rave culture is hot. But might there be more to it than just music
and dancing? What is it exactly that people look for when they visit these events?
The hypothesis during this thesis will be that there is something meaningful that
people find in rave culture, something they value, maybe even something transcendent. The
aim will be to examine experiences of ravers and the question is whether or not these
experiences can be interpreted as religious? To make the concept of religion tangible and also
testable Thomas Luckmann's theory on modern social religion and the concept of the
secondary institution will be used as the red thread for this thesis.
The concept of rave culture itself might have given rise to some questions about its
nature already, therefore chapter one will start with an introduction to rave culture to achieve
some kind of familiarization with it. A closer look will also be given there to the concept of
electronic dance music. Chapter two will subsequently discuss some of the academic work
that has already been done on rave culture, especially studies done from the field of religious
studies, to provide the framework that will be built around the concept of rave culture with
some more context. After that chapter three discusses Thomas Luckmann's essay Invisible
Religion and highlights why his concept of the secondary institution should be a useful tool to
establish whether or not rave culture provides religious experiences for its participants.
Chapter four thereafter goes into the methods of the study and introduces the respondents for
the interviews. In chapter five the results from the interviews and the participant observation
will be presented, followed by the analysis of those results in chapter six.
Following this line of reasoning will hopefully help us to see whether God has truly
moved out of his traditional house of worship and has taken residence behind a turntable.
Chapter 1: Introduction to Rave Culture
Before we start our inquiry into the relation between religion and rave culture, we will start
with an exploration of the phenomenon of rave culture itself. This chapter will discuss the
development of electronic dance music, the culture that subsequently arose, characteristic
elements of rave culture and social reactions to it. Also, more specifically, rave culture in the
Netherlands will be introduced. The chapter ends with a discussion of the method of
auto-ethnography, leading up to some personal recollections about being a part of rave culture.
In this chapter there will be many references to the concepts of “culture”, “scene”, and
“subculture”. “Culture” refers to the larger culture surrounding rave, “scene” is used to refer
to the people who form the in-crowd of the culture, or those who are ravers, while
“subculture” always refers to a specific branch within the culture, for instance when
discussing the gabba subculture in the Netherlands.
1.1 Techno and house music
Without the electronic music genres 'techno' and 'house' rave culture as it is would not have
existed today. Therefore, before we can turn our attention to rave culture a few words on the
development of these musical genres are essential.
Techno music originates from 1980’s Detroit and its foundation is attributed to
Derrick May, Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson, also referred to as the “Belleville Three”
(Reynolds, 1999, p.14). Detroit during the 1980’s was a racially divided society, but within
those separated communities differentiation existed as well, based on socioeconomic status.
A new generation of African American youth was growing up in Detroit, accustomed to a
more luxurious lifestyle because their parents had the opportunity to earn an fair wage at the
factories of Ford or General Motors. These middle-class youths wished to distance
themselves from kids from the ghetto by acquiring Europhile tastes (Reynolds, p.15). One of
these taste preferences was musical and focused, for instance, on the German band
Kraftwerk. Music journalist Simon Reynolds refers to their musical style as “post-rock and
proto-techno” (p.13). It was Kraftwerk’s mechanical-sounding music which inspired May,
Atkins and Saunderson to produce techno music. The sound of techno music reflected the
specific circumstances of Detroit during the 1980’s, “capturing a city in transition: from
industrial boomtown to post-Fordist wasteland, from US capital of auto manufacturing to US
capital of homicide” (Reynolds, p.19). Characteristic of this musical genre is an industrial
sound, which can tend to sound almost empty, but also dreamy. This emptiness or dreaminess
are characteristics of Detroit too, according to May and Atkins, referring to a certain kind of
desolation of the city, also described as sensory and cultural deprivation (Reynolds, p.21).
Although members of the same branch of music, electronic dance music, house music
has a very different background from techno. To start off, house music was developed in
Chicago and it already started during the late 1970’s. Instead of house music being a whole
new musical genre altogether, it was more of a resurrection of an older, condemned genre:
disco (Reynolds, p.25). Disco music had been condemned in the USA during a “disco sucks”
fever, which culminated in a “Disco Demolition Derby” in Detroit in 1979, an event that led
to the destruction of more than 100.000 disco records. Reasons for this hatred for disco were
certain feelings about it: being decadent, un-American, and the antithesis of true American
music; rock ‘n roll (Reynolds, p.23). House music was an attempt to resurrect the dead disco
genre and was born in Chicago out of a double exclusion: the Chicago house scene was not
just black, but gay and black. Disco music, as an outsider to mainstream culture, appealed to
this community that was an outsider of mainstream society. The genre received its name from
a gay night club in Chicago, the Warehouse, and referred to the type of music played there.
(Reynolds, p.24-25; Rietveld, 1998, p.17). House music was about inclusion for those
involved, instead of the exclusion sought out by the middle-class Detroit youth. For gay
people who were excluded for organized religion for their sexual preference it served as a
community where they were welcome (Rietveld, 1999). A famous house disc jockey (DJ),
Frankie Knuckles, has described the Warehouse as a “church for people who have fallen from
grace” (Reynolds, p.30). The Chicago house scene can be described as hedonistic, with
clubbers dancing at the Warehouse from Saturday night to midday Sunday, and as opposed to
the Detroit techno scene, the use of stimulant and hallucinogenic drugs was usual (Reynolds,
p.25-26).
In 1988, when house music was thriving in Europe and Britain, it was declining in
Chicago. The next phase of house became a scene from New York, a song-oriented
deep-house called 'garage', after the famous New York club the Paradise Garage. Its roots in New
York are similar to those of house in Chicago: a predominantly gay disco underground with a
hedonistic mentality in which the use of LSD and amphetamine was widespread. With the
garage sound emerged the first experiments with 'total sound experiences'. These experiences
aimed at filling a room with sound, surrounding the dancers with music, submerging them in
it. As in Chicago, the Paradise Garage was described as “their church” by frequent clubbers,
with the difference being that the influential DJ Larry Levan constructed his music and sound
with the specific purpose to evoke a spiritual experience in those dancing on the dance floor.
This purpose, and his technique of total sound, qualifies Levan as one of the first examples of
the 'DJ-as-shaman' (Reynolds, p.34-35). The DJ-as-shaman constructs the music in his DJ set
in such a way that he takes the people on a journey through the evening, lifting them up and
guiding them down via the records he chose specifically to achieve this. Levan developed
special speakers and subwoofers to surround his audience with music, overtaking the senses
of the listeners, overwhelming their bodies with vibrations and tones, and was therefore able
to induce an altered state of consciousness guided by himself (Reynolds, p.35).
1.2 UK acid house and the birth of rave culture
Although techno, house and garage music were all surrounded by their specific scenes, no
definitive culture, let alone rave culture, had formed yet. Because the birth of rave culture
would not happen in the USA, but in Britain.
House music had been available as an import product since 1985, bringing house
music into the international musical scene. House entered the UK via London, Manchester
and Nottingham, where it would be played in certain clubs by adventurous DJ’s (Rietveld,
1999). At first this new genre of music was not received with great popularity, it would only
gain momentum during the late 1980’s, especially in 1988 and 1989.
What gave house music its final push into popularity was the combination with the
Spanish holiday island Ibiza party scene. Ibiza was a popular vacation destination for the
British to spend their holidays and people from the British music scene were attracted to the
Ibizan local clubs by a certain ‘avant garde’ setting. The style that was developed there was
later transported to small new venues in London (Reynolds, p.59). The house music that
could not entertain the crowds in the existing clubs halfway the 1980’s found an audience in
the exclusive, ‘hip’ clubs in 1988. One important club was called The Shoom and it was there
that the first characteristics could be found that would become important elements of rave
culture later. The Shoom was a small club that hosted exclusive parties where the atmosphere
was explicitly different from other clubs. The room would always be filled with smoke from
smoke machines, through the smoke disorienting light effects were visible, and free ice cream
and fruit would be distributed among the guests. Also, because of a new popular recreational
drug called 3-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, usually taken in the form of a
tablet called Ecstasy, or ‘E’, there was always a friendly, high, positive and active vibe
among the clubbers. Finally, The Shoom can be seen as the first club that played acid house
2music exclusively (Reynolds, p.59-60; Rietveld, p.52).
The initial take of clubs like The Shoom and its visitors was to keep this newly
imported party scene elite and just for themselves (not unlike the middle-class youth of
Detroit). This, however, proved untenable. Not only did these exclusive parties attract much
attention, causing some clubs to implement a strict door policy, the time was just right for this
new style of partying to be embraced by a larger audience as well. During the 1980's British
citizens had to endure mass unemployment which led to little pleasures in their everyday
lives. The soccer match and the house party offered escape and distraction from that
(Reynolds, p.64). Also, as a result of the popularity of Ecstasy, the social and class barriers
dividing British society would be brought down for the duration of the party, while the
clubbers were 'loved up' on 'E' (Reynolds, p.63). Instead of being separated in their normal
lives, visitors could experience a collective identity within the doors of the club. As a result,
house parties became extremely popular.
The new audiences were less critical about their parties, however. After the discovery
of acid house by a broader public, the parties started to change. These changes were a
response to the strict regulations regarding the closing hours of clubs as well. During the
1980’s, clubs’ licenses would only allow them to stay open until 3 AM, meaning that many
parties ended prematurely (Reynolds, p.62). It was the advent of the warehouse party, where
abandoned warehouses in empty industrial areas would be squatted or borrowed for the night
and thousands of people would show up to dance in an industrial, minimal setting.
In combination with the use of Ecstasy, for many people these were new,
mind-blowing experiences. Popularly, the first period in which both acid house and Ecstasy became
common elements in the party scene is called the Second Summer of Love. In an emotionally
inhibited society like the UK a drug like Ecstasy, which induces empathy, stimulates
serotonin, and has an activating effect, had a profound effect on its users. Many experienced
feelings of spirituality. Mark Moore, a dance music record producer and DJ: “A lot of people
were born again. They gave up their relatively normal lives, ‘cos they thought ‘why am I
doing this shitty job?’ You got all these people suddenly dressing all ethnic and getting
spiritual. The whole New Age thing surged forward” (Reynolds, p.65).
After a while, when the popularity of the illegal warehouse parties had become
apparent, house parties got a commercial aspect. Entrepreneurs who realized the commercial
potential of these parties started organizing even bigger parties in rural settings, next to high
ways or on large fields. Party goers were directed to these parties via specific instructions
recorded on voicemail. To reach the destination, they had to call a number that would direct
them to the party step by step. These parties were organized by sound systems, collectives of
party organizers in possession of big audio systems and light systems. A sound system is a
collection of people who own the necessary equipment to organize and host parties, doing so
on a regular basis. They attracted massive audiences, the biggest party hosting a crowd of
more than ten thousand people. It was at these parties the term ‘rave’ was first attributed to
them. Guest of these orbital raves became ‘ravers’, and the activity was ‘to rave’ (Reynolds,
p.76-77). The organizations made enormous amounts of money hosting such events.
However, they also attracted the attention of the police, since the land these events took place
on was usually private property, or at least not meant for these illegal gatherings. In the end,
specific legislations were effected which drove the raves back into the legal scene: the clubs.
This worked because the licensing laws were also changed so that clubs could now extend
their opening hours, keeping the crowds inside for a longer period of time. It meant that
house parties had become an official part of the night time leisure industry, and therefore had
become commercialized (Rietveld, p.60).
The commercialization of rave culture meant a break within the culture itself, between
commercial rave and underground rave (Reynolds, p.68; Rietveld, p.59). The commercial
rave versions were legal, took place inside clubs or one big sites for which a permit was
issued, sold tickets and charged high fees for food and drinks. The underground raves, also
called freeparties, were illegal, were usually hosted outside and were free, apart from
donations for the volunteers. One important difference between them is that underground
rave is more about ideology instead of partying. The hosts of the underground raves were
sound systems consisting of British 'travelers', who were capitalism and
anti-establishment: they rejected the economic principles of urban living, instead living in buses
and vans while traveling around, and preferred to look after themselves without government
interference. Their parties attracted both other travelers and urban ravers who were otherwise
confined to the clubs (Rietveld, p.59-60).
In a nutshell, we’ve discussed how rave culture developed out of house parties into a
part of the mainstream leisure industry while at the same time remaining an underground
movement. We will now turn our attention to some of the characteristic elements of rave
culture.
1.3 Elements of rave culture
Rave culture is characterized by certain elements, the most important of which we will
discuss.
Electronic music
One of the most prominent and recognizable elements of rave culture is its music, since it is
usually played very loudly, you cannot miss it. It is also the most important, probably, since
raves are usually centered around dancing, which would be a lot harder to persevere in all
night without the music. There are many different sub genres of electronic dance music, such
as the aforementioned genres of techno, house and acid house, and many others like tekno,
jungle or drum ‘n bass. Beats per minute (bpm), the use of vocals, and varieties of music
production technology such as drum machines and synthesizers are features that constitute
the difference between the sub genres. Each of the sub genres has its own subculture of rave
culture, every specific style has its own specific audience.
Focus on the audience, not on the DJ
At rave parties an interesting change in focus happened: instead of the performing artist, the
audience became the star of the event. The standard framework of artist-audience was thereby
reversed. It was common at musical events, such as rock concerts, for the audience to look at
the performing artist, who was the star they all came for. The artist stood on a huge podium
and everyone in the audience faced the podium, looking in the same direction. The rock star
was glorified during rock concerts (Gauthier, 2004, p.47).
The DJ during a rave, however, does not stand in the spotlight like the rock star used
to. The DJ is usually positioned along one of the sides of the dance floor. He or she is also on
the same level as the dance floor, the DJ booth is not elevated. This leaves the centerpiece of
the space, the dance floor, open for the audience. The dancing audience is the star at a rave,
they are both visitors and stars.
Of course, the DJ remains an important element of the event. We only just discussed
that music is one of the most important ingredients of a rave and the DJ is the supplier of that
music. The DJ has the important and difficult task of providing music to the audience and
guiding them through the night. Difficult because, while the DJ has a guiding role, the
audience has to like the music. So it is important the DJ notices what the audience wants by
paying attention to the way it responds to the music. How well a DJ can do this determines
his or her quality for a great part. When the DJ and the audience are on the same page, the
music can be built up to greater heights.
Visual effects
The lighting during a rave is important to create an atmosphere, and, especially in the night or
inside clubs, to not stand in the dark. The lights can create a sparkling wonderland or a neon
laser show. The visual effects make for a total experience in combination with the auditory
effects of the music and the physical effects of dancing.
Clothing
Although there is no dominant style of clothing within rave culture, ravers´ clothing is
usually comfortable and not too tight. Also, most ravers will not wear their best clothes to a
rave because there is a risk they might get dirty, or sweaty in the very least. Since the prime
activity during a rave is dancing, ravers dress themselves in clothing that can accommodate
that. Your prettiest clothes, or clothes that are not baggy enough, hinder prolonged hours of
dancing among other, sweaty bodies (Rietveld, 1993).
Asexuality
As stated before one of the main purposes of raving is dancing. Dancing at raves is not about
ritual dances to display yourself to find a partner however. Instead dancing at raves is a form
of self-expression. Also, ravers dress themselves to dance, not to look their best. These
factors, in combination with the use of the empathy-enhancing drug Ecstasy (to which we
will turn our attention next), create a sexless environment at rave parties.
It has been stated (Martin, 1999, p.85; Goulding, Shakar & Elliott, 2002, p.277;
Olaveson, 2004, p.59), especially by women, that the atmosphere at raves feels safe and free,
that people can just come and enjoy themselves without other people approaching them with
other intentions. One big difference between the mainstream night entertainment culture and
rave culture is the presence of empathy-enhancing drugs. In mainstream night life the most
prevalent substances are alcohol and energizing drugs such as cocaine. Those create a
different mental state than Ecstasy does, lowering inhibitions but also boasting self-esteem,
making it a perfect combination when trying to impress a potential partner. It also means that
you become less receptive to expressions your potential partner might be giving you,
signaling that your approach is unwanted. Empathy-enhancing drugs, on the other hand,
stimulate your reception of other people’s expressions and feelings.
Drugs
The last element of rave culture we will discuss is about drugs. The drug of choice during
raves, during the early years of rave even the exclusive drug, is MDMA, taken in pill-form as
Ecstasy. MDMA was created as a chemical preparation by E. Merck Pharmaceuticals in
Darmstadt, Germany and the first record of it can be found in a patent filed in 1912 (Critcher,
2000, p.146; Pentney, 2001; Benzenhofer & Passie, 2006). After it received its patent, no
further recorded tests were done until 1953 when it was studied in a toxicological study done
by the University of Michigan. After this, it was used by psychotherapists during treatments
during the 1970’s “because it produces an easily controllable altered state of consciousness
that facilitates communication by eliminating the neurophysiological fear response that is
normally elicited by a perceived threat to one’s emotional integrity” (Pentney, 2001, p.215).
MDMA also reached the recreational sector, what eventually led to a Schedule I drug
classification in 1986 in the United States, making it an illegal substance and disabling
scientific research on it. Despite the Schedule I status, MDMA has been available in the
recreational sector ever since and formed part of the rave scene. It probably contributed to a
well-known motto of rave culture: Peace, Love, Unity and Respect (P.L.U.R.), because of the
feelings of empathy, peace and love it generates in users (Pentney, 2001, p.217).
1.4 Social reactions
The new phenomenon of rave did not develop in a vacuum, of course. Actually, it generated
quite some reactions to it. Especially the fact that most raves in the UK were hosted in illegal
outdoor venues, combined with the increase in drug use at raves, caused the general society
to react strongly to it, supported by the government and the tabloid press.
Taking a step back and looking at the perception of youth and its behavior in general,
since the conception of the separate category of ‘youth’ between childhood and adulthood,
the regulation of youth has always been a critical point. The behavior of youngsters has been
used as a social barometer of social morality and order (France, 2007, p.11). Therefore, when
the youth decided to host all-night parties in all sorts of places, listening to new music and
using drugs, this posed quite a threat to the social morality and order. Thus, after an initial
phase of interest in the new rave phenomenon, a moral panic arose around it.
This moral panic started with the focus on the death of a young girl during a rave, in
accordance with the fact that the media had always had the tendency to use girls as the site of
moral panic (France, 2007). Accusations of ‘being out of control’ and involvement in
‘dangerous activities’ were thrown at the rave movement and the behavior inclined to
hedonism was seen as a symbol of an immoral society, where respectability declined and the
social order threatened (France, 2007). Strategies of othering in the media were used where
“the morally corrupt, potentially insane raver is set up against normal, sane society” (Martin,
1999, p.80).
Eventually the moral panic resulted in a change in legislation to deal with the raves
and their organizers. This legislation was effected in the UK in 1994 in the Criminal Justice
and Public Order Act. The Act made the organization of and attendance to rave punishable by
law, de facto criminalizing tens of thousands of people who raved during the weekends but
lived law-abiding lives during the week (Martin, p.79). In fact, the Act prohibited “the
gathering on land in the open air of 100 or more persons (whether or not trespassers) at which
amplified music is played during the night (with or without intermissions) and is such as, by
reasons of its loudness and duration and the time at which it is played, is likely to cause
serious distress to the inhabitants of the locality”.
3The music referred to “includes sounds
wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats”.
4The introduction of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act had several effects,
among them the move of raves back into the clubs (Rietveld, 1999). Since it was no longer
worth the risk to organize the parties outdoors they were moved indoors. This was also a time
when the closing hours of clubs in the UK changed from 3 AM to 6 AM or even later, which
made the all night rave possible inside. A side effect of this move to the clubs is that it
provided for the commercialization of rave. From the clubs rave could gradually work its way
to the mainstream, taking a central position into popular music.
1.5 Rave culture in the Netherlands
So far, rave culture has been discussed in its British context. It has not been contained to only
Britain, however. Rave culture has been transported to many other countries. In this section
its development in the Netherlands will be discussed.
Rave culture was introduced to the Netherlands quite early after its conception in
Britain, during the late 1980's. Like in Britain, there exist two separate branches of rave:
commercial or mainstream and underground. The mainstream development of rave is quite
traceable by reviewing the opening of important clubs and the founding of big organizations.
3 See http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/33/section/63/enacted 4 Ibidem
The underground scene, however, is harder to retrace since participants of that scene were
cautious to avoid attention by both the police and the media, meaning there is hardly any
documentation about it.
The mainstream culture of rave in the Netherlands seems to have started when Club
RoXY opened in Amsterdam in 1987. Together with De Waakzaamheid (1988) in Koog aan
de Zaan and Club iT (1989), also in Amsterdam, Club RoXY facilitated the house and techno
scene in the Netherlands. The club was known for its extravagant shows and random door
policies. Entry to the club was only guaranteed by membership, otherwise, gaining entry
could be granted or denied based on different criteria every time. In 1992 ID&T was founded
as an organization specializing in dance events. Their first party The Final Exam was hosted
in the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht. ID&T has grown to become a massive international organization
and is responsible for enormous parties such as Thunderdome (1992), Mysteryland (1993),
Sensation (2000) and Tomorrowland (2005). All of these events attract 25.000-100.000
visitors per event, every year. The mainstream rave culture in the Netherlands became very
popular very quickly.
The underground rave culture developed in rather the same way it did in Britain. It
mirrored the style of British underground in such way that the raves, or 'illegale' (illegal),
were organized by sound systems, with free entry and low budgets. Two of the first sound
systems to do this in the Netherlands were Hardcore Peace Generation from Utrecht and
Mononom Soundsystem from The Hague. The venues for such raves were usually squatted or
empty buildings in industrial areas. During the 1990's the location to such parties was usually
provided via voicemails reached when calling a telephone number set up especially for the
event. Today communication is mostly done via social network websites, mobile phones and
word of mouth. Like in Britain, some but not all sound systems carry a strong ideology, being
mostly left winged 'krakers' (squatters) from the squat movement who also carry a sense of
anarchism. However, while not every sound system is necessarily politically inclined, they all
share a sense of anti-establishment, breaking the rules when hosting an 'illegale' and always
seeming to be playing hide and seek with the police. The Dutch underground rave culture is
also known as the 'tekno' scene, after its dominant musical genre. Usually freeparties are
hosted by one single sound system, attracting several hundreds of visitors (exceptional cases
attracting a couple of thousands). When multiple sound systems join forces to organize a
rave, the event is also called a teknival. Teknivals are usually international affairs, however,
and draw visitors from all over Europe.
a style of their own, a musical genre to be more specific: 'gabber' (gabba) music. The term
'gabber' is originally Dutch Yiddish and means 'best friend' but its meaning changed to
'hooligan' or 'roughneck', a person who works in hard manual labour. This rather derogative
term was adopted by Rotterdam's working-class youth as badge of pride (Reynolds, p.284).
Gabba music is derived from techno music, but is much, much faster. Or as Reynolds (p.283)
puts it: “an ultrafast super aggressive form of hardcore techno”.
Around this gabba genre a subculture of its own grew. A typical gabba has a shaved
head and wears a 'bomberjack' (Aussie jacket) and Nike Air Max shoes. The gabba culture
arose in 1991-92 (Reynolds, p.283), after the initial rave phase, and seems to be a reaction to
it, since it contrasts with early rave on several points. While the early house scene was
dominated by the use of Ecstasy only, which resulted, among other things, in an androgynous
party setting, gabba culture was a result of the 're-masculation' of rave in which Ecstasy was
complemented with amphetamines, producing a predominantly male culture with extremely
fast music and militaristic imagery (Reynolds, p.284-285). Also, like rave there existed some
political elements within the gabba subculture, however, they tended to lean more towards
the extreme right and were likened at times to white power skinheads (Reynolds, p.286). This
was not characteristic of the complete gabba subculture though. Gabba can also be seen as a
reaction from Rotterdam to Amsterdam's house scene, based on a rivalry between those cities
that expresses itself in football (Feyenoord vs. Ajax) as well.
Furthermore, gabba subculture is characterized by extremely fast music, the tempo
going up to 300 beats per minute. Gabbas dance to this music extremely fast as well, in a
style that is called 'hakken', displaying some very fast foot work. During gabba parties the
music is played very loudly and the distorting effect of that alone is amplified by the use of
lights and lasers, resulting in “a hallucinogenic blitzkrieg of light and noise” (Reynolds,
p.284). Next to this gabba has a rather violent image, with song titles such as Mad as Hell
5,
I'll Show You My Gun
6and No Women Allowed
7, the last example also expressing the male
orientation of the subculture (Reynolds, p.285, p.287). This violence is contrasted by the
humor with which gabba also expresses itself, for instance the mascot of Babyboom Records
is a baby in a diaper giving you the finger (Reynolds, p.287). Eventually gabba culture
sparked a reaction of its own, leading to a lighter, slower form of music with a different kind
of attitude: happy hardcore, a softer version if you will, with popular records such as
5 By Ralphie Dee
6 By Annihilator 7 By Sperminator
Rainbow in the Sky and Life is Like a Dance
8(Reynolds, p.287).
1.6 Auto-ethnography
To finalize the current chapter on the introduction to rave culture this last section presents an
insider's perspective. It also functions to position the researcher in relation to the research,
because the insider's perspective is provided by myself, the researcher, and my own
experiences in rave culture since 2010. The form of this perspective can be likened to an
auto-ethnography, however, the goal of this last section is not to research these personal
experiences, but to describe them. The ethnography will thus be more of an
auto-biographical nature with the purpose of complementing the description of rave culture that
has been provided thus far. I believe an insider's perspective can add some layers to this
description that could not be captured from an academic position, since a first-hand
experience is very different from interviewing someone else about their first-hand experience,
for instance.
A few words on the concept of auto-ethnography. Within qualitative research this is a
relatively new method of study and therefore much debate still surrounds it (Denshire, 2014).
The most pressing issue in this debate seems to be the fact that with auto-ethnography it is
very likely that the boundaries between social science and literature are blurred (Anderson,
2006, p.377; Denshire, 2014, p.834; Sparkes, 2000, p.22). There are those who believe that
this is precisely the point of this form of scholarship and those who think that
auto-ethnography can be a useful addition to the social sciences without becoming too much of a
subjective personal narrative. The former stance is known as evocative auto-ethnography and
is advocated by Carolyn Ellis and Arthur Bochner (2000). Their view on auto-ethnography
holds that the distinguishing feature about it is the impression it leaves on the reader. To
impress the reader the author should be emotionally present in the text and the text should be
styled as a story. When this is done properly the story shall not need any additional
explanation or analysis, since it will have transmitted its meaning to the reader by itself (Ellis
& Bocher, 2006). The stress is on 'properly', since this style of writing requires exceptional
narrative and expressive skills (Anderson, 2006, p.377). Evocative auto-ethnography is about
emotional resonance between the author and the reader and has also been called emotional
auto-ethnography (Ellis & Bochner, 2006, p.435).
Another view on auto-ethnography is proposed in the Journal of Contemporary
Ethnography by Leon Anderson (2006) who suggests that auto-ethnography does not only
serve an evocative function, it can be analytical too. Analytic auto-ethnography has five key
features: 1) complete member researcher status, 2) analytic reflexivity, 3) narrative visibility
of the researcher's self, 4) dialogue with informants beyond the self, and 5) commitment to
theoretical analysis (Anderson, 2006, p.378). The last point seems to be the discerning feature
between evocative and analytic auto-ethnography: analytic auto-ethnography is “committed
to addressing general theoretical issues” (Anderson, 2006, p.387). While Ellis & Bochner
believe the auto-ethnographic story is self-explanatory, Anderson sees an auto-ethnography
as data still requiring analysis and explanation to develop and improve social theory.
This being said, the purpose of this last section is not to provide data to be analyzed in
this thesis but to finalize the portrayal of rave culture we have been working on. As such, I
would like to use the method of auto-ethnography only in a descriptive manner as a “highly
personalized account that draws upon the experiences of the author/researcher for the purpose
of extending sociological understanding” (Sparkes, 2000, p.21). 'Sociological understanding'
should be understood in the sense that my personal account will help the reader to better
understand the social world of rave culture.
1.7 Rave experiences
I had my first introduction into rave culture in August 2010 in Utrecht at Kranck, a party in a
small club in a basement down at the wharf. The venue had a lobby, a lounge with the bar in
it, and two rooms with a DJ booth and dance floor. When me and my friends arrived not
many people were there yet, so it was still rather empty, and also rather cold. After 1 AM
more people started to come in, filling up the club and gradually also the dance floors. Since
smoking was not allowed inside there was a constant stream of traffic going in and out of the
club, moving around the different rooms and then going back out to the wharf again to have a
cigarette. I believe four different DJ's played in each room during the night, each one turning
the energy of the music higher than their predecessor.
What I remember from that first night is that I met so many friendly people. On the
dance floor there was always a smile when I caught someone's eye and a conversation started
every time during cigarette or drink breaks when I crammed myself next to someone (it had
become very crowded in the meantime). I also remember being captivated by the music,
while I was dancing – or more accurately, just bouncing from one foot to the other – the
repetitive beats made it quite an introspective experience. Because even though I shared the
dance floor with dozens of others, dancing was a very individual affair. The volume of the
music was turned so loud that conversation on the dance floor was practically impossible,
which left dancing and listening to the music, activities undertaken on my own, essentially.
Despite this everybody was dancing next to each other together to the same music, forming a
collective of dancing individuals. The temperature, which had been rather low on entry,
started to rise due to the heat generated by all these people dancing and at the end of the night
most people had taken of theirs vests or blouses to have only their last piece of clothing that
kept them from being naked on the upper body remaining. The dance rooms were unlit except
for some colored lights, stroboscopes and a lamp in the DJ booth.
I left the party with my friends when it ended, around 6 AM, feeling tired but also
happy and very relaxed. Afterwards we did not go home right away but went a little bit
further down the wharfs, where we sat watching the sun rise and the ducks swim, talking
about the night. I remember distinctly that I felt this was something I wanted to do more often
in the future, which I did, being drawn more to these kind of parties in the months that
followed.
For me, this initial encounter with rave culture has led to many great moments in my
life afterwards. Through the friends I was with that first time and other people I met at parties
I made a lot of friends, people who today are still my chosen family, meaning that I feel a
closeness and connection to them resembling family. I chose and collected this family myself
however, instead of being born into it. With them I experienced extraordinary things, adding
a feeling of deeper connection to these friendships that distinguish them from other
friendships I already had. Together we started to explore the world of rave by going to
different parties in different places, while at the same time sometimes organizing our own
parties. After a while we started visiting festivals across Europe as well, meeting people from
other countries who were like us.
In relation to what this chapter has already said about rave culture, I recognize many
elements that are mentioned from my own experience. I have attended both mainstream, legal
parties hosted in clubs or on festival sites, and underground, 'illegale' parties, hosted by some
organization just outside of town. With the freeparties there is an element of excitement
present, an air of secrecy as well. Going to a freeparty is never straightforward, since
locations are rarely given in advance, but at the last minute, to avoid attracting unwanted
attention resulting in a visit from the police. You have to wait until the party location is
shared, this happens mostly through Facebook. Then you have to go somewhere you have
probably never been before, somewhere off road as well, because these parties always hide
themselves in the landscape, under bridges or in patches of forest for instance. Finding the
party is part of the journey, however, and sometimes even more fun than the party itself,
because sometimes the parties are just not that good. Also, when you pack for an
underground party it can feel like packing a survival bag, since you have to bring everything
yourself, because the party site usually does not function as a entertainment location. An
extra vest, clean socks, a garbage bag and toilet paper always prove their worth when brought
to the 'illegale'.
While parties are usually great fun, for me the true experience of rave can be found at
festivals, when people do not just spend hours together, but days, camping next to the festival
site. The first time I realized this was at Fusion Festival in Germany in 2012. The festival is
located on an old Russian airbase north of Berlin, hosted by people who once squatted this
airbase and later bought it with the revenues they made by hosting parties there. Me, my
friends, and 60.000 other people spent four days there in an almost magical setting. The
festival was decorated with the most delicate sense of detail, turning the airbase into a
dreamlike place where pretty lights shone all the time and the carnivalesque was present
everywhere. All the hangars were turned into different stages, there were stages inside and
outside, each with a different identity constructed by different decorations and music genres.
There were large constructions of steampunk
9art, for instance a life-size dragon that could
actually spit fire. Many of the visitors brought costumes to wear, dressing up as magical
beings, or wore special hats or outfits complemented with a lot of glow sticks. After the
second day at Fusion it felt as if the regular world was just a faint memory and this was how
the world should always be, I was completely submerged into the alternate reality of Fusion.
Of course it had to end, but when I returned home I felt like a different person, enriched by
this extraordinary experience.
These are just a few examples of my experiences in rave culture but they represent
what has been important for me as a raver. I hope they have brought the concept of rave
somewhat more to life for you, the reader.
9 Steampunk is a sub genre of science fiction that has a historical setting and typically features steam-powered machinery rather than advanced technology (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/steampunk, retrieved 25-01-2017)
Chapter 2: Introduction to Rave Studies
It was not long after rave culture started to grow that it attracted academic attention. Since
then it has been studied from several different angles and in this chapter some of the findings
from cultural studies, ritual studies and religious studies are presented.
2.1 Cultural studies
The first field of studies that started studying rave culture was the field of cultural studies.
Cultural studies as developed by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at the
University of Birmingham had a specific view on youth culture and subcultures. Youth
subcultures emerging after the Second World War were seen as challenging the status quo, in
an indirect, symbolic and stylistic way (Hebdige, 1979, p.17). A classic example of such a
subculture was the punk subculture. By turning the meaning of everyday symbols upside
down, for example the use of a safety pin as a piercing, punks challenged and critiqued the
cultural hegemony (Hebdige, p.18). The CCCS used to identify youth subcultures with class
based resistance movements, positioning them in the lower classes of society who rose up to
challenge the class-based society (Sweetman, 2013).
The CCCS approach on subcultures has been heavily criticized over the last fifteen
years on problems concerning their framework. Critics noted that the Marxist-realist style of
the CCCS focused the discussion concerning subcultures too much on class-relations and the
structure of society as a result of class hierarchy (Sweetman, 2.1). Furthermore, their
structural-functionalist approach had little space for involving members of the subculture
they were actually researching (Sweetman, 1.4). Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson of the CCCS,
in a second edition of Rituals through Resistance (2006), claim, however, that “the project
was concerned both to examine, concretely and in depth, one 'region' of contemporary culture
and to understand how this should be connected in an explanatory, non-reductive way, to
broader cultural and social structures” (p.viii). Other critique on the CCCS approach to
subcultures claimed that it gave too little attention to the agency and creativity of the
members of the subculture in question (Sweetman, 2.5) and that subcultures were about more
than just symbolic resistance to the cultural hegemony, they also facilitated “immediate
experience and the development of new disciplines and virtuosities, new bodies and selves;
the development of highly accomplished skills and abilities to no formal purpose and outside
the realms of institutionalized education, employment, or sport” (Sweetman, 4.15).
The CCCS insisted on making a distinction between real – effective - resistance and
symbolic – non-effective - resistance, using this distinction as a lens through which to
analyze youth cultures (Martin, p.77). As a result of this lens, soon rave culture was labeled
as ‘ineffectual’ and ‘tragic’ (St John, 2006, p.1), since it did not appear to offer any real
resistance to the mainstream, instead giving preference to just ‘disappearing’ (Melechi,
1993).
Antonio Melechi draws on the postmodern work of Jean Baudrillard, who argued that
postmodern culture was reduced to style, containing no depth or 'true' meaning (Martin,
p.78). This postmodernist lens was turned to rave culture, resulting in the argument that
instead of posing an actual treat to the status quo ravers only try to escape their everyday
lives and disappear into a fantasy world of music, lights and drugs. Melechi links raving to
tourism, where one leaves the ordinary home and everyday life to travel to a distant place,
with preferably a large contrast between ‘home’ and ‘away’. He even goes so far as to say
that the dominant image of a subculture containing an attempt to a political message was
destroyed by rave culture and its focus on hedonistic pleasure seeking:
For the pop critics, club culture’s ravers and revelers confirmed the death of youth culture. This was a ‘bleak generation’ lost in a world of bacchanalian pleasures. The old language of resistance, empowerment and identity, which had claimed a long line of folk devils as the return of the repressed, was redundant in the face of a subculture whose rank and file were socially diverse. The more general problem for critics who would attempt to read youth and club culture, was the emergence of a scene without stars and spectacle, gaze and
identification. Those who sought to understand this subculture in terms of a politics of usage and identity completely missed the point, the spaces which club culture occupied and transformed through Ecstasy and travel (retreating into the body, holidaying in Ibiza and Rimini) represent a fantasy of liberation, an escape from identity. A place where nobody is, but everybody belongs (Melechi, 1993, p.37).
2.2 Critique
However, this representation of rave as ineffectual and disappearing was countered with
findings from other research. In response to the claim that rave did not have any real
significance as a subculture and therefore could not pose any threat and remained ineffectual,
Martin (1999) argues exactly the opposite, claiming that rave culture threatens the moral
foundation of capitalism: hard work, deferral of gratification and the focus on making money.
With the same argument that postmodernists use to label rave as a culture of disappearance,
its hedonistic seeking of and indulging in pleasure, Martin states that it is this hedonistic
mentality that contrasts with capitalism's deferral of gratification and focus on working hard
to earn money. Also, the structure and aim of rave parties (recall that underground raves are
also called 'freeparties') is to have fun, without the specific aim to also make a profit (p.83,
p.85). Furthermore, there is a strong sense of community in rave culture, where everyone is
welcome and equal: inclusive egalitarianism, which also means that it accepts groups that
were traditionally marginalized in youth cultures, such as women, homosexuals and ethnic
minorities (p.85).
Resistance to the status quo can also be found in the choice of venues for rave parties,
which, as mentioned in chapter one, are sometimes squatted empty warehouses or remote
fields. These locations are not legally available for private use, even though they are empty or
un-used, but they are also not strictly controlled anymore, since they are remote or
abandoned. Stanley (1995) labels these locations as 'wild zones', or “fenced-off spaces of
urbanization signifying a postmodern wilderness” (p.91). By using these wild zones in the
urban area as a space to set up their parties, ravers not only subvert the law (Martin, p.83) but
also temporary transform the purpose of these spaces. Once those buildings or fields had a
specific use but eventually they became redundant. They were not demolished but no other
use was found for them either. In attempt to retain some form of regulation abandoned spaces
were closed off and became wild zones, not to be used by anyone. By temporarily becoming
a party location ravers effect a 'rezoning' of the wild zone in question. Resistance is offered to
the law and to the modern organization of urban space.
Others have critiqued the Marxist CCCS tradition for being 'ill-equipped' to analyze
the hedonistic rave culture with its focus on music, the body, and play (St John, p.2; Gerard,
2004, p.99). Dance had already been dismissed to the domain of girls in 1980, just as disco
had been dismissed for not fitting into the heroic-tragic model by the mostly male researchers
of the CCCS, stressing the inattention they held for such frivolities. The CCCS missed the
importance of the body and the senses in rave – and other subcultures – because they lacked
ethnographic material of the subjects they studied (Sweetman, 4.9; Gerard, p.99). Since
music and dance are important elements of rave, those should be taken into account as lived
experiences, something the CCCS fails to do, according to Gerard:
be read for some decodable political significance or as socially disembodied reference points used to illustrate current theories on deviance, class consciousness, commodity consumption and stylistic resistance to the mainstream (Gerard, 2004, p.99).
2.3 The rave as a ritual
According to Arnold van Gennep (1960) social transformation during a ritual, or more
specifically a rite of passage, happens during the transition stage, or liminal phase. Previous
to the liminal phase is a phase of separation (pre-liminal), and the liminal phase is followed
by a phase of incorporation (post-liminal) (Van Gennep, 1960, p.22). Rites of passage
transition people from one state of being to the other, like a marriage ritual is a rite of passage
transforming two individuals from a single status to a married status. Gerard compares the
rave to a ritual, with music and dance as the driving elements behind its transformative
powers (Gerard, 2004, p.99).
To prove the ritual-ness of the rave party, Gerard analyzes a visit to a club looking for
'techniques of liminality' (p.101). He finds four techniques of liminality that all concern the
musical structuring. The way that the music is constructed incites people to dance. A DJ has
access to multiple different techniques of playing and influencing their records. According to
Gerard filtering and looping, EQ'ing and mixing are techniques that enhance liminality
(p.101). Filtering and looping build up excitement, expectation and tension in the room,
luring those who are not yet dancing to the dance floor. EQ'ing is basically the manipulation
of the bass and influences the sense of time of the dancers. A bass can be taken away
completely, leaving the dancers without a rhythm all of the sudden. Instead of the bass,
maybe a short segment of the next record will be mixed through the current record, leaving
the crowd in anticipation. Gerard calls this the separating phase: “separation is essentially that
point where the DJ indicates structural and temporal change through a type of narrative
foreshadowing” (p.114). Also, when 'dropping a bass', a DJ is able to synchronize the
audience as the flow of time is interrupted (p.102), creating the condition for spontaneous
communitas to occur. Communitas is a shared sense of fellowship between the participants of
the ritual, a concept developed by Victor Turner based on Van Gennep's work (Andrews,
2015).
After this separation both the transitional phase and the incorporation phase are
accomplished with the last technique, mixing. Mixing records together is what initially
distinguished electronic music DJ's from other DJ's, there is never a pause or silent moment
between two records but subsequent records are mixed together by aligning their rhythms,
creating a continuous flow of music record after record. This process of mixing the records
together can be stretched as long as five minutes, depending on the DJ (p.114). This process
of mixing two records not only allows for a continuous flow of music, but also of mental and
physical states (p.102) because there is no interruption. Gerard calls this preparatory phase of
mixing the transitional phase, a moment between the 'structural past and the structural future',
when two rhythmically different records are mixed together seamlessly (p.114). This is also
the time when spontaneous communitas can erupt into a 'peak' moment:
Variously signified by dancers throwing their hands in the air, blowing whistles, shouting or, in the case of drum 'n' bass, calling for a 'rewind', peak moments unite the dance floor often through the release of tension built up during the mix and the fulfillment of expectations delivered by an almost prescient programming on behalf of the DJ. Whether such moments are triggered by the introduction of new rhythms, feints or breaks in rhythmic structure, an acceleration of tempo, or simply by mixing from one 'hot' record to another, the result is often a trance-like euphoria that, ultimately, defines a DJ's set and the dancers experience as 'successful' (Gerard, 2004, p.113).
Finally, incorporation is reached when the mixing process is complete and nothing remains of
the former record. The audience can return to business as usual, having to listen and dance to
only one record (p.114), while the DJ prepares for the next mix.
By framing the ritual aspect of rave this way, the pre-liminal arranged by
manipulating the bass, guiding the audience to synchronicity, the liminal during the transition
of two records, and the post-liminal after the release of the successful merger, it seems as if
liminality is only short lived and one phase happens very quickly after another. Following
Gerard, however, it appears to be more fruitful to regard the entire night as liminal, each new
rotation contributing to the experience:
Furthermore, over the course of a DJ's set, and after each cycle is successfully repeated (particularly in cases when peaks occur), participants might undergo an accelerated transcendence where the combination of music, dance, and, sometimes, drugs, results in a heightened awareness of what informants often refer to as 'the vibe' – that elusive and ineffable quality of underground dance music events which defines a 'totally sick night out' (Gerard, 2004, p.114).
