Journal Article – Electronic
McCall, T (2003), ‘Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World' Part I Social and Cultural Dimensions 3. Social Phenomena: Rave Culture, Vol 1. p333-335, 'Quest/EBSCOhost Discovery Service' Available at : http://ehis.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=32a349df-cca5-472c-9905-a3a1f7492485%40sessionmgr113&vid=1&hid=101 (Accessed: 29/03/2011)
This article provided a brief starting insight to the Rave Subculture, which began in the early 1980's.
- A rave is an all night party.
- They most common places for a rave to be held are in warehouses or outside on fields.
- The rave culture derives itself from the 'Acid House' scene in London, 1988. Acid house producers experimented with spontaneous outdoor events (later known as raves) which were advertised on pirate radio stations, handouts/leaflets and by word of mouth.
- Ravers are associated with taking an abusive amount of drugs, mainly LSD Ecstasy and Marijuana. However, some choose not to take the drugs.
- They can be small indoor gatherings, or larger outdoor 'happenings'.
- A DJ (Disk Jockey) mixes techno music, and there can be as many as 20 DJs playing through the night.
- Raves tend to be a weekend event, as this enables the ravers to go about their normal lives during the week (jobs, university etc) and let loose and party at the weekends.
- Some raves appear spiritual (I will research further into this for clarification)
- Raves often utilise strobe lighting, lasers, bouncy castle and smoke machines to heighten the experience.
- P.L.U.R is an unofficial rave credos, it stand for; Peace, Love, Unity and Respect.
- The 1980's-1990's rave dress code is wearing baggy clothes, lollipops, teddybears, baseball caps, visors, beaded necklaces & bracelets, body sparkles, safety chains, baby articles and paraphernalia (cartoon characters such as Winnie the Pooh)
- Some ravers stitched more 'panels' onto their trousers to allow for more freedom and movement.
- Unlike other subcultures which aren't well known, then become mainstream than finally die out, the rave subculture keeps coming and going, depending on the publics taste at the time.
- Most raves are illegal.
Posted by Gary.
