I was thinking about the local scene here in South Florida approximately 10 or more years ago.
Here it goes, sounding like an old man. Wait, that would be accurate…
Anyways. I remember going to jungle events in the mid 90s and kids seemed to be there truly for the music.
You had your jungle kids dancing and the glowstick and pacifier kids doing their own thing in separate rooms; thankfully.
It seemed like all of a sudden the crowd changed. Instead of it being very underground there was this infiltration of trance heads who brought their toys and drugs and just flailed around to jungle/drum 'n bass.
I wanted to gouge my eyes out everytime I noticed someone doing the liquid to tech-step or gabber.
LEAVE!!! You are in the wrong area. Is anyone actually here to enjoy the music anymore like myself???
I don’t see what’s wrong … If gabber people came to see DnB, well they’re opening thier mind that’s good.
And yes, in the 90s this was an underground music, knew by few people, but the style was so good that many people came to know it and DnB became popular…
But does a style need to be less known to be good ?
I personnaly look like a rock/metal guy, but I listen to many styles of music. It’s funny to see everyone looking at me when i’m in a hiphop concert or in hardcore party. Maybe they think like you that I’m in the wrong place but I feel as comfortable as in a death metal mosh pit.
And about the drug thing, I think these days its the same for a lot a electronic music.
No, I don’t think a style needs to be less known to be good. I listen to some very mainstream artists. Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson, Sarah Brightman, etc.
I was referring to the kids who would come over to dance and could have cared less about the music. They were there to take their drugs and that’s it.
They don’t know Roni Size from Aretha Franklin.
They were not there for the music, but the drugs. I mean to each his own really. I am just sharing my own personal experience and interpretation of the situation. That is all.
And I don’t look like the average electronic listener. I have full sleeved out tattoos.
Who cares how someone looks? People always ask me if I am a punk or a rock musician.
I know the drill…
And I was referring to seeing kids doing the liquid and sucking on those damn pacifiers when I was listening to some gabber or breakcore.
It just ruins the vibe for me. Take the baby shit elsewhere and go lurk at the next Britney Spears concert. Gabber and breakcore is dirty and hard. I would want to listen to it as a childs daycare, so I don’t want to see it when I am trying to maintain a certain mood and feel the music.
Would be like me having sex with some chick and watching some vasectomy video in the background.
Yes, I understand what you mean.
I think the thing is some drugs are “made” to be taken with music. Like MDMA, extasy or Ketamine. Maybe these drugs are more popular these days?
And so people came thinking “I’m gonna get high” instead of “I’m gonna dance on some good music”. The drug taking is the goal of the party, not the DJ.
Don’t know, it’s just a theory …
EDIT : I agree with sunjammer, people can enjoy music the way they want.
never experienced it first time around, but here in the UK drum & bass can attract crowds i don’t particularly want to be around. not always though, depends on the night and the acts playing to an extent i think.
but i think any rave can have that element, i mean the music scene and also sometimes the clubs and bouncers are partly intertwined with drug-use, so people turn up to take drugs and to sell them. when you have unsavoury characters who aren’t there for the music but exclusively to make money selling impure ecstacy tablets, it can create an unpleasant vibe, especially if you aren’t on pills so you can ignore it.
i don’t think its fair to say the people that go to pendulum gigs aren’t there for the music, and the decision to take drugs with it doesn’t necessary exclude being there for the music also. but with mainstream forms of trance and drum & bass i think the audience expects something which is fairly upfront, which to me usually correlates as fairly boring mindless music; i want music which has interesting aesthetics and nuances to it, rather than just straight 4x4 or 2-step energy.
I mean i want some energy to it too, but i want to kick ass in more ways, and i want to be able to enjoy it without needing to take drugs. for me early jungle does this because the beats are more interesting. I think genres like dubstep & breakcore and even psy-trance come out of that boredom with stagnant mainstream drum & bass and trance, and i prefer the crowds that go to these nights.
But its only personal preferance i think, i’m perfectly happy for Pendulum fans to have their Pendulum and eat it. The only real problem is that around here there are virtually no interesting nights and it’s difficult to get the chance to DJ interesting stuff, so I can either go to drum & bass nights I won’t enjoy or stay home. The best vibes and the best music is at the unlicensed raves we have had in the woods here, because you can get more variety of sounds. but even then it depends who is running the soundsystem(s) and the crowd that turns up…
reading the other posts, i think the problem im talking about which is maybe a slightly different topic is that drum & bass nights can have bad vibes, and the music is too one-dimensional; we very rarely even get ANY liquid or gabba around here. I prefer the raves where you get some of every style catered for, and its best when you have a whole bunch of people who are from different scenes and stuff all digging the good vibes and the party, regardless of if they are on different drugs, no drugs or if they want to dance or just sit down and chill.
i dont wanna come on like this incredibly anal thread on c8:
…because the BangFace days at Glade have been pretty great, but the actual BangFace nights in London, i have been put off going to, even though they have a fantastic lineup because the neo-rave-pastiche-fancy-dress thing seems forced upon and over the top. i would really like to have seen Xanopticon at the one they had a while back, but it just seems like abit much.
Well… Don’t go to mainstream events. Atleast in Tallinn there so many different events for different kind of people and different kind of music. There are dnb parties for UG music lovers and there are dnb parties for mainstream drugtakers.
Straying off the topic, or rather on the topic. I kinda hate playing at metal gigs from now and then. Specially when my band is performing last. People are always so drunk there in the end. Sometimes it feels like playing to zombie hordes: People who have trouble standing up wander around the stage and moan: Beeeeeeerr…
My question would be this: why do people feel that the only way to enjoy music is through drugs? Furthermore, what does that say about the music? If I can only listen to Dj Krunkhumper when I’m stoned on DMT laced pancakes… I’d venture a guess that chances are his music just sucks.
As for who attends events… I honestly don’t care if I’m standing beside an adult baby, a drunk viking(as long as they’re not being too rowdy), a transvestite pirate or a homeless republican (as long as he doesn’t stink to much) … I’m at an event for me, not for them. The only person that can ruin my vibe is me
well indeed. but in stoke-on-trent there are very few events where I can hear more underground d&b like current value or whatever, and even fewer where you’d hear any breakcore or gabba. occassionally we have raves, occasionally I DJ, but even though when I DJ I always get one or two people really love what I play, for the most part there is just a strong resistance from people who only want to hear house or cheesy d&b. In a nutshell, it sucks
i agree to an extent, in sofar as an audience with vikings, babies and pirates is probably a fairly upbeat one. but drum & bass gigs can have bad vibes, guys harrasing girls excessively and stuff like that. i think its a question of whether the event is open enough for everyone to do their own thing without other peoples attitudes being excessively imposed upon them.
my minor objection to bangface in that context, is that i feel fancy dress, balloons and neo-rave pastiche are being overtly imposed on everyone… and im fine it to an extent, but i think the whole thing shoves it down your throat a tiny bit too much after several years of it. its a fickle point though, its just why i wouldnt travel miles and miles to go there. if i lived in london id probably go and probably not care about the conceptial presentation of the event all that much. whatever…
i was going to acid raves a lot in 93-95 then in 95 i got really sick of it, and went travelling. i came back in 96 when drum n bass was beginning to dawn here, i didnt really stick around. it reached it’s potential in 2000.
in my eyes it’s best to just get a group of people together you trust, and start some lowkey covert shit.
electronic music is deeply rooted in drug usage, and miami is a city that was built on drugs and partying. if you bought a house in miami in the 1980’s, odds are it was financed by the cocaine industry in one way or another. so it comes @ no surprise. all that baby shit can f**** w/ the vibe, and i feel you. but man do i ever have some funny stories about etards at parties.
during the xtc explosion (late 90’s/early 2000’s), yeah, they’d spill over into dnb areas. but everyone was rolling or on acid. promoters, b-boys, anyone. or quite often, it wouldn’t be a dnb area at all, just diff’t djs w/ diff’t time slots in diffn’t rooms. drug usage was always heavy, but once dnb began increasing in popularity, things got violent. there is no denying that. dope dealers/break dance crews f****ed up ppl on the regular. it was just something you got used to. chicago was no diff’t, except there, there was more “turf wars” over selling pills, rather than ppl just getting ripped off.
things have definetly changed… i started going to raves pretty young, and back then it was about getting away from poser clubs, where people would judge you by what shoes you’re wearing and charge you £10 for a drink, and getting away from hiphop clubs, where people would stand around at venues looking moody and paranoid… but ironically now, you go to a club like fabric and it’s sort of the worst of both worlds again - really nothing resembling rave culture; it’s just hard house with breakbeats and reeces, which seems to scare most girls away
with the drugs thing… you’d go to raves in 93 and the whole place would be on pills, but you’d never see the gurning wrecks you get nowadays… i think 2000 was the year i stopped enjoying the scene altogether… the sound systems tended to be really nasal, the mixdowns were all brickwalled and oppressive - no energy - DJ’s all started sounding the exactly same, and you’d get people at clubs with much shittier attitudes… usually by midnight you’d have half the club triple dropped a few times and gurning, falling over themselves, and the other half looking moody and glaring
it’s a long way from what rave culture used to be… and a part of the problem is that mainstream popularity attracts a different audience into clubs… people who aren’t really there for the music… they just want to hear the tune that’s getting radio play this month a few times and get hammered… that’s why the rave scene folded so quickly when tunes started charting
Genfu - I totally feel where you’re coming from in that respect, nobody really wants to know about the musical ecclecticism of a night. It has to offer 2 for 1 on drinks, or have a big name DJ who might turn up, and costs so much it’s literally impossible to break even (we have 2 worthy clubs, each have less than 200 capacity, and one room).
We’re also getting a large influx of very young ‘wannabe MC’s’ and ‘Jump up’ DJs who unfortunately bring their attitude too. They’ll often turn up to a night in their chav gear, assuming it’s an open mic and do their ‘bidibidibapbapbrapbudabuda’ mumbo jumbo bollocks, continually ask for more volume on the mic, don’t shut up during the breakdowns or whenever other vocals are playing and are usually fighting amongst each other for the mic. Luckily everyone knows me well enough to know I’ll just unplug the mic if they’re pissing me off, as I truly loathe having it during my techy d&b sets anyway, they lose their timing the moment I play something like Panacea or DJ Hidden and think it’s ‘whack’ because it’s not infantile Jump-up. Unfortunately they bring the shitty crowd with them too, fights are inevitable, and many are underage and immediatley give a night a bad name.
This is the main reason I’ve been working with some good friends on getting a good night going with some mature DJs from around our area, and putting on more of a show than some kind of youth club jism. There has actually been some pretty good events, artists and clubs originating from Bedford, right back to the acid house days, but the general ‘sanitisation’ of our town centre has left venues and music like this frowned upon, even if there is an interest, the big clubs don’t want to know.
I could actually rant on for days about all this so I’m going to stop now!
I love a crowd on drugs. They spend more money, they dance, they have a good time no matter what happens, they dance, they don’t give you shit, they dance, they give you an occasional hug and they dance, no matter how ugly it gets!
The drugs love the crowd too.
Not to mention the music.
I wonder what jazz would sound like if there never was any ganja or coke.
that’s good.
