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This Is Not a Rave: In the Shadow of a Subculture

This Is Not a Rave: In the Shadow of a Subculture
By Tara McCall

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From the Lindy Hop to the Lambada, popular dance has worried the protectors of our public morality. New York City's notorious cabaret laws are enforced today – it's common to see "No Dancing Allowed" at your local saloon – and small bars without licenses have been harassed and shuttered for failing to keep their patrons wiggling in their seats. Rave culture is a worldwide phenomenon of unprecedented mass-appeal and, perhaps for that reason, an especial threat to the world's corporatized wallflowers. Whether because of its catalyst drug, MDMA/Ecstasy, its fashion of defiant adolescence, or its unofficial credo of Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect, rave has elicited an especially punitive response. Tara McCall traces rave's underground history in Detroit, Ibiza, and London, to the bacchanals that now attract tens of thousands of revelers. In a highly personal tour supplemented by 50 photographs and the voices of hundreds of young dancers who tell their own stories, McCall illuminates the wild fashion, drugs, hypnotic music, and most importantly, the hedonistic dance of a subculture now being driven back underground. This Is Not A Rave will challenge and entertain. It may get you up out of your seat.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #1184926 in Books
  • Published on: 2002-10-10
  • Original language: English
  • Dimensions: .1 pounds
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 240 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
McCall's introduction to the rave scene is replete with splashy graphics, pictures that throb with authenticity (i.e., they're blurry), and pithy boxed pull-quotes from stoned teens that just scream out to a similarly youthful audience. McCall doesn't just parse the whys and wherefores of raves. She describes their history and the phenomenon of ennui among veteran ravers, bored and more than a little dismissive of the current state of the, uh, art. Her own devotion to the subject may be inferred from the tenor of the pull-quotes striving to define vibe and rave, explain such phenomena as "the lure of Ecstasy," and describe "why and how dancing is important." One Captain Nutmeg's definition of rave stands out: "It's not what it used to [be] . . . it now just means bad, cheesy parties," which suggests that raves aren't very different from, say, discos and rock festivals. Informative for nascent ravers and their parents; and for armchair dilettantes, a graphic thrill ride into the pulsating light show of rave. Mike Tribby
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