Saving the Rave From Extinction

Posted on Nov 8, 2011

Paulina Spencer (CC-BY-ND)

As cultural epochs go, the rave scene didn’t last very long, and because mix tapes and foam parties don’t translate well to radio replay, a small but important slice of America’s musical history has vanished. Enter concerned ex-ravers who are working to restore those thumpy beats and archive them online.

Let’s face it, the Library of Congress doesn’t know Acid Boy from Avril Lavigne, and so it falls to a couple of grown-up ravers to donate their time and money to the project.

The Rave Archive collects zines and music, and it welcomes submissions from other would-be archivists.

Of course electronic music hasn’t gone anywhere, but there’s a huge difference between a giant expensive festival and an illegal warehouse party.  —PZS

BBC:

The rave scene was a flash in the pan of American youth culture.

As the music emerged largely from small independent labels and distributed on vinyl and cassette tapes, the industry has not undertaken a broad effort to preserve what it produced.

From roughly 1991 to 2000, untold young people across the country packed into nightclubs, warehouses, catering halls - anywhere that could hold a sound system and a few hundred sweaty teenagers - and danced through the night.

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