original club culture vs stadium EDM

[overit]

Interesting article which I for one am absolutley in agreement with. It's not that i'm against EDM as it is now, just pointing out that it is as different to the roots of club culture as U2 are from a punk gig in the local pub.

from the guardian again. Bill Brewster no less.

"The latest mania for US electronic dance music takes its cue from stadium rock rather than the spontaneity of club culture:

Back in the mid-90s, an act from the record label I ran at the time was selected to appear on Top of the Pops. But when we went to meet the American duo at Heathrow, neither of them got off the plane: they had decided to stay at home. Eventually, we hired two actors to play the role of DJ and keyboard player. They looked the part and no one seemed to notice. I was reminded of this episode yesterday when reading that DJ Calvin Harris has threatened legal action against the BBC for quoting him in a Radio 1 Newsbeat programme in which he appears to endorse prerecorded DJ sets.

Like wrestling in the 1970s, there's always been an element of knowing subterfuge in dance music. Since much of the alchemy of the 12-inch mix is often down to one person and a bunch of machines, it does not always translate well to live performance. The real magic is when a skilled DJ and a box of records – or laptop or memory stick, as it increasingly is today – take those solitary studio moments and turn them into something communal and occasionally transcendental, with the assistance of a packed dancefloor.

But where there's brass there's muck and the latest mania for EDM (an acronym for electronic dance music) in the US has brought with it a whole new set of rules. EDM has effectively bypassed the club culture on which house and techno were founded and gone straight for the stadiums and festival jugular. Judging by the many clips on YouTube, its stars have taken their cues from rock stars rather than the clubbers who helped to create dance culture around the skill of DJs such as Frankie Knuckles. This new breed of star DJ is not content to be hidden away in a booth with a tiny slit, like Junior Vasquez was at New York's seminal Sound Factory. Instead they mosh and crowd surf (DJ Steve Aoki was hospitalised after an incident involving a trampoline last week: he's clearly no Nils Lofgren) from their elevated stage, while the crowd look on, shuffling and whooping. Worse still, some of them are alleged to perform to the kind of pre-mixed sets that have caused the Calvin Harris controversy.

Prerecording sets is a curious phenomenon, because it's the live interaction between DJ and dancefloor where the real fun occurs. Without the ability to change the mood, change the tempo, change the style, you're nothing more than a jukebox that needs a toilet break every so often. It's what makes DJing more elastic and versatile than, say, a rock band, whose members are tied to their audience by the songs they know and have rehearsed. Good DJs have the world of recorded music at their disposal. Half the pleasure of playing is to seamlessly go from an Underground Resistance tune into a Queen B-side before anyone realises what's happening. Prerecording misses the point entirely. Like the trend towards ghostwritten tracks (as documented in the latest issue of Mixmag), it's all part of the same culture that has grown up around, but not truly connected to, the roots of club culture.

Two seasons ago, I spent a night checking out all the big clubs in Ibiza and was struck by how surprisingly dull a lot of it is these days. Tiesto's performance at Privilege looked like 10,000 people waiting for the world's largest bus to arrive. Those supernatural nights where the DJ appears to be communicating personally with each member of the dancefloor were nowhere to be seen. What marks out these events is how little interaction there is between DJ and audience. The audience consumes rather than participates, foregoing any form of empathetic experience in favour of bland ingestion (and usually faithfully documented by the cancerous presence of a thousand camera phones held aloft). A great DJ can coax you into places you didn't know you wanted to go until you get there. It's what marks them out from a ninny with too many tattoos playing a CD.

[russell]

Bill on the money as usual.

Ibiza is a good example. It has had many great era's through it's history with those who were there saying it's not as good as it was, be it the 70's, 80's or 90's etc...

I first went in 2000. Space still had a terrace that was actually outdoors and no-one seemed to care who was playing at any given moment. The crowd weren't there to be seen with the exception of the extravagant transvestites who stuck out like a sore thumb yet were not out of place at all.

That's perhaps more about the crowd but that goes hand in hand with the evolution of the DJ as the spirit of what house is actually about fades a little.

There are still certainly places to experience the true essence of house with DJ's true to the form. It's just where it's always been really... the underground.

[Tomy]

yep. i've noticed a lot in clubs people just seem to stand about a little more than they used to. makes me sad.

[russell]

Just standing looking at the DJ..... yawn.

[GREMM1S]

Yep the music is very much just background noise for many clubs/clubbers.

You just have to find the music centered clubs/events these days.

They are still out there just rare.

[overit]

"The audience consumes rather than participates"

This sentence absolutely sums up my issue with clubbing as it has become.

In the UK there is another factor that has hugely affected our clubs. This is the smoking ban. It means people have to leave for a ciggie. It means no one gets away with smoking trees in the thick smoke. It means you never get that hardcore group on the dancefloor who don't move and just dance for hours.

These two factors are why I now only go out in town when I'm paid to play.

But I do go to outdoor festivals, house parties and DIY raves as often as possible. These are where the smoking ban is irrelevant and where I find like-minded people who attend, not as consumers but always as a participant. Never paying or getting paid but willing to do anything from dancing to djing to wiring the power to emptying the bins, just to do our bit to help the vibe.

So funnily enough, all the places that I learnt about this scene back in the 80s/90s are all the places I still go. Whereas all the places that have tried to cash in on the scene - I just leave alone.

the underground will live forever.

[GREMM1S]

Meh things change, these days you hang onto stuff for too long you get left behind.

The culture is changing, alot of the time not for the best but what do you do.

Keep drinking and keep dancing.

[russell]

In the UK there is another factor that has hugely affected our clubs. This is the smoking ban. It means people have to leave for a ciggie. It means no one gets away with smoking trees in the thick smoke.

I've said this many time myself. i don't even smoke but used to love lighting up a grass reefer in the club or even being offered a toke by a random. Said random would now be your party pal, you don't know his/her name but you'd always have the craic whenever you see each other in the club. i had friendships with people for a good few years and never knew their name. Didn't have to anyway. Names were irrelevant when your all there for a bit of hedonism.

In the Arches, Glasgow some people used to go to the corridor for a smoke. Cos the toilets were in the same corridor it became a meeting place and smack out spot for madwaeit punters who needed to chill out for 5. Many a good time was had their alone.

But your right, going outside for a smoke breaks up that flow.

[overit]

'kin LOL Russel, Morley Orbit and Back to Basics were both famous for their toilet corridors.

And yeah Gremmis, things change, the scene I love has changed massively too. I keep up with it. Changes in technology, chemicals, fashion, music, DJ styles, sound systems and police attitudes all affect the party.

But the one thing that stays the same is the basic reason why people are coming out to party: either they are there as an individual willing to be a part of a party, to give as much as they take, and to build and share the vibe. Or they are there to soak up an event, taking only the experience offered from stage. One is club culture and requires interaction between everybody. The other is a professionally rehearsed show which is the same wherever it takes place due to it's stage directions and timed lighting effects. One is a party, the other is a show.

I'm not hating on EDM stadium gigs or it's scene, I just know that I prefer a constantly evolving and changing party-scene led by participants. Not a commercial venture by corporations leading mob-mentality consumers. Fortunately, and as already mentioned, the scene I love is and always will be available, always will be evolving and always will be (mostly) free as it is produced by the party people for the party people. The EDM stadium scene will slow down as fashion changes and the corporations decide to invest in an alternative genre to suck the pennies out of the consumers.

[mattus123]

I really just think its due to EDM becoming very mainstream

even 10 yeas ago, you would not hear the amount of EDM on the radio as you do now

So instead of clubs attracting the people who are there purely for the music, u attract people who are just there.

I put my money on it being a cycle, and in 10 years or so there will be some new crazy genre that everyone will be losing their shit over, and EDM will go back to its roots. Things can only get so big before they implode

[crundyy]

if there isnt a gabber circle at the club then its shit.

[overit]

^ all clubs need a crundyy.

[Kodiak]

yep. i've noticed a lot in clubs people just seem to stand about a little more than they used to. makes me sad.

This applies to more then EDM though. Friday night I went to a local pub where a well known band who's been around here for a number of years was playing. The band was great but the atmosphere sucked. The people up the front where just standing there, drinking their drink looking at them. The band were into it but it reminded me of the Lollapalooza episode of the Simpsons where the crowd barely moved.