THE STATES OF EXIT

OUR LITTLE LIBRARY HAS BEEN MAINTENANCED

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First of all ZONE of the FREE (ZotF) had it's 4th birthday somewhere this year.. so Happy Belated Birthday and whatnot. Although our activity has decreased we are still alive and kicking. Despite our 725 posts run in 2010 our goal was never to create a blog with regular updates. ZotF was created as a goto source to find information about the history of free tekno. Since that information was scattered all over this internet or disappearing even we took action and found yours truly for everyone to discover and explore.

Today I noticed that a lot of posts people run into posts that contain dead links to our uploads since our fileserver died ages ago. Since our blog is now autonomous I felt the need to make sure all information we ever published is accessible. That includes uploads. So as of today our little library it back online for the time being.. hopefully. All literature under the tags BOOK and EBOOK should be accessible and free to download.

TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ZONE - a book embraced by the rave culture since it perfectly outlines the free party scene. Also available in Dutch and French.

TECHNOMAD: GLOBAL RAVING COUNTERCULTURES - not available for download but worth every cent buying. A cultural history of global electronic dance music countercultures.

FreeNRG: Notes From the Edge of the Dance Floor - a collection of 13 essays written by specialists and affiliates of a spectrum of youth phenomena found at the edge of the dance floor. Especially worth reading if you are interested in the DiY culture.

NO SYSTEM - Vinca Petersen tells you her story as a nomad or (free tekno) traveler with stunning pictures. Again worth buying, no download available.

THE NUMBER 23 FOR DUMMIES - this post contains the everything you need to know about the number 23 since it is so often used in the free tekno scene.

NO LOGO - no space.. no choice.. no jobs, Naomi Klein tells you why.

DAYS OF WAR - NIGHTS OF LOVE - a collection of essays by the CrimethInc. collective. Fighting for personal freedom and against mass-consumerism and capitalism.

EXPECT RESISTANCE - a field manual for a field on which all manuals are useless, a meditation on individual transformation and collective resistance in disastrous times, and a masterpiece that raises the bar for radical publishing
 

L'HOMME RÉVOLTÉ - a book, also known as The Rebel, that documents the development of rebellion and revolution in Western-Europe throughout history.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM - a brilliant book that deals with the study of how man knows himself and the world, and with the issue of human freedom.

ART AND SCIENCE OF DUMPSTER DIVING - the techniques and tactics to dumpster diving. my local supermarket provides me with plenty of free food. with a little effort you can save a good amount of money or even provide your friends a free meal.
 
FREE CULTURE - our freedom to create.. build.. or imagine is at stake and here is why.

WEAK BECOME HEROES - a brilliant inquiry into the visual culture of altered consciousness.

City of Darkness: Life In Kowloon Walled City - interesting read on the self-sustaining city Kowloon, a lawless diplomatic no-man's land rejected by it's government.

A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION TO ANARCHISM - read the title

WRITINGS OF EMMA GOLDMAN - an amazing woman that helped shape political anarchism here in Europe and an important contributor to modern political philosophy.

NO HOPE - a conversation between authors on human origins, anarchy, and the collapse of industrial civilization.

That'll keep you busy. More books to be found under the tags mentioned above. I will update this post if I run into books in untagged posts.

Enjoy your summer!

COUNTER-ECONOMICS AND THE COUNTERCULTURE

Few weeks ago I discovered a blog called Propaganda Lalaland when I stumbled upon the article "Anarchists Want To Force You Into Anarchism!". Satisfied by a good short read I bookmarked it in my unsorted, personal nightmare, list of pages I should keep track off. Should.. I gave up on RSS because it feeds me with too much information I want to read, yet can't due to lack of time or just can't make up my mind and end up doodling something random on basically anything. Rediscovered my love for just drawing whatever whenever, so I bought myself a shitload of pencils, erasers and sharpies. Staring at my collection while writing this I noticed that alot of sharpies are missing. Note to self, stop ruining them on walls and other hard/rough materials. My list of casualties peaked this month and I am basically throwing money away :D Anyway.. in other news, the writer of  Propaganda Lalaland posted a new article this weekend and here I am telling you about it. Going for at least one person to sit trough my rant and actually click the URL below! Don't let me down.

My sunday, drove home when I was sober-ish.. spent hours starting several projects in Illustrator (of wish some I might finish this week, that would be great actually with our trip to the east of Česká republika coming up in 3 weeks. Kicking off the teknival season/summer! Taking our own sound with us, collaborating with our friends and fellow astronauts from Kierewiet creating a bigger and better experience for those who are coming. Hopefully Gagamous Kierewiet finally finds his way back home, since he is missing in action since mid February 2013 after hosting a night in Ostrava. So whoever took him, here is your chance to regain your dignity and make that trip to Klokočov. Man up (this includes women) and reunite Gagamous with his family.

M.I.A. since 02/2013 - last seen in Ostrava, CZ

Those who are just clicking trough and go straight for the link.
Click here "Counter-Economics and the Counterculture".
Everything above is barely related anyway..
so don't bother and start reading that article :D

Follow Propaganda Lalaland here.
Find out more about agorism at.. agorism.info.
.INFO shout out, because information is awesome :D
Also providing information is zoneofthefree.info.

CHASSEURS DE SKINS

 Antifa - "Skinhead hunters"

Documentary about the rise of neo-nazi skinhead culture in 1980s Paris and how they were countered by a militant, multicultural underground movement. Contains interviews with participants recounting the subcultures and the street fights which made up their lives at the time. (description grabbed from a vimeo upload by Libcom.org)

English subtitles are hard-coded 

Fighting fascism by any means necessary!

HISTORY OF SQUATTING IN THE UK

From Aaron's reports (@aaronlakoff)

Jim is a resident of London, England, and a long-time organizer with the Advisory Service for Squatters, A.S.S. Here he speaks about the history of squatting in the UK, going as far back as the 1300's. This interview looks at squatting's relationship to the anarchist movement in the UK, the changing legal framework around squatting, and squatting within a framework of other social movements in the country.

The Advisory Service For Squatters is a collective of unpaid workers who have beenrunning a daily advice service for squatters and homeless people since 1975. It grewout of the former Family Squatters Advisory Service, which was founded in the late 1960's. ASS publishes The squatters Handbook, the twelfth edition of which is the current one, and has sold in excess of 150,000 copies since 1976. ASS offers advice on how to squat, legal help to squatters and helps fight evictions and challenge police abuse of the homeless.


READ THE INTERVIEW HERE
or just listen to the interview via radio4all.net

Images via the UK Squating Archive

ANARCHISM IN AMERICA - DOCUMENTARY

Anarchism in America is a 1983 documentary, directed by Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher, and produced by Pacific Street Films. It has been re-released by AK Press to DVD. The film begins by explaining the filmmakers' interest in anarchism based on their involvement in the group Transcendental Students while in film school at NYU. The film includes interviews with influential anarchists Murray Bookchin, Paul Avrich, Jello Biafra, Mollie Steimer and Karl Hess, and with poet Kenneth Rexroth. It also discusses the Spanish Civil War, the 1917 Revolution, the influence of Emma Goldman and the case of executed anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti.

The film labels anarchism as the only ideology that is staunchly anti-authoritarian, and discusses how anarchist ideals align with the revolutionary, independent spirit of America from rural communities to urban zones.

A MESSAGE FROM YOUR GOVERNMENT

THE PIRATE’S DILEMMA

How do you start a movement with a marker pen? What's the connection between the nun who invented disco, and file sharing? How did a male model messing with disco records in New York in the 1970s influence the way Boeing design airplanes? Does hip-hop really hold the secret to world peace? How did three eleven-year-olds revolutionize the video game industry by turning Nazis into Smurfs? And what's going to happen to Nike when it's possible for kids to download sneakers?

The Pirate’s Dilemma tells the story of how youth culture drives innovation and is changing the way the world works. It offers understanding and insight for a time when piracy is just another business model, the remix is our most powerful marketing tool and anyone with a computer is capable of reaching more people than a multi-national corporation.

Ideas that started within punk, disco, hip-hop, rave, graffiti and gaming have been combined with new technologies and taken to new heights by the generations that grew up under their influence. With a cast of characters that includes such icons as The Ramones, Andy Warhol, Madonna, Russell Simmons, Pharrell and 50 Cent, The Pirate’s Dilemma uncovers, for the first time, the trends that transformed underground scenes into burgeoning global industries and movements, ultimately changing life as we know it, unraveling some of our most basic assumptions about business, society and our collective future.

As a result people, companies and organizations are now struggling with a new dilemma in increasing numbers. As piracy continues to change the way we all use information, how should we respond? Do we fight pirates, or do we learn from them? Should piracy be treated as a problem, or a solution? To compete or not to compete – that is the question – that is the Pirate’s Dilemma, perhaps one of the most important economic and cultural conundrums of the 21st Century.

The book is out in hardcover in the U.S. through Free Press, and in the U.K. through Penguin. The U.S. paperback came out spring 2009. - thepiratesdilemma.com

GRAB IT HERE
NEW LINK 01/07/2013

BOMB : A MANIFESTO OF ART TERRORISM

BOMB is part personal reflection, part social critique. A pointed and opinionated observation about graffiti culture, media terrorism, art "education", corporate control, and the ills of the current art world.

by Raymond Salvatore Harmon

MANIFESTO (excerpt from BOMB)

• Art is an evolutionary act. The shape of art and its role in society is constantly changing. At no point is art static. There are no rules.

• The power of art lies not in its interpretation but in the form of its experience. To perceive art, to become aware of art, is to know art.

• Art terrorism is an act of cultural insurgency designed to bring attention to the ‘third world’ status of art in contemporary society.

• The objectification of art is dead. Art is experience, not ownership.

• Art is a language by which mankind expresses itself, a universal language that is not dictated by critics, journalists or academics.

• The art terrorist seeks the secession of art from the financial/academic infrastructure of the supposed ‘art world.’

• Art terrorism is intrinsically related to contemporary media and its manipulation.

• Supposed art educational institutions are merely focused on financial gain and should be condemned and destroyed.

GRAB IT HERE

SPANNERED

‘Spannered’ by Bert Random is an illustrated novel about free-parties, friendship, and dancing. A thousand-mile-an-hour stomp through the dark and grimy corners of 90′s underground rave culture, it's a fierce reminder for those who were there and a vivid taster for those who weren't.

With Bert and his twisted crew of mates we experience the peaks and the troughs of a very long weekend, kissing the sky while stomping our feet to mind-blowing techno and scrabbling in the dirt looking for what is left of our minds as unreality starts to bite. This is a punters-eye-view of the most fun that drugs, dancefloors, and full-on music can offer.

As well as a disorientating story, ‘Spannered’ also contains twelve amazing illustrations from Bristol and London street and fine artists, including Silent Hobo and Rose Sanderson. You can buy ‘Spannered’ directly from Spannered Books 

Chapter preview - Buy it here

AUGUST 2011 REVOLT : ANARCHY IN THE UK

‘August 2011 Revolt: Anarchy in the UK’ contains a rough chronology of events during the rebellion, and action communiques during the period from anarchist groups aiming to deepen and extend the conflict, as well as a couple of essays written after the main events analysing the nature of the revolt and prospects for the future.

CONTENTS:

No Future, Just Vengeance…………………………..1
An Incomplete Chronology of Events……………..14
Report of Demo at Brixton Prison, 21 August……41
Letter from fugitive anarchist Badger……………..45
The Struggle Against the Existent Continues…….49
DON’T PANIC::DON’T TALK anarchist poster……..62

PDF download (in Black & White)

Thousands have been locked up since the insurrection, police chase many others, and the state seemingly have social consensus from the mass of citizens for a more fascist Britain, but the fresh blast of freedom has filled our lungs and state terror won’t stop us.

ACAB

- Dark Matter Publications

FRAKTURA - ISSUE #1

First issue of the zine Fraktura (Spanish) by Eskombros Klan & TeknoCokos soundsystem in collaboration with C.O.K.O. La Kondenada. The zine has several themes such as the (local) free tekno movement, cyberpunk, Mutoid Waste Company, Reclaim the Streets and much more.

- via Tekno con K

GRAB IT HERE

 (The PDF file is too big for Google Transelate, so you will have to copy and paste. That'll keep you busy for a while :D) 

UNDERGROUND CULTURE

"The mainstream comes to you, but you have to go to the underground."

- Frank Zappa

Underground culture, or just underground, is a term to describe various alternative cultures which either consider themselves different to the mainstream of society and culture, or are considered so by others. The word underground is used because there is a history of resistance movements under harsh regimes where the term underground was employed to refer to the necessary secrecy of the resisters.

For example, the Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes by which African slaves in the 19th century United States attempted to escape to freedom.

The unmodified term "The underground" was a common name for World War II resistance movements. It was later applied to counter-cultural movement(s) many of which sprang up during the 1960s.

These 1960s and 1970s underground cultural movements had some connections to the "beat generation" which had, in turn, been inspired by the philosophers, artists and poets of the Paris Existentialist movement which gathered around Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus in the years after World War II.

It took a few years more, however, for the culture Kerouac describes to grow in numbers and redefine itself variously as the underground culture or the freak scene etc.

Since then, the term has come to designate various subcultures such as mod culture, hippie culture, punk rock culture, techno music/rave culture and underground hip hop.

Applied to the arts, the term underground typically means artists that are not corporately sponsored and generally do not want to be. However, with the advent of the world wide web (or internet), many experts argue that there is no underground since so much art and so many political ideas, especially music, is far easier to locate and because so it provides artists and activists a means to promote their work and ideas without large, established corporate interests. Even the concept of obscurity is questionable given 21st century access to information about past or current artistic trends.

The Ben Folds Five song "Underground" pays homage to alternative culture. (Source)

WEAK BECOME HEROES

A discussion of the changes that have occurred between the writing of 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' by Hunter S Thompson, and the film by Terry Gilliam. In 30 years, has the spirit of dissent been crushed? A look at youth culture, drugs culture and activism and the contradictions in contemporary society which has assimilated the underground into the mainstream.

GRAB IT HERE
NEW LINK 01/07/2013

THINK.

I was born as a thinker. I’ve spent much of my life thinking about things. Thinking about myself, thinking about others, even thinking about thinking. This is not to say I always think the right things, or that what I think about is always of any use to anyone. My brain isn’t the best brain, and I don’t have a great deal of conventional education.

Nonetheless, I sit and I think. Since an early age, my thoughts led me to believe that there was something funny about the world in which I was living. I started out as a child, interacting with my family, learning from their behavior, thinking about the things they do, the things they say. Garnering from it my basic beliefs about love, kinship, respect, and the value of life.

As my world grew beyond the borders of my immediate family, I began to learn about selfishness, greed, hate. I recognized these things as alien to what I believed “humanity” represented. I had theorized that the only reason human beings had grown beyond the animal world was because of our capacity for great things - Community, peace, love, tolerance. I still firmly believe that these are the foundations for a solid community, and a happy, prosperous life within that group.

When you are born, you are helpless. Unable to perceive the world around you, unable to rectify the situation you’re in. You have fear, but it is mitigated by the fact that you have a loving family to nurture and protect you. Fear and Love. These are the basic emotions we are born with. To simplify it further, even though you don’t understand the feelings you have, the only thing you have the capacity to be afraid of is NOT being loved. You do not KNOW this, but your biology has hardwired you this way. Had you not been loved and cared for, you would have died. When you cry, you are calling out to the ones who love you. What I’m saying is that we are designed to love each other. Without this basic, primal desire for love, we would not have humanity. We would not have a culture at all.

From love comes empathy - The ability to see and feel the emotions of other human beings around you. From empathy sprouts understanding and tolerance. From these, a community can foster peace and tranquility. This, in my humble opinion, is how humanity has achieved great things. How we, as a whole, have risen up to be the stewards of our world. Not mere beasts roaming the plains, but the overseers who work the fields, care for God’s creatures, and nurture all life on this small planet. It is the peace that allowed us to take time to think. With our thoughts, we discover new ways to improve our lives and the lives of those we share our space with.

A child does not know hatred. When you were born, you did not hate. You did not discriminate based on skin colour, class, religion, or culture. You weren’t selfish, as you were not even self-aware. These are unnatural feelings, things you did not consider. That is, until you were taught by someone how to hate. We are born with the capacity for great things, and unfortunately that capacity includes the potential for these negative emotions. They are counter-intuitive to the things that make us great. Selfishness breeds ego. Ego gives us the capacity for materialism and hatred. Materialism because our ego desires the false admiration of others. Hatred comes from the fear that someone else has threatened our ego. These are things you did not know as a child.

I’ve spent my life being confused and conflicted. With all these things planted firmly in my mind - Things I believe to be obvious Truths - I watch the world around me in total chaos. Chaos that seems to be accelerating. This is not to say I live as a Saint, but as I said before, I spend a lot of time thinking. Most of these thoughts are dedicated to how I can raise up the ones I love. To making their lives better, thereby improving my own life with theirs. With that statement, I would also like to clarify that I’m not trying to be selfish, but simply that being part of and nurturing a peaceful, loving community will give you a more peaceful and loving life. This is inevitable.

This, unfortunately, also works with the negative, learned emotions and actions. Even more unfortunately, it seems as though there is a trend in our world pushing us towards these negative, unnatural ways. It seems popular to have the nicest car, the most sexual partners, the biggest house. These things do not provide love or peace. The desire to achieve these things displaces the natural, pushes away love and fosters selfishness. For if you are to HAVE, others must NOT. This creates an imbalance, causes others suffering, creates social classes, distrust, hatred.

There is a great inequality that pervades our society. Instead of caring for one another, we are taught one-upmanship and greed. This allows for us to be taken advantage of. As we grow and are taught, indoctrinated to believe in inequality, in distrust, in competition rather than cooperation, we cry out for someone to care for us. We beg, like children, for someone to give us stability. Those who teach us greed and hatred are the ones who come forward, offering us a solution. “Be with us,” they say. “We will take care of you.” In exchange, we give our labor, loyalty, and servitude. Yet, I know I still feel as though I’m not safe. I’m not living a life of peace by being a member of this invented culture of hate.

Now, after several generations, the “protections” provided to us and the exchange of servitude are enacted upon us when we are born, by default. Do we not get a choice? Could we not solve our problems by being loving and peaceful?

I think we can and will. What do you think?
Extracted from Hack This Zine issue #9.

NAROPA UNIVERSITY POETICS AUDIO ARCHIVE

The Naropa University Archive Project is preserving and providing access to over 5000 hours of recordings made at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. The library was developed under the auspices of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics (the university's Department of Writing and Poetics) founded in 1974 by poets Anne Waldman and Allen Ginsberg. It contains readings, lectures, performances, seminars, panels and workshops conducted at Naropa by many of the leading figures of the U.S.literary avant-garde.

The collection represents several generations of artists who have contributed to aesthetic and cultural change in the postmodern era. The Naropa University Archive Project seeks to enhance appreciation and understanding of post-World War II American literature and its role in social change, cultural criticism, and the literary arts through widespread dissemination of the actual voices of the poets and writers of this period. Current interest in Oriental religions, environmentalism, political activism, ethnic studies, and women's consciousness is directly indebted to the work of these New American Poets, writers and musicians.

Funding for this project was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Save America's Treasures, the GRAMMY Foundation, the Internet Archive, the Collaborative Digitization Program, and private donors. If this collection is important to you please help us preserve it with your donations.

From left, Burroughs, Lucien Carr and Allen Ginsberg in New York in 1953. 

- William S. Burroughs collection of classes, lectures and other readings

- Allen Ginsberg collection (lifelong-friend from William S. Burroughs)

or visit the complete Naropa Archive

EXPECT RESISTANCE

Expect Resistance is not one but three books, each of which may be read as a complete work unto itself. The first book, printed in standard black ink, continues the inquiry into modern life and its discontents begun in Days of War, Nights of Love. Just as that book included improved versions of texts originally published between 1996 and 1999, this book draws on CrimethInc. material from 2000 to 2004, painstakingly refined and augmented with a great deal of new content. The second book, in red ink, is a composite account, related by three narrators, of the adventures and tribulations that inevitably ensue when people pursuing their dreams enter into conflict with the world as it is.

Together these comprise a third book, an exploration of the complex relationship between ideals and reality. Expect Resistance is a field manual for a field on which all manuals are useless, a meditation on individual transformation and collective resistance in disastrous times, and a masterpiece that raises the bar for radical publishing.

CWC Books: Expect Resistance
(buy it here or grab it below for free, then buy it)

GRAB IT HERE

NEW LINK 01/07/2013

AKASHIC RECORD OF THE ASTRAL CONVENTION

In 1987 Hakim Bey invited several friends and allies to astrally project to Antarctica for a convention. Afterwords, visitors sent their accounts to Bey and he compiled them into this zine. The Akashic Record of the Astral Convention. This collection was originally sent only to the contributors and has never before been reprinted. It features lost works by: Coil, Hakim Bey, Shirley MacLaine, James Koehnline, Ivan Stang, Feral Faun (aka Apio), Reverand Crowbar (aka Susan Poe) and Trevor Blake.

INTRODUCTION (excerpt from the zine)

This is the record of the AAAZ, the Antarctic Astral Autonomous Zone, that occurred on the night of August 31st - September 1st, 1987.

Hakim Bey is the author of Temporary Autonomous Zone. It's a cultural milestone for a wide variety of subversives from anarchists, occultists, vandal artists, and freaky festival people. The main idea of TAZ was to create exactly what it sounds like TAZ is about: creating places that serve as alternative realities to the prevailing system of control. Specific times and spaces designated to let chaos free, and allow psychological and social mechanisms to self regulate and mutate beyond the confines of so-called consensus reality.

The focus is on having individuals find and establish meaning on their own terms. Creating a TAZ requires face to face interaction and dialog, in a sense, creating an art form which is impossible to ever fully record or understand. In the void where stagnancy and boredom once ruled, wild fantasies called real life take root. The elusive genuine article, with no possible televised reenactments.

Before TAZ's thought virus would reach the anti-capitalists and the rave scene as it did in the 90's, many of the people who recognized the value of Bey's work were few and far apart. Mail order culture was the primary mode of communication with the underground for many people in the 80's. The postal world seen within the pages of High Weirdness by Mail by Ivan Stang has now mostly migrated to cyberspace, where many of these fringe cultures have exploded into bonafide phenomenas. In the meantime, the mutants who were plugged into the paper trail of fresh ideas were yearning for an opportunity to encounter a TAZ. This meant finding a 'Zone' which was totally unexpected.

It was decided to meet astrally or in dreams, at a specific sacred space in Antarctica. Bey sent invites out to his network, and arranged for everyone who participated to send him their experiences, which he would then compile and send back out. What you end up with is an compilation of rare works by an all-star cast of individuals who comprised the occulture before there was a word for it. In this instance, the media created here facilitated a syncing up of communal experiences, and was an essential component of the AAAZ, yet not the AAAZ in itself.

The objective reality of astral projection is inconsequential to the AAAZ. What is of importance is the narrative, lives encouraged to be lived mythically, drawing those lives together in the process. Then again, for those who do entertain astral experiences as accepted facets of reality, the AAAZ was most likely one of the earliest documented records of shared lucid dreams and consciousness. It is historically important for occultists, and personally fulfilling for those who got to participate in it.

READ IT HERE 

THE UNDERGROUND NEVER STOPS

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.

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Peoples' lives are based around different things, ours are based around music.

.

.

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.
.
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We are not rebelling against so much as living outside the system.

We do want freedom from static society.

But as guerrilla movement we do so by flying under the radar, at night, covered by darkness.

This approach doesn’t mean that we are silent.

.

Free music to anyone who wants it is what we give and we need nothing back but the space to roam.

Tribal beats have surrounded our planet since the beginning of time.

Technology is our addition to this continual rhythm.

.

We exist now and in the future.

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TECHNOMAD: GLOBAL RAVING COUNTERCULTURES

by Graham St John (Equinox, 2009)

Fresh out of my mailbox: OUT NOW! 
for me personally the most anticipated book in ages.
ordering my hardback print tonight!
grab a copy here: http://www.equinoxpub.com/books/showbook.asp?bkid=392

coverdesign by ThePorg 

"Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures is the most wide-ranging and detailed of all the books on rave. More than the study of a musical movement or genre, Technomad offers an alternate history of cultural politics since the 1960s, from hippies and Acid Tests through the sound systems and 'vibe-tribes' of the 1990s and beyond. Like Greil Marcus's Lipstick Traces, Technomad makes unexpected but entirely convincing connections between people, movements and events. Like Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, St John's book introduces us to unknown heroes, committed geniuses and genuine revolutionaries. Beautifully written, with a genuinely international perspective on electronic dance music culture, Technomad is one of the best books on music I've read in some time."
Professor Will Straw, Department of Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University

Book description:

A cultural history of global electronic dance music countercultures, Technomad explores the pleasurable and activist trajectories of post-rave culture. The book documents an emerging network of techno-tribes, exploring their pleasure principles and cultural politics. Attending to sound system culture, electro-humanitarianism, secret sonic societies, teknivals and other gatherings, intentional parties, revitalisation movements and counter-colonial interventions, Technomad investigates how the dance party has been harnessed for transgressive and progressive ends - for manifold freedoms. Seeking freedom from moral prohibitions and standards, pleasure in rebellion, refuge from sexual and gender prejudice, exile from oppression, rupturing aesthetic boundaries, re-enchanting the world, reclaiming space, fighting for "the right to party," and responding to a host of critical concerns, electronic dance music cultures are multivalent sites of resistance.
Drawing on extensive ethnographic, netographic and documentary research, Technomad details the post-rave trajectory through various local sites and global scenes, with each chapter attending to unique developments in the techno counterculture: e.g. Spiral Tribe, teknivals, psytrance, Burning Man, Reclaim the Streets, Earthdream. The book offers an original, nuanced theory of resistance to assist understanding of these developments. This cultural history of hitherto uncharted territory will be of interest to students of cultural, performance, music, media, and new social movement studies, along with enthusiasts of dance culture and popular politics.

Contents

1. Introduction: The Rave-olution?

2. Sound System Exodus: Tekno-Anarchy in the UK and Beyond

3. Secret Sonic Societies and Other Renegades of Sound

4. New Tribal Gathering: Vibe-Tribes and Mega-Raves

5. The Technoccult, Psytrance and the Millennium

6. Rebel Sounds and Dance Activism: Rave and the Carnival of Protest

7. Outback Vibes: Dancing Up Country

8. Hardcore, You Know the Score


Available in paperback and hardback from Equinox:
http://www.equinoxpub.com/books/showbook.asp?bkid=392