DANCECULT 2 (1) 2011

The new Dancecult issue has been out for a while but so have I. Been off the world for personal reasons, mainly trying to get off ketamine for good. One of the few addictive psychedelics around and I was a 'believer'. But I faced my problem, took care of it and my life is getting back on track. Whoop-dee-fuckin-do.. My last post was Nov 6, 2010 (ouch).. so I am once again very lucky to have my best friend covering my back, even here.

So anyway our beloved Graham St John (tag GMAN) notified me on Wed, Mar 23, 2011 7:02 AM that a new issue of Dancecult has spawned! Currently Mon, Jun 6 2011 11:10 AM and I am finally going through my mailbox to bring news late. 

So.. Dancecult, tell me more!

Dancecult: Focus and Scope (excerpt from About page @dj.dancecult.net)
Dancecult is a peer-reviewed, open-access e-journal for the study of electronic dance music culture (EDMC). A platform for interdisciplinary scholarship on the shifting terrain of EDMCs worldwide, the journal houses research exploring the sites, technologies, sounds and cultures of electronic music in historical and contemporary perspectives. Playing host to studies of emergent forms of electronic music production, performance, distribution, and reception, as a portal for cutting-edge research on the relation between bodies, technologies, and cyberspace, as a medium through which the cultural politics of dance is critically investigated, and as a venue for innovative multimedia projects, Dancecult is the forum for research on EDMCs.

From dancehall to raving, club cultures to sound systems, disco to techno, breakbeat to psytrance, hip hop to dubstep, IDM to noisecore, nortec to bloghouse, global EDMCs are a shifting spectrum of scenes, genres, and aesthetics. What is the role of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, religion and spirituality in these formations? How have technologies, mind alterants, and popular culture conditioned this proliferation, and how has electronic music filtered into cinema, literature and everyday life? How does existing critical theory enable understanding of EDMCs, and how might the latter challenge the assumptions of our inherited heuristics? What is the role of the DJ in diverse genres, scenes, subcultures, and/or neotribes? As the journal of the international EDMC research network, Dancecult welcomes submissions from scholars addressing these and related inquiries across all disciplines.

Dancecult is published twice a year.

Check out the amazing Dancecult: Electronic dance music cultures bibliography with an endless feed of 'must read' material. Books, articles, theses and more for you to discover.

For some reason I never posted the earlier issues, which I regret as a big GMAN fanboy. In deep shame.. behold the first and second issue of the Dancecult journal.


Vol 1, No 1 (2009)

Cover: DJ ShoCkRaVeR at Out of System free party, Italy, July 2008.
Photo: Alex Canazei.

Vol 1, No 2 (2010)
Cover: Symbiosis 2009. Photo: Pascal Querner.










 And last but not least.. Volume 2 Number 1

Classic copy/paste action pending.. pending.. copying.. pasting.. and that should do it. Enjoy!

DANCECULT | Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture
==================
Volume 2 * Number 1 * 2011
==================
http://dj.dancecult.net/


Dancecult returns with two themes: the dystopian and remix aesthetics of
Detroit and a special From the Floor section on the Love Parade.

CONTENTS - DANCECULT 2(1)

## Feature Articles ##

Disco's Revenge: House Music's Nomadic Memory
-- Hillegonda C. Rietveld

Hooked on an Affect: Detroit Techno and Dystopian Digital Culture
-- Richard Pope

Maintaining "Synk" in Detroit: Two Case Studies in the Remix Aesthetic
-- Carleton S. Gholz

Festival Fever and International DJs: The Changing Shape of DJ Culture in
Sydney's Commercial Electronic Dance Music Scene
-- Ed Montano

## From the Floor ##

Nomads in Sound vol. 1
-- Anna Gavanas

# Special Section on the Love Parade #

Where is Duisburg? An LP Postscript HTML
-- Sean Nye, Ronald Hitzler

Party, Love and Profit: The Rhythms of the Love Parade (Interview with
Wolfgang Sterneck)
-- Graham St John

Pathological Crowds: Affect and Danger in Responses to the Love Parade
Disaster at Duisburg
-- Luis-Manuel Garcia

## Reviews ##

Hip Hop Underground: The Integrity and Ethics of Racial Identification
(Anthony Kwame Harrison) PDF
-- Rebecca Bodenheimer

The Local Scenes and Global Culture of Psytrance (Graham St John)
-- Rupert Till

Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound (Tara Rodgers)
-- Anna Gavanas

Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures (Graham St John)
-- Philip Ronald Kirby

Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear (Steve Goodman)
-- tobias c. van Veen

Music World: Donk (Dir. Andy Capper)
-- Philip Ronald Kirby

Speaking in Code (Dir. Amy Grill)
-- tobias c. van Veen


Edition 2.1 is not only a new edition of Dancecult, but a redesigned look. Congratulations to all the volunteers in our new editorial and production team (along with our authors and reviewers) for getting this over the line. Special mention to tobias c. van Veen as our new Managing Editor who is to be congratulated for his dedication to managing this edition, overseeing the redesign of the PDF articles and the transition to our new server. Further accolades to Reviews Editor Karenza Moore; Art Director Cato Pulleyblank who designed our great new logo and transformed our look in Indesign; our Copyeditors Catherine Baker and Katrina Loughrey who poured over the Old Testament; Production Director Gary Powell and Production Assistants Ed Montano, Luis-Manuel Garcia and Botond Vitos; and not least OJS wrestler and Operations Assistant Neal Thomas. Extra thank you to Luis-Manuel Garcia for the German to English translation.

For the full list of our new team see:
http://dj.dancecult.net/index.php/journal/about/editorialTeam

Please note that we have a new Dancecult Style Guide (DSG) now available for download. Tobias and myself have worked hard on producing the new DSG. It is a major improvement on our former style guide (the Old Testament) which now includes coverage of our cross platform requirements. For those submitting material, you must download and read the DSG thoroughly before submitting any material.
http://www.dancecult.net/i/dancecult_styleguide.pdf

From the sweet spot,

Graham St John
Executive Editor

tobias c. van Veen
 Managing Editor

OFF ROAD SHOW: TECHNO, PROTEST & FERAL THEATRE

Continuum Journal of Media & Cultural Studies
Off Road Show: Techno, Protest and Feral Theatre by Graham St John
Online Publication Date: 01 March 2005
Volume 19, Issue 1 March 2005 , pages 5 - 20

In this article published in the Continuum Journal of Media & Cultural Studies (Volume 19, Issue 1 March 2005), Graham St John reveals the origins of the transnational techno-circus nomadology. Just like traditional circus spectaculars, the techno-circus would become a critical means of entertaining and communicating with populations across and outside of Europe. Yet, unlike the traditional circus, their spectacular conviviality and compassionate interventions would potentiate significant intercultural outcomes. Graham also describes the influences techno-circus forces had on eachoter and the literature that influences these forces.

GRAB IT HERE

If you are new to our blog you might find two other publications by Graham St John very interesting.

- FreeNRG: Notes from the Edge of the Dance
- Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures.

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

FreeNRG: Notes From the Edge of the Dance Floor

"FreeNRG is a collection of frontline communiques on technotribes, contemporary musical practices and events transpiring on the fringes of Australian dance culture throughout the nineties. The anthology's 13 essays are written by specialists and affiliates of a spectrum of youth phenomena found at the edge of the dance floor."


Edited by Graham St John (Common Ground, Altona 2001), the anthology examines DiY culture, a networked youth movement committed to voluntarism, ecological sustainability, social justice and human rights. FreeNRG people subscribe to an economy of mutual-aid and co-operation, are committed to the non-commodification of art and embrace freedoms of experience and expression. Artists and activists, their cultural output is a product of novel mixtures of pleasure and politics. Technicians and esotericists, they pirate technologies in the pursuit of re-enchantment and liberated space.
Contents

Foreword by Ken Gelder

Introduction: Techno Inferno 

I: Post Rave Australia 
Doof! Australian Post Rave Culture, Graham St John.
Propagating Abominable Knowledge: Tekno Zine Culture, Kathleen Williamson.

II: Sound Systems and Systems Sound
Sound Systems and Australian DiY Culture: Folk Music for the Dot Com Generation, Enda Murray. Doofstory: Sydney Park to the Desert, Peter Strong
Tuning Technology to Ecology: Labrats Sola Powered Sound System, Monkey Marc and Izzy Brown.
Techno Terra-ism: Feral Systems and Sound Futures, Graham St John.

III: Techno-Ascension
Mutoid Waste Recycledelia and Earthdream, Robin Cooke. 
Psychic Sonics: Tribadelic Dance Trance-formation, Eugene ENRG (DJ Krusty) interviews Ray Castle.
Chaos Engines: Doofs, Psychedelics and Religious Experience, Des Tramacchi.
Directions to the Game: Barrelfull of Monkeys, Rak Razam.

IV: Reclaiming Space
Practice Random Acts: Reclaiming the Streets of Australia, Susan Luckman.
Carnival at Crown Casino: S11as Party and Protest, Kurt Iveson and Sean Scalmer.
Appropriating the Means of Production: Dance Music Industries and Contested Digital Space, Chris Gibson.
FreeNRG: Notes From the Edge of the Dance Floor (eBook hosted by Undergrowth)
- or order it at CGPublisher.


Another project by Graham 'GMAN' St John is Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures in which he will publish a detailed exposition of the pleasurable and activist trajectories of post-rave. A publication I am looking forward to, because it will basically describe my way of creating a temporary autonomous zone and it's history. Eager to buy this print.  




"The book documents an emerging network of techno-tribes, investigating their pleasure principles and cultural politics. Attending to sound system culture, electro-humanitarianism, secret sonic societies, teknivals and other gatherings of the techno-tribes, intentional parties, revitalisation movements and counter-colonial interventions, Technomad explores 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, netogaphic and documentary research, Technomad charts the post-rave trajectory through various local sites and global scenes, with each chapter attending to important developments in the techno counterculture: e.g. Spiral Tribe, teknivals, psytrance, Burning Man, Reclaim the Streets, Earthdream. The book offers a nuanced theory of resistance to assist understanding of these developments. Written in an accessible style, 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."

Quoted from Edgecentral
Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures
I: The Rave-olution?
II: Sound System Exodus: Tekno-Anarchy in the UK and Beyond
III: Secret Sonic Societies and Other Renegades of Sound
IV: New Tribal Gathering: Vibe-Tribes and Mega-Raves
V: The Technoccult, Psytrance and the Millennium
VI: Rebel Sounds and Dance Activism: Rave and the Carnival of Protest
VII: Outback Vibes: Dancing up Country
VIII: Hardcore, You Know the Score

The chapter outlines by GMAN can be found here.