Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures

Graham St John [+–]

Griffith University

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Graham St John is the author of several books including Global Tribe: Technology, Spirituality and Psytrance (2012), Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures (2009) and the edited collections The Local Scenes and Global Culture of Psytrance (2010), Victor Turner and Contemporary Cultural Performance (2008), Rave Culture and Religion (2004) and FreeNRG: Notes From the Edge of the Dance Floor (2001). He is Adjunct Research Fellow at Griffith University and is Executive Editor of Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture.

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.

Series: Studies in Popular Music

Preliminaries

List of Figures [+–] viii-ix

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.

Acknowledgments [+–] x

The Rave-olution? [+–] 1-27

This chapter introduces the project. 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.

Sound System Exodus: Tekno-Anarchy in the UK and Beyond [+–] 28-64

This chapter explores the tekno sound system trajectory, which, rooted in Jamaican dub and dancehall, became infused with anarchist, punk, traveler, and from the late eighties, rave culture. Documenting the emergence and exodus of UK sound systems, special attention is given to the “freetekno” pursuits of Spiral Tribe, tracing the emergent global network of tekno-travelers and mobile sonic societies.

Secret Sonic Societies and Other Renegades of Sound [+–] 65-92

Chapter 3, “Secret Sonic Societies and Other Renegades of Sound,” explores initiatives in the U.S., Canada, and Australia inspired by Spiral Tribe and the broader techno-punktraveler convergence in which they were deeply implicated. Posited as illustrative of the resurgent carnival,

New Tribal Gathering: Vibe-Tribes and Mega-Raves [+–] 93-164

Chapter 4, “New Tribal Gathering: Vibe-Tribes and Mega-Raves,” explores the character of the vibe at the heart of the EDMC experience. Documenting the complex historical roots of the vibe and the variant dance tribes emerging to re/produce it, the chapter explores the origins of the EDM sonicity in the mid-sixties Gathering of the Tribes, a model giving way to the contemporary heterotopian demesne of alternative discourse and practice proliferating as parties, mega-raves, teknivals, and trance festivals, events responsive to multiple concerns, contextualizing variant freedoms, and conditioning manifold outcomes.

The Technoccult, Psytrance, and the Millennium [+–] 165-193

Chapter 5, “The Technoccult, Psytrance, and the Millennium,” documents the elements of a techno-spiritual movement concentrated within psychedelic trance. Evincing a post sixties cybernetic self/globe nexus, and via a compendium of salvific models, utopian dreams, poetic tracts, and visionary art appearing throughout the 1990s and into the present, trance culture is implicated in a revitalization/millenarian movement responsive to accelerating ecological and humanitarian calamity. Exploring dance music organizations reacting to anti-dance legislation and ordinance, and engaging in direct action mobilizations for diverse issues beyond the world of EDMC.

Rebel Sounds and Dance Activism: Rave and the Carnival of Protest [+–] 194-234

Chapter 6, “Rebel Sounds and Dance Activism: Rave and the Carnival of Protest,” investigates the intentional or conscious dimensions of dance. It explores the role of EDMC in the Reclaim the Streets protestival and subsequent carnivalesque protest mobilizations. Documenting an Australian “groovement” for legitimate presence.

Outback Vibes: Dancing Up Country [+–] 235-252

Chapter 7, “Outback Vibes: Dancing Up Country,” explores the post-colonizing initiatives of proactive dance formations promoting indigenous justice and ecological causes within the context of a growing desire for post-settler legitimacy. In particular it addresses a theatrical and activist outback conduit for this celebratory and compassionate mobilization: Earthdream2000.

Hardcore, You Know the Score [+–] 253-257

In the conclusion, “Hardcore, You Know the Score,” I round off the book by way of a discussion of the common notion of “hardcore,” the relativity of which assists comprehension of hyper-responsiveness indigenous to the vibrant cultural politics of electronic dance music culture.

End Matter

Endnotes [+–] 258-284

Bibliography [+–] 285-299

Index [+–] 300-312

Reviews

This book is an enjoyable and useful read.
Popular Music, 2011

An enjoyable, stimulating and informative book, and it represents a valuable addition to the written histories of dance music. While it is essential reading for anyone with an interest in EDMC, its broader cultural scope should lend it an appeal for anyone keen on exploring the continued significance of music in a countercultural context, and for those who take an interest in cultural politics, popular music and protest, and resistance movements. Its broad geographical framework provides a template not only for further studies of EDMC, but also for future investigations into the intersections between music and counterculture.
Perfect Beat, Vol 11, no 2 (2010)

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. St John maps the long cultural front of ‘hedonists, anarchists, artists, travellers, exiles, queers, pirates, hackers, [and] visionaries’ who transformed the relationship between transgressive and progressive politics in the cultural field. 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

Technomad offers important insights into the meeting points between countercultural discourses and post-rave techno cultures. Optimistic regarding the progressive potential of outdoor techno-trance gatherings, this well-documented study traces the complex genealogy of a global nomadic ‘technoccult’, with emphasis on Europe, North-America and Australia. Not to be missed by anyone interested in the study of rave cultures, countercultures and festivals.
Dr Hillegonda Rietveld, Reader in Cultural Studies, London South Bank University

A critical utopianism is articulated and celebrated with a textual energy too rare in today’s cultural studies. Graham St John is wide-eyed in order to look more closely. I recommend his shining and grubby doofscape to all interested in the radical possibilities and limitations of contemporary culture.
Professor George McKay, University of Salford

St John’s Technomad is an outstanding theoretical and empirical contribution to the emerging field of Electronic Dance Music studies. St John offers ground breaking and complex theoretical discussions on resistance, counterculture, music/media studies and globalization. Written in an absolutely mesmerizing style, Technomad offers invaluable insider accounts and documents crucial events in EDM history. This book is already an all time classic, and indispensable to anyone interested in the diversity of EDM practices and intentions, and its multiple impacts on contemporary global cultural politics.
Anna Gavanas, University of Leeds

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Books and Journals in Humanities, Social Science and Performing Arts

Technomad

Global Raving Countercultures

Graham St John [+–]

Griffith University

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