Slides used in the MAC351 lecture at the University of Sunderland

1. Dance M
usic Culture:
M
oral panics, hegemony and
raving
MAC351
robert.jewitt@sunderland.ac.uk
1

2. MAC351
Dance Music Cultures
2

3.  Intro
 Hegemony
 Brief
history of dance
 Moral
Panics & Criminal (in)Justice
 Mainstreaming: Music & Drugs
 Leah Betts: A Moral Panic?
 Moral Panics Revisited
 Conclusion
3

4. Intro
 “The
British state has a long history in regulating
pleasures associated with parties. A fear seems
to exist of the unregulated body that dances and
is intoxicated … It is therefore not surprising that
the acid house parties, that heady mix of
house’n’E dance events in 1988, were followed
by various moral panics”
(Rietveld, 1998: 253-4)
4

5.  Rave
(1988-1993):
 Altern8,
Spiral Tribe, System 7,
 Praga Kahn, Lil Louis, D Mob
 Nu
Rave (2006-7):
 Shit
Disco, Klaxons, New Young Pony Club,
 Revl9n, Black Strobe, etc
5

6. Hegemony (Gramsci)
A process via which the dominant class in society
not only RULE a society but LEAD it through
‘moral and intellectual leadership’.
Dominant ------------------------------- Subordinate
Incorporation ------------------------ Resistance
 “compromise
equilibrium” 
 negotiation
6

7. History
 1988
and 1993 = Acid House & Raves
 ‘Making
its public debut in this country in
1988 in the shape of “acid house” parties
held in warehouses, fields and clubs, its
illicit status quickly increased until it found
its way into legal club venues in the 1990s
as the “rave” scene’
(Henderson, 1993: 121)
7

8. 2 main influences:


American club culture and its influence
on Balearic beat (Ibizia)
The popularity of the drug ‘ecstasy’
(MDMA)
8

9. History (1985-87)
 Origins
(mid 80s):
 UK dance music rooted in black musical style
 Chicago
‘house’ music (gay)
 Detroit ‘techno’ (straight)
 Spanish
influence
 Ibizia
 European
avant-garde pop
 Kraftwerk
(late 70s)
9

10. K features:
ey
 Blend
mixing & beat matching (Chicago: late
1970s)
 Balearic eclecticism (Ibiza: early 1980s)
 Electronic mode of production:
 using
synthesizers,
 drum machines,
 sequencers,
 samplers,
 MIDI computers
(Kraftwerk: 1970s; Giorgio Moroder
/Donna Summer: 1977)
10

11.  House
music in the UK:
 1986: Mike Pickering & Graeme Park (importing
Chicago house records)
 1987: Danny Rampling, Paul Oakenfold & Nicky
Holloway (visit Ibizia)
 Shoom,
Future, Spectrum, The Trip, Hacienda, etc
11

12. History (1988-1993)
 1988:
second “Summer of
Love”
 Ecstasy
(or “E”), warehouse
parties, outdoor raves.
 Release
of House Sounds of
Chicago Vol 3
 1990: M25 orbital raves
12

13.  The
DJ – no longer passive “record
player”
 “The
most celebrated DJs are often
involved in re-mixing other artist’s
recordings, providing a variety of
interpretations of existing material. From
the production side of studio work to
composing new tracks themselves is a
small step which many DJs are able to
take.”
(Langlois, 1992: 230)
13

14.  Performer
hierarchy
& consumer – initially no clear
 Growth
of DJ-specific fanbase
 Sasha (@ Shelleys): “son of God”
 International residencies
14

15. Organisation
 Info
on a “need to know” basis
 Secretive / underground:
 subcultural
capital (Bourdieu)
 Threats
from police raids
 Flyers with numbers for automated phone
messages and meeting points
15

16.  “While
subcultural refusals have been
traditionally effected through the
statements of self-expression and the
displays of alternative identity, Acid house
has relinquished this ground … The
strategy of resistance to the sense of
identity necessitates an escape from the
(media) gaze, as, unlike previous
subcultures which remain ‘hiding in the
light’ (Hebdige, 1988: 35), a whole
subculture attempts to vanish.”
(Melechi, 1993:38)
16

17.  Huge
profits for rave organisers (£50000
per time)
 ‘the biggest youth subculture that Britain
had ever seen’
(McDermott et al, 1993: 25)
 1992:
 UK
club market annual turnover: £2 billion
 raves worth a further £1.8 billion
(Thornton, 1995: 15; Henderson, 1993)
17

18. Moral Panics & Criminal (in)Justice
Identify
problem
simplify
Authorities
respond
stigmatise
Media campaign
for action
18
‘Moral Panic’ (Stan Cohen: 1972)

19.  Mods
& Rockers – Clacton
1964
 Media reports on youth culture
= ‘folk devils’
 1980s
& ‘acid house’ –
MDMA / ‘E’
 Not a routinely highly visible
subculture
19

20. Early media attention was unusually positive
 Quickly turned negative:

 “Killer
Cult”
 “In the grip of E”
 “Rave to the Grave”

"Junkies flaunt their craving by wearing T-shirts sold at
the club bearing messages like 'can you feel it?' &
'drop acid not bombs'" (The Sun, Aug 17th, 1988)
20

21.  1989:
BBC ban all
records with the word
‘acid’ in them
 June
24th 1989,
Midsummer Night Dream
Party at White Waltham
airstrip in Berkshire,
organised by Sunrise
 11000 people attend
21

22. Midsummer Night Dream Party
 ‘a
façade for dealing in drugs’,
 ‘a cynical attempt to trap young people into drug
dependency under the guise of friendly pop
music events’
Daily Mirror (June 26th, 1989)
22

23. Criminal (in)Justice?
 Public
 no
Entertainments Act (1982)
licence, private functions
 Private
Places of Entertainment Act (1967)
 private
function making profit needs licence
23

24.  North
West Kent police, Chief
Superintendent Ken Tappenden
 Pay Party Unit
 ‘When
we started to tell MPs and
the Home Office what was really
going on, they wouldn’t believe it.
It was always denied by everyone,
including the government’
 (Collin,
1998: 107)
24

25.  ‘These
were nice kids – my son,
your son’
 ‘We
did a sweep of the field after
they’d gone, you could see the
packets of drugs all over the
place. Most of the kids were
spaced out’
25

26. July 1990: Police given new powers
- MP Graham Bright's Entertainment's (Increased
Penalties) Bill 1990 passed in Parliament without
opposition
- Fines raised from £200 for unlicensed parties to
£20,000 and 6 months imprisonment
- Equipment confiscation
26

27.  Tony
Colston-Hayter campaigns to extend
licensing hours beyond 3am.
 February
1990: ‘Freedom to Party’ rallies
in Trafalgar Square and Manchester.
27

28. Castlemorton 1992
•Organised by Spiral Tribe
•40,000 attended
•Largest UK rave
28

29. Criminal Justice Act (1994)
 Raves
targeted by authorities
 Sections 63, 64, 65 and 66
 ‘a
gathering on land in the open air of 100 or
more persons (whether or not trespassers) at
which amplified music is played during the night
(with or without intermissions) … and … "music"
includes sounds wholly or predominantly
characterised by the emission of a succession of
repetitive beats.’
29

30.  Police
had power to arrest if:
 suspect
2+ people are preparing a rave
 suspect 10+ people waiting for a rave
 100+ attending a rave
 Section
65 lets any uniformed officer stop
& redirect any person s/he believes may
be on their way to a rave within a 5 mile
radius

failure to comply leads to maximum fine of
£1000.
30

31.  Most
visible victims of the bill:
 New Age
 New
Travellers & road protesters
offences were made:
 trespassory
assembly’
 ‘aggravated trespass
 and ‘trespass with intent to reside’
31

32.  Conversely
had effect of politicising large
section of youth culture
 July 1994 protests outside Downing Street
 Riots in Hyde Park
32

33.  Musicians
helped mobilise population
(Auterche, Orbital, Prodigy, etc)
 “How can the government stop young people
having a good time. Fight this bollocks”

(sleeve notes Music for the Jilted Generation)
33

34. Mainstreaming: Music & Drugs
 By
1995 rave culture enters mainstream = dance
culture
 Becomes standard music policy in most clubs
 Success:
 Cream, Ministry of Sound, Radio 1, Top of the
Pops
 “E Generation” or “Chemical generation”
 Drug prices fall with demand – E’s:
 £10-15 in 1994 >> under £10 in 1996 >> less
than £1 in 2001-present
34

35. Leah Betts: A Moral Panic?
 Death:
November 1995
 18th
birthday party at parental
home in village of Latchington.
 Parental
supervision:
 Father
(ex-police)
 Mother (nurse)
 “Just
say no!”
35

36. Youths & drug use
Evil drug: E
Identify
problem
simplify
Inquest
Authorities
into
respond
death
stigmatise
Peddling
poison to
kids
Media campaign
for action
Press response
36

37.  Breakdown
in traditional moral panic
framework after inquest results
 ‘Pure’
MDMA – not poison
 “Water
intoxication” – osmotic pressure
sucked blood into brain and made it swell
 Lord
Justice verdict – ultimate
responsibility lay with Leah herself.
37

38.  no
longer possible to simplify the cause &
effects of drug use in society
 ‘innocent’
death renders it impossible to
rely on traditional boundaries between
deviance & normality
 huge
shifts in perception regarding
acceptability, via mainstreaming of dance
music culture
38

39. Moral Panics Today?
39

40. Moral Panics Revisited

3 distinct moral panics working in
tandem:
1.
2.
3.
Raves
Ecstasy
New Age Travellers
40

41. New Age Travellers
 Counter-cultural
connotations
 Mixed with the mainstream:
 Free
festivals (Glastonbury pre 2000)
 Peace festivals (Greenham Common 1981
onwards),
 Road protest (Twyford Down 1992-4)
 Animal rights campaigns
41

42. ‘Battle of the Beanfield’ (1985)
42

43. ‘Battle of the Beanfield’ (1985)
43

44. John Major (1992)
 "Society
needs to condemn a little more and
understand a little less. New age travellers? Not
in this age! Not in any age!"
44

45. Overall
 Raves
were institutionalised
 Ecstasy demonised in principle but
condoned in practise
 New Age Travellers/protestors were
suppressed
 Mainstreaming
of drugs - incorporated into
culture
 Suppression of large outdoor illegal
events
45

46. Conclusion
Many attempts by the state to intervene in youth
cultures.
 Dance music is a diverse international culture:
eclectic melange of styles and forms of expression.
Contains the most visible aspect of drug use since
the counter culture of the 1960s.
 State & media attempts to repress/criminalise this
culture = unanticipated widespread acceptance of
dance music culture & drug use.
 Positive outcomes? Recognition that drug use is
part of everyday life for some groups = plethora of
forums re: safety information.

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47. 
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Sources
A. Bennett, 2001, Cultures of Popular Music, Maidenhead: Open University Press.
S. Cohen, 1987, Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and
Rockers – 3rd Edition, Oxford: Basil Blackwell
M. Collin, 1997, Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House,
London: Serpent’s Tail.
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, 1994,
(http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1994/Ukpga_19940033_en_1.htm)
S. Garrat, 1998, Adventures in Wonderland: A Decade of Club Culture, London:
Headline.
C. Kempster (ed.), 1996, History of House, London: Sanctuary.
T. Langlois, 1992, ‘Can you feel it? DJs and house music culture in the UK’, Popular
Music, 11 (2): pp 229-38.
A. Melechi, 1993, ‘The ecstasy of disappearance’ in S. Redhead (ed.), Rave Off:
Politics and Deviance in Contemporary Youth Culture, Aldershot: Avebury.
K. Murji, 1998, ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy: Drugs, Media and Morality’ in R.
Coomber (ed.), The Control of Drugs and Drug Users: Reason or Reaction?,
Harwood Academic Publishers (http://www.psychedelic-library.org/murji.htm).
S. Reynolds, 1998, Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance
Culture, London: Picador.
H. Rietveld, 1998, ‘Repetitive beats: free parties and the politics of contemporary DiY
dance culture in Britain’ in G. McKay (ed.), DiY Culture: Party and Protest in Nineties
Britain, London: Verso.
J. Toynbee, 2000, Making Popular Music: Musicians, Creativity and Institutions,
London: Arnold.
S. Thornton, 1995, Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital, Cambridge:
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Polity Press.