Rave Culture by Tammy L. Anderson

The Moment: You bite through your pacifier

by A.D. Amorosi

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Published: Jun 10, 2009

by Tammy L. Anderson

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First and foremost, this review of a review of a city's rave scene is not my review of this city's rave scene; another place, another time, perhaps. Secondly, the steely morphing electronic music that filled the open fields and mall-like super-spaces where most raves were set — like the body-bending libido-twisting chemicals that fueled it — was, like most music, based on standards of pre-planned obsolescence. There's a reason the Linn drums and slapped basslines of the '80s sound dated — they are. Most dance music has and will find itself on decline soon after its initial rush with its moves, grooves and associated drugs given a similar date stamp.

There's a reason few people you know do the amount of acid consumed in the '60s (and me in 1992): You can't get there from here. Not even with all that psillicybin.

Then again, if anyone wrote with such bluntness, you'd wind up with a pamphlet. Maybe they should never have let an associate professor in sociology and criminal justice — from the University of Delaware, yet — write about a youth culture based on zealously tingly vibes, brain-battering rhythm and the drugs that kept you there. You're asking for a stiff read. That said, Anderson's Rave Culture: The Alteration and Decline of a Philadelphia Music Scene goes forward through the klatch of promotional hustlers, floppy hat-wearing hangers-on and artistic and cultural icons of that scene; runs from Philly, London, Ibiza and back; takes in the oft-discussed immensity and hedonistic éclat of acid house, etc., abroad (as opposed to the U.S.); finds out that some kids mistake her for a mom or a DEA agent and figures out that some kids lose their personal identity to a somewhat more collective identity. Dur. Welcome to The Hills, Facebook and every other teen cultural touchstone since bobby-soxers.

Temple U Press, 264 pp., $23.95, June 28

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