When I first read this book I was heavily into raving. I identified myself as a Raver and I thought I was involved in the most cutting edge activity ever know to man! Little did I know.
That was years ago now, but the book opened my mind to a generation before us who had travelled the same path. Telling a story about people who looked down the rabbit hole to see what was there. Some of the things that I read about like the 'Merry Pranksters' and the ideas of 'subjective reality' are still inspiring me and influencing my ideas of dance music and culture.
Part of me is upset that WE did not discover raving and all those freaky little things that happen when you dance all night to a pulsating beat. A bigger part of me is actually relived that rave, dance, trance and all the processes of social reality that surrounds dance culture is not something new at all.
It's old, like really old. As old as time itself. And it is a relief to know this because it means that no matter what people do to the dance, like: sponsor it with multi national corporations, or shove it into little boxes and intensify it, or attempt to bleed it dry of anything good. You just can't change the fundamentals.
I think it's important to remember in this day and age when our dance culture has settled into a sustained period of commercial activity that dancing to rhythm does not belong to anyone. There is no correct way to do it or to implement it.
Headline acts, sponsors, posters, promotion, hype does not guarantee anything. It's the people that dance to the music that plays. And when the time is right the people know where to go and know what to do.
