This paper was originally presented by tobias v as an informal talk at the Rebelstar Activist Retreat, Crescent Beach, BC, Canada on November 26th, 2001. (http://www.shrumtribe.com/text/musikalresistance01.htm)

Musikal Resistance: A Short History (I)

History.

Rave Culture began at the juncture of several political social movements.

i) Jamaican Dub Soundsystem Culture of the 70s/80s
ii) UK Traveller Culture (ex-hippies); Punks; New Agers; also a centuries old tradition of Carnival on the Common Lands
iii) Austin, Texas, 1986: the impact of Ecstasy
iv) Continuation of Chicago Disco into house music; the rise of gay culture and the Funk Movement
v) Detroit: the artistic-social backlash to the failed modernist city-project resulted in Detroit techno and rap.
vi) The late 80s in the UK saw the rise of Acid House music (Chicago house with a 303 overtop, the combining of Chicago dance culture with UK rebellion), which took on new social importance due to its context: “dj’ed,” on turntables, mixed by djs with pitch controls (this is a new thing!), in illegal spaces: occupations of warehouses, farmlands, public and private spaces.

In the UK and in North America, the theories of anarchist Hakim Bey came into prominence. Bey was highly influenced by French theorists Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, who were active as radical professors during the May 68 revolution in France. Bey took the theories of Deleuze and Guattari, along with a bunch of others including Fourier, William Burroughs, and many anarchists, and turned them into two main (for the point of this lecture) practical ideas.