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-- Great Carl Craig interview
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quote:

Originally posted by Clovis It has nothing to do with how we're built and everything to do with how we've been trained and conditioned, and the norms that are beaten into us since we're kids. But this can be reversed and toppled, obviously, since as RJT pointed out, there are plenty of die hard partyers and dance music fans who are on the same page as their European counterparts. We see fun in materialistic objects because thats what we've been trained to do, not because we're incapable of looking past that. And using Coachella as an example of a "good scene" is abysmal. A bunch of kids blowing their wads to boyz noize and justice and hordes more shitty pop dance music is not the pinnacle of the dance music experience imo. The only place I ever experienced vibes akin to those I found in Europe was in Miami for WMC at a few select parties and even those were nothing compared to what happens in Europe on any given weekend. The bottom line is freedom. We tout ourselves as the land of the free but the reason why the rest of the world is out on the weekends having the time of their lives while we're going to hip-hop clubs till 2am and blowing 2 grand to sit next to a bottle of grey goose is precisely because of the LACK of freedom. We cannot grow a healthy dance music scene in the US with such ridiculous restrictions and laws pushing in the other direction. The 2am liquor rule alone does much of the damage in California, as do curfews, age limits, vastly harsher drug penalties, the amazing difficulty of acquiring the correct permits to throw LEGAL parties at proper venues...etc. The consolidation of the media and prevalent culture in the US also play a big part, such as the inability for dance music to make any inroads into the mainstream without being completely watered down and reduced to nothing more than an echo of the creativity and uniqueness that make it worthwhile in the first place. Religion ties into this due to the fact that without such a huge christian right and conservative movement in this country we would most likely be up to speed with the rest of the world. The culture of repression stems almost entirely from them and them alone. In the end I think nothing will ever change if we take your "this is just how it is, and we just can't do that because" stance...nothing good will ever come about if we assert that this is the way things are. I hate to sound like a presidential candidate, but change is needed.

Just...move to Europe then?

quote:

Originally posted by Clovis Fuck dude, you couldn't be more off, and I'm not trying to patronize you here but hear me on this because I can tell you for a fact that this perception is wrong. You're using the status quo as an argument as to why there is this status quo. First of all, to say that people in other countries have fun at parties because they identify with each other's culture and race is complete bollocks. Obviously you've never partied in Europe or anywhere outside of the US. In Ibiza you have people from all over the world partying together and frankly the race/culture issue is almost completely removed. Same goes for social status. In Paris I partied at Rex club next to hipster kids with 1000 euro tables of alcohol and kids wearing cheap clothes and drinking the alcohol they snuck in, everyone on the same page and everyone having fun. DANCE culture is a thing they have in the rest of the world that is severely lacking in the US. People are used to clubbing and partying into the wee hours of the morning, we are not. It has nothing to do with how we're built and everything to do with how we've been trained and conditioned, and the norms that are beaten into us since we're kids. But this can be reversed and toppled, obviously, since as RJT pointed out, there are plenty of die hard partyers and dance music fans who are on the same page as their European counterparts. We see fun in materialistic objects because thats what we've been trained to do, not because we're incapable of looking past that. And using Coachella as an example of a "good scene" is abysmal. A bunch of kids blowing their wads to boyz noize and justice and hordes more shitty pop dance music is not the pinnacle of the dance music experience imo. The only place I ever experienced vibes akin to those I found in Europe was in Miami for WMC at a few select parties and even those were nothing compared to what happens in Europe on any given weekend. The bottom line is freedom. We tout ourselves as the land of the free but the reason why the rest of the world is out on the weekends having the time of their lives while we're going to hip-hop clubs till 2am and blowing 2 grand to sit next to a bottle of grey goose is precisely because of the LACK of freedom. We cannot grow a healthy dance music scene in the US with such ridiculous restrictions and laws pushing in the other direction. The 2am liquor rule alone does much of the damage in California, as do curfews, age limits, vastly harsher drug penalties, the amazing difficulty of acquiring the correct permits to throw LEGAL parties at proper venues...etc. The consolidation of the media and prevalent culture in the US also play a big part, such as the inability for dance music to make any inroads into the mainstream without being completely watered down and reduced to nothing more than an echo of the creativity and uniqueness that make it worthwhile in the first place. Religion ties into this due to the fact that without such a huge christian right and conservative movement in this country we would most likely be up to speed with the rest of the world. The culture of repression stems almost entirely from them and them alone. In the end I think nothing will ever change if we take your "this is just how it is, and we just can't do that because" stance...nothing good will ever come about if we assert that this is the way things are. I hate to sound like a presidential candidate, but change is needed.

Trust me, Religion and Morals only go as far as the dollar in America. Whenever the dollar is at stake, religion starts to kick in and rear its ugly head. The reason why you cant party past 2 is because businesses have to make their money the next day and require the workforce to be ready for the next day of work, not partying till morning, effeciency is at stake. Nothing to do with religion, nothing to do with morals. Actually the Christian Right at this point in history is simply a tool for business Agendas, most recently the protection of Big Pharamceuticals by not allowing a free flowing research and funding of Stem Cells, because they know it will hurt the Big Pharmas, so in comes the Religous Right and their voices. And yes the media plays a part as they are prohibitive of EDM music from gaining any real mainstream success outside of the one or two cheese tracks that become hits a year. Your point about Ibiza and cultures/races getting together, well thats not a typical country, its a PARTY capital, two very different things. So again...the Dollar and America's culture hold us back from any sort of free flowing awesome Scene we see in other parts of the world.

By the way Coachella is a great scene in America...its probably one of the best events in the world, and great for growth of the EDM scene to maybe one day get more recognition and possibly more freedom to be a "great scene." Your elitist im so Underground stripped of life and dynamics attitude cant see that, there is fastly growing scene and culture, it might not be what your ideal scene is yet, but its a decently healthy scene.

By the way....in America the culture of repression stems from capitalism. Not religion. Not morals. The greenback dictates the threshold at which religion and morals should repress.

quote:

Originally posted by LionsLair By the way....in America the culture of repression stems from capitalism. Not religion. Not morals. The greenback dictates the threshold at which religion and morals should repress.

I absolutely agree.

I find it funny that religion and politics are two subjects so often bought up by Americans, when every other nationality in the world hates those two topics and would rather discuss the contents of their sock drawers.

The US is a huge piece of land run by a single federal government, and as such suffers from severe homogenization. I can't help but feel that any sense of individuality in the US is held back by big business and big government. That, coupled with the fact that the country doesn't have much of a history to draw from in the first place, and you see how it goes.

Just look at Europe for some contrast. Heck, even look at a comparatively tiny place like London. Its density, cultural diversity and history can't be topped.

quote:

Originally posted by LionsLair By the way....in America the culture of repression stems from capitalism. Not religion. Not morals. The greenback dictates the threshold at which religion and morals should repress.

This should be true of Western Europe too, since all Western European countries (UK, France, Germany, Holland, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark) are capitalist. However, these countries have all nurtured electronic music even when capitalist institutions haven't.

I think a Marxist explanation like yours rings true in the US not so much because of the capitalism (although I admit it's more rampant in the US than in Europe), but because the US is very under-populated compared to Europe. There's a lot of distance between population centres and it's harder for underground scenes to spread and become movements. The size and relatively sparse population in the US means that the media is much more influential in the spread and dictation of ideology and cultural products, because only things lik TV can reach a large percentage of the people at once, thus making widespread culture much more controlled.

quote:

Originally posted by distant The US is a huge piece of land run by a single federal government, and as such suffers from severe homogenization. I can't help but feel that any sense of individuality in the US is held back by big business and big government. That, coupled with the fact that the country doesn't have much of a history to draw from in the first place, and you see how it goes. Just look at Europe for some contrast. Heck, even look at a comparatively tiny place like London. Its density, cultural diversity and history can't be topped.

Concise and accurate. (except perhaps the US not having a history - they invented house and techno!)

That's pretty much what Carl Craig should have said instead of going off on that stupid rant.

quote:

Originally posted by Beat Blog (except perhaps the US not having a history - they invented house and techno!)

What I mean is, a bit over 200 years isn't enough to establish a national identity. Maybe that's why there's so much desperate patriotism coming from a country that's trying to prove itself.

Just speculating.

warning - this is just my opinion:


i think part of the problem is EDM has been labeled as "that rave music" by every generation since chemical bros and crystal method had their big hits in the US. in most cases if you werent listening to EDM back then odds are you arent listening to it now. so here we have almost no new electronic music listeners developing in our secondary markets (anything outside of NYC, Chicago, LA, Miami).

the reason why the first tier markets have any semblance of a healthy market at all is 90% due to the fact they have a large immigrant population.

although house was invented in chicago, the reason why EDM in general still survives here is the fact that we have a huge eastern european population...chicago house outside of the famous boom boom room @ green dolphin on mondays is virtually non-existant.

an interesting thing ive noticed is that EDM marketed to the rock crowd works really well here...Justice, Boys Noize, Daft Punk, etc (who all just happen to have the same manager).

i also think some things that happened with mtv back in the early 90s are partially to blame. mtv was largely rock and dance until the explosion of hip hop...there were shows like club mtv, dance compilations released by mtv, and videos being played. when hip hop came around mtv's focus became hip hop and now hip hop IS dance music in the US (the reason why girls will come to the booth saying "i cant dance to this"). i really do feel that mtv is to blame for this. i think this was only natural though do to the fact it was something that was uniquely american at the time and spoke to americans directly. btw i love hip hop and rap.

i can see what carl craig is saying about religion though i think marketing is more to blame. if religion had as much of a stranglehold as he claims, hip hop would not be as big as it is.

quote:

Originally posted by distant What I mean is, a bit over 200 years isn't enough to establish a national identity. Maybe that's why there's so much desperate patriotism coming from a country that's trying to prove itself. Just speculating.

I don't know why the "desperate patriotism", but I think 200 years is plenty of time to establish a national identity.

Australia has a very strong one after a mere 100!

quote:

Originally posted by Beat Blog Australia has a very strong one after a mere 100!

Examples? I can't really think of anything.

I think Blake has it right. The dominance of hip-hop since the mid-90s explains why other kinds of dance music haven't really taken off here.

The dominance of hip-hop also shows why the "religion" explanation is complete bullshit: hip-hop often has a very similar reckless, hedonistic attitude to other kinds of dance music (and similar pro-drug attitude), and religious bodies are actually even more offended by much of hip-hop (at least the mainstream stuff) because of its violent and sexually explicit lyrics.

quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles The dominance of hip-hop also shows why the "religion" explanation is complete bullshit: hip-hop often has a very similar reckless, hedonistic attitude to other kinds of dance music (and similar pro-drug attitude), and religious bodies are actually even more offended by much of hip-hop (at least the mainstream stuff) because of its violent and sexually explicit lyrics.

Craig is using the religion card because of the Politicians who claim to be church going Christians, are the ones writing laws such as the rave law. Its their way of trying to eliminate the EDM scene which in their distorted heads is nothing but drug houses killing America's kids. Their haven't been any hip-hop specific laws trying to eradicate that type of music. Can you imagine if Law makers tried to pass a similar law eliminating clubs that play hip-hop music like they have with EDM? That boils down to a racial issue, and black America would tear this country apart...literally.

quote:

Originally posted by KiNeTiC ENeRgY Craig is using the religion card because of the Politicians who claim to be church going Christians, are the ones writing laws such as the rave law.

The RAVE Act (the most popular example of such a law) started as a bipartisan bill, with three Democrats and four Republicans. It was proposed by Joe Biden, a Democrat. Even Hillary Clinton jumped on the bandwagon before it became law, and she's hardly anyone's idea of a Bible-thumper.

quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles Uh, think again. The RAVE Act (the most popular example of such a law) started as a bipartisan bill, with three Democrats and four Republicans. It was proposed by Joe Biden, a Democrat. Even Hillary Clinton jumped on the bandwagon before it became law, and she's hardly anyone's idea of a Bible-thumper.

So your saying Democrats are not religous? Amazing new concept.

quote:

Originally posted by Clovis Fuck dude, you couldn't be more off, and I'm not trying to patronize you here but hear me on this because I can tell you for a fact that this perception is wrong. You're using the status quo as an argument as to why there is this status quo. First of all, to say that people in other countries have fun at parties because they identify with each other's culture and race is complete bollocks. Obviously you've never partied in Europe or anywhere outside of the US. In Ibiza you have people from all over the world partying together and frankly the race/culture issue is almost completely removed. Same goes for social status. In Paris I partied at Rex club next to hipster kids with 1000 euro tables of alcohol and kids wearing cheap clothes and drinking the alcohol they snuck in, everyone on the same page and everyone having fun. DANCE culture is a thing they have in the rest of the world that is severely lacking in the US. People are used to clubbing and partying into the wee hours of the morning, we are not. It has nothing to do with how we're built and everything to do with how we've been trained and conditioned, and the norms that are beaten into us since we're kids. But this can be reversed and toppled, obviously, since as RJT pointed out, there are plenty of die hard partyers and dance music fans who are on the same page as their European counterparts. We see fun in materialistic objects because thats what we've been trained to do, not because we're incapable of looking past that. And using Coachella as an example of a "good scene" is abysmal. A bunch of kids blowing their wads to boyz noize and justice and hordes more shitty pop dance music is not the pinnacle of the dance music experience imo. The only place I ever experienced vibes akin to those I found in Europe was in Miami for WMC at a few select parties and even those were nothing compared to what happens in Europe on any given weekend. The bottom line is freedom. We tout ourselves as the land of the free but the reason why the rest of the world is out on the weekends having the time of their lives while we're going to hip-hop clubs till 2am and blowing 2 grand to sit next to a bottle of grey goose is precisely because of the LACK of freedom. We cannot grow a healthy dance music scene in the US with such ridiculous restrictions and laws pushing in the other direction. The 2am liquor rule alone does much of the damage in California, as do curfews, age limits, vastly harsher drug penalties, the amazing difficulty of acquiring the correct permits to throw LEGAL parties at proper venues...etc. The consolidation of the media and prevalent culture in the US also play a big part, such as the inability for dance music to make any inroads into the mainstream without being completely watered down and reduced to nothing more than an echo of the creativity and uniqueness that make it worthwhile in the first place. Religion ties into this due to the fact that without such a huge christian right and conservative movement in this country we would most likely be up to speed with the rest of the world. The culture of repression stems almost entirely from them and them alone. In the end I think nothing will ever change if we take your "this is just how it is, and we just can't do that because" stance...nothing good will ever come about if we assert that this is the way things are. I hate to sound like a presidential candidate, but change is needed.

That was awesome.

quote:

Originally posted by distant What I mean is, a bit over 200 years isn't enough to establish a national identity. Maybe that's why there's so much desperate patriotism coming from a country that's trying to prove itself. Just speculating.

You and "Beat Blog" should rent a motel room together so you guys can jerk off all day to your "I HATE AMERICA" obsessions. Just don't let it get in your eyes.

quote:

Originally posted by Nostalgic You and "Beat Blog" should rent a motel room together so you guys can jerk off all day to your "I HATE AMERICA" obsessions. Just don't let it get in your eyes.

You seem to love me so much, what with following me around everywhere. Maybe you should jerk me off?

quote:

Originally posted by KiNeTiC ENeRgY So your saying Democrats are not religous? Amazing new concept.

Many European politicians would probably claim to be religious if asked, too. Does that mean we should use "religion" as an explanation for anything bad that happens in Europe?

Ideas like "the entire political system in the U.S. is awash in Bible-thumping" don't wash as an explanation for the RAVE Act when it is often decidedly liberal and not fundie-religious politicians who are proposing and sponsoring the bills.

I would say a better explanation is simply that the American political environment as a whole is suffused with fear and disdain for foreign and unfamiliar things, a category that includes raves.

So what exactly do you guys wish for? Have various EDM shows like Essential Mix, ASOT and Transitions (just as an example) air on local FM radio stations? MTV covering events such as WMC? More acceptance of people from different socio-economic classes and ethnic backgrounds at parties and raves?

As I already said, I think the best thing to wish for is more underground scenes across the country. Like here in North Carolina there are well developed Drum & Bass and Breaks scenes in Charlotte, and a Psy/Goa Trance scene in Asheville. None of those styles are my thing, but I am still glad they exist and keep it real. Maybe I am just into the idea of keeping good things esoteric and as a well kept secret.

quote:

Originally posted by Nostalgic Just...move to Europe then?

Nope, I can't leave California. I'm staring out the window at another beautiful warm day.

I think we're catching up to Europe in some parts anyway, I hope the trend continues.

quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles Many European politicians would probably claim to be religious if asked, too. Does that mean we should use "religion" as an explanation for anything bad that happens in Europe? Ideas like "the entire political system in the U.S. is awash in Bible-thumping" don't wash as an explanation for the RAVE Act when it is often decidedly liberal and not fundie-religious politicians who are proposing and sponsoring the bills. I would say a better explanation is simply that the American political environment as a whole is suffused with fear and disdain for foreign and unfamiliar things, a category that includes raves.

I don't think Carl meant to say that Religion is directly responsible like that, I think he means the over all cultural effect of having such a strong religious lobby and complex is what is to blame.

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