Friday, June 30, 2023

Country house

Looking for a (very) concise history of the UK's rural rave scene? You could definitely do much worse than Peder Clark's recent article published by the Museum of Youth Culture.

Making reference to Jeremy Deller's excellent documentary/lecture Everybody In The Place, Clark traces the trajectory of the scene - from the reasons that led to it blowing up in the form of the so-called Second Summer of Love in 1988, through its inextricable association with both the countryside and drugs, to the clampdown enforced legally and by the police.

As such, it's ideal background reading for anyone who's enjoyed Benjamin Myers' novel The Perfect Golden Circle, and has whetted my appetite even more for Ed Gillett's forthcoming book Party Lines, which covers this remarkable period as part of a longer history of dance music in Britain.

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