Techno Shuffle: Rave Culture & the Melbourne Underground [non-booktrade customers only]

Author: Paul Fleckney
Every weekend in ‘Techno City’, ravers expressed their freedom through music, ecstasy and dancing the Melbourne shuffle. And yet for the majority of Melburnians, their only contact with this secret subculture was the occasional scare story in the media. Informed by interviews with over 40 artists and partygoers,this volume traces rave’s evolution. We meet the personalities and places that shaped a subculture to see how rivalry, the internet and a city on the move tore the scene apart.New York 1978, London 1988, Melbourne 1998. Twenty years on from the disco revolution and a decade after acid house, Melbourne’s warehouse party scene was at its peak. Mixing American dance music with English rave culture, Melbourne’s raving pioneers created a thriving underground scene that paid homage to both ‘70s punk and the ‘80s gay dance party. As the British rave dream soured and Anna Wood’s death turned out the lights in Sydney, Melbourne’s raves became world famous. Techno Shuffle unfolds against a backdrop of post- war migration, gay and lesbian rights, the AIDS crisis, Australian drinking culture, the Melbourne gangland killings and the global ascendancy of dance music. During these anxious times in our post-truth age, ‘90s rave teaches us the value of freedom, community and respect. Let the party begin.
ISBN 9781925556315. Melbourne Books. pb. 328 pages. 48 colour ills. 23.5 x 15.4 cm.
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