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86

Authenticities from Record Hops to Raves

patterns of particular genres, and discourses about the honesty integrity of music. ' Records were no mere substitute for performance, they were different form altogether - one which fostered new types of everr and social space. To accommodate such sounds harmoniouslY dances had to change their appearance and structure. So the disc:0theque eventually became a site of consumption appropriate music whose site of production is the studio. Sin~e rock'n'roll, records have become increasingly indispens~ able, mtegral and organic to music cultures. They have become musical axis around which club and rave crowds gather and scen12s revolve. But what exactly are the configurations of these crowds~ What hierarchies define and divide clubbers? What social dem;:~ graphics and cultural values distinguish them? These are the issues investigated in the next chapter.

3 Exploring the Meaning of the Mainstream (or why Sharon and Tracy Dance around their Handbags) A Night of Research

:>,::raday, 22 September 1990. Wonderworld, London W8, 11 p.m. It's eleven and I'm waiting for Kate.* We've never met before, she knows I'm researching clubs and has promised to show me to have fun'. The 'hardcore techno-house' of the dancefloor is audible from here. Two women police officers patrol on foot. same-sex groups wear casual clothes and casual expressc.\~iir~'''.:•rtl•=cs and wears a thick navy-and-white jumper, something ~mmediately distinguishes him from those here t? da~c~.

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our conversation, the VIP room has filled up. Kate

him that I've never taken Ecstasy ('Can you believe It? ) we are going to do some tonight.. He's. not ?leased. 'How know she won't sell this to the Dazly Mzrror? he asks. Kate ·'''"·····-···""'him that she's checked me out, that I'm all right. Later, they that they want someone to tell the 'true story' of acid house they'll help me do it as long as I don't use their names. pours me a champagne and takes me aside. A friend has her an MDMA (the pharmaceutical name for Ecstasy) saved days of Shoom (the mythic club 'where it all began' in early We go to the toilets, cram into a cubicle wher~ Kate opens the .;£;s:;;•;.:;.t: and divides the contents. I put my share m my glass and I'm not a personal fan of drugs- I worry abou~ my brain cells. a fact of this youth culture, so I submit myself to the in the name of thorough research (thereby confirming stereotype of the subcultural sociologist). Notably, there's :\1DMA' for the VIPs and 'double burgers' for the punters. distinctions of Ecstasy use are not unlike the class connotations '~•kDonald' s and 'no additives' health food.

London Wl, 1 a.m. Millennium is the kind of club that it's not mentioned in listings magazines but is. It imagines as entirely VIP chiefly because it's heavily into cocaine. At they won't let us in, but Kate uses her brother's n~me, and admitted free. The crowd is older than average (mid-to-late ."''"'· . . ""'''dressed in designer-labels (lots of Jean-Paul Gaultier ~nd Smith), and obviously concerned about who's who. There 1~ a :::rtingent of gay men by the bar and a scattering of _w?men ~Ith ··••••'-'tJa"~" and high heels on the dancefloor. The music IS familiar, ia.nce-oriented pop. The club's organizer is famous for his early-eighties New Romandubs. He looks worn out. His face is pale and dry. Later, when I people I went to his club, they ask 'Is he still g~ing?' The seems to be written on his face. He's a has-been m a world ••d-sose fashions last six months and old in a world that fetishizes

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Exploring the Meaning of the Mainstream

youth. As we shake hands, he introduces me to a journalist covers the club scene. Mick writes regularly for a weekly music magazine and a ~ewspaper. After a chat about sociology and some people we m common, he pulls o~t ~ flyer for a rave in a church, suggestir~ . come along. The flyer IS m the form of an elaborate card: its cover displays a crest of a chicken dressed as a vicar holdino- a inside are an odd mixture of quotations from the New Te~tame: