1.6 Million at Love Parade 2008

The Love Parade attracted 1.6 million people this year. With the theme "Highway to Love", it featured 37 floats and 250 DJs from 15 countries. The massive crowd crammed along a 2km road in the city of Dortmund this last July 19.

The Love Parade is the largest outdoor electronica event in the world. From a single float with 150 people in Berlin 1989, it quickly became a mega spectacle amassing 1.5 million in 1999. It also inspired like-minded parades in Paris, Sidney, San Francisco and Rio.

However, the event has recently suffered some setbacks. It didn't happen in 2004 and 2005, due to financial problems. In 2006 it reappeared in Berlin with a 600,000 crowd. But city authorities denied permission for a future edition, as organizers failed to reach an agreement over sanitation and security issues. Are you planning on attending the Love Parade? You might want to get some cheap health insurance first. All those people mean good times but also a good headache perhaps.

The Love Parade was thus moved to the Ruhr metropolitan region, near the Dutch-French border. In 2007 it took place in the city of Essen, attracting 1.2 million people. Dortmund hosted the Love Parade this year. The next edition is scheduled to take place in Bochun town. With the new geographic location, the event may benefit from an extra influx of revelers for neighboring Netherlands, France and UK.

A change in the crowd demographics has been noticed over the years. Originally, the Love Parade congregated artistic, deviant and countercultural segments of metropolitan Berlin. Gradually, it started attracting more teen, working-class and small-town strata, which now make the mainstream of the Love Parade. (Watch the video).

In comparison with North America, Techno has achieved a truly popular status throughout Europe. Its popularity creates great opportunities for electronica artists and events. It also provides a source of entertainment, escape or enlightenment for millions of aficionados. By the same measure, mega events do require a good deal of coordination with urban authorities, to secure some safety and order.

Yet, it is odd to see official mayors formally and explicitly welcoming electronica events, in the hopes of boosting local tourism and bar sales. In the case of Dortmund's Love Parade, check the city-hosted website for the event, as well as the official Dortmund city website.

Is this one example of the cooptation of electronica? What do you think?

History of Hippies in Goa (India)

I forwarded my previous post ("The First Hippie in Goa") to a listserv on Goa research. Some subscribers there asked for more details about the history of the hippie scene in Goa, and particularly Colva. This is a beach in southern Goa that no longer belongs to the techno trance scene.

Colva beach was indeed the first place chosen by a handful of hippies upon arrival in Goa by the mid-1960s. But "Eight Finger" Eddie soon moved to South Anjuna, as he heard about the beauty of that unknown place. In his mid-40s, Eddie already was a popular veteran. Consequently, many Western youngsters soon followed suit, also settling down in Anjuna beach, which is where the "Goa scene" actually started.

Local natives recall that hippies chose Anjuna because there was no police station in the area. The closest station was located miles away southwest, beyond Mapusa town. Therefore, hippies could enjoy the necessary peace to do drugs, without having to pay baksheesh (bribe) at every corner.

Moreover, one native family was pivotal in the early Anjuna scene. In a region where most of the population only spoke Konkani, Joe "Banana" Almeida spoke very good English - an important factor for global travelers. Joe and his family have just returned from Kenya. They had opened a simple restaurant which also provided a variety of ancillary services for hippie newcomers. It was logical that hippies would gather around his restaurant (currently run by his son Tony), still located in South Anjuna.

However, with the ongoing modernization of Anjuna since the 1990s, the emerging techno trance scene was gradually pushed north. It moved towards the villages of Chapora, Vagator and Arambol. Original Anjuna followed the steps of Baga-Calangute tourist strip, which caters to charter tourists from India, Russia, UK and Scandinavia. In the meantime, the Goa trance scene is still fleeing farther north and elsewhere...

In any case, it is important to ask: among various suitable places in India, why did hippies choose northern Goa? They could have well settled in Gokarna village located in the coast of Karnataka state (towards the south), or in Pondicherry, former French colony on the east coast of India. Two critical factors must be pointed out:

• Mobility: well-established transportation lines connecting Goa to Pune and Bombay were very important for hippie travelers. They could thus easily travel to the Osho-Rajneesh ashram located in Pune (a pleasant hilltop town), or take advantage of Bombay as a hub towards Rajasthan, Nepal, or back to the West.

• Portuguese-Christian legacy of Goa: in comparison with the rest of India, Goan people were more familiar with Western leisure practices (party, alcohol, smoking). They also grasped Western notions of individuality and privacy. It was thus ironical that hippies running away from Christian Europe/America would decide to settle down in the most Christian state of India!

For anyone devoted to finding causes and origins, I'd say that some of the initial decisions made by hippies and Goans back then were purely incidental, often based on individual whim and preference.

It is the ensuing snowballing effect that has an impact on the collective. The location and culture of a host society, combined with the needs of guest travelers, will define the rise of a subcultural scene at a given time. Feel free to post your comments.

The First Hippie in Goa (Pre-History of Trance)

Goa is a main tourist destination in India. But it also is an important global center for the counterculture, now in the digital stage of techno "trance parties". There is much to say about contemporary Goa, counterculture and globalization. But how did the Goa scene actually start?

In the late 1960s, a handful of beatniks and hippies were traveling, overland, from Western Europe toward Southern Asia. They came on bikes, beetles and "magic buses". They entered India, and almost incidentally reached Goa, a former Portuguese enclave on the west coast of India.

By the Arabian Sea, they gathered on the secluded palm-lined beaches of Anjuna and Vagator. These were modest fishermen villages with no urban infrastructure, let alone tourist facilities. Precarious roads led to the place, linking the state capital Panaji, to Mapusa town, and then to Anjuna. As more Westerners spread out across the continent, the New Year's Eve in Goa began to work as the meeting-point for the countercultural diaspora.

The "first hippie" of that movement is now 84 years old. Eight Finger Eddie, an American expat of Armenian ancestry, still lives in Goa. His friends have set up a website for him. It compiles his autobiographical memories, in text and podcast format. I find the podcast "Anjuna 26 Feb 2007" to be particularly insightful. In typical Goa freak story-telling fashion, Eddie exposes his life trajectory in detail. Recorded at his house, it lasts two hours. As he speaks, you also listen to common background noises of northern Goa...

This is the pre-history of Goa trance counterculture. Forget about big DJ and hearsay stories. Listen carefully to Eddie's firsthand account. It will take you to a fantastic world of travel and self-exploration... (podcast).

Are 1960s hippies the same as 2000s trance freaks? Leave your comment below.

Famous Pac-Man Quote: Urban Legend?

"If Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."




Interesting allegorical quote. It suggests a connection between the behaviors of a cartoon and a raver. It also shows an underlying connection between subcultures of ravers and gamers. Although largely unnoticed, both subcultures share a lot, either as ravers who are also computer geeks, or as young IT professionals who are also into electronic music. (To noe: Matrix's resistance celebrated incoming fights in a nightclub!).

This quote is often seen at the Internet. Allegedly, it was said by a Nintendo Vice-President in 1989. But a British comedian later claimed that he is the author of the quote. This is yet to be confirmed. I'll post any updates...

PS Update: I contacted Nintendo HR department, who was unable to answer whether someone named Kristian Wilson (the alleged VP) has worked there. Given the absence of any other Internet records about this fellow, it can be safely presumed that this story is probably untrue, or that its authorship is yet to be verified.

If you have any lead, please feel free to post it here. Thanks.

"Rumours of Rave's Demise"

News of a 60,000-strong "rave" party in Los Angeles appeared at LA Metromix (July 15, 2008). The article opens with this paragraph:

"No one expected the onslaught of humanity that crammed in and around the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum last month for the Electric Daisy Carnival, the annual rave that has played all over the West Coast since 1997. An estimated 60,000 party people danced to such DJs as Moby, Paul van Dyk and Benny Benassi, and it seems any rumors of rave’s demise have been greatly exaggerated." The article then goes on and on, with typical catchword references to "underground", "rave culture", "positivity" and even "P.L.U.R." (article).

With all due respect, it is nice to witness successful mega events like this, but a highly structured concert, with expensive tickets, in a modern stadium, featuring famous pop artists, is anything but a rave.

To define "rave", just invert the above italicized elements. Unfortunately, even by loose countercultural criteria, most events called "rave" nowadays are transvestites of such original, wild, free parties. Watch out. Or next time, you may be raving with mom and dad.

The Global Raver Manifesto

"If I can't dance, it is not my revolution."

This space starts as an experiment. For years I'd spam friends with striking news about rave, club, techno and trance music. (I'll call all this electronica, for the lack of a better term). These materials were unusual enough to make us think - at least from the peculiar viewpoint of global countercultures.

Like many in the scene, I always asked what is the meaning of electronica - if any. After attending the craziest event or downloading the latest tune, one may ask: beyond celebration and hedonism, what else is there to be mode deeply learned from electronic dance culture?

Yet, a lack of discussion about electronica is clear on the Internet. Club and rave websites feature nifty networking and visual devices (party announcements, music reviews, and beautiful photos). On the end of the spectrum, the mainstream press portrays electronica very superficially at best, and most commonly, with negative articles that feed on public fears.

We must go beyond endless celebration and ignorant bashing. In this space I explore rave/club cultures in their social, political, cultural and spiritual dimensions. I am not a DJ or promoter, but have experienced different dance scenes around the world (mostly, Ibiza, Goa, Chicago, Rio, Barcelona). As an additional twist, I am academically trained to investigate dance subcultures, put under the microscope of social sciences...

This space is to inform and entertain you, as well as to engage and provoke you. On my side, while fond of underground elitism, I am open to mainstream populism. Although progressive, I am also realistic in regards to the virtues and limits of electronica. I want license to discuss any topic that promotes creative thinking, insight, liberation...

You are welcome to share your ideas. Feel free to use the comment area, or email me. I hope you come back soon.