What do you love about dance music/clubbing?

What do you love about dance music/clubbing?

Nicked from the Circus board, where there were some really interesting replys!

So, what do you love about dance music/clubbing?

For me is lots of combined things like; being with people that are feeling the same as you, the atmosphere when a tune just kicks in and everybody realises what it is , meeting so many friendly people that have turned out to be some of my closest friends

probably the fact i could go up to a night on me own and know at least one person there and have a mint night

The general atmosphere, and the fact that 99% of good dance music events Ive been to, I havent witnessed a fight. It even seems to calm some charvs down.
The music in general. Even though most of the stuff i listen to is "4 TO THE FLOOR", there are far more groovyer rhythms, individual touches, unique sounds and much more energy within dance music.
R'n'b is an absolutely diabolical genre these days, and I would have preffered if boys 2 men had kept releasing albums, instead of rihanna (spelling? mines terrible).
As far as 'rock' goes, i hate most of the stuff coming out, and feel like i could make better stuff with a casio watch. There are a few tunes I have liked over the past few years.
Dance music doesnt seem to become different in terms of its crowd, and feeling. Probably because the majority of it is underground.
That probably sounds likr a load of shite, but so.

i just fuckin love vynil..simple as

I dont go out much anymore but the thing i loved most about clubbing was ecstacy

Getting wrecked / having deep conversations with people I don't know / bumping into loads of people that I don't "know" but I recognise and can say hello to etc / recognising a tune (rare for me as generally not a fan of dance, trance etc / generally having a great night out / I could go on for ages..

Still never listen to any "clubbing" music at home like.

Good shout.

Aye met some brilliant people over the years, people i'm now proud to call my friends.

Infact I echo all the above comments.

The fact that when the perfect record is played at the perfect time, the dancers, the music and the DJ all feel like they are one and you get chills up your spine. You can look at everyone and feel within yourself that everyone is feeling the same thing as you.

As a society we don't dance anymore, and since clubs and parties are the only situations we usually dance at these days, its also probably the only time we 'meditate' (hence the phrase 'Trance'), with dancing being the oldest form of meditation.

I may sound like a hippie, but I defy anyone not to get that feeling. In most however, it will just disappear as they return to their normal life. A few will 'get it' if you know what I mean and take it further be it with DJ-ing, producing, a love of the music and 'the scene' or whatever.

the music itself can bring about those feelings though. What Ferox says is true and most human societies have used some form of rhythmic music (usually, it has to be said, in combination with a drug) to induce feelings of 'oneness'
That drug in Western society has usually been alcohol since it was readily available. In other societies where other drugs were available then they were used. But insistent rhythms can also produce trance like states on their own eg some churches in the US use this to make the congregation feel at one with each other and with god.
what's amazing about our society is that we are constantly trying to ban or at least discourage this sort of thing. I wonder why? what are we scared of?

Heres a cut from a Thomas Melchior interview...talking about repetition/hypnotism...

When was the first time you were really struck by the power of repetition in music?

When I got my first sequencer. Back in the '80s when I started, the bands that were really inspiring were electronic bands like Cabaret Voltaire and obviously Kraftwerk. I always thought that was the kind of music I wanted to make, sequenced music. I liked the perfection in it. Then I got a sequencer, and as soon as you have a sequencer you realize you can run the most stupid lines and if they repeat, it immediately creates this hypnotic kind of vibe. You've just got to be the right kind of person to get straight into that.

The thing about repetition that people like Kraftwerk and Can picked up on, it goes back to the African kind of thing, a funk thing. There's a kind of black version of funk and a white version of funk, and the white version is like Kraftwerk, no? "White" meaning like putting another edge to it, a harder edge, because of the way the rhythms fall gives everything more of a stiff edge.

That was a problem I think in the beginning of that whole kind of music, that a lot of people didn't get that funkiness right. But the hypnotic effect, that's probably originally an African thing: the tribal get-together-and-get-high-on-dancing-and-repetition thing. That's how I feel anyway. It's a kind of religion. In Brazil they use it in the Condomble religion, a voodoo thing where you drum yourself into hypnosis.

"The conclusion of techno music,
electronic music, is minimal."


You've spent time living in Brazil. Was that something you were involved in there?

It's a big thing there. To be honest, it's got a witchcraft thing to it. Everyone's into it, but then you don't really speak about it, and you've got be careful. Some of the people involved in it can be quite mean. They curse you and shit like that. It looks Christian from the outside, but it's actually not. It's an African thing as well, the black slaves from Africa who [crusaders] tried to Christianize in South Africa and Brazil. They mixed their African pagan culture and used Christian elements to cover up the African gods. It's quite mad. But the drum ritual is just a way of putting you in a frenzy from dancing and the physical movement.

Repetition is interesting because it makes for such a highly ordered way to get lost. What do you think that hypnotic effect really is?

It's a way to spin you out. In the beginning the brain goes "Alright, I know this and it's repeating," but after a while you lose consciousness and you don't listen to it anymore and something else takes over. That's why some people have a problem with it. They stay conscious on that bass drum in techno and house.

If you stay conscious on that bass drum and you don't want to lose it, then it can really get on your nerves. And all you hear is boom, boom, boom. If you let yourself go and forget about the bass drum, then you can get into the rest. That's more of a problem with techno really, because that bass-drum effect is harder, whereas in house, you try to keep the kick pumping. Like in samba: keep it low, just pump it, at the bottom.

The people in power dont want the masses to encourage "togetherness" or theyll lose their power

They definitely dont want a repeat of the 60's. They want kids that know no better to fight their wars.

Any type of a large gathering where people have a good time and any sort of drug that brings ''togetherness'' is intimidating to them. The levels of control they use (police presence) probably explains why you see as many pigs at a dance event or rock concert than you would down the bigg market on a friday night.

All the crap you see on tv and the whole corparate thing is there to keep the average bloke poor and the rich in control. When people start to question that is when problems (for them) start to happen. We dont live in a fair democracy at all - even the one thing we have were we have an escape from the crap we put up with on a daily basis is watched and controlled closely by the law.

But the things i love when iam out are the same as everyone else's: laughing at people doing facial gymnastics only to realise im no better, talking about DJ's and getting over excited about a tune that has the place going off (for the 100th time), making new best mates, mad after partys where strange things happen. Its not just clubbing itself but the whole banter that comes with it.

Suppose for me what i love about it all is the ability to look back and smile, the memories, and i quite often ask myself what would life have been like if i hadnt experienced it all, what sort of person would i be now

your forgetting laughing gas mate!

wurd

however

"The conclusion of techno music,
electronic music, is minimal."
spoils an otherwise perceptive Thomas Melchior interview....
minimal is not a conclusion, it's a branch

I just go cos everyone else does.

I didn't think anyone else was into this. Wanna hook up?

I loved the music when I was 15/16 but didt actuallty make the effort to go to trance nights until i was 19/20 a couple of month after I started taked pills lol