On a Saturday night evening, here I am, walking through the city alone (Really? How did that happen?). Alone might not be the exact word : the Amsterdam Dance Event is going on. The world is bubbling! This is THE big event here. Not to be forgotten, the Amsterdam Dance Event is one of the biggest electronic music platform in the world. The whole city gets invaded by shows, mixes, exhibitions, after parties, screenings, workshops, lectures, and so on. While going to work this morning (on a Saturday morning at 8 am, what?), I keep bumping with my bike into a bunch of stony kids whose red eyes let easily guess that sleep has been the missing thing of their night. And then I realized while passing by the Westergas Fabrik, one of the party's hot spots, that this was probably because they've just come out of the dark club's room where they've spent more than 10 hours straight. Morning light is always a tough light, no matter whether it is because one just woke up or because he or she has just decided to go to bed.
Anyway. After two days in a row of very hectic work, I did not really feel like going out and dance all night, most of all with me, myself, and I. But, cool enough, there are some screenings included to the program, for lazy people still in need though of some good sound.
I take the occasion to go enjoy discovering, firstly, the Melkweg, one of the most iconic venue of this great city, and secondly, the documentary cold «Old School Renegades», made by Maurice Steenbergen about the early rave scene in the 90's. I'm new here, no one to meet up with for now, nothing really planned, except what I myself feel like doing (a lonely wanderer's delight) After looking for the venue itself for few time, I finally got there. 20 minutes late, but it doesn't matter, the «voormovie», as they call it here, was also 20 minutes long, and I already saw it. It was « Real Scenes : Johannesburg », part of the Real Scenes video documentary series, produced by Resident Adviser & Bench. FYI, this GREAT series are available online for free HERE. I highly recommend you guys to throw an eye at it if you haven't done so yet, there are six videos total, all tracing the history of six key cities in the techno and dance music history. Closed comment.
SO, I am finally there, in the Melkweg Cinema. Watching the documentary, time goes at least faster as at the party itself. Time lapse, and acceleration. Both eyes and hears are caught by the screen, and for an hour and a half the viewer-listener steps into a hyper structured visual documentary, rhythmed by 20 chapter like on a 4/4 beat. The documentary finds its strength in the very clever articulation between sounds and images. they hold each other in a perfect complementarity, and the audience is free whether to close their eyes, forget where they are and let it go, or rather to capture the rhythm directly on pictures. But at the end, no doubt that this whole thing did appear like being only the warm up of the real party coming up next.
Starting from the basics, we first get accustomed to what the rave scene was (assuming that there may be one person in the room who does not know what that is). Then, pictures are divided between live extracts from various times and places (New York, Netherlands, 80s Belgium, Germany), interviews, and deep listening sessions, all tracing the history of rave, dance music and hardcore techno. The movie features an broad range of charismatic characters belonging to the electronic music scene, Moby, The Prodigy, Frankie Bones, Joey Beltram, Ben Stokes (DHS), Graham Massey (808 State), Nick Halkes (XL Recordings), Eamon Downes (Liquid), DJ Smiley (Shut up and Dance), Technotronics, Nikkie van Lierop (Praga Khan), Ramon Zenker (Hardfloor, Interactive), DJ Kutski, to name a few. DJs, producers, label founders, musicians tell the up and down of the movement (or we'd rather say the movements, plural, since there was quite a few at once).
We wonder at the end what is the most «beatful». Is it the blowing selection of hardcore tracks that make your shaky butt move the entire row of seats? Or is it rather the passion those guys show to tell their story, the story of a time, the story of a spontaneous movement, the story of a celebration feeling carried by electric synths, beat pulses and basslines? Hard to tell.
When the light gets back on at the end of the showing, it is funny realizing that, unlike one could have thought when going to see a movie about ravers and hardcore (at least unlike I had thought), there are mostly older people in the room. The younger ones might be, at the same moment, getting ready to enter again the clubs they went out of from the same morning. But, no doubts though that the ones in the cinema room might have experienced some real hardcore parties back then. And « Old School Renegades » brings those instants back to life, with quite a hint of nostalgia.
Looks like those old ravers are still good night owls ! Source: http://felfelosophy.com/2013/10/21/old-school-renegades-2013/
Anyway. After two days in a row of very hectic work, I did not really feel like going out and dance all night, most of all with me, myself, and I. But, cool enough, there are some screenings included to the program, for lazy people still in need though of some good sound.
I take the occasion to go enjoy discovering, firstly, the Melkweg, one of the most iconic venue of this great city, and secondly, the documentary cold «Old School Renegades», made by Maurice Steenbergen about the early rave scene in the 90's. I'm new here, no one to meet up with for now, nothing really planned, except what I myself feel like doing (a lonely wanderer's delight) After looking for the venue itself for few time, I finally got there. 20 minutes late, but it doesn't matter, the «voormovie», as they call it here, was also 20 minutes long, and I already saw it. It was « Real Scenes : Johannesburg », part of the Real Scenes video documentary series, produced by Resident Adviser & Bench. FYI, this GREAT series are available online for free HERE. I highly recommend you guys to throw an eye at it if you haven't done so yet, there are six videos total, all tracing the history of six key cities in the techno and dance music history. Closed comment.
SO, I am finally there, in the Melkweg Cinema. Watching the documentary, time goes at least faster as at the party itself. Time lapse, and acceleration. Both eyes and hears are caught by the screen, and for an hour and a half the viewer-listener steps into a hyper structured visual documentary, rhythmed by 20 chapter like on a 4/4 beat. The documentary finds its strength in the very clever articulation between sounds and images. they hold each other in a perfect complementarity, and the audience is free whether to close their eyes, forget where they are and let it go, or rather to capture the rhythm directly on pictures. But at the end, no doubt that this whole thing did appear like being only the warm up of the real party coming up next.
Starting from the basics, we first get accustomed to what the rave scene was (assuming that there may be one person in the room who does not know what that is). Then, pictures are divided between live extracts from various times and places (New York, Netherlands, 80s Belgium, Germany), interviews, and deep listening sessions, all tracing the history of rave, dance music and hardcore techno. The movie features an broad range of charismatic characters belonging to the electronic music scene, Moby, The Prodigy, Frankie Bones, Joey Beltram, Ben Stokes (DHS), Graham Massey (808 State), Nick Halkes (XL Recordings), Eamon Downes (Liquid), DJ Smiley (Shut up and Dance), Technotronics, Nikkie van Lierop (Praga Khan), Ramon Zenker (Hardfloor, Interactive), DJ Kutski, to name a few. DJs, producers, label founders, musicians tell the up and down of the movement (or we'd rather say the movements, plural, since there was quite a few at once).
We wonder at the end what is the most «beatful». Is it the blowing selection of hardcore tracks that make your shaky butt move the entire row of seats? Or is it rather the passion those guys show to tell their story, the story of a time, the story of a spontaneous movement, the story of a celebration feeling carried by electric synths, beat pulses and basslines? Hard to tell.
When the light gets back on at the end of the showing, it is funny realizing that, unlike one could have thought when going to see a movie about ravers and hardcore (at least unlike I had thought), there are mostly older people in the room. The younger ones might be, at the same moment, getting ready to enter again the clubs they went out of from the same morning. But, no doubts though that the ones in the cinema room might have experienced some real hardcore parties back then. And « Old School Renegades » brings those instants back to life, with quite a hint of nostalgia.
Looks like those old ravers are still good night owls ! Source: http://felfelosophy.com/2013/10/21/old-school-renegades-2013/
