History is made at night

Where do the licensing laws that control where and when people can drink, dance or listen to music come from? The principle behind them is q...

When was the birth of rave as a word for a wild party and raver as the party-goer? Quite a few sources suggest a Caribbean origin. The Wikip...

In an earlier post , we referred to the revivalist jazz raves organised by Mick Mulligan and George Melly in London in the early 1950s, the ...

Good article on disco by Paul Lester in the Guardian this week: 'For Steven Collazo, the musical director of Odyssey, disco was a time ...

From Herts and Essex News , 15 February 2007: Raving the day! Illegal ravers were stopped dead in their tracks when police broke up an even...

The Daily Express has been a fount of right wing bile for many years. Here's a classic example of its historic racism, a leading article...

The Trinidad Carnival this week has commemorated a key point in the Carnival's history - the Canboulay riots of 1881-1884 (the picture ...

It is Carnival time in Brazil , now a major cultural celebration, but one which people had to struggle to establish: 'By the turn of the...

When was the warehouse party born, that is a party in an industrial space rather than a specially designed dancehall or ballroom? One candid...

Extracts from 19th century ballroom manuals: From a New York publication 1864: "Loud conversation, profanity, stamping the feet, writi...

'I was in a shit environment that I hated doing stuff I didn't want to do. I loved dancing, it was the first time [for] northern mal...

There is a dancefloor utopia, the fantasy of a Boogie Wonderland, a Saturday night that never stops. They Shoot Horses Don't They (a 193...

I want this site to reflect people's personal experiences of dancing and musicking, so I've designed a short questionnaire which I...

The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men; A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes...

"On Sat 6th Jan a group of local people, along with others, occupied 139-141 Church Street [Stoke Newington, London] with the intentio...

I'm not sure that central London gig venue The Astoria Theatre is still under threat - the fear that Derwent Valley Central (a property...

In his essay on the Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ), Hakim Bey considers 'TAZ as festival', the party as liberated space and time: ...

"House rent parties were a facet of Harlem life even before the Depression. An outgrowth of parlor socials and church suppers held to r...

Last month saw the death of Mick Mulligan , the English jazz trumpeter described in the 1950s Melody Maker as the King of the Ravers - and t...

Naturally the hype about Nu Rave is bound to give us older ravers cause for wonder. Simon Reynolds , reflecting on The Klaxons , notes the a...