History is made at night

Following the recent 1997 chronology we go back another year to 1996, a time of Reclaim the Streets parties, police raids on gay clubs and,...

Albion rose from where he labourd at the Mill with Slaves Giving himself for the Nations he danc'd the dance of Eternal Death (William B...

The White Rose (die Weiße Rose) was an anti-fascist resistance group in Germany 1942-3, initiated by students in Munich. A number of its me...

Popped into People’s Republic of Disco in Brixton for a little while last night, couldn’t stay for the messy mash up that was just getting ...

'Thousands of bodies everywhere. In fact, just one body, a single immense ramified mass of flesh, all sexes merged. A single, shameless,...

This chronology of raves, clubs and policing was compiled from the dance music press at the time ( Mixmag , Muzik , Eternity, DJ etc.). Much...

The 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche clearly appreciated dance, and in his imagining of the “the glowing life of the Di...

We've discussed house rent parties in pre-WW2 Harlem here before . Toni Morrison's novel 'Jazz' is set in Harlem in the 1920...

Martin from Beyond the Implode with tales of drunken dancing and snogging from Dunstable to St. Petersburg . Don't think we've met ...

Extracts from a call for transnational days of action for squats and autonomous spaces: 'On Friday the 4th and Saturday the 5th of April...

Following a summer of police harrassment of parties in East Anglia, their colleagues in Kent seem to be getting in on the action: Endings Wo...

Richard from Commie Curmudgeon and Rough in Here ... has taken issue with some of my earlier pro-disco posts , suggesting that I have exagg...

Today and tomorrow the Day of the Dead is celebrated in Mexico: 'The country vigorously embraces its dead during these days. It drinks...

Camden Council in north London seem to have agreed last week to the demolition of The Electric Ballroom. I must admit I haven't been th...

Our latest questionnaire has been completed by Jeff, who works in the wine trade in California, something that sounds very enticing on a gre...

We have already discussed Yuri Gagarin's first song in space . A couple of years later, a woman's voice joined the ranks of space si...

From Golden Gate Xpress , 22 September 2007: People overflowed into the street and crowded around the westbound bus stop at Haight St. and F...

A couple of interesting posts focusing on different aspects of dancing in Indian cultures. Richard at Rough in Here... has become an enthus...

I’ve been reading Chroma, by Derek Jarman (1994), I believe the last of his books published during his lifetime. It's a meditation on co...

Before the soundclash, before reggae, before hip hop, there was the song duel: ‘In Alaska and in Greenland all disputes except murder are se...

“Disco was the only time we were equal. No one cared whether you were black or white – no one even knew. We were using the culture and the c...

'Blues dance is walking on the edge of Babylon and claiming cultural space. Black youth articulate their experiences and forge alternati...

Conversation in my house tonight: "Did you hear that DJ Andy Kershaw got convicted yesterday" Rose (my daughter), in all seriousn...

In late 19th century and early 20th century Japan, thousands of young women workers were recruited from villlages to work in the cotton and ...

There is a style of 1970s/80s US radical feminist writing that takes 'man-made language' to task, disavowing the patriarchal voice w...

We’ve previously noted how the word ‘rave’ was used in the late 40s and 50s for late night jazz parties in London and elsewhere. Moving int...

Some more on Brixton mid-90s speedcore night, Dead by Dawn, following my previous post . John Eden has pointed me in the direction of Contr...