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TOP 12: CLUB CULTURE EXTINCTIONS

26 November 2011
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TOP 12: CLUB CULTURE EXTINCTIONS

12. Far Too Many Venues
The Cross, Turnmills, Club UK, The Haçienda… the list of lost music Meccas is as long as it is depressing. Yet we can carry on dancing safe in the knowledge that the recession has sapped all the value out of the posh flats that replaced our beloved clubs. Ha.

AMBIENTHOUSE
11. Numerous Sub-Genres
Dance music is a fickle beast. One minute it’s all about electro; the next everyone’s banging on about UK funky. Sadly, some sounds will always get left behind, so shed a tear for ambient house and keep an eye out for Justin Lee Collins’ new TV show, Whatever Happened To Handbag?

DANCING
10. Proper Dancing
Watch any YouTube clip from an early-90s rave and we guarantee you’ll be transfixed by the dancing. Maybe the flailing limbs and twirling glowsticks were a reaction to the oppression of the Thatcher era. Or maybe people just didn’t take themselves so seriously back then.

SCENEFASH
9. Scene Fashion
For some people, being into dance music was more a fashion thing than a music thing. That said, who among us hasn’t indulged in the odd questionable trend over the years? Not that there’s anything that bad about bright yellow trousers or Kanye West shutter shades, surely…

SMOKING
8. Smoking
Yes, it damages your health, but smoking provided some valuable services to the clubbing community, too. It masked BO in clubs, covered cheeky joint consumption AND kept people on the dancefloor. That’s three more positives than some DJs we could mention.

WHISTLE
7. Rave Accessories
Ah, the whistle: a staple of raves and PE teachers’ conventions alike. But along with the horn, the Vicks inhaler and even the glowstick, traditional rave accessories are becoming relics of a lost era. Not to worry, though; they’ll all be available in app form eventually.

SPEED
6. Speed
When the price of MDMA dropped, so did its older brother’s popularity. By the turn of the millennium the former stimulant of choice had become something of a dirty word. The willy shrinkage, rotting teeth and extreme paranoia probably didn’t help, either.

SECURITY
5. Shady Security
Occasionally government legislation is good for the scene. Such was the case with the 2001 Private Security Industry Act, which required that door staff be licensed. Since then reports of shady security have fallen, and punters only get groped if they ask nicely.

ALTERN8
4. Rave Lingo
Popularised by the likes of Altern-8 and The Shaman during the halcyon years of rave, lingo like ‘top one’ and ‘sorted’ provided the messy masses with an arsenal of fail-safe words and phrases to use whenever they forgot what they were talking about mid-waffle.

CASSETTE
3. DJ Mixtapes
Prior to sound editing and DJ soft-ware, demo tapes were something of an art form. There were two approaches: some jocks spent weeks planning them; others chanced them off-the-cuff. Either way, they often went tits-up 50 minutes in, leaving no option but to re-record.

FLYER
2. Flyer Art
With their unique, trippy designs, flyers used to be the ideal bedroom wallpaper. Now they’re knocked up in five minutes from bland Photo-shop templates. Bring back ardent rave hippies armed with felt tips and whatever chemicals remained in their system after a night out!

RECORD
1. Record Shops
Back before DSI and Facebook, record shops were the definitive hub of every local scene. Along with new music, the envied elders of the shop provided their customers with event details, tickets and insider gossip, all while conveying an air of superiority (justified, as they had all the best promos). But it wasn’t all just chin-strokery; while the staff massaged each other’s egos, the customers were making friends and organising parties. Although a few remain, the task of holding a local scene together has gone online. For shame.

TAGS: CLUB CULTURE EXTINCTIONS / FEATURES / TOP 12

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