You do it very well! Boomers are annoying. I get annoyed when I get boomer myself. But raving was def better when I was 17 and not having to leave Lowlife and get to the kids football after two hours non-sleep….not my finest hour!.
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More of an observation than a full on criticism.
Admittedly, there seems to be less of it going on in the low key, ‘red light in a basement’ type venues as you say. The vibe is different there and you sense the people generally do go along to enjoy the music. There’s dancing, and sweating, and less people standing about with their phones pointing at the DJ Booth. I know these places still exist and you know it’s a real labour of love for the organisers and DJs alike to bring these events to the more discerning clubbers. The underground scene right there, still thriving.
Maybe it’s my algorithm skewing my view. I see people consuming rather than actually enjoying.
I’m sounding like an old fart, and I am one, but I certainly don’t gatekeep or feel any resentment. It’s great that younger generations are enjoying the music and the experiences we had when we were in our 20s/30s.
Wouldn’t surprise me if that meme was created using some AI tool. Some of the words seem a bit weirdly placed.
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There are natural generational divides, tensions, milestones, unique experiences which have defined people forever. I met someone in the summer who had never used a phonebox before. There’s no point me trying to relate or vice versa. And obv, they have to find their own way. And maybe there will be overlap at some point. As it stands, small clubs are shutting down everywhere and someone who is 18 therefore has no hope of going through that sweaty chemical epiphany in the same way. They may hear the same music elsewhere with different ears, but obviously it is completely different and more sanitised because who the hell is scaling fences to break into parties now? So yes there will be a bit of sneering because it’s all so easy now and besides that’s what middle aged people have done forever, but is it such a bad thing? That tension is often at the heart of culture. People need to kick back at something. Where I think it is more problematic is when someone is sold a fiction, a pastiche of something, which is modern clubbing, affecting all the trappings of underground alla DC10 (in 2024) but actually a reflection of greed at its worst. And if that is all a lot of kids get, how the hell would they know any different?
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I don’t accept this, clubs look the same, feel the same and people do the mostly the same drugs. The only differences i see are more to do with how the djs and maybe the more hardcore music fans would be engaging with and getting the music. An 18 year old walking into a club to hear… i dunno, Chris Stussy or whoever, is gonna be having a pretty similar experience to an 18 year old walking into some tech house club in the late 90s or whatever.
Not everyone was scaling fences to get into clubs back in the day either, most people’s experiences of clubbing, and dancing to music was in clubs. A lot of clubs are still pretty dank and disgusting in the same way as the ones back in the day.
If you are self aware of it, and aware that you don’t even have the full picture of young people’s modern experiences, why bother indulging it in? You are just becoming the thing you once rallied against…
Ibiza looked like a capitalist hellhole to me as far back as the early 90s, it is absolutely not the high point of any sort of dance music revolution to me. Maybe it is to you, and you can see some sort of purity to the vision of 90s/00s DC10 that i never saw, but this example is simply an example of something you liked at the time, that has now changed in a way that you don’t like.
I see your point, and i see where you are coming from, but i don’t really agree.
I think people are judging modern clubbing on what the algorithm is feeding them on their social media streams.
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the kids are alright! https://www.kuow.org/stories/seattle-s-under-ground-rave-scene-is-raging
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Back in the 90s there would have been older clubbers saying it wasn’t as good as clubbing in the 80s, in the 80s there would have been older heads saying it was better in the 70s etc etc…
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In the 90s there were clubbers saying it was better six months ago/three months ago/last week/yesterday/this morning….!
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Yeah, it’s easy to criticise when you’re viewing youth culture through a nostalgic lens.
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w/o knowing how old you are are or where you are, you are obviously tapped into scenes many of us on here couldn’t hope to know about. By the same token tho I think it is unrealistic to expect people of a certain age, with a strong emotional attachment to music and its history, to automatically acquiesce in how things have changed. People will roll their eyes at change, whether justified or not. It’s a natural impulse but often good-humoured (o’wise Faith Fanzine would have folded at birth haha).
And does it really matter as we ‘retire’? I guess people will still moan when their one night out a year falls short and maybe there is resentment twds the same commercial festivalised forces seemingly driven by younger crowds who perhaps aren’t always respectful as you’d like. (ask Croatian resorts whether they prefer older balearic clubbers or the tech house Sonus kids…)
which is why I think Ibiza is relevant here because that is what is sold to millions of kids as a benchmark and aspiration. It is still relevant, even if we wish it weren’t so. If kids are able to rail against that and offer a positive counter culture, then I wish 'em the best
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I am happy for people to have any opinion they want, all i am really trying to say is that things are simply not as bad as a lot of people think they are.
Moan away, i am really just doing my own brand of boomer moaning back (as @elzorro already pointed out)
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Your opinion is as valid as anyone else’s. It seems you’re at the coalface too, so it’s good to know that the scene is thriving as it was back then, and dispelling any myths fed to us by the algorithm gods.
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Yeah, first point I will bring up is: when did Gen X become Boomers? Boomers were my parents generation(and I’m 56). I’m guessing that Gen Z just use that term for their parents’ generation.
As I see it, and I can only speak for where I live, which is Sydney, but I can’t see why it wouldn’t be the same other places, the underground/free party/diy party scene is pretty healthy. You won’t see it on social media for the same reasons that underground doo’s of the past were kept low key.
Plenty of crews putting on great diy nights in imaginative venue’s, playing varied and interesting music with a really nice bunch of young people. Yes things are different, but that’s the way it is supposed to be. Commercial clubs(super clubs) were crap back in the day IMO and they are probably similar now, wouldn’t know myself but that’s how most of us view that world.
A couple of weeks ago I attended such an event(diy doo) and no-one was standing behind the DJ’s, and not many people holding up phones. Nice people, nice vibe.
Personally I hate nostalgia in general. So many people make it sound like the only good time they had was between '87 & Edit 92, after that it was all downhill. That was entirely their choice and their loss, as the good times have indeed kept rolling on for those that cared to pursue the life.
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surely you meant “between '87 & 1992” 
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I feel like sound quality and open access to good music has significantly improved since “the good old days”. The type of music that is currently most popular/being played out will always change an individual’s experience, and to me it’s going through a rough patch at the moment (purely personal taste). But that changes so often, and as someone who has actively been hitting dancefloors from ~95 to now, it’s been both better and worse.
The biggest negative influence to me is phones and social media invading the dancefloor. But to be clear that’s coming from all generations and to everywhere, not just dancefloors. If it wasn’t for bright lights shining in my face while people are videoing I wouldn’t care so much, and in the 90s - I’m sure that subset of people would’ve been annoying people in different ways without their phone.
Let people dance and enjoy the music they like. If it’s not for you and yours: organise an event that yo think is better!
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Ha, maybe the years have had a bit of an effect on the old grey matter
Nostalgia isnt as good as it used to be!
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A lot of my posts might seem overly nostalgic, but it’s usually driven by an interest in history and trying to understand things better, rather than wanting to relive it. I get emotional when I remember certain nights, people, venues now lost forever, but that’s it. The idea of physically returning to 1980s Hammersmith gives me the chills and society has progressed positively in so many ways. Unlike certain snake oil salesmen, I would never kid anyone that the past was a promised land.
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Right. And I think its important to air those memories.
Too much of the past gets commercialised by people who weren’t really there, or gets distorted by the lens of just a few people’s memories.
Our cultural legacy is becoming increasingly important, and apart from discovering new music, is one of the main reasons I come to places like this.
A great example is the mention of London after hours places in the Night Tsar thread - I had totally forgotten about Troys, and suddently I was flooded with memories.
Bring it on.
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Best times for me were in our cave when I was a teenager- no phones, no music, heat or joy, just tapping some sheep bones on a rock, as my dad got mauled by a Sabretooth tiger. If you know you know.
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