“House isn't so much a sound as a situation”
-DJ Sprinkles, Midtown 120 Blues
The most fundamental principle of being a DJ is being attuned to the reality of the dancefloor, and in turn the multitude of realities that shape that reality. In other words, we have to pay attention to the dancefloor, and consider what factors make the dancefloor the way that it is. To internalize and reflect the situation presented to us, both the situation that is immediately apparent to us and the general situation that dictates the terms under which we construct our own internal realities, that is each of our unique states of mind that serves as a filter between what we understand to be real and the unknowable real. To take an active role in the interplay between content, context, situations, and the construction of reality is at the core of the role of the DJ, music just happens to be the vehicle by which we are able to participate.
But what is our situation? To put it bluntly, we are staring down the barrel of oblivion and idly waiting for something to pull the trigger. The forces of empire of capital are stronger now than ever before in the history of humanity. Industry itself is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will irrevocably change the nature of production forever. Wealth continues to flow upward where it is locked out of access of the general population of the world. It might be too late to do anything substantial to counteract human-made climate change. As a harbinger to how critical our moment is and how bleak the future might be, western democracies are bearing witness to a full-fledged resurgence of fascism, an ideology created and solely made possible by the systemic failure of capitalism.
We fear that the only thing left to fight for is the epilogue of the human experience. We fear that we have run out of time to be anything but absolutely radical in everything we do. To remain passive is to assume defeat and accept complete annihilation. We have no intention of doing so. It’s time to get going.
Within the rave and the riot exists a concurrent phenomenon in which unarticulated angst manifests as the hysterical, kinetic body. This angst stems from every aspect of our lives that are toxic to us that are the result of capitalism, and the social power dynamics and exploitation that results thereof. This angst is so toxic to us particularly because we have no means to redress it, or even process it for that matter, due to the fact that the only way to adequately process these feelings is to accept that the reality we accept is illegitimate, the values we are taught to hold true are forfeit, and that a reality that is a radical departure from the one we take for granted is as possible as things continuing on the same path forever (or at least as long as it can). This capacity to envision alternate realities is the basis of radical thought.
One of the many heads that constitutes the hydra that is our collective angst is the knowledge that, under the structures of government, elections, and constitutions we live under, we have no legitimate course of action to enact any substantial political change. The powers that be are smart enough to codify the means by which we as the general populace are allowed to participate in the course of government so that they are completely ineffectual to do what we need to be done. Only in moments when the veneer of peace and order cracks do we see the natural process by which inarticulate angst is converted into radical energy in a hysteric, kinetic, populist explosion of fury and passion; the riot. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
“a riot is the language of the unheard”.
Riots, however, are but disparate example of groups of people simultaneously reaching their breaking points in response to an extreme stimuli and demonstrating their rage in a self-organized flash of violence and disruption. In a way, they are a glass cannon. In our situation, riots barely affect any substantial, lasting impact beyond the physical destruction left behind and the implicit threat that it might happen again. With the pace that mass media barrels along at nowadays, even the memory of such events fades almost completely in the span of weeks. The riot, for all its direct, tangible impact, fails to allocate any of its energy into curating and maintaining a sustainable movement, and they generally burn out as fast as they flare up.
The rave is another avenue for us to manifest this angst in the form of the hysteric, kinetic body the similarity between how the rioter gesticulates in the crowd in the streets and how the raver contorts themself on the dancefloor are strikingly similar. In fact, it is not uncommon to see rioters break into massive, spontaneous dances and chant at the same regular intervals that dance music is structurally based on. We don’t think this is a coincidence. Both the riot and the rave serve the same function, to give people the opportunity to convert angst, an unspoken rage, into radical energy. The difference between them is where this energy is directed; in the case of the riot, an unsustainable explosion of externalized violence. In the case of the rave, conjured but failed to be utilized due to a lack of clear and explicit intent. The rave’s capacity for radical organization is validated by the fixation of empire’s forces on the recuperation of the rave phenomenon by commodifying it in the form of major EDM festivals, where the energy is completely obfuscated and perverted into absolute engrossment of the spectacle.
Our intent is to utilize this limit-experience to organize and energize a robust leftist presence in Los Angeles.
“The House Nation likes to pretend clubs are an oasis from suffering, but suffering is in here, with us”
-DJ Sprinkles, Midtown 120 Blues
Understanding the reality of the dancefloor as a space where suffering is not escaped from, but where it is actually confronted, is crucial to understanding its role as a means for people to confront and internalize feelings and experiences where conventional means fail us. This reality also illuminates the importance the context of a rave is to the rave itself. Raves do not exist merely due to an unaddressed demand for this type of event, but specifically because they are illegal, underground, unsanctioned, and radical, conditions that can only exist in opposition to a status quo. In this sense, raves exist primarily as a reaction to the status quo, and therefore it can be inferred that the function of the rave is to subvert the status quo. Assuming the status quo relies on the passivity of those that live under it, then the function of the rave must be to engender radical energy in those that attend or participate. The process by which the rave achieves this is by converting angst by way of the hysterical body. The moment this conversion takes place is akin to what Foucault called a limit-experience.
"The point of life which lies as close as possible to the impossibility of living, which lies at the limit or the extreme.”
That is to say an experience that brings you to the far edge of comprehension, a moment that allows you to perceive reality beyond the false values that construct our general concept of reality. The moment we embrace the absurd, a moment without which radical thought is impossible.
The potential of this limit-experience can be laid to waste all too easily by refusing to engage with the political reality of the situation and ascribing completely to hedonism. To regard the dancefloor as a space to escape, to forget, to chase euphoria. We’ve had enough fun. It’s time to act.
We would be remiss to not explicitly acknowledge the revolutionary, subversive cultural landscape we have decided engage with. That is to say everything we might hope to accomplish is built on a foundation established by Black, Latinx, and queer peoples, from the Harlem ballrooms to the destitute auto factories of Detroit. Not just the techno music that they are the progenitors for, but for imbuing it with the political scope and intent that has always been an integral aspect of the club. Even beyond whatever sort of debt we owe these progenitors, the basis of our political thought is founded on the empowerment, validation, and protection of all identifications of gender, race, ethnicity, and class. However, in response to the situation we find ourselves in, we find it absolutely necessary to give disproportionate platform and visibility to the expression of PoC, gendernoncomforming, non-heteronormative, and poor peoples participating in our scene, so as to better proportion their presence in the grand scope of society’s collective consciousness. Healing does not begin once the assailant ceases to stab the victim, but once the blade is removed and medical attention is applied to the wound. As such, there will be absolutely zero tolerance for bigoted, hateful, or prejudiced actions or rhetoric in whatever space we occupy. Displays of domination, harassment, manipulation, or otherwise any action that violates the agency of another human is absolutely condemned and prohibited. This includes the endorsement of any political ideology, rhetoric, or candidate that contributes to the proliferation of any of the aforementioned ills. Reactionaries need not participate at any capacity.
“Let’s go lets go”
-Jammin Gerald, Pump That Shit Up