The Raver’s Guide

I am working on a book on the history and culture of the US electronic dance music scene.

The American rave scene and electronic music subculture are now decades old, yet the tensions remain: simultaneously underground and embedded in popular music, a temporary autonomous zone one weekend and a sponsor-built city the next.

The Raver’s Guide is designed as both a compendium and a guidebook: a documentary history attentive to the flyers, rooms, sounds, and rituals that built the culture, and a field manual that shows readers how to navigate it today.

Why This Book?

Though there are excellent ethnographies of specific micro-scenes, The Raver’s Guide takes a wider view of the American experience. The book is written for two distinct audiences: new participants looking for an on-ramp to the culture, and veterans who want to understand how the scene they built has endured and evolved.

The book is organized into a usable, modular format:

A Social History: Tracing the arc from Chicago House and Detroit Techno in the 1980s to the UK rave imports of the 90s, the commercial boom of the 2010s, and the post-pandemic renaissance.

Thematic Elements: Deep dives into the building blocks of the night, including the cult of the DJ, dance styles, the evolution of lighting and spectacle, the economics of festivals, and the history of harm reduction.

The Frictions: An honest exploration of the contradictions that power the scene: underground vs. ultra-capitalism, future-forward tech vs. historical veneration, and America as center and periphery.

Field Guides: Practical checklists and scene literacy tools, from city guides to musical differentiation to travel preparation.

This book synthesizes scholarship, oral histories, and popular accounts with from-the-floor experience. Although these are far from my primary research interests, I have been a leisure participant in the rave scene for 30 years.

You can contribute your own history and stories at the Rave Oral History Project.