Rave Art

A collection of flyers, invitations and rare memberships to legendary clubs and events from the Rave scene, giving an insight into a socio-cultural phenomenon that changed music, the law, drug culture, dance, fashion and design. Revised and expanded.

Published to accompany the exhibition Energy flash - the Rave Movement, M HKA, 17 June 25-September 2016.

Showcasing the mastermind behind some of the most iconic rave flyers and record covers of the late eighties and early nineties, Junior Tomlin: Flyer & Cover Art is a comprehensive insight into Junior's incredible back catalogue. Intrinsic to the spread of rave culture in pre-internet days was the dissemination of flyers, giving ravers information on where and when promoters would be organising parties. To stand out from the competition events needed to have distinctive flyer artwork and Junior's visionary capabilities led to a long-running career as a flyer artist. His often surreal imagery earned him the title 'The Salvador Dali of rave'. 30 years since he designed his first flyer, this book documents his work, with commentary and draft sketches provided by Junior himself. Chronicling the work of a pioneering artist whose art was part of the visual identity of early rave culture, Junior Tomlin: Flyer & Cover Art marks a critical time in British history. In a time where division and conflict seem to be more prevalent than ever, the book allows us to escape into Junior's fantasy worlds and travel back in time to an era when social barriers were being broken down.

A history of American art and its criticism as seen through the eyes of contemporary viewers and critics.

Events that started as secretive nights in underground clubs, with word-of-mouth advertising grew from one-off take-overs of unusual venues into huge open land-based events. Pager and telephonic communication became the medium of message-passing, and flyers were key to it all: informing the right people about the right place at the right time. Chelsea Berlin was there from the beginning, attending many of the now legendary events, from Club Shoom to Energy and beyond. In Rave Art, the whole exciting movement is documented through the flyers that were handed out freely (or sometimes privately) to inform partygoers of the next venue. Flyer design became an artform, and this book contains hundreds of the most significant and rare examples from Chelsea's huge collection. Rave Art paints a vivid picture of what is probably the last significant youth culture movement of modern times.

Joining the ranks of Please Kill Me and Can’t Stop Won’t Stop comes this definitive chronicle of one of the hottest trends in popular culture—electronic dance music—from the noted authority covering the scene. It is the sound of the millennial generation, the music “defining youth culture of the 2010s” (Rolling Stone). Rooted in American techno/house and ’90s rave culture, electronic dance music has evolved into the biggest moneymaker on the concert circuit. Music journalist Michaelangelo Matos has been covering this beat since its genesis, and in The Underground Is Massive, charts for the first time the birth and rise of this last great outlaw musical subculture. Drawing on a vast array of resources, including hundreds of interviews and a library of rare artifacts, from rave fanzines to online mailing-list archives, Matos reveals how EDM blossomed in tandem with the nascent Internet—message boards and chat lines connected partiers from town to town. In turn, these ravers, many early technology adopters, helped spearhead the information revolution. As tech was the tool, Ecstasy—(Molly, as it’s know today) an empathic drug that heightens sensory pleasure—was the narcotic fueling this alternative movement. Full of unique insights, lively details, entertaining stories, dozens of photos, and unforgettable misfits and stars—from early break-in parties to Skrillex and Daft Punk—The Underground Is Massive captures this fascinating trend in American pop culture history, a grassroots movement that would help define the future of music and the modern tech world we live in.