Around the same time, party lines hooked up to computer modems and people could type to each other as well as talk. The technology’s popularity allowed a brief resurgence. One party line hosted a wedding, where the bride, groom, and officiant were at different terminals in Manhattan. Instead of throwing rice, the 1,000 callers who tuned in typed apostrophes. “It was very beautiful,” said a party line owner, “and very profitable.” From time to time, a narrative arrives so focused both aesthetically and politically that it’s impossible not to be pulled in by its narrative. In the introduction of his superb book ‘Party Lines’, author Ed Gillett lays out the vision for his exciting history, namely: ‘to deconstruct some of the myths around raves emergence and early years’ and further ‘to expand the narrative towards the present: where previous retellings tend to lose some of their urgency after the Criminal Justice Act is passed.’

Ecstasy - the drug that made British football hooligans stop fighting and start hugging each other. standard Youtube comments such as “typical leftie view” and “he doesn’t once mention football hooligans taking e!!!” A fascinating deep dive into dance music's uneasy relationship with the establishment. * Jeremy Deller * ABOUT USLouder Than War is a music, culture and media publication headed by The Membranes & Goldblade frontman John Robb. Online since 2010 it is one of the fastest-growing and most respected music-related publications on the net.Loves long walks along the beach, holding hands and romantic 80's power ballads, partial to electronic music and likes to make the odd mix or two. Meanwhile, the phone companies collected a share of income from each group phone call — about 60%, reported Newsday in 1988 . And virtually anyone with a few hundred dollars lying around could buy up a local number, advertise it, and if it caught on, start raking in cash. It was the 1980s entrepreneur’s dream, albeit a risky one. Notting Hill Carnival is a bigger target. Potentially, it’s eminently exploitable, but it’s probably too diffuse and problematic to attract major investors. Whatever RBKC might like to think, it’s not owned by anyone, so it can’t be bought outright, and attempts to exert overt municipal or corporate control provoke fierce community resistance. Unlike music, Carnival is intimately tied to place and in Notting Hill it is, after 57 years, firmly embedded in a strong community, which is its greatest protection. A passionately argued and intensively researched addition to the ever-evolving narrative of UK dance music culture. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month.

Chaptered by theme rather than chronology, Party Lines can be a little repetitive. But Gillett’s research is thorough and thoughtful, particularly when debunking some of the myths around dance music and drugs. When, in 1995, 18-year-old Leah Betts died after taking ecstasy and then drinking 12 pints of water in just 90 minutes, causing her brain to swell to fatal proportions, the tabloid railed hysterically against drug taking and clubbing. And yet, reports Gillett, omitted from this coverage was the fact that Betts took the pill at home. The moral panic had no constructive effect anyway: between 1994 and 1996, self-reported Ecstasy use among 15-to-34-year-olds almost doubled. Kids enjoy making up a new identity because on a phone you can be whoever you want to be,” Christopher Woods of the Friendship Network, a chat line company out of Los Angeles, told The Boston Globe. “Every guy on the line will say he drives a Porsche or some other exciting car. There’s a lot of fantasy involved.” Ed Gillett is a journalist and film-maker based in South London, who has written for The Guardian, Frieze, DJ Mag, The Quietus and Novara Media. His film and TV credits include Jeremy Deller’s acclaimed rave documentary Everybody in the Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984–1992 for BBC Four, and Four To The Floor, Channel 4’s award-winning music and factual strand . Party Lines is his first book. The history of dance music has been hugely mythologised. Were there any particular cliches you wanted to avoid?Did you see the TV documentary ? He goes into a school & explains the story to a load of 14yr olds who appear very enthralled (as you should be!!). A truly thrilling journey through the politics, culture and successive social revolutions of British dance music: a landmark book, and a reminder that the dancefloor is always political. Ed Gillett: The canonical texts on dance music were mostly mainly in the late 1990 and early 2000s, from the perspective of people who were there at the time. One of the things I was hoping to do with this book was to re-examine some of that history, taking into account the changes in society and culture that have happened since then.