Dance or die!
February 20, 2018 11:02 AM   Subscribe

Holly Dicker attends the biggest indoor hardcore rave in history to tell the story of Thunderdome and Holland's most significant youth culture movement. Legendary Dutch hardcore rave Thunderdome returns 5 years after their "final" 20th anniversary event in 2012. This is a great read about the history of a scene that inspired passion in a lot of people, as well as a detailed review of the event itself which seems rare in festival / rave culture.
posted by thedaniel (18 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Great article. This takes me right back to my youth riding the train from Groningen to Zwolle each morning to attend school. Listening to my walkman/discman loaded with Metallica, Nirvana, Tori Amos and various hardcore tracks.
posted by Pendragon at 11:08 AM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


And here I thought they'd gotten beyond Thunderdome.
posted by kyrademon at 11:51 AM on February 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


Gabber is the one genre of 90s electronic dance music that I still don't understand. I can talk all day about different genres and sub-subgenres – but gabber really does all sound the same to me. I love the most minimal of techno – but gabber sounds like nothing but the same dumb kick drum for seven minutes. I'll argue all day that creating electronic music requires more talent than many people realize – but most gabber tracks are just a formulaic drum machine rhythm, an Alpha Juno riff that I could come up with in twenty seconds, and a vocal sample repeated ad infinitum.

It's taken me a while to appreciate some genres – years, in some cases. Hardcore in general has never been my favorite, but I've enjoyed some of the old Industrial Strength stuff, and even some happy hardcore.

But gabber? I just don't get it.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 12:20 PM on February 20, 2018


An excuse to relisten to my copy of the thunderdome 19 compilation CD set. Haven't thought about those CDs in years.

Or force my co-workers to listen to it, sounds like a louder plan.
posted by TheAdamist at 12:46 PM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


Ons ons ons ons.

De hartslag van Nederland.
posted by humboldt32 at 1:40 PM on February 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


Gabber is the one genre of 90s electronic dance music that I still don't understand

Give an infnite number of Dutch teenagers an infinite number of Grooveboxes and an infinite number of amphetamines, and every last goddamned one of them will fart out an aggressively irritating approximation of the “Tango” beat found on every shitty 1980s Casio keyboard.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:11 PM on February 20, 2018 [6 favorites]


That Resident Advisor article was a decent read!

Probably doesn't need me standing up for it in this thread, but the best defence of Gabba as music is the way a favourite song or track can catch you up and transport you in exactly the same way something from a different genre can.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 2:22 PM on February 20, 2018


LITERARY PUN: So if you're writing about Raves, are you a part of the Beats Movement?
posted by Peter H at 2:29 PM on February 20, 2018 [4 favorites]


Gabber isn't meant for listening it's meant to be felt through your ribcage in a party.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 6:25 PM on February 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


Hah! Every time I get near the decks at a do my friends disagree.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 6:27 PM on February 20, 2018


There's 1000BPM hardcore mentioned in the linked article. How is that even possible?
posted by ardgedee at 6:30 PM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


One of Johnny Violent's things at a gig was to play a clip at progressively higher BPMs each time. Essentially like hearing a bassy farty noise become less impressive in increments. Johnny Violent so naturally a bit tongue in cheek.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 6:37 PM on February 20, 2018


Answering my own question: Speedcore tracks are in the 500BPM and over range, and Extratone tracks are over 1000BPM.

1000BPM is roughly 16.7 Hz, as if every strike of a fast drumroll is a downbeat. Up the tempo faster than that and the beat is generating audible overtones. Judging from the Extratone tracks posted on YouTube, exponents treat this more like a dare to be listened to, or a prank, rather than a music genre.
posted by ardgedee at 6:58 PM on February 20, 2018


The video for Iberia's (really rather wonderful) track "Everyday" was apparently shot outside Thunderdome 2012. Know the score!
posted by soundofsuburbia at 12:19 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


There are musically interesting extratone tracks, though.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 2:29 PM on February 21, 2018


Hah! That's pretty good, but that really sounds like a 120-ish bpm plus tones generated by a drum machine; there's even a basic stompy one-two tempo playing in the background through most of it.

I'm not sneering at this, because I love it when people are pushing at the boundaries like this (heck, I listen to black midi for pleasure too). It's more that in the pieces I've heard (admittedly, not many), I'm not hearing a commitment to the form yet.
posted by ardgedee at 4:16 AM on February 22, 2018


Yeah, I mean, the actual rhythm that you nod your head to in that track is more like 100 BPM – but it's more or less psychoacoustically impossible to a create a track with a perceived BPM higher than a few hundred.

Above a certain BPM, the ear just hears the individual drum hits as a continuous pitched tone. This is definitely true around 1,200 BPM (which works out to 20 Hz – generally recognized as the lower bound of human hearing), but the auditory impression of individual drum hits (as opposed to a tone) probably falls apart well before you get to 1,200 BPM.

As usual, Adam Neely takes it to the next level.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 2:03 PM on February 22, 2018


Great article on a genre that in the UK tends to get laughed at as a novelty. The point made about importing Happy Hardcore from the UK - another "hahaha the plebs like stupid music" - was interesting. I liked John Peel's take on it:
I'm particularly into happy hardcore - it barely exists now because the dance community sneers at it and when people sneer I find myself strangely passionate. I'm always confused as to where all these different genres begin and end. When I hear people talk about 'intelligent' drum'n'bass I think it presupposes that 'stupid' drum'n'bass exists and I've always felt that stupid drum and bass would be something that I'd quite like.
Also this is fucking immense. Classic Dutch insanity from the late 90s.
posted by Len at 11:34 AM on February 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


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