Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures (Popular Music History) (STUDIES IN POPULAR MUSIC) [Paperback]

Graham St John (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1845536266 | ISBN-13: 978-1845536268 | Publication Date: November 15, 2009 | Edition: 1

A cultural history of global electronic dance music countercultures, Technomad charts a course through an emerging network of techno-tribes, exploring their pleasure principles and cultural politics. Documenting sound systems, secret sonic societies, intentional parties, revitalisation movements and counter-colonial interventions, Technomad illustrates how the dance party has been harnessed for transgressive and progressive ends. Using extensive ethnographic, netographic and documentary research, the book covers local sites and global scenes: e.g. Spiral Tribe, teknivals, psytrance, Burning Man, Reclaim the Streets, Earthdream. This cultural history will interest students of cultural, performance, music, media, and new social movement studies, along with enthusiasts of dance culture and popular politics.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures is the most wide-ranging and detailed of all the books on rave. More than the study of a musical movement or genre, Technomad offers an alternate history of cultural politics since the 1960s, from hippies and Acid Tests through the sound systems and 'vibe-tribes' of the 1990s and beyond.... Like Greil Marcus' Lipstick Traces, Technomad makes unexpected but entirely convincing connections between people, movements and events. Like Tom Wolfe's The Electric Koolaid Acid Test, St John's book introduces us to unknown heroes, committed geniuses and genuine revolutionaries. Beautifully written, with a genuinely international perspective on electronic dance music culture, Technomad is one of the best books on music I've read in some time."
Professor Will Straw, Department of Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University

"A critical utopianism is articulated and celebrated with a textual energy too rare in today's cultural studies. Graham St John is wide-eyed in order to look more closely. I recommend his shining and grubby doofscape to all interested in the radical possibilities and limitations of contemporary culture."
Professor George McKay, University of Salford

"Technomad offers important insights into the meeting points between countercultural discourses and post-rave techno cultures. Optimistic regarding the progressive potential of outdoor techno-trance gatherings, this well-documented study traces the complex genealogy of a global nomadic 'technoccult', with emphasis on Europe, North-America and Australia. Not to be missed by anyone interested in the study of rave cultures, countercultures and festivals."
Dr Hillegonda Rietveld, Reader in Cultural Studies, London South Bank University

About the Author

Graham St John is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Media Production and Studies at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, a Research Associate at the University of Queensland's Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, and was recently an SAR/SSRC Residential Fellow at the School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico. His books include the edited collections Victor Turner and Contemporary Cultural Performane (Berghahn 2008), and Rave Culture and Religion (Routledge, 2004). His book Global Trance Culture: Religion, Technology and Psytrance is forthcoming with Blackwell.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Equinox Publishing; 1 edition (November 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1845536266
• ISBN-13: 978-1845536268
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #934,639 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #60 in Books > Arts & Photography > Performing Arts > Dance > Popular

More About the Author

Graham St John (1968) is an Australian anthropologist of alternative and electronic dance music cultures and Executive Editor of the journal Dancecult (www.dj.dancecult.net). He has held several research positions - a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Queensland's Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, an SSRC Residential Fellowship at the School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and postdoc in Interactive Media and Production at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan. Graham's latest book is Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures (Equinox, 2009). He has edited several collections including FreeNRG: Notes From the Edge of the Dance Floor (Commonground, 2001), Rave Culture and Religion (Routledge, 2004), Victor Turner and Contemporary Cultural Performance (Berghahn 2008), and The Local Scenes and Global Culture of Psytrance (Routledge, 2010). He is currently completing a book on psytrance called Global Tribe: Technology, Spirituality and Psytrance (Equinox).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Groundbreaking and already an all time classic!, November 29, 2010

By 

Anna Gavanas - See all my reviews

This review is from: Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures (Popular Music History) (STUDIES IN POPULAR MUSIC) (Paperback)

In this book, cultural anthropologist Graham St John documents the emergence and implications of global electronic dance music countercultures. Based on unique ethnographic, netographic and documentary material, St John discusses Electronic Dance Music (EDM) scenes in its diverse global, local and glocal contexts. He documents music scenes illustrating nine interrelated modes of resistance; Dionysian, outlaw, exile, avant, spiritual, reclaiming, safety, reactionary and activist. Throughout the book, St John gets into themes and scenes in detail like the "protestival;" the role of EDM in carnivals of resistance like "reclaim the streets"; the role of EDM techno-activists in counter-colonial actions in Australia; the history of EDM at Burning Man in the U.S.; as well as the techno-punk crossover in Sydney. There is also a chapter on psytrance and the technoccult. Moreover, St John chronicles the UK sound system exodus - especially with Spiral Tribe's move to the continent and the teknival emergence in Europe and North America.

St John's "Technomad" is an outstanding theoretical and empirical contribution to the emerging field of Electronic Dance Music studies. St John offers ground breaking and complex theoretical discussions on resistance, counterculture, music/media studies and globalization. Written in an absolutely mesmerizing style, "Technomad" offers invaluable insider accounts and documents crucial events in EDM history. This book is already an all time classic, and indispensable to anyone interested in the diversity of EDM practices and intentions, and its multiple impacts on contemporary global cultural politics.