New Rave. New What?

American indie/ dance band The Rapture took issue with the ‘new’ in ‘new rave’ this week and mocked the relentless media reclassification of rock/ dance hybrids.

“I don’t think indie dance is dead, I’ve never thought so, there are still bands doing what we’re still doing,” Rapture drummer Vito Roccoforte told Australia’s 3D World.

“In England, there are a lot of bands that are still coming up and they’re calling it new rave there. They’re a bunch of different titles for basically the same thing,” he scoffed.

In more ‘what-is-new-rave?’ news, New York’s Village Voice defined it as ‘the trendy revival of early-’90s techno with a nod to indie rock’ this week and branded Justice as new rave icons though Parisien producer Xavier De Rosnay was not so sure.

“I think the phenomenon is real, but I am not sure new rave is a good word to describe us,” the We Are You Friends star told Voice writer Trish Romano, “It should be called new big beat.”

America’s old rave scene, meanwhile, came under the mainstream media spotlight in Seattle this week as mourners gathered for a memorial service to mark the first anniversary of the murder of six ravers who were shot dead by Kyle Huff last year, in a spree killing incident at an after-party.

Survivors of the massacre, in which Huff stormed through a house firing randomly and repeatedly at partygoers, spoke of their continuing grief and shock at the killinsg which reports later suggested were prompted partly by Huff’s envy of their lifestyle.

Party organiser Keith Salender, who hosted the rave at which Huff met his victims, told reporters he refused to change his attitudes, which remain centred on rave culture’s PLUR (peace, love, unity and respect) principles.

“I will still talk to strangers, I will still make friends with the lonely guy in the corner, and I will still invite him to be a part of my extended family,” Salender told the Seattle Intelligencer. “I cannot say that I still do this without caution, but I refuse to allow this horrific event to rule my life.”

http://www.seattlememorialtemple.org (A Community Gathering For and By the Family, Friends and Victims of the Capitol Hill Tragedy and All Those Affected by Gun Violence . . .’)