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Why hasn't trance "taken off" in the USA?
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BrettFromTibet
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : May 26, 2008 17:49:28
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In pretty much every modern country with a viable economy, that allows enough personal freedom of expression, trance has become a big phenomena. Europe, Australia, Israel, Russia, Japan, South Africa, Brazil, etc.
Why has psychedelic trance remained relatively small and underground in this country?
What are the cultural, economic, geographical or sociological factors about America that make it less hospitable to trance culture, than say, Mexico, Australia or the UK?
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OpenSourceCode
Datavore
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660
Posted : May 26, 2008 18:33
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because WE LIKE IT SMALL AND UNDERGROUND.
less scum to avoid that way. |
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thegooddale
IsraTrance Junior Member
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626
Posted : May 26, 2008 18:35
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More than anything, I would say it is the organizers and the advertising methods and overall intentions they have in throwing parties. |
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bastardsamadhi
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Posted : May 26, 2008 19:08
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one might examine attitudes towards electronic music in general, all night dance parties/raves, and recreational drug usage held by society / authorities in this country..
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GyPsynate
GyPsy
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Posted : May 26, 2008 19:24
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I agree with bastardsamadhi The whole attitude around the rave culture it negative and the media just feeds into it, all the while advertisers and other media sucks the images and vibe out and helps promote it to the young.Quite a quagmire indeed.lol
Look at Burning man( sorry to all my fellow burners but its true ), imagine if every Psytrance party you went to was like that to big and not comfortable.Might make me want to just spin in my own back yard with the fam ya know.I am from the days of real VIBE at events...What happened to that? To many GMO's in our food now I guess or I'm tainted by life...
I like a good big festival but 500-1000 1 or 5 times a year is cool with me.
 \\\"Invoking the inner dancing buddha with future frequencies from beyond\\\" ~GyPsy
D-A-R-K Rec, Anomalistic Rec.
Cerebral Theater
http://www.molecular.cc/GyPsy/ |
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BrettFromTibet
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : May 26, 2008 21:35
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Although there are some downsides, living in a country with an active trance culture is really FUN!
There are tons of events to go to, shops with music and cool gear, international talent, and more people in the scene to know and connect with. And it's all not scum or square people.. it's that more cool people discovered psychedelic trance and got into it because it's part of the country's party culture. Everyone at least knows about it, and a certain percentage like it.
I would estimate than no more than a small percentage of the "trancer" types - cool people who would potentially love it - in America are even aware of psychedelic trance / non-club culture.
Here's what I see as the barriers to trance in the USA:
- Longstanding tradition of legendary psychedelic bands (like the Grateful Dead, Phish) and Rainbow gatherings have imprinted a lot of the psychedelic peeps for rock music - and against electronic music. Countries like Japan and Mexico never had that. The "60's" for them was Shpongle and day-glo in 1998.
- A shallow / material culture that is more conducive to less "deep" kinds of electronic music like breaks and house.
- Limited vacation and recreation opportunity compared to other first world. Europe / Oz makes it possible for producers to go on welfare, and for party peeps to take 4 week festival circuits... twice a year. It also makes it difficult for Americans to take holidays abroad and get infected by the global current.
- Huge geographical area keeps people / scenes internally isolated.
- Infighting in the small scenes (trance vs. breaks, full-on vs. dark) affects it much more adversely strongly than in a big scene like Japan where there is more than enough parties to cater to every taste, and then some.
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The difference is most apparent when I look at Goa Gil's pictures and see hundreds or thousands of people on the daytime dancefloor at every single other country in the world - and 10 or 15 people dancing in the US...as a barometer of trance popularity with a fixed control (same DJ headlining all night).
Anyways.. yeah ...small and tiny... has its perks... more underground... but, man... I crave a great party pretty much every weekend.. and I only get to go to a couple a year... and I want more psychedelic trance friends!
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PsyCore
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499
Posted : May 27, 2008 00:45
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A first amendment that has been whittled to the bone.
A third amendment that really holds no water.
The RAVE act of 2003, which is a subset of the Crackhouse Law, which makes it so the federal or state govt can seize a persons house or property if enough people and drugs are found during a bust.
This frightens all promoters and would-be land renters from throwing anything over a few hundred.
This on top of all that Brett mentioned (which is all spot on) and....
MTV, rap music, country, and boy bands. |
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bastardsamadhi
Started Topics :
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437
Posted : May 27, 2008 00:54
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new topic: what countries are ideal to immigrate to ?
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bluespectralmonkey
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : May 27, 2008 01:12
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BrettFromTibet
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : May 27, 2008 02:11
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bastardsamhadi,
As an English-speaking Caucasian, my personal dream picks would be:
1.) New Zealand (small scene.. sporadic events)
2.) Australia (great dark progressive scene, psy culture)
3.) South Africa
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BrettFromTibet
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : May 27, 2008 03:34
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Blue spectral monkey...
I think you're most definitely onto something, in general..... but why do the Mexicans and Brazilians... who also love singing to pop music... like psytrance so much more than we do? And the the Greeks, Bulgarian and Slovokians? |
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Misinterpret
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120
Posted : May 27, 2008 06:37
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My top reasons are:
Deeply ingrained "rock and roll" cultural music programming
HUGE geography (This is going to become even more isolating as fuel prices rise!)
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BrettFromTibet
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : May 27, 2008 06:49
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Infinitesimal,
I hear you on the "rock and roll" neurological imprinting....
I came over to Goa trance from the Grateful Dead. All my (quite psychedelic) Deadhead friends were like "What, bro, you're getting into techno / rave music!!!?! Tsk Tsk" -- and I said... "No, this is magical, spiritual stuff... this is NOT 'rave' music... this is divine sounds and cosmic frequencies from other galaxies - beamed through a portal in India!" - and a couple of them got it, but most of them didn't want to know.
(They insisted that ALL electronic dance music was ultimately dry and artifical... and whenever I find myself listening to hardcore neuro trance.... I can hear them saying "See, we told you so!"  )
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yeah... fuel is going to have a impact on the global psychedelic trance scene for sure... a lot of it is built of plastic and jet fuel...generators and diesel...
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konvndrvm
IsraTrance Junior Member
Started Topics :
33
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1398
Posted : May 27, 2008 08:32
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i blame the trance-hating memes that exist in a lot of the other scenes...
ahhhh!!!!!
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audioassassin
Started Topics :
1
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74
Posted : May 27, 2008 11:26
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When insecure people learn about new things which challenge their obsolete opinions and formulas, they often try to discredit or degrade it in order to feel better about themselves. Its tough to alter your attitude about something you've believed to be true for to long. Especially in the U.S where people are ruled by ego, we are unwilling to accept newer advanced paradigms. We perpetuate our ignorance with arrogance and insecurity and this may be why people are less enthusiastic about receiving future-primitive spitituality like Psytrance.
So Bret all genres of music can be dry and artificial, especially ones which play on false happiness and are as poppy and formulaic as prog, full-on and whatever the fuk neuro-trance is. wink wink
I love leopards, for real B! |
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