Techno Shuffle

During the 90s, Melbournes warehouse party scene was at its peak. Every weekend in Techno City, thousands of ravers expressed their freedom through music, ecstasy and dancing the Melbourne shuffle. Techno Shuffle traces raves evolution from tiny underground clubs to vast waterfront wonderlands sparkling with creativity. We meet the personalities and places that shaped a subculture and we learn how bitter rivalries, the internet and a city on the move ultimately tore the scene apart. Techno Shuffle unfolds against a backdrop of post-war migration, gay and lesbian rights, the AIDS crisis, Australian drinking culture, the Melbourne gangland killings and the global ascendancy of dance music. During these anxious times in our post-truth age, 90s rave teaches us the value of freedom, community and respect. Let the party begin.

Paul Fleckney is a writer, educator and researcher. He teaches urban planning at the University of Melbourne. Paul grew up in England and became fascinated in rave during 1988s Second Summer of Love. Too young to experience the acid house explosion firsthand, he read the hysterical headlines in the press and watched the pantomime of moral panic play out on TV. A keen techno music fan, Paul remembers well the bitter disappointment he felt when he first stepped inside a nightclub. He pronounced rave dead, buried beneath a thousand commercial choons and a sticky beer-stained carpet. But then a conversation with Melbourne DJ Brewster B. in 2013 renewed his interest in rave. As Paul listened to Brewsters fascinating and outrageous stories, he realised that through writing about rave he could share in a subculture that had not only eluded him for 25 years but also had transformed the lives of thousands of young Melburnians.