Author: Jim Allen

It’s hard to believe nobody has done it before, but Energy Flash: The Rave Movement purports to be the first museum show to shine a spotlight on rave culture of the ’80s and ’90s. Starting June 16, the Museum of Modern Art in Antwerp will host an examination detailing what the European rave movement really meant to the world, not only on a musical level but also in terms of the social, political, technological and economic factors that informed rave’s rise. The whole thing was overseen by Nav Haq, the museum’s senior curator and will feature music, art, prose and more.

The show kicks off with a big bang on its opening weekend, which will feature DJ sets by erstwhile Kraftwerk member Wolfgang Flür, Renaat Vandepapeliere of R&S Records, and much more presented in association with Antwerp club Ampere.

There’s a book that goes along with the show as well: RAVE: Rave and Its Influence on Art and Culture, published by the museum in cooperation with Black Dog and featuring contributions from Jeremy Deller, Kodwo Eshun, Wolfgang Voigt and others. Whether you lived the rave revolution firsthand or only wish you had, Energy Flash will offer some fresh perspectives on the phenomenon. Check the website for detailed info.

Image by Gert van Rooij

New York nightlife has been taking a lot of hits lately, from the seizing of Verboten for nonpayment of taxes and arrest of co-owners Jen Schiffer and John Perez to the fatal shooting of Ronald McPhatter, a member of Troy Ave’s BSB crew, at T.I.’s show at Irving Plaza (in the venue’s green room no less). You can now add to that list the official shuttering of the Brooklyn Mirage in Williamsburg. In a story first reported by Brooklyn Paper, the trouble started Thursday, May 26 when the NYFD put the kibosh on things at the club due to multiple fire hazards including the presence of combustible material. Then the following day at 5pm the Department of Buildings ordered that the premises be vacated due to being “imminently perilous to life,” hammering the final nail in the coffin, at least for now.

The Mirage’s overseers posted on Facebook they had already successfully undergone safety and fire inspections. But this was far from the first run-in with the powers that be for Cityfox, the company behind the club. The police had already come down on them for selling liquour at the club without a license, and the Fire Department brought an untimely end to a warehouse party Cityfox hosted in Greenpoint last Halloween. It’s also been claimed that alcohol was already being sold again at the Mirage since the last bust, though others have denied it. So, is the club really a scofflaw trouble magnet or do the authorities have it in for them?

In its brief history Brooklyn Mirage has hosted an array of top-notch DJs including Dixon, Nicole Moudaber, Victor Calderone, Joel Mull and Acid Pauli. It is uncertain whether upcoming events featuring headliners Richie Hawtin (who was forced to cancel his appearance at Movement in Detroit due to visa issues) on June 18 and Thievery Corporation on June 24 will be moved to another location.

The fifth annual Sunset Music Festival in Tampa, FL, turned out to be a nightmare when two young attendees lost their lives there. The EDM-oriented festival, a two-day event featuring the likes of Hardwell, The Chainsmokers, Liquid Todd and other big-name EDM acts, drew 30,000 people on May 28-29, and in addition to the pair of reported casualties, paramedics apparently made in excess of 85 runs to the festival, with 57 festivalgoers winding up being taken to local hospitals.

Katie Bermudez, 21, of Kissimmee, and Alex Haynes, 22, of Melbourne, were the two who died after being transported to a hospital. The cause of death has not yet been determined, but toxicology reports are still pending. With the proliferation of drug abuse incidents at electronic music festivals, it’s feared that drugs played a part in the deaths of Bermudez and Haynes, and certainly in many of the other paramedic calls to the festival. Consequently, local authorities are up in arms about the event, and some are saying that they don’t want to see another Sunset Music Festival in Tampa next year.

In case you thought all anybody did at the International Music Summit in Ibiza was get blasted and dance to Balearic beats, this piece of momentous news from the conference will put the lie to that notion. Dubset Media Holdings has cut a deal with Spotify that will enable DJs anywhere on the planet to make both long-form DJ mixes and single-track remixes available through the streaming service. This marks a major advance both for DJs and music fans. It’s not too bad a move for Spotify either, as their Chief Strategy Officer Stefan Blom indicated when he stated, “This deal with Dubset enables us to serve fans of dance music with the mixes they crave while ensuring that artists, labels and publishers get paid fairly. It’s a great day for music fans all over the world.”

Dubset CEO Stephen White was equally enthusiastic about this development, saying, “Our technology platform makes it possible for us to identify and pay rights holders in DJ mixes, making this enormously popular music genre available on the world’s most popular streaming service for the very first time.  We couldn’t be more thrilled to be working with the team at Spotify to deliver this content to music fans all over the world.” The mixes made possible by this deal should start popping up on Spotify later this year. Any DJs or remixers who want to avail themselves of this new opportunity should check the Dubset website for more info.