Photo courtesy of Midwest Rave Culture Archive
DAT tape - MWRA's collection
A DAT (digital audio recording) tape in the Midwest Rave Culture Archive's Collection.
Raves are an orchestration of talent and logistics that center music around skilled curation, large-scale event production, gathering en masse and the audacity to gamble, driven by a countercultural DIY ethos and taking place in warehouses, industrial spaces and even nature settings. With vinyl as the driving force, the early production equipment of DJs and producers enabled the release of electronic music and shaping the sounds of techno, jungle, acid house, breakbeat and hardcore. Combined with sensory components like vibrant lights, lasers and fog machines, the experience of early parties set off a music and cultural movement that exploded worldwide.
Before large scale productions coined the term “rave parties,” raves in Chicago trace their origins to spots like the famed, beloved all-ages club Medusa’s in the Lakeview neighborhood. Similar to cities like London, Detroit, New York and San Francisco, youth-culture of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s experimented with different genres of music in clubs and loft parties like electronic, industrial and hip hop.
Considering the vast history of rave culture in the Midwest, documenting such a socio-musical movement is an important task. Aria Pedraza is undertaking this work with Midwest Rave
Culture Archive (MWRCA), a project that preserves the audiovisual recordings, ephemera, memorabilia and stories of the Midwest rave scene from its early days up to today.
Distinct Cities
Photo courtesy of Midwest Rave Culture Archvie
Bean Magazine stacks - MWRCA's collection
Bean Magazine stacks in MWRCA's collection.
“Each city has their own personality, reason and pursuit for being involved in the DIY space or dance music or anything experimental,” Pedraza explains. “You look at Cleveland, St. Louis, Kansas City and all these places where people were traveling and coming to, and Chicago was the epicenter. Those cities are a diaspora just by virtue of resources and how people convene and have different industries and capacities where people can come together.”
Since its founding in July of last year, MWRCA has amassed 18 collections of items sourced from across the region. The inventory encompasses vinyl and CDS, party flyers and posters, artwork and photographs, and VHS tapes digitized for the first time including unmarked recordings from the ‘90s. Pedraza is assisted by community partner and librarian Jayme Eisch with the archival process. She points out how unlike Detroit, where robust music industry infrastructure has existed for a long time, cities like Chicago, Milwaukee and Minneapolis have much in the way of rave culture and history that has been left undocumented.
Pedraza has been building awareness about the project through participation in events all over the Midwest, including the Chicago Electronic Music Conference at Ramova Theatre, the Onion City Experimental Film Festival at Chicago’s Public Works Gallery, an installation curated by MdW Coalition in Detroit and a pop-up social at Electric Lounge in Oshkosh.
World of Rave
Photo courtesy of Midwest Rave Culture Archive
Reactor Magazine stacks - MWRCA collection
Reactor Magazine stacks in MWRCA's collection
Originally from Chicago, Pedraza lived in Milwaukee for 12 years before returning to the Windy City in 2021. Both her parents worked in the music industry; her mother ran the international booking agency and record label Gourmet Recordings and has built a lasting legacy in the Chicago music industry through her work with clubs and music festivals. Pedraza’s father is recognized among the earliest promoters to throw rave parties and is known for his recurring festival Psychosis. He remains active as a DJ and promoter in the Chicago rave scene today. “My world was surrounded by it,” Pedraza says about rave culture. “It’s how my parents met and it was a full-time job to organize and promote.”
Some of Pedraza’s favorite artists growing up were Theo Parrish, Armand Van Helden, Goldie and the roster of Trax Records. She remembers, “I would help my dad laminate and scan flyers. I was brought up often going to sound check, joining meetings, and was present during pre-production or load-out the day after.”
Once she moved back to Chicago, Pedraza reconnected with her rave culture roots and started working with her father on promotions and digital marketing. Over time, she realized her greatest passion was in documenting and archiving rave stories and history. “There’s a lot of great parties happening in Chicago right now and a lot of great crews, and I started to become more interested in what has evolved,” she elaborates. “Coming back to Chicago and meeting a lot of people again for the first time since I was young made me realize that there’s a lot that I don’t know about this culture and a lot I want to learn. A lot of this history just isn’t documented, and now we’re in a time like 30 years later where there’s a gap in knowledge.”
Spaces of Unity
Raves were and are celebrated as spaces of unity through rebellion against colonialism and class warfare. Pedraza notes, for example, that because Black communities in the UK faced intense racism and discrimination, they brought their sound systems out into the street and threw parties within their own spaces. “They didn’t need accreditation for what they were doing to be legitimate.” She continues, “We see this in the states too. By the late ‘80’s, cities across the country and the Midwest region were actively divesting, discriminating and disenfranchising against other-ed groups of people. A multiethnic culture aware of the schematics of government and corporation, youth culture and raves served as an outlet that cultivated a vision of solidarity and integration.”
In terms of Milwaukee rave history, the MWRCA collection holds various flyers from party crews and publications that document the times like Massive Magazine. She gives kudos to record label Drop Bass Network for its promotion of rave music and culture over the years. “I thought that magazines from the ‘90s might be rudimentary but they’re very in-depth,” Pedraza laughs, referencing Massive Magazine. “I had no idea there would be 30 pages of full-spread articles and photos and music reviews and people writing in. They’re really a time capsule.”
Pedraza emphasizes that no one person is the face of rave; it is a culture entirely rooted in collectivism. “There might be people who are initiators and long-standing, but you can’t make a party happen by yourself. That’s at the core of this culture and movement. You have to utilize your human relationships and good standing and clarity of vision to make things happen.”
While Midwest Rave Culture Archive does not yet have a publicly accessible space for archive viewing, a limited selection of its collection is available on Internet Archive. To get in touch, visit mwrca.org.
