Oh Ed, Ed, Ed, Ed. You have written a magnificent tome, but I am so conflicted about it. Party Lines is more than 400 pages: a quote from Goethe at the start, a lengthy introduction, plus a glossary and an index. But we get into semantics from the beginning. What is dance music now? Practically anything with a beat that isn’t George Ezra or Sam Fender – and they’ve probably got a load of dance mixes on the go as well.
There were plenty of unlicensed raves happening even in lockdown, from Blackburn to Primrose Hill
This is not a definitive book about dance music. There is, for example, scant mention of the late and supremely influential Andrew Weatherall, chief architect of acid house and the scene that followed. Yet Spiral Tribe – a very agreeable bunch of travellers who happily gave me their vinyl music to play on my BBC radio show – get pages of attention.
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