Episode 31: EL HORNET
We head to Perth, Western Australia to catch up with Paul Harding aka El Hornet, one-third of drum 'n' bass group Pendulum, who met in the metal and punk scene and have since reached huge heights with their hard-driving neurofunk bangers. Paul is a hilarious storyteller and we talk about CB radio, surfing with sharks, trading beer for mixtapes, losing a dead person at a Pendulum show, happy hardcore, his Hornet’s Nest label, being broke in DJ Fresh's London flat making Pendulum's first album and keeping drum 'n' bass punk af.
Episode 29: MOSHE KASHER
In the last 44 years, Moshe Kasher has been a flyering bear, a sober ecstasy dealer, a sign language interpreter, and a gate monitor at Burning Man. He is now a stand-up comedian living in Los Angeles, and he has a new book out called Subculture Vulture, about the six subcultures that have defined his life. Moshe joins on Rave to the Grave for a funny conversation about Bay Area raves of the '90s, Bonny Doon, PLUR, pacifiers, the Thunderdome, what Katamari Damacy has in common with trauma, and finding himself through raves and comedy.
Episode 25: HOUSE OF PRIS
When 1980s electro and freestyle music from Miami, New York, and Los Angeles touched down in Rio de Janeiro and other Brazilian cities, it ignited a wildfire in the minds of DJs, soundsystem operators, and dancers. In this episode of Rave to the Grave podcast, we go back to the roots of baile funk with Priscilla “House of Pris” Cavalcante. Priscilla grew up in Fortaleza in Northeast Brazil, where as a pre-teen she became hooked on first-wave baile funk. Priscilla now lives in Miami, Florida, where she throws a party called Proibidae and is in the process of collecting and reissuing the lost anthems of 1990s and early 2000s baile funk. We talk about tamborzao, furaçao, pancadao, and hear some of the samples and records that formed the sound.
Episode 23: McKENZIE WARK
McKenzie Wark is an Australian born writer, critical theory professor, and 61-year-old trans-femme techno raver currently living in NYC. Her latest book, Raving, thinks deeply about dancing, dissociation, drugs, bodies, and identity as McKenzie, recently transitioned, navigates the queer techno spaces of Bushwick, Brooklyn. On the line from Berlin, we talk about experimenting with language and writing, bodies and the beat, smart vs. stupid drugs, cultural theory, rave utopias, and McKenzie's extraordinary journey from growing up in an Australian mining town to dancing on the bleeding edge of the NYC underground.
Episode 22: SEANA GAVIN
Seana Gavin is a London-based visual artist who spent 10 years immersed in the free party culture in the UK and beyond, traveling to week-long parties in the Czech countryside, the mountains above Marseille, or Berlin squats with soundsystems like Spiral Tribe, Bedlam, Desert Storm, and Hekate. Her photos and diary entries of the adventures of these roving cyberpunks are collected in books like Spiral Baby and Spiralling, and we sat down to talk about border crossing, squat raves, politics, drugs, freedom, and just how dirty things can get.
Episode 21: SHAWN CAESAR
Shawn Caesar of pioneering Baltimore Club music label Unruly Records joins us on the Rave to the Grave podcast about some of Baltimore Club music's greatest bangers, and takes us back to genre's roots in the hip-house scene of the late '80s and early '90s. Learn about Bmore club's inspirations, how it's evolved over the years, and the life and times of some of its icons, including Miss Tony and Club Queen K-Swift.