Chosen Words: E is for Ecstacy

a.k.a. World Cup Distraction Exercise: Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

Rave music exists because of ecstacy, and vice versa.

In the early days, rave consisted of children's television theme tunes set to fast dance beats. The hits often contained coded references to drugs, such as 'Charly', 'Trip to Trumpton' and 'Iggle Piggle and Upsy Daisy get Munted on a Fatty Boombatty whilst Watching DVDs of Spaced'.

When speed-hungry clubbers decided rave wasn't fast enough, they adopted trance, after which they adopted jungle, after which music became so fast, it looped all the way back round to John Cage's 639-year composition As Slow As Possible.

The international symbol of clubbing is a gurning yellow face toothless from ground-down molars. The most successful club artist is Norman Cook, who has recorded under hundreds of names including Fatboy Slim, Band Aid 1 and Vera Lynn.

The ecstacy generation is very much history. After the subsequent collapse of rave, Altern8 became Altern3 due to deflation.

Top five Manchester clubs:

- Hacienda
- Holy City Zoo
- Herbal Tea Party
- Buzz club (Chorlton comedy venue)
- Sankey's Soap

Not quite in Manchester:

- Salford Lad's Club

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.