The Picture That Started It All

In the book Generation Ecstasy by Simon Reynolds, there is the picture that inspired the E-Town Rave History Project.

Published in 1998 by Little, Brown and Co. in New York, the book is one of three seminal texts written about rave culture at the turn of the millennium, along with Altered State (Matthew Collin, 1997), and Techno Rebels (Dan Sicko, 1997).

Generation Ecstasy traces the history of techno and rave culture from the giant free outdoor festivals that characterized raving in Britain, to Chicago nightclubs like the famous Warehouse, to club culture, jungle and the myriad of genres and sub-genres that emerged from techno.

The book includes black and white photos of parties/clubs in London, New York, San Francisco, Chicago.... and more than one photo of Edmonton.

Stop and let that sink in for a minute.  The world party circuit makes a stop in our little town of Edmonton, somewhere between Tokyo and Los Angeles, en route to New York, and from there to London, Paris, Berlin...  Our little scene -- us! -- was a major player in underground techno worldwide, yet not a word has been spoken of this by the city's cultural or artistic leaders.

When I considered that we are fortunate enough to still have access to primary sources such as flyers, and that we can still interview many the people who were there, I realized, This is a story that must be told.

Let me share with you here, the photo that started it all.  It appears in the first set of black and white photos, after page 152:

Here it is in detail.

"Raver sporting a chemical protection mask, a popular 'ardkore accoutrement."
Roller Express, Edmonton, August 1992.

This picture has always made a strong impression on me.  If ever you have wondered "Why do I do this project?" -- the answer is hidden under that "E" mask.

As I began to do research, this image continued to pique my interest, more for what it did not say than for for what it did.  According to this picture, Edmonton had a venue of seemingly major importance called Roller Express (there are two other pictures of Roller Express later in the book). Perhaps this club was in a now-defunct part of West Edmonton Mall's amusement park?  Perhaps the party is an offshoot of Calgary's roller rink parties?

As I began interviewing and gathering data in earnest, and learning research methods, I made a few factual missteps along the way, but I always held true to recounting the untold story of Rave in Edmonton.

I returned to this photo after my December, 2016 batch of interviews, determined to fit it into the larger framework I was establishing about raves in Edmonton.

I consulted my Master Party List to find a reference to this "Roller Express" party but found none.

Nor did anyone I spoke to have a flyer for any party called Roller Express, or at a venue called Roller Express.

Nor did the internet know of any club in Edmonton ever called Roller Express.

Undeterred, I used my abilities as an amateur historian to look up the photographer's name -- David Swindells -- and was delighted to discover that he is a career photographer. His website features thousands of photos of raves in Edmonton, including the one that inspired the E-town Rave History Project.

What a treasure trove, this archive of photos!  I pored over it like it was the ruins of Troy, eager to expand my understanding of raves, myself and my place in the universe.

Only, the more I looked at the pictures, the more they did not make sense.  None of the parties shown in Swindells' pictures corresponded with dates in the flyer record.  None of the venues matched with venues found in Edmonton. There were no pictures to be found of Dance Factory, Flashback, the Bronx, any of the famous venues.  Nor were the DJ's photographed at these Edmonton parties familiar to me.

The plot continued to thicken. This photographer had extensively photographed raves in England and continental Europe -- but there were no pictures of parties in North America.  If this photographer visited Edmonton in 1992 for a party, the historian in me thought, wouldn't he have taken advantage of his visit to also go to a party ....anywhere else? Toronto, Montreal, Saskatoon, Vancouver ....anywhere?  Who flies 18 hours to North America to go to a party in Edmonton, then turns around and flies back? No matter how good the party?

Try as I might, I could find no evidence, other than party pictures of Edmonton, that this photographer had ever been to this side of the Atlantic and the more I investigated, the more I did not recognize. Until finally I came upon a picture labelled "Edmonton, UK."

I actually always knew there was an Edmonton, UK.  Once or twice I've been prompted to type Edmonton, UK when I was typing a shipping address to Edmonton, Alberta.  And verily, among the first words I ever typed for this history project were:

"Edmonton was named after a community near London, England, which was the birthplace of the Deputy Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company."

You can see for yourself, it is right here: "A brief History of Edmonton," an article I published to this blog.

Once I realized I had been looking at picture of Edmonton, UK, everything fell into place.  This photographer is based out of London, UK.  On a map, his photos all cluster around England and particularly around London.  Edmonton, a burrough of London, is dead centre in this cluster.  The photographer takes weekend trips to France, Germany or Spain.  But never to Canada. That makes sense too.

It seems that the picture that inspired the E-town Rave History Project is actually a picture of Edmonton, UK, rather than Edmonton, Alberta. I make this pronouncement having carefully weighed the evidence. For evidence, after all, is what this project is all about: I remind myself, and you, that this project has always been inspired by the pursuit of the true underground history of Edmonton, Alberta....... wait a minute.

"Edmonton is an area in the east of the London Borough of Enfield, England, 8.6 miles (13.8 km) north-north-east of Charing Cross" (Wikipedia).  Party on.

That's funny, right?  It's important not to take myself or this project too seriously.

Happy April Fool's, ravers of Edmonton, Alberta: today the joke's on me.  It's an honour to be working with you, hearing your stories, and pursuing truth (halfway around the world sometimes).

Stay tuned for a new article coming soon, titled "In their own words: The Parties of Period (A)."

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---

 Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House
Matthew Collin
Serpent's Tail Books, London, UK, 1999

Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture
Simon Reynolds
Little, Brown & Co., New York, NY, 1998

Techno Rebels: The Renegades of Electronic Funk
Dan Sicko
Billboard Books, New York, NY, 1999

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