While Netflix continues to suck a fat one, YouTube is actually becoming the best resource for watching cool movies. Below are a selection of tight electronic music documentaries—many from that other time that electronic music blew up and supposed to save the world (ahem, the 1990s). From loved-up soccer hooligans (and dads) to 24-hour-party-people to a hungover Luciano and a preteen Hawtin, here’s a selection of documentaries on various beautiful and wonderful niches of this big wide raving world we live in. Note: Many foreign language docs have English subtitles. Hit the “Closed Caption” button on the bottom right of the video and away you go!
GABBER
Videos by VICE
No matter how hard EDM gets it will never be as hard as the OG Dutch gabber scene. Never. Ever. In 1995, Lola de Musica chronicled the Rotterdam hardcore scene (the daddy to today’s hardstyle craze) in this awesome doc, featuring rad gabbers in rad tracksuits doing hakken and gurning Dutch gooners with huge saucer eyes, plus the legend Paul Elstak and DJ Ruffneck of Ruffneck Alliance, who looks straight haunted, B—he’s like Gabber Game Interview With A Vampire.
WATCH IT HERE
DON’T FORGET TO GO HOME (FEIERN)
Once upon a time Berlin was not filled with Canadians and Americans. It was filled with Germans. These Germans found it perfectly normal to stay up 72 hours on weekends getting completely off their tree at clubs like Berghain (sometimes referred to in this film as Ostgut, after the label with which its associated), Watergate, Club Der Visonaere, Bar 25, and the like… and then go back to work on Monday like nothing happened. Or not, because nobody in Berlin has a job. (Drum roll.) Filmed in 2006, this documentary with English subtitles explores the effect of the techno lifestyle on one’s whole life—identity, relationships, emotions, career—and shows the highs and lows of the commitment to clubbing. Mixing up Berlin locals, it also manages to showcase a softer side of Luciano, Villalobos, Nick Höppner, Ewan Pearson, and more.
WATCH IT HERE
MUSIC IS MY DRUG
It’s true that an image is worth a thousand words. This doc about psychedelic trance starts off with a naked man doing a headstand next to a Brahma cow which basically just screams TRIPPY more times than a Juicy J mixtape. It’s got everything you would want, from a tour of the Roland synthesizer factory to Japanese psy-trance heads with the most amazing clothes, from consciousness-raising Israeli trance “situations,” to rabbis, to lots of naked fools in Goa, all set to the squirrelly-ass Mortal Kombat sounds of psy-trance. A seriously good movie.
WATCH IT HERE
WHAT IF YOU DID E WITH YOUR DAD
This one will muff you up. It’s a 90-minute record of a rural Northern California family where the dad, deep in the throes of a mid-life crisis, gets way into going to raves and popping XTC… with his kids. His house turns into the party house, his ex-wife is freaking, and he’s even convinced his 13-year-old son—who looks barely old enough to have given away his baby pacifier—to roll with the homies. I wouldn’t call this fun to watch per se… kind of more like a horror movie.
WATCH IT HERE
E IS FOR ECSTASY
Once upon a time Molly was called Ecstasy (or E for short) and it was actually made of pure MDMA, as you can tell from this film which—despite feeling like a PSA/Just Say No ad from the way it’s shot—extols the psychological and cultural virtues of the magic pill. That’s nice and everything but the real fun of watching this is seeing the clothes and hairstyles and attitudes and dances of the early 90s. It seems so cute and earnest in these ratchety times. If you liked Trainspotting, you’ll love this.
WATCH IT HERE
JUNGLE NATION
Many docs about drum & bass are just producers pontificating about how musical and future-forward the genre is. Not this one! This doc celebrates 20 years of jungle raving at UK party Jungle Nation, and it’s shot by DJ/producer/label owner/scene stalwart Teebone. It features plenty of over-40 jungle legends getting mash-up, proving that you NEVER have to stop. Appearances by Jumpin’ Jack Frost (seen above), MC Navigator, GQ, and lots more. And if you make it through the entire hour and a half, you know you’re hardcore. Reeeeeeewind.
WATCH IT HERE
SUMMER OF RAVE
Don’t let the wack title stop you from watching this well-researched BBC doc about acid house in the UK featuring plenty of people old enough to be your parents. It’s full of lots of interesting facts, such as how raves converted the London football hooligans from fighting each other to loving each other and how Gatecrasher started as an organization throwing teen dances.
WATCH IT HERE
SUB BERLIN: THE STORY OF TRESOR
Tresor is a glorious dank dark box of hard, pounding techno, just like your parents warned you against. This doc tells the history of the Berlin institution, which sprang up after the Berlin Wall came down and still runs today. Local scene legends give up the story and you just might learn a thing or too about political history in the process. Punk as ficke.
WATCH IT HERE
ELECTRONIC MUSIC PIONEERS: RICHIE HAWTIN
Don’t even try to tell me you’re a Richie Hawtin fan unless you’ve watched all 70 minutes of this. Includes interviews with Derrick May, Magda, Mr. & Mrs. Hawtin, and Richie himself, plus embarassing childhood photos and even a breakdown of the infamous Sven Vath/Hawtin makeout incident, all somehow paid for with T-Mobile’s money. Essential.
WATCH IT HERE
23 MINUTE WARNING: SPIRAL TRIBE
In 1990, around the same time that a nascent Burning Man was getting off its feet, the Spiral Tribe Soundsystem were in the UK revolutionzing the rave, kickstarting the massive free tekno scene that still exists today. A sort of techno version of Crass, these dance punks transported huge sound rigs all over the UK to throw massive free parties, showing that the act of raving could be both political and transformative (and throwing a big middle finger up to Parliament in the process). This documentary finds the clan talking about what makes them tick with some wild 90s graphics. Inspirational.
WATCH IT HERE
Vivian remembers when dance music was fun -@stareyezzz
