Holly Dicker’s debut book dives into three decades of hardcore history, tracing the music, the movement, and the relentless spirit that keeps rave alive
“It’s a strange and difficult time for rave culture... but it will survive. It has to.” For Holly Dicker, journalist, broadcaster, and longtime chronicler of underground dance scenes, rave has always been more than just music. In Dance or Die, her debut book published by Velocity Press, Dicker explores the community that has sustained hardcore through decades of upheaval and the scene that has forged itself from resistance.
As conversations around the bleak future of nightlife dominate timelines, the book offers a welcome dive into the heart of DIY dancefloors and the people who built them. From Frankfurt’s scorched techno origins and the free party rebellion in 90s Britain, to queer gabber collectives and digital-age neo-ravers, Dance or Die swings the doors open on hardcore’s evolution one sweaty, packed-out space at a time.
The book gathers stories from scene legends and rising voices, trans trailblazers, and behind-the-scenes figures who rarely make it into the spotlight. As Dicker writes, “Hardcore will always be the bullhorn for marginals to sound their concerns. It is also the bright blue tarp we all huddle beneath, crushed ever more closely together, in comfort and shelter when the shitstorm begins.”
To coincide with its release, Dance or Die will tour the UK and Europe, presenting a programme in collaboration with local radio stations, club communities, and grassroots spaces. Below, we speak to the author about the resilience of rave culture and the communities driving hardcore’s future.
What inspired the title Dance or Die?
Holly Dicker: The title comes from the much-mythicised 1996 spring edition of Thunderdome, when up to 30,000 Dutch ravers massed at the WTC Expo in Leeuwarden in the North of Holland. This was the first big hall Thunderdome rave to take place on home turf after local governments tried to suppress these massive hardcore meetups, in response to the ‘crises’ that hit Holland in the autumn of 94. (Thanks to ‘Field Marshall’ Francois from ID&T for the use of the name!)
What does the book mean in the context of hardcore culture?
Holly Dicker: For me, ‘dance or die’ captures the diehard core of hardcore, which is not exclusive to Holland or the gabber scene; Dutch gabber is just the perfect example of the blood in, blood out devotion of hardcore’s raving club community past, present and future – who need various forms of hard, loud dance music to get through the week. And this isn't achieved by listening to (or playing) records at home; but by communing as bodies on the dancefloor in the dark or blinding light of a strobe, with lasers and thousands of people – or just a few strangers in a basement. Without the people and the community, it’s just music.
It is also a reminder to live, dance and hurl yourself into the world; embrace this life whilst you still have an opportunity to shape it. I buried a friend on the day this book officially came out. He was born the day before me, and we spent the last five or ten years of our uncrossing lives trying, and failing, to go raving together. My next one is for you, Giles.
You describe ravers forming family-like bonds on the dancefloor. Why are these connections so important in today’s more isolated world?
Holly Dicker: I have to quote Kilbourne here, when she describes hardcore as a feeling: ‘It’s wonderful alone in the bedroom’ – she says in reference to her solitary teen entry into the scene; back when today’s most furious femme force was holed up in her room, consuming hours of YouTube footage of Dutch megaraves, while feeling estranged from her body, and others – ‘and even more wonderful experienced with the people you love.’
Even though the (COVID) pandemic is over, others – like loneliness – have slithered in. Modern life can feel like a living nightmare, if we allow ourselves to get swallowed up by social media. It's even harder now that rave culture has become a social media-indebted culture, since the pandemic forced our scene to fight for its corner alone, and online.
Hardcore is protest in all its noisy forms: protest against society’s assumptions and prejudice; protest against industry exploitation and ‘selling out’; protest against the rapid erasure of personal liberties and rights; protest against telling us we can't do something, when we fucking can!
Your book highlights voices often missing from rave histories – queer, trans, women, and behind-the-scenes figures. Why was it important to tell these wider stories?
Holly Dicker: Hardcore has been a boys’ club for too long – and the dance industry is still a boys’ club. I’ve been writing and talking about women in hardcore since reporting on the issue for Mixmag back in 2019 and bringing the debate to Amsterdam Dance Event over various panels, on and off the main programme, since.
I wanted to make this a central but subtle tenet of the book: threading these marginal voices throughout, to show that, yep, we’ve all been here from the start. I get a lot less subtle about it by the end, because more than 30 years later, very little appears to have changed. We don’t push ourselves forward, so let’s push each other. This book, I hope, does that – or makes a few more inroads into a mission that will never be complete.
How did hardcore grow as a form of protest, and why does it remain vital for people facing societal pressures?
Holly Dicker: Hardcore is protest in all its noisy forms: protest against society’s assumptions and prejudice; protest against industry exploitation and “selling out”; protest against the rapid erasure of personal liberties and rights; protest against telling us we can’t do something, when we fucking can!
From Spiral Tribe kicking against authorities, and refusing to shut up, turn off or back down; to the sound systems and party crews that mobilised en masse through the 90s in Britain and 00s in France, fighting government oppression with tekno; and the politicised rave scenes that have been mounting in the shadows, to spill out on the streets around the world – particularly in NYC, with crews like Melting Point – in the wild and lawless decades since; hardcore will always be the bullhorn for marginals to sound their concerns. It is also the bright blue tarp we all huddle beneath, crushed ever more closely together, in comfort and shelter when the shitstorm begins.
You co-produced a documentary on Rotterdam rave culture. How did that project shape your understanding of hardcore and the book?
Holly Dicker: I met filmmaker (and awesome neo-gabber artist) Dennis van Rijswijk at a rave in the summer of 2023. At the time I felt on the brink of a burnout and hopelessly mired in the book project, first pitched to Colin at Velocity Press between the never-ending lockdowns of 2021 and 2022. Turns out, Dennis was as stuck as I was with his own (pandemic) project: a documentary about Rotterdam rave culture. I emailed him the next day, and we were filming through autumn, capturing our broken city by night, emerging from another detrimental blow – and the soundtrack was hardcore!
Producing the doc (read: carrying the camera bags, prepping questions and suggesting people to talk to; and championing Dennis to keep going) saved me, and the book. It reminded me that I had all the info and the knowledge already. I just needed to get it down in an order that made sense… but to do that, I had to escape to Portugal for most of 2024 (and 2025).
You’re planning community events across the UK and Europe this summer. What conversations do you hope to spark, and how do they connect to the book?
Holly Dicker: Talking about rave culture is much much easier than writing about it, and my radio shows have certainly inspired the chatty informal style of the book. The event series – launching at a new grassroots creative space in Dalston on Wednesday, July 9 with archive zines, Velocity Press books, records; and talks digging into London’s community-core – is about breaking free from the limitations of a book, and the single narrative of what hardcore is, and means to millions of people worldwide.
It’s about carrying on the conversation and the research and the understanding, through storytelling and shared experiences, and coming together across the generational gulf that seems to have widened since the pandemic. Hardcore indeed means many things to many people, and it’s incredibly nuanced; but it also resonates at a singular base level, which we’ll be tapping into through this event series.
What does it mean to call hardcore a ‘phuture movement’? Is there still a future for rave culture, and how does it show up today?
Holly Dicker: Hardcore begins and ends with Marc Acardipane. His 1990 PCP whitelabel track, We Have Arrived, laid out the emotional and sonic blueprints for hardcore – based upon a grisly post-apocalyptic vision of a ‘phuture’ that was at the time inexplicable, because it was so far into the future. This track is still an absolute monster on the dancefloor, and in headphones. This was, and is, the phuture.
We have since pushed past the 2017 threshold – the subject of Marc’s nightmares; he’s quite cagey about the details – and are currently treading water in a phuture-stasis, with one eye set to an unreachable horizon, whilst freely plundering from the grab-bag of the past. It’s a strange and difficult time for rave culture… but it will survive. It has to.
Rotterdam Rave Culture: 30 Years of Heritage is currently screening at various European film and music festivals after premiering at International Film Festival Rotterdam.
Dance or Die: A History of Hardcore is out now via Velocity Press. RSVP to the FREE London book launch.