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Orlando's Summers of Love

Orlando’s Summers of Love is a term encompassing the cultural movement and underground dance music scene centered around Orlando that developed throughout Central Florida in 1991 and 1992 when the popularity of the sub-culture expanded exponentially during the Summer of 1993. The period spanned the era when a the Central Florida club scene was a world-renowned hub of underground electronic dance music. The term was coined by the The Orlando Weekly in 1998.

The Florida scene was the prototype that inspired and enhanced the careers of numerous notable DJ artists, producers as well as a surrounding industry. From the movement, came the Florida breaks genre that is also known as The Orlando Sound. As the Orlando's underground scene outgrew the Central Florida region, a once localized scene extended its stylistic influences throughout the State of Florida, the remaining U.S. and Europe. Several tragic events, highlighted by negative press, new government legislation, and an exodus of talent out of Florida brought the local dance music scene to an end and paved the way for the role of the so-called "superstar DJ" and the trend of larger EDM Music festivals.

 = The Orlando Sound  =
 The Orlando Sound was a unique Florida style of dance music that gained international recognition during the mid-1990s.  The style...

Setting

2nd summer of love in UK, never ended, US/Ibiza influence in UK.-Ministry of sound source
ReynoldsGenXTC:UK:"SOL?-More like Summer of having a good time/kids always done since Saturday Night Fever."

Orlando Underground 1988-1990

The City of Orlando’s Summer of Love was predicated by an underground acid house scene. The era sprang from an underground dance music subculture centered around the Beacham Theatre from 1988-1990.^[1] This period in Orlando coincided with the Second Summer of Love, then occurring in the UK.

Dj Lisa, Joe edd,
Available music was limited at time, caused mixture of genres, DJs traveled to Europe for records,

"Orlando's Summer of Love"

Orlando’s Summer of Love is the name applied to the cultural and music scene that developed during the early 1990s in Central Florida^[2] Orlando's Summer of Love is said to have occurred throughout 1991 and 1992 when the underground subculture that originally sprang from the small local acid-house scene in Orlando developed into a cross-European connection that spread throughout Florida and subsequently, to the rest of the United States and back to Europe.^[1]

The new club culture scene was described in 1993 as "a Haight-Ashbury for the 90's," by the Orlando Sentinel’s Liesl Guinto.^[3] The Florida gatherings have been compared to the acid-parties of the Summer of Love which were also called “all night raves.”^[4] The term Orlando's Summer of Love was coined in 1998 in the Orlando Weekly by journalist Matt Kelemen.^[1]

The Orlando scene gained popularity by word-of mouth, flyers, and shared mixtapes. It had soon spread to Gainesville, and other pockets of Central Florida such as Tampa, Daytona Beach and Cocoa. The Orlando Summer of Love period was highlighted by producers from the United Kingdom who began traveling to Orlando venues such as The Beacham Theater to perform. Soon, a local music industry sprang up and a corporate interest developed, hastening the statewide expansion. Orlando’s Summer of Love inspired local artists and producers such as DJ Icey who ushered in the popularity of a funky sub-genre of Florida breaks.

word rave was passe
Sense of Family or unity
PLUR

"The Seattle of Electronica"

 Comparisons with Seattle grunge and indie rock scene (by Gettelman, Weir, Ferguson)

After 1993, *July (3rd)& 4th, 1993, or 1994-ish
Music second to the party
Greed
the Internet
during an evolution/ the rise of EDM

Significance of drugs

Use

MDMA, LSD, gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid, Nitrous oxide, Heroin

superficial PLUR, widespread use, church Sundays/daytime, overdoses, deaths, public hazard

Reaction to

Media scrutiny, local news, national, 20/20, Rolling Stone,
Local, state, national bills, laws against,

Talent exodus.

The music

Chicago-Europe roots

House Music originated in Chicago and took on new qualities when it came to Europe.^[5] Progressive house was imported back to the U.S.

Traveler/ Hippy influence Post-disco, Eurodisco, Hi-NRG House Music, Acid House, Balearic beat, Synth-pop, New beat, Industrial music-influence, Techno precursor Drum and bass, Breakbeat, Ragga, Hip hop

Florida Breaks

The local Orlando scene quickly spread to all of Central Florida and subsequently, to the rest of Florida by 1993. Orlando-centered Breaks began to influence numerous producers in Florida and Europe.

There does not seem to a current universal consensus on the exact elements that constituted the Florida Sound.^[6] The genre's inspirational influences have created regional and preference variations within Florida that have made the genre more difficult to define.

Not exact definition. consensus is has it uplifting happy vocal style

The Orlando Sound

The Orlando Sound was a mixture of genres. The Orlando Sound of Central and Northern Florida were strongly influenced by new beat, trance and progressive house sounds.

This mixture of different genres became known as "The Orlando Sound."^[7] The sound gained acclaim and became wildly popular among DJs and club goers during the mid 1990s. The Orlando Sound was marketed internationally as "Orlando friendly."^[6]

Nick Newton, an English breaks DJ and producer, called his 1996 record Orlando.^[7]

Artistic experimentation and risk taking

Funky breaks

Large franchise dance music venues such as The Edge opened in Orlando and then in Fort Lauderdale and Jacksonville followed by Firestone in Orlando. The larger “rave” venues attracted more patrons, including tourists, as well as more live performances from international acts and Radio Play mixed with elements of Miami bass and Electro to create Florida Breaks. Producers in South Florida and Tampa kept with a deep house flavor or retained more of the funk and hip-hop influence of Miami's so-called "ghetto-bass".^[6] ^[8]^[9]

Followed established formula.

EDM repackaging

Festivals (zen etc.), Wind down of Breaks, entry of Pop, Rise of EDM festivals, Electronic dance music

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Kelemen, Matt (September 2, 1998). "Wizards of Aahz: The Florida winter had just begun". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved November 30, 2015.
^ Moyer, Matthew (November 21, 2017). "Wizard of AAHZ: Orlando lord of the dance Kimball Collins is serious about throwing a party". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved October 3, 2017.
^ Guinto, Liesl (August 1, 1993). "All The Rave". orlandosentinel.com. The Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved August 16, 2016.
^ Guida, Humberto (April 27, 2011). "I Was A Florida Raver Chapter 1 The Edge". www.clubplanet.com. Retrieved 2019-10-16. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
^ Nickson, Chris (April 24, 2010). "The Second Summer of Love". www.ministryofrock.co.uk. Retrieved 2019-10-14.
^ ^a ^b ^c Gettelman, Parry (February 9, 1997). "The Orlando Sound Although Hard To Define, It's Hot Among Lovers Of Underground Dance Music". orlandosentinel.com. The Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved November 5, 2015.
^ ^a ^b Ferguson, Jason; Le-Huu, Bao (July 2, 2013). "Dance dance revolution". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved July 28, 2016.
^ Gentile, Jessica (November 4, 2014). "Florida Breaks in the 1990s: Beats Get Sleazy in the Weirdo Armpit of America". thump.vice.com. VICE. Retrieved February 26, 2017.
^ Ireland, David. "Electronic Music 101: What Are Breakbeats?". Magnetic Magazine. Retrieved 2019-09-26.

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^ Guinto, Liesl (August 1, 1993). "All The Rave". orlandosentinel.com. The Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved August 16, 2016. Scene Tonight, that family has gathered at the Orange County Convention Center [on July 3, 1993]. Tomorrow night or next week it might be a downtown club. You never know...Ray Gun:raves are a staple of youth culture throughout the world. That magazine of the hip defines a rave as a party for unity...from such simplicity has sprung an obsession that is seeping into the mainstream. From the mesmerizing techno music to the baggy chic of ravewear to the attitude a kind of meshing of spirituality and technology bits of the scene are popping up outside of the late-night gatherings. But long before there ever was a rave here in Orlando, England was raving. Soon, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and other big U.S. cities were raving too… The first raves amounted to this: Disc jockeys would break into warehouses late at night to stage spinoffs (DJ contests that are judged by audience reaction) that lasted into the wee morning hours. The right people could find out about these clandestine parties at the last minute via fliers, secret codes on the radio and word of mouth. The Orlando rave scene can trace its roots back almost five years to the old Beacham Theatre in downtown Orlando, also known as Aahz. With an atmosphere all its own multilevel dance floor, theater set-up and hypnotizing light shows Aahz became such a monument to late-night raves that when it closed its doors..., Orange Avenue was packed until late Sunday morning with loyal patrons paying tribute to their favorite dance house. Other clubs followed in the footsteps of Aahz, including The Edge in downtown Orlando, The Coliseum in Daytona Beach and Marz in Cocoa Beach. Raves are staged in clubs as small as Barbarella on Orange Avenue, or venues as large as the Orange County Convention Center (where more than 2,500 people raved from New Years Eve [1992] into New Years Day)...A re-invented Haight-Ashbury of the 90s...Dedicated ravers will travel to and from Gainesville, Miami, Orlando, Tampa and even Atlanta to attend the all-night happenings...the bigger, more commercial raves can generate a profit. In fact, the word rave has become passe. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 589 (help)
^ Kelemen, Matt (September 2, 1998). "Wizards of Aahz: The Florida winter had ju..." orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved November 30, 2015. Scene "Aahz"-- would kick-start an underground culture and spawn countless DJ careers. Orlando would never be the same... By 1991-1992, Orlando experienced its own "summer of love" through the culture that sprang up around the weekend acid-house nights at the Beacham Theatre.. By the time Rolling Stone discovered the scene, late-night culture had become a shadow of its former self…the rise of late-night and its eventual, tragic fall. There were few proper dance clubs in Orlando in 1988. The acid-house scene had hit Central Florida before most of the rest of the country..only New York, San Francisco and L.A. had similar scenes, and they were characterized by warehouse parties. Orlando had a headquarters in the heart of its downtown district...Collins soon came into the fold. He had become an expert at producing the build-ups and breaks that cause crowds to experience orgiastic frenzies, and the scene was beginning to gel. The elements of a communal spiritual vibe, unorthodox fashion and mutual respect became characteristic of the night...Orlando had its subcultural cliques -- ...But this was different. The acid-house scene had hit Central Florida before most of the rest of the country. According to Collins, only New York, San Francisco and L.A. had similar scenes, and they were characterized by warehouse parties. Orlando had a headquarters in the heart of its downtown district. Music:...they were playing the same synth-pop and "newbeat"-- an industrial-flavored precursor to techno music --but nothing prepared him for what he would find inside the Beacham Theater. A DJ named Jo-Ed was spinning intense, psychedelic house music not too far removed from the newbeat Collins incorporated...the vibe was very different. The crowds seemed to be one with the music... "acid house" sounds emanating from Jo-Ed's turntables. "That was it. It was all over," recalls Collins. "I was always interested in anything unique and different as far as styles of music go. So I was completely captivated by his whole sound." Before long Collins would be manning the decks at the Beacham, spinning marathon progressive house sets long into the night. Collins could not be aware of it at the time, but those Saturday nights -- eventually known as "Aahz"-- would kick-start an underground culture and spawn countless DJ careers. Orlando would never be the same...But StaceBass would discover it first. In December 1988 the Ohio native, known to her parents as Stacey Howen, was handed a flier to the first night of a new club night at the Beacham called "Pure Energy." "I was the first person to walk in as a customer when they opened the doors. ... It was just booming in that room. But there weren't any lights." Howen got on board and convinced the Beacham's owners to let her assist with the lights, and StaceBass was born. The first night drew about 50 people. The next night drew 300. Collins started showing up and was transfixed by Jo-Ed's set, which was heavy on the acid-house sound -- an evolutionary attempt by English DJs to emulate the house music that had originated in Chicago in the mid-'80s. Acid house had become a full-blown underground culture seemingly overnight. New Orleans' native Jo-Ed witnessed the scene's rise firsthand and had built a sizable vinyl collection of the music during his trips to Europe... Other seminal scenesters were in attendance who would soon make their marks...three "Infinite" parties at the Orange County Convention Center...Around this time Icey began producing the massive holiday-weekend raves that would surpass "Aahz" in notoriety. "Aahz" helped launch a culture that manifested itself in new styles of clothing and attitudes. Club culture became an end-all, be-all for its constituents... Clark:"For the longest time the late-night thing was all about Sasha and the progressive thing. Now its more versatile." SOL winddown But all good things come to an end. Newer clubs like the Abyss and The Club at Firestone with aggressive marketing approaches dominated the scene. Collins and company started "Reunion" at Dekko's in October 1993 and for a time recreated the intense atmosphere of "Aahz." But with the rise of the scene came exploitation and greed. Late-night events held by less-responsible organizers mushroomed, and worse, unscrupulous drug dealers...peculiar time for music in Orlando -- ...styles of popular music, integrity and optimism that once characterized the "Alternative Nation" are long gone, replaced by an embrace of commercialism, opportunism and homogenous, pop-chart friendly music. Orlando -- once known as one of the most progressive dance cultures in the country -- is now better known for safe, VH1-ready pop bands with hummable hooks. Dance-music culture may never go away, but the industry surrounding it -- the clothing stores, record shops and large scale clubs -- is likely to take some pretty heavy hits… Drugs: But one more element was added into the mix -- pure, safe, uncut ecstasy had reached Orlando. "Let's just say it was a right combination of all of the above," says Collins...unscrupulous drug dealers began selling ecstasy with cheap additives like methamphetamine and ephedrine -- and eventually heroin...the bad drugs were consumed like candy by the newer generation of clubbers. The desire to continue the party prevailed. Ambulances seemed to arrive on a regular basis at the Edge -- right in front of the paid off-duty police officers who served as security. Law enforcement would hold back on cracking down until overdose deaths began making the headlines of the Orlando Sentinel in an exploitative, hysteria-inducing series of articles that eventually pointed the finger at the city's Puerto Rican population. In the summer of 1994, a female patron of "Reunion" collapsed during an event featuring United Kingdom DJ Sasha... The girl never woke up. "I knew exactly what it meant," says Collins. "I was going to have a problem doing anything like this again." "Reunion" closed down three weeks later. The scene as it was known would never be the same. ...The dance scene fell into less-than-ethical hands, and the bad drugs became the norm rather than the exception. The Convention Center was trashed by the attendees of two subsequent raves by independent promoters and late-night events were banned.The Beacham was bought out by Harmening, and the owners of the Edge would soon catch the prevailing winds of change and countrify that club into 8 Seconds. (Cowboys don't do ecstasy.) Collins concentrated on touring and released three continuous-mix CDs,...Cannalte concentrated on his Pleasure Island responsibilities, and Howen discovered the swing movement -- which she felt had the same innocent vibe and enthusiasm that she found in the rave scene rise of Festival: Change was inevitable. The first corporate-alternative club in town, The Edge, was established by Orlando businessman Bill Harmening, and Icey became its main DJ. The Beacham acquired new owners who renamed it Dekko's -- and canned "Aahz." Around this time Icey began producing the massive holiday-weekend raves that would surpass "Aahz" in notoriety. "Aahz" helped launch a culture that manifested itself in new styles of clothing and attitudes. Club culture became an end-all, be-all for its constituents. The "Peace, Love, Unity and Respect" ethic was superficially echoed for several more years until downtown clubs were forced to close at 3 a.m., and "electronica" was discovered by mainstream America and Madonna. The Golden Age had passed...A year after the provisions of the "anti-rave" bill were adopted by the city of Orlando, the dance scene, while prevalent and still healthy, is long past the pinnacle it once achieved. That doesn't mean the craving for all-night dance parties has diminished…it is a safe bet that the 1998 Zen Fest could be the last all-night dance-music event in Central Florida. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 129 (help)
^ Guida, Humberto (November 21, 2014). "Candy Ravers and Psychonauts: The Florida Rave Scene". insomniac.com. Insomniac. Retrieved August 17, 2016. Scene Florida raves. Folks around the country may not think of the Sunshine State when it comes to the evolution of the American rave scene; but back in the day, Florida raves...made a mark on electronic music that is felt to this day...During the '90s, the area between Miami, Tampa and Orlando was a Bermuda triangle of hardcore underground dance culture. The beats were vicious, the bass was heavy, the jeans were baggy, and I'll say it: We had the phattest dancers in the country...The '90s was a formative time for American rave culture, as the scene was already booming in the UK. It found its way to New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, but it was in that Southeastern tourist trap known as Orlando, Florida, where American rave culture took off in a big way...AAHZ, a late-'80s mid-week party at the old Beacham Theater, served as the precursor to the Florida rave scene. But it was really the summer of 1993, at a club called the Edge, where a series of underground music events—headlined by the likes of the Dust Brothers and 2 Bad Mice—would birth the funkiest interpretation of all things rave this country had ever seen..."The Edge in Orlando was where everything started,"...Florida ravers do not jump up and down or fist-pump; we pop and lock and grind. Florida raves were where B-boy dance crews intertwined with candy ravers and psychonauts to form a particularly edgy environment, and with that edgy vibe came a hardcore, in-your-face attitude. By then, the scene had shifted in Orlando from the Edge to the Club at Firestone...Bunny: "The thing about Florida is the weather, the venues, and people," says Bunny. "Back when it started, there was no right, no wrong, no direction or clear path. Radical self-expression, love for the music. That's the way it was back then it changed what I thought was possible with music and parties. Back then, it was a very candy raver and industrial scene. Nobody in the dance music world had seen anything like it. It was so underground.”... MusicWith a sound that took a hardcore foundation and fused it with breakbeats, smooth basslines, and the occasional...sample, Rabbit in the Moon was the epitome of the Florida rave scene...Rabbit in the Moon would go on to break out internationally...“The scene in Florida [was] a gathering of creative outcasts, misfits and miscreants too eccentric for the norm of society,” says J. Vinazza, director of The Scene, a documentary on Florida rave culture. “Together they formed a large social circle that [became] a psychedelic family.”...Contributing to Florida’s rise within the global rave scene were the many outsiders coming into our corner of the world every day, from up North, way West, or across the Atlantic—plus Floridian ex-pats who would themselves bring back rave culture from elsewhere and combine it with the dance music base the state already had in place...“Orlando was hugely influenced by UK hardcore, Italian piano house and Miami bass—big, progressive piano samples, sped-up breakbeats, car stereo-driven Low End Theory-like bass, freestyle and electro,” Wohelski explained to the Orlando Sentinel last year. “In Tampa, there was a tougher edge because of the scene’s early industrial influences—proper Detroit techno and Chicago acid house, rougher proto drum & bass breakbeats, and later German trance on labels like Harthouse and EyeQ, all of which influenced the likes of the Hallucination/Rabbit in the Moon crew.”...Florida became a rave hub for many of what would become household names in electronic music...according to Bunny, the locals deserve more credit for the formation of Florida rave culture. “A lot of it was homegrown--The locals really took the sound of the breaks to another level.”..."The breaks,” as we Florida ravers like to call low-end freestyle, influenced electro and trip-hop music. It is the area’s signature musical contribution to raves. Electronic dance music down here was all about stuff you could breakdance to, so regulars were more likely to sit out the four-on-the-floor tracks and bust out once the “funky breaks” dropped. Meanwhile down south, the Ft. Lauderdale incarnation of the Edge and the notorious Miami-based rave Fever at Warsaw had infused the Florida rave scene with a distinctly street-tough disposition...some of the DJs and acts who pushed the Florida scene’s sound to the brink...But after a while it got stale. “The breaks turned into a one-trick pony,” Bunny explains. Drugs “We pigeonholed ourselves, and a lot of people threw the scene into more of a drug culture. People died at a few parties, the media took it and ran with it, and the authorities got involved. The government didn’t help.”...The Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act, commonly known as the RAVE Act, was the death knell for the wild, anything-goes atmosphere of Florida raves. On the heels of a 20/20 exposé on the dangers of the rave scene—half of which was filled with footage from Florida raves—Orlando officials in particular cracked down on the local rave scene, which they (along with chief resident Walt Disney Co.) figured to contribute to a “negative” branding of the city. They didn’t want to scare off the family vacationers that drive almost every business interest in the area. “It got to a point where you couldn’t even use the word rave 10 years ago,” Bunny recalls...Rise of festival After that, the underground one-offs and weekly raves at smaller venues were few and far between. Only major festivals—which could afford security and lawyers—were able to thrive. The state’s first major annual festival was Zen Festival, which debuted in 1995 in Central Florida...Zen Fest set the stage for even bigger festivals like Ultra, which launched in 1999 and goes down annually in Miami during Winter Music Conference, and Electric Daisy Carnival...In today’s rave culture explosion...the larger audience is not only more aware, but more receptive. The rave scene is bigger and more popular than ever, and while many corners of this great planet have had their moments and contributions to rave culture, let it be known that the hot and humid subtropical surroundings of the Sunshine State have a stake in it all...
^ Guida, Humberto (April 27, 2011). "I Was A Florida Raver Chapter 1 The Edge". www.clubplanet.com. Scene: The rave scene was still mostly underground. Hell, they were still called "raves." Like other great musically-driven sub-cultures and youth-movements that came before it, the rave scene seemed like something literally out of this world and ahead of its time. It was matched only by what hippies did at acid-parties in places like Haight-Ashbury, parties also referred to as "all night raves." But unlike anything that has ever preceded them, modern raves were abstract and beyond words...A decade after being vilified to death by the authorities and eroded from the wear and tear of getting played out,..regional rave stories...rise and fall of the edgiest, most intense American rave scene - The Florida rave scene, from Miami to Orlando...The Florida rave scene was chronicled by Rolling Stone contributing editor Simon Reynolds in his seminal, rave anthology Generation Ecstasy as "infamous for taking excessive hedonism to the point of near-death experiences and sometimes taking it all the way."... not always pretty, but sometimes it was beautiful...especially in the beginning...To say that the rave scene induced a collective hangover is an understatement. For some people things got ugly. Some didn't even make it out alive. The Edge (southFL): It happened at the place that for all intents and purposes created the Florida rave scene - The Edge... And it spawned the rave scene in the FLA, no doubt about it. But The Edge ran its course relatively quickly... As important as The Edge was in igniting the fire, it didn't represent the end of the Florida rave scene, only the beginning. As crazy as The Edge seemed, it was not the heaviest interpretation of the Florida rave scene, and it didn't cause the most damage.Music: At the time there were really only so many underground techno and trance records to play. Florida DJs would transition from trance to trip-hop, breaks, tracks that were heavily influenced by old school breaks, freestyle, and Miami bass...Orlando's Icey and Rabbit in the Moon's Monk, plus residents like Bruce Wilcox and Mike Sharpe who developed the Florida or Funky Breaks sound, building on electro-funk and breakbeats and fusing them with the trancy sounds playing at raves in other parts of the world... {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); line feed character in |quote= at position 10 (help)
^ Abbott, Jim (June 27, 2013). "Make a return to AAHZ once more". orlandosentinel.com. The Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved August 5, 2016. scene: DJ Kimball Collins reflects on the role that the building itself had on the mystique of AAHZ, the progressive house-music parties that put Orlando on the international map as a hotbed of electronic music in the early 1990s...Between roughly 1989 and 1992, AAHZ blossomed into a weekly all-night Saturday dance party that attracted devoted fans who would travel from across the state to dance until daylight...Between roughly 1989 and 1992, AAHZ blossomed into a weekly all-night Saturday dance party that attracted devoted fans who would travel from across the state to dance until daylight. Before becoming an AAHZ DJ, Fortier was one of those fans...Fortier became one of the aspiring DJs who stood all night next to Collins, watching the way he changed the mood on the floor by changing records. Fortier, 42, is now an internationally known DJ and head of his own label, Fade Records, one of the numerous successful careers launched at AAHZ... music:Cannalte was challenged by the way his new partner constantly pushed new underground music into the mix. At the time, it was customary for DJs to stick with a formula that worked. "By him taking chances, it made me want to take chances," says Cannalte. That philosophy yielded AAHZ... something that happened so long ago in a nightclub," Collins says. "It's managed to hold a reverence for people..." {{cite web}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 960 (help)
^ "Chris Fortier: Much More Than "Progressive"". JIVE Magazine. 2005-07-26. Archived from the original on August 14, 2007. Retrieved 2016-08-16. MusicChris's long 15 year trajectory as a highly successful label and record pool owner, DJ, producer, and remixer has all influenced the impact of dance music in America. His roots can be traced to the early nineties in Orlando, Florida, where he was spotted by DJ Icey and quickly heralded by Kimball Collins as resident at the infamous Aahz nightclub. Scene These visionary and legendary nights served as a platform to bring Sasha and John Digweed to America for the first time, and establish the early "progressive" sound that would become synonymous with clubbers and DJs alike for years to come
^ Gettelman, Parry (February 9, 1997). "The Orlando Sound Although Hard To Define, It's Hot Among Lovers Of Underground Dance Music". orlandosentinel.com. The Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved November 5, 2015. scene: When it comes to live music, Orlando is something of a backwater. In the world of underground dance music, however, the city has become an international capital. If you check IDs in the long lines that form outside downtown Orlando's Club at the Firestone in the wee hours, you'll find foreign passports as well as Florida drivers licenses. The crowd might well be queuing up to hear a celebrity British DJ whose exploits in Florida have been chronicled in mixmag and other British club-culture periodicals...singles are often released first on international labels and then appear in local stores as imports... Orlando labels such as Knightlife, Kram, Positivibes, MCO, Fade, Sunkissed and HipKat,... Orlando has also made a practice of exporting its DJs,..making big money spinning records in cities all over the country...The mainstream is starting to take notice... The song "Passion," by K5 on Orlando's Kram Records, has gotten airplay on local commercial stations ...FFRR, a label distributed through Polygram, released a whole album of DJ mixes by Icey as well as a compilation of Florida artists called Sunshine State of Mind, which will feature a number of Central Florida DJs...Neil Harris, an A&R; (artists & repertoire) executive at FFRR, said he made one visit to Orlando and was "blown away" by the proliferation of record stores and studios and the number of people involved in the dance-music scene."It's almost like what Seattle was for grunge rock; that's what Orlando is becoming for dance music," Harris said. "It seems to be the most vital local scene in America."... MusicSome of those involved in the scene like to talk about an "Orlando Sound," and in fact, some dance-music distributors have taken to marketing new tracks with descriptive labels such as "Orlando-friendly." Harris said that so far, people in other cities tend to associate Orlando either with the European progressive-house sound favored by DJs like Kimball and preferred by older clubgoers or with the somewhat simpler breakbeat sound that has made Icey a hit with younger clubgoers. Orlando club kids first encountered the style in the late '80s at the old Beacham Theatre ... on Orange Avenue where DJs such as Kimball Collins, Dave Cannalte, Chris Fortier and Andy Hughes got their start at Aahz dance nights. House music, which blossomed in Chicago in the '80s, is the most prevalent style of underground dance music...In general, however, melodies are only hinted at, by means of brief, repeating vocal and instrumental samples. The key element is the steady four-four beat that pounds away at between 110 to 150 BPM (beats-per-minute) and at floor-shaking decibel levels. The newer breakbeat style has a more syncopated...beat based on sped-up hip-hop rhythms.Those hip-hop rhythms, in turn, were based on samples of old jazz or funk rhythms. On records like Icey's, the beat breaks down (slows down) and rebuilds frequently, which is a good thing,... "funky breaks," as the breakbeat style is sometimes known...The style is positive...Although there's no universal agreement on what constitutes "the Orlando Sound," if indeed there is one, the consensus is that Orlando crowds tend to want to hear some vocal elements and have always favored a "happier" or "more positive" style. Stace Bass, who has been involved in the scene since the Aahz days and contributes to some of the international dance magazines, said the British DJs who started coming over in 1988 set the tone."Like Sasha - his sound was all very positive, a very good influence. It wasn't negative lyrics or dissonant chords. It wasn't like techno - it was very positive music," Bass said...Orlando crowds go for a more "uplifting" sound. "It always has that feel-good sound to it," he said. That feel-good aspect plays well in other cities, whether a track is progressive house or breakbeat. "Right now, anything coming out of Orlando seems to be big,"...dance music expanding beyond the hard-core club crowd "I think it's opening up to everybody right now," Rosario said. "As more dance music is being played on the radio, I'm seeing more people come in with an interest."...Rollins College station, has several good shows that play underground dance music. There's plenty of local product to air with several new local 12-inch records coming out each week...Pete de Graaff, assistant program director/music director at XL 106.7, said the station began playing "Passion" during its weekend dance-party programs last spring and moved it to the regular rotation a few months ago..."It's done very well for us," de Graaff said. "People like it, and it has nothing to do with them being local. It's just a Top 40-sounding record with an underground dance feel, and that catchy little female vocal hook really grabs listeners' ears. The song has had quite a successful run here, and it's just starting to pop up nationally now." In his circle, de Graaff said, when people talk about Florida music, they're usually thinking of the Miami sound of '80s artists like the Cover Girls. "Right now, there really isn't a definition of an Orlando dance sound," he said. "However, with a record like this ('Passion'), it's a good place to start."...Harmon: "generation wants music that puts them in a good mood, and that's why they're turning to dance music..."Now it's a more positive thing, and dance music is much more positive. You hear a dance track going, and it makes you want to get out and have fun... "Orlando has definitely gotten more attention from the majors," O'Neill said. "It was a groundswell - there were too many artists with success stories for them to ignore."Orlando used to be overshadowed by his hometown, Miami, O'Neill said. However, he feels Miami hasn't grown beyond the old deep house sound while Orlando seems to be diversifying and developing...AK1200:There are no more politics inside the music genres. Everybody relates and gets along." That makes it harder to define the Orlando Sound. However, that diversity could be Orlando's strength. "There's trip-hop and jazzy acid jazz and trancey house stuff - it's all over the board.
^ Weir, John (1997). "Hot kids with Macs Sound and their own records labels are turning the pre-fab Disney backwater of Orlando, FL into the Seattle of Electronica". Rolling Stone. No. 0767. Orlando: Rolling Stone via AM Soul Records. Archived from the original on August 23, 2016. Retrieved July 29, 2016.
^ "Aahz...An era of Electronic Music". Orlando.AllOut.com. Orlando.AllOut. January 24, 2015. Retrieved June 4, 2015. 'scene… if you lived in Orlando in the 90′s "AAHZ" meant and still means family. AAHZ was a late night event that was held at The Beacham nightclub back in the late 80′s/early 90′s. It was so much more than just a night at a club though. It was more of a family reunion every time you walked through the doors. This was in the era where PLUR (Peace, Love, Unity, Respect) was still the main player at these sort of events. This was back in the day before distractions like cell phones and digital cameras were in everyone's hands and it was just you, the crowd, and the DJ. The time when music connected people in a way that very few will ever understand. People came from all over the state to attend the famed AAHZ events. This was a place where you could go and totally let loose without fear of judgment by others. People came to AAHZ for the music and the vibe. The way the DJ's were able to use their turntables to emotionally connect so many different people through their music could not be duplicated anywhere. They quite literally had the mood of the entire room in their hands behind the decks. People thrived off of this new underground culture that was being introduced to Orlando through these AAHZ events. AAHZ was in a league of its own in the Orlando club scene, hosting international talents like Sasha and John Digweed, … There is no doubt that AAHZ and its DJ's helped put Orlando on the map and in the forefront of the entire Electronic Dance Music movement across the United States. There really is no way to adequately convey the true meaning or raw emotion of what AAHZ was, or why so many people considered it to be "home." ... Unfortunately, AAHZ came to an end in 1992, and with that came the end of an era for the Orlando club scene and Orlando Electronic Dance Music as a whole. The days of AAHZ …little piece of perfect that used to reside in the heart of Downtown Orlando.^{[dead link]}
^ *Ferguson, Jason; Le-Huu, Bao (July 2, 2013). "Dance dance revolution: An oral history of how the Chemical Brothers, all-night raves, and a massive club scene made Orlando's EDM scene legendary". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved July 28, 2016. scene The 1990s was formative in the electronic dance music awakening of America, and that fire-catching cultural momentum would vault Orlando to the vanguard of it all. As one of the premier global epicenters of the rave big bang, the city found itself on equal footing with not just New York or Los Angeles but also with the trailblazing U.K. scene (English breaks DJ-producer Nick Newton named his 1996 record Orlando), even siring its own sound (Florida breaks). Back in the city's O.G. days, the house music scene was a legitimately underground thing … It was a freak and renegade scene filled with new reality. It was all about music, drugs and the fellowship that stemmed from the mounting velocity of a burgeoning counterculture. But it was also incredibly popular, with weekly club nights at venues like the Edge, the Beacham, and Firestone Scene Kimball Collins is one of the most defining names in the EDM story of Orlando and, by extension, the U.S. Collins wasn't just there when it first happened, his work specifically ushered the movement from seed to blossom. … AAHZ started it all, really. It was the hub of the boom [from] '88 and '89 to 1992 [and when it] re-opened in '93. [AAHZ] stood alone, really, until the Edge opened [in] 1992… Back then, it was just underground dance music. Techno, house, whatever you want to call it. Most people didn't even have an idea of what to call it, but they loved it. People came together for the music at clubs through the mixtapes that were copied over and over because there was no way to hear this music other than to go out… Promoters like Stace Bass were also pivotal to the establishment of the electronic music scene by using their passion and commitment to create some unforgettable events, which included some incredible DJs and live performers… Music Orlando was hugely influenced by the U.K. hardcore, Italian piano house and Miami bass sounds – big, progressive piano samples, sped-up breakbeats, car stereo-driven low-end theory like bass, freestyle and electro. Alternatively, in Tampa, there was a tougher edge because of the scene's early industrial influences – proper Detroit techno and Chicago acid house, rougher proto drum & bass breakbeats, and later German trance The Edge was the other Orlando big room after AAHZ. [It] opened in 1992 with Icey at the helm. This is where Icey crafted his sound and helped launch the breaks genre…Edge: large raves at the venue three to four times a year, with biggest always being the Memorial Day and Labor Day Sunday parties… AAHZ, the Edge and Firestone were the most important, influential clubs in the scene. AAHZ because that's where it all began, the Edge because of their massive parties, and Firestone for really putting Orlando on the map with dance music and bringing in literally every renowned DJ from around the world. They broke all the rules of what clubs were supposed to be at the time…. By 1992, things had settled. There was the start of an "industry" forming. There were a ton of people and businesses built around the music. Record stores, clothing stores, clubs, bars, people making tapes, making T-shirts, magazines and more. CLARK: Orlando was the leader of it all and brought international EDM to the States … [it was] like Seattle was for the indie bands in the early '90s. Icey: rave events I threw at the Edge were very successful for their time; however, part of the success was that we attracted people from the whole state, especially on those bank holiday weekend shows. We had Edge venues in Ft. Lauderdale and Jacksonville during various years between 1992 and 1996, so it was easy to cross-promote… went from being almost a little bit of a secret to this awesome scene that [got] clubbers to Orlando to party all night long. Back then, the clubs stayed open as long as they wanted, so the scene exploded artistically. It was pretty magical... [There were] loads of independent white labels coming out of Orlando at the time, and many were selling loads, and not just in Orlando… Suddenly there were dozens of late-night choices record stores in cities on the west coast … a divider card designating a section as "Orlando Breaks."… Orlando was the leader of it all and brought international EDM to the States …. Trance, progressive, house and breakbeat had the biggest impact here... All the shows at the Edge were impactful back then:…bringing people to Orlando that had made their mark – musically – here. On July 4, 1993, there was a gigantic rave at the downtown Orlando club, the Edge. … the Edge was one of several downtown nightclubs that regularly hosted huge crowds at electronic dance nights. But this landmark event signaled that, although this was the beginning of something big globally, it was already in full swing here… not just of a pivotal night in Orlando's electronic music culture, but also of a music culture that was itself pivotal.… realized we were witnessing something very special… It was one of those nights where the vibe was perfect … so were the drugs… It showed that with the right talent and the right promotion, the scene would come together for a big party, and it made promoters step up their game to deliver an even bigger, better, larger experience. What it did internationally and nationally was solidify the Orlando and Central Florida scenes as a hotbed of electronic dance music in America. What the band thought was a promoter's whim turned into 5,000 kids going bonkers to the soon-to-be Chemical Brothers' first U.S. show. From there, word filtered back to the U.K. press that there was something special going on here in Central Florida and in the U.S… At the time, and probably for years later, it is and was just another show. When they came, they were just guys from Manchester who had made a bunch of tracks that were big in our clubs here. They weren't the superstars they would eventually become many years later as the Chemical Brothers. Before this particular show, we'd already had Sasha and John Digweed at AAHZ. At Marz, we had a lot of other bands like the Chems with a very similar sound, as well as future local stars Rabbit in the Moon. And Brassy's had Moby and a little band called Cybersonic that included a young Richie Hawtin. I think what we can look back on now about all this, including the Chemical Brothers gig was that we, as a scene, were really on it, forward-thinking and a leading light in the electronic scene… That show kicked off the scene en masse. It was that show where the promoters, clubs and club-goers realized there was something magical happening and that those kinds of shows could draw thousands. City officials still didn't get what was happening until Rolling Stone did an article about the late-night scene. Many people said it was Disney that thought it was bad publicity for family-friendly Orlando and forced the city to do something. Ironically, it was a time when acts like the Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Moby and Fatboy Slim were breaking the mainstream… One overdose or death was bad enough, but because the numbers of people going to these events and clubs had grown so much, it was only a matter of time until things got out of hand. People started getting careless, clubs didn't enforce their policies enough, and truly, it was just the fact that it had gotten to be so big, there wasn't much they really could do…ultimately, the Orlando officials perceived that this "negative" scene was ruining the image of Orlando… People were leaving clubs at 9 a.m. right down the road from the Catholic church when people were going to service.. The anti-rave bill was the death blow to our scene… The scene had gotten so out of control, and many of the clubs were not exactly discouraging the behavior, so the "crackdown" was no surprise… the scene in Central Florida and Orlando, specifically, had been existing under the radar in a bubble for a long, long time. By the summer of '93, drugs were quite present and some clubbers' personal behaviors began to get a little "messy" and irresponsible. While that happens with any sort of alternative culture – not just dance music – city and state officials can let a lot of things slide as long as a scene is policing itself and keeping things as discreet as possible. But when you've got people overindulging and even overdosing at the same clubs and parties consistently, creating what could be perceived as a potential nuisance or public safety liability, it's going to get on the powers-that-be's radar real quick…Closing clubs down early sent shockwaves through clubs and promoters and the clubs just did fewer events… As our scene grew, the industry grew and opportunities opened for us, such as gigs in other cities, spending more time out of Orlando than in Orlando. … there started to be more distractions within, and with that, …, a bit of decay over time… It only takes a few fearless, motivated people doing big things to create a scene…too many of those in Orlando either left town or got discouraged and stopped after the "crackdown."…destroyed by greed. promoters read this and take note: Don't kill what you work so hard to produce [just] for money. Orlando's Lasting Influence on EDM… [EDM is] so big now because of the previous generation setting the groundwork… Florida as a whole in the '90s electronic scene more than Orlando…pinpointed. Orlando indeed was an epicenter, but it seems to me much of the memory of that, in terms of national awareness, has been washed away… Orlando was a game-changer on so many levels… back at the tail end of the '80s and blazing into the '90s, there was this little movement of dance music that happened here that was mirroring what was going on over in Europe and around the world – something that eventually caught on nationally, but for a brief time, it could only be found here in Orlando. Drugs …But responding to the growing drug problem, the city passed an anti-rave ordinance, a crackdown that eviscerated a major subculture in mid-stride…… what once had been strictly about the music started becoming more and more about the parties and the drugs, so I think [the scene] lost some of the original innocence. the tourism thing worked in Orlando's favor, as visitors would spread the word about what was happening here. That made our scene seem pretty important, and it grew by feeding off of that. The infamous Rolling Stone article certainly was fuel to the fire.. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 856 (help)
^ Ferguson, Jason; Le-Huu, Bao (July 3, 2013). "The Places: The venues and club nights that propelled Orlando's EDM culture in the '90s". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved July 28, 2016. AAHZ: Unanimously cited as the mother of the movement, this seminal dance night at the Beacham Theater cultivated the late-night dance soil in the early '80s that made the massive '90s explosion possible. With an emphasis on the then-nascent European acid house sound, AAHZ vaulted the international DJ careers of residents Kimball Collins, Dave Cannalte and Chris Fortier. It also debuted stars like Sasha, Digweed, Cosmic Baby and Dave Seaman in Florida before closing in 1992… The Edge: … open from early 1992 to the summer of 1996, the Edge started life as an alternative rock club, hosting early-career shows by the likes of Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, Blur, and many others. … these rock shows were complemented by after-hours dance nights, which would often kick off around midnight and go until the very early morning. Due to its large capacity, the Edge also hosted enormous raves on holiday weekends that would often draw thousands of attendees…Firestone opened in 1993 and went on to carry the big prime-time torch lit by the Edge with budget and flair, further cementing Orlando's party credentials and earning national recognition by the likes of Rolling Stone and Billboard. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 480 (help)
^ *Le-Huu, Bao (November 28, 2015). "AAHZ respects the breaks that made Orlando global, overdue propers for DJ Stylus (The Beacham)". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved July 28, 2016. The AAHZ days, though absolutely foundational, were an elementary phase in the late '80s and early '90s that heavily featured European house sounds. But the breaks – a breakbeat subgenre braided of hip-hop, Miami bass and electro – was the Orlando sound, our original chapter and contribution to the EDM world. And when the breaks surged in the mid '90s, it was the Orlando dance scene at its apex, … playing the leading sounds but making and exporting them.
^ Le-Huu, Bao (December 2, 2015). "This Little Underground: AAHZ honors Orlando's breaks legacy". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved August 19, 2016. doesn't get any more seminal in Orlando dance culture history than the AAHZ nights...The original AAHZ days, though absolutely foundational, were an elementary phase in the late '80s and early '90s that heavily featured European house sounds. But the breaks – a breakbeat subgenre braided of hip-hop, Miami bass and electro – was the Orlando sound, our original chapter and contribution to the EDM world. And when the breaks surged in the mid-'90s, it was the Orlando dance scene at its apex, when we weren't just playing the leading sounds but making and exporting them...Icey was the superstar household name that drew thousands to world-famous downtown nightclub the Edge... just around the corner at small local bass den the Abyss, Stylus...a golden era...late night 1993, when downtown was underground and going subterranean was the entire point...all very nostalgic, yes. But it's certified with documented legitimacy. People talk about Orlando being a major player on the national music scene in far-fetched, just-for-conversation's-sake tones, but we were exactly that during the '90s EDM boom...we were worldwide in a way that can't be fully fathomed unless you were around then. Can you think of anything here since – DJ, band, scene, whatever – that left enough of a mark in hearts and minds to be able to pull respectably at a venue the size of the Beacham almost 20 years after the rest of the world stopped listening?...exited this scene for reasons that are true – its eventual dilution and regression...
^ Romero, Dennis (June 13, 2016). "Before L.A., Orlando Was a Club Culture Capital". laweekly.com. L.A. Weekly. Retrieved June 17, 2016. ...In the contemporary history of club culture, New York, Chicago, Miami, London, Berlin, and Ibiza, Spain play prominent roles...But there was a time when a much smaller city dominated domestic EDM and influenced the global emergence of the DJ as a superstar performer. That place was Orlando, Florida...The city has been an uncompromising and beloved party mecca for nearly three decades...Orlando had the right elements — clubs, drugs (ecstasy, LSD) and an unusually exceptional pool of DJ talent — to become one of America's greatest club towns...The music of legendary DJ Sasha "fit perfectly with the sound of Orlando — this uplifting feel-good music with an edge to it."...In the early 1990s, British DJ duo Sasha & John Digweed formulated a post-disco sound composed of sublime synths and funky house and breakbeats. Most just called it "progressive." In 2005 we asked Digweed if the duo's early trips to the United States helped the two create that influential style..."New York just seemed untouchable, you know," he said. "It was like, we're not going to get to play New York, 'cause it's Danny [Tenaglia] and Junior [Vasquez]. It seemed like a closed shop..."And then coming back to the States, I'm playing with Dave Cannalte and Kimball Collins, and I'm meeting people like Chris Fortier," Digweed said. "You all find this common ground. We're all into the same thing musically... DJ talent agencies...About that time DJ Icey was creating a one-man genre, "funky breaks," with ... Miami bass and London progressive, the sound put EDM on a break-dancing drive train...Northern Exposure, which practically defined the DJ mix CD...Orlando's heroes... were regular DJs at the world's most influential dance music club of the time, New York's Twilo, on a groundbreaking rock-style tour, Delta Heavy, with Sasha and Digweed in 2002...produced mixes of Delerium's Sarah McLachlan–sung "Silence" in 1999. The tracks represented a breakthrough, introducing pop audiences to the long builds and breakdowns that would come to typify EDM more than a decade later...the biggest names to emerge from Orlando...remained top-of-the-bill DJs for well into the '00s...few of the Orlando veterans survived EDM's shift from clubland to massive festivals fueled by what essentially has become pop music.Those originators helped create what we know as American EDM, however, by touring and circulating mixtapes across the land. "We were traveling so much outside Florida, [gaining a wider audience]
^ "Best Homage to Orlando's EDM Heritage AAHZ's "These Are the Breaks" event". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. August 24, 2016. Retrieved August 24, 2015. EDM is a major worldwide player in music again, but shockingly few realize that Orlando was both epicenter and forefront of the original American dance boom of the '90s. We were up there with the usual hotbeds like NYC, London, Chicago and LA with our legendary parties and clubs. But what really certifies us is that we weren't just an army of followers, but innovators with our own original sound that caught fire and inspired a whole generation of nu-skool breaks across the pond. And AAHZ's "These Are the Breaks" reunion party at the Beacham was a prime nostalgic capsule of that golden era.
^ Milo, Christopher (January 23, 2017). "Ep. 030 - DJ Three. Burning Man Regular DJ Three Has Some Thoughts on the Rise of Playa Tech". Rave Curious Podcast: DJ Three (Interview). Interviewed by Joshua Glazer. New York: Thump. Retrieved January 26, 2017. …the Central Florida rave scene of the early 90s… was a era that left an indelible mark on the America rave consciousness spawning local heroes like …, but also acting as an early port of call for European DJs such as … for whom cities like Tampa, Orlando and Gainesville were early ports of entry on their way to the top of the American club scene. <!Tons of content 1/2 way through interview>
^ Moyer, Matthew (November 21, 2017). "Wizard of AAHZ: Orlando lord of the dance Kimball Collins is serious about throwing a party". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved October 3, 2017. The last thing on DJ and Orlando dance music linchpin Kimball Collins' mind back during the fabled Orlando Summer of Love in the early 1990s was that he would someday be responsible for preserving the legacy of Florida Breaks… an era when Orlando was ground zero for a new type of dance music, … how that music has changed over the years: "Florida, and Central Florida in particular, gravitated heavily to all types of genres that relied on a type of break-beat from electro, techno, freestyle, Miami bass to straight-up U.K. rave breaks. Those influences went on to develop what would soon become the signature 'Florida break-beat sound.' In the original early days of AAHZ '89-'93, I knew it was a truly unique and special chemistry that was happening there and then and on a nightly basis. The music, the people and their love of sharing something new and exciting would put an indelible mark on their lives from there onward."

[Kelemen1998-1] Kelemen, Matt (September 2, 1998). "Wizards of Aahz: The Florida winter had just begun". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved November 30, 2015.

[Moyer2017-2] Moyer, Matthew (November 21, 2017). "Wizard of AAHZ: Orlando lord of the dance Kimball Collins is serious about throwing a party". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved October 3, 2017.

[Guinto1993-3] Guinto, Liesl (August 1, 1993). "All The Rave". orlandosentinel.com. The Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved August 16, 2016.

[Guida2011-4] Guida, Humberto (April 27, 2011). "I Was A Florida Raver Chapter 1 The Edge". www.clubplanet.com. Retrieved 2019-10-16. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)

[5] Nickson, Chris (April 24, 2010). "The Second Summer of Love". www.ministryofrock.co.uk. Retrieved 2019-10-14.

[Gettelman1997-6] Gettelman, Parry (February 9, 1997). "The Orlando Sound Although Hard To Define, It's Hot Among Lovers Of Underground Dance Music". orlandosentinel.com. The Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved November 5, 2015.

[Fergusonjuly22013-7] Ferguson, Jason; Le-Huu, Bao (July 2, 2013). "Dance dance revolution". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved July 28, 2016.

[Gentile2014-8] Gentile, Jessica (November 4, 2014). "Florida Breaks in the 1990s: Beats Get Sleazy in the Weirdo Armpit of America". thump.vice.com. VICE. Retrieved February 26, 2017.

[Ireland-9] Ireland, David. "Electronic Music 101: What Are Breakbeats?". Magnetic Magazine. Retrieved 2019-09-26.

[Guinto1993-10] Guinto, Liesl (August 1, 1993). "All The Rave". orlandosentinel.com. The Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved August 16, 2016. Scene Tonight, that family has gathered at the Orange County Convention Center [on July 3, 1993]. Tomorrow night or next week it might be a downtown club. You never know...Ray Gun:raves are a staple of youth culture throughout the world. That magazine of the hip defines a rave as a party for unity...from such simplicity has sprung an obsession that is seeping into the mainstream. From the mesmerizing techno music to the baggy chic of ravewear to the attitude a kind of meshing of spirituality and technology bits of the scene are popping up outside of the late-night gatherings. But long before there ever was a rave here in Orlando, England was raving. Soon, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and other big U.S. cities were raving too… The first raves amounted to this: Disc jockeys would break into warehouses late at night to stage spinoffs (DJ contests that are judged by audience reaction) that lasted into the wee morning hours. The right people could find out about these clandestine parties at the last minute via fliers, secret codes on the radio and word of mouth. The Orlando rave scene can trace its roots back almost five years to the old Beacham Theatre in downtown Orlando, also known as Aahz. With an atmosphere all its own multilevel dance floor, theater set-up and hypnotizing light shows Aahz became such a monument to late-night raves that when it closed its doors..., Orange Avenue was packed until late Sunday morning with loyal patrons paying tribute to their favorite dance house. Other clubs followed in the footsteps of Aahz, including The Edge in downtown Orlando, The Coliseum in Daytona Beach and Marz in Cocoa Beach. Raves are staged in clubs as small as Barbarella on Orange Avenue, or venues as large as the Orange County Convention Center (where more than 2,500 people raved from New Years Eve [1992] into New Years Day)...A re-invented Haight-Ashbury of the 90s...Dedicated ravers will travel to and from Gainesville, Miami, Orlando, Tampa and even Atlanta to attend the all-night happenings...the bigger, more commercial raves can generate a profit. In fact, the word rave has become passe. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 589 (help)

[Kelemen1998-11] Kelemen, Matt (September 2, 1998). "Wizards of Aahz: The Florida winter had ju..." orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved November 30, 2015. Scene "Aahz"-- would kick-start an underground culture and spawn countless DJ careers. Orlando would never be the same... By 1991-1992, Orlando experienced its own "summer of love" through the culture that sprang up around the weekend acid-house nights at the Beacham Theatre.. By the time Rolling Stone discovered the scene, late-night culture had become a shadow of its former self…the rise of late-night and its eventual, tragic fall. There were few proper dance clubs in Orlando in 1988. The acid-house scene had hit Central Florida before most of the rest of the country..only New York, San Francisco and L.A. had similar scenes, and they were characterized by warehouse parties. Orlando had a headquarters in the heart of its downtown district...Collins soon came into the fold. He had become an expert at producing the build-ups and breaks that cause crowds to experience orgiastic frenzies, and the scene was beginning to gel. The elements of a communal spiritual vibe, unorthodox fashion and mutual respect became characteristic of the night...Orlando had its subcultural cliques -- ...But this was different. The acid-house scene had hit Central Florida before most of the rest of the country. According to Collins, only New York, San Francisco and L.A. had similar scenes, and they were characterized by warehouse parties. Orlando had a headquarters in the heart of its downtown district. Music:...they were playing the same synth-pop and "newbeat"-- an industrial-flavored precursor to techno music --but nothing prepared him for what he would find inside the Beacham Theater. A DJ named Jo-Ed was spinning intense, psychedelic house music not too far removed from the newbeat Collins incorporated...the vibe was very different. The crowds seemed to be one with the music... "acid house" sounds emanating from Jo-Ed's turntables. "That was it. It was all over," recalls Collins. "I was always interested in anything unique and different as far as styles of music go. So I was completely captivated by his whole sound." Before long Collins would be manning the decks at the Beacham, spinning marathon progressive house sets long into the night. Collins could not be aware of it at the time, but those Saturday nights -- eventually known as "Aahz"-- would kick-start an underground culture and spawn countless DJ careers. Orlando would never be the same...But StaceBass would discover it first. In December 1988 the Ohio native, known to her parents as Stacey Howen, was handed a flier to the first night of a new club night at the Beacham called "Pure Energy." "I was the first person to walk in as a customer when they opened the doors. ... It was just booming in that room. But there weren't any lights." Howen got on board and convinced the Beacham's owners to let her assist with the lights, and StaceBass was born. The first night drew about 50 people. The next night drew 300. Collins started showing up and was transfixed by Jo-Ed's set, which was heavy on the acid-house sound -- an evolutionary attempt by English DJs to emulate the house music that had originated in Chicago in the mid-'80s. Acid house had become a full-blown underground culture seemingly overnight. New Orleans' native Jo-Ed witnessed the scene's rise firsthand and had built a sizable vinyl collection of the music during his trips to Europe... Other seminal scenesters were in attendance who would soon make their marks...three "Infinite" parties at the Orange County Convention Center...Around this time Icey began producing the massive holiday-weekend raves that would surpass "Aahz" in notoriety. "Aahz" helped launch a culture that manifested itself in new styles of clothing and attitudes. Club culture became an end-all, be-all for its constituents... Clark:"For the longest time the late-night thing was all about Sasha and the progressive thing. Now its more versatile." SOL winddown But all good things come to an end. Newer clubs like the Abyss and The Club at Firestone with aggressive marketing approaches dominated the scene. Collins and company started "Reunion" at Dekko's in October 1993 and for a time recreated the intense atmosphere of "Aahz." But with the rise of the scene came exploitation and greed. Late-night events held by less-responsible organizers mushroomed, and worse, unscrupulous drug dealers...peculiar time for music in Orlando -- ...styles of popular music, integrity and optimism that once characterized the "Alternative Nation" are long gone, replaced by an embrace of commercialism, opportunism and homogenous, pop-chart friendly music. Orlando -- once known as one of the most progressive dance cultures in the country -- is now better known for safe, VH1-ready pop bands with hummable hooks. Dance-music culture may never go away, but the industry surrounding it -- the clothing stores, record shops and large scale clubs -- is likely to take some pretty heavy hits… Drugs: But one more element was added into the mix -- pure, safe, uncut ecstasy had reached Orlando. "Let's just say it was a right combination of all of the above," says Collins...unscrupulous drug dealers began selling ecstasy with cheap additives like methamphetamine and ephedrine -- and eventually heroin...the bad drugs were consumed like candy by the newer generation of clubbers. The desire to continue the party prevailed. Ambulances seemed to arrive on a regular basis at the Edge -- right in front of the paid off-duty police officers who served as security. Law enforcement would hold back on cracking down until overdose deaths began making the headlines of the Orlando Sentinel in an exploitative, hysteria-inducing series of articles that eventually pointed the finger at the city's Puerto Rican population. In the summer of 1994, a female patron of "Reunion" collapsed during an event featuring United Kingdom DJ Sasha... The girl never woke up. "I knew exactly what it meant," says Collins. "I was going to have a problem doing anything like this again." "Reunion" closed down three weeks later. The scene as it was known would never be the same. ...The dance scene fell into less-than-ethical hands, and the bad drugs became the norm rather than the exception. The Convention Center was trashed by the attendees of two subsequent raves by independent promoters and late-night events were banned.The Beacham was bought out by Harmening, and the owners of the Edge would soon catch the prevailing winds of change and countrify that club into 8 Seconds. (Cowboys don't do ecstasy.) Collins concentrated on touring and released three continuous-mix CDs,...Cannalte concentrated on his Pleasure Island responsibilities, and Howen discovered the swing movement -- which she felt had the same innocent vibe and enthusiasm that she found in the rave scene rise of Festival: Change was inevitable. The first corporate-alternative club in town, The Edge, was established by Orlando businessman Bill Harmening, and Icey became its main DJ. The Beacham acquired new owners who renamed it Dekko's -- and canned "Aahz." Around this time Icey began producing the massive holiday-weekend raves that would surpass "Aahz" in notoriety. "Aahz" helped launch a culture that manifested itself in new styles of clothing and attitudes. Club culture became an end-all, be-all for its constituents. The "Peace, Love, Unity and Respect" ethic was superficially echoed for several more years until downtown clubs were forced to close at 3 a.m., and "electronica" was discovered by mainstream America and Madonna. The Golden Age had passed...A year after the provisions of the "anti-rave" bill were adopted by the city of Orlando, the dance scene, while prevalent and still healthy, is long past the pinnacle it once achieved. That doesn't mean the craving for all-night dance parties has diminished…it is a safe bet that the 1998 Zen Fest could be the last all-night dance-music event in Central Florida. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 129 (help)

[Guida2014-12] Guida, Humberto (November 21, 2014). "Candy Ravers and Psychonauts: The Florida Rave Scene". insomniac.com. Insomniac. Retrieved August 17, 2016. Scene Florida raves. Folks around the country may not think of the Sunshine State when it comes to the evolution of the American rave scene; but back in the day, Florida raves...made a mark on electronic music that is felt to this day...During the '90s, the area between Miami, Tampa and Orlando was a Bermuda triangle of hardcore underground dance culture. The beats were vicious, the bass was heavy, the jeans were baggy, and I'll say it: We had the phattest dancers in the country...The '90s was a formative time for American rave culture, as the scene was already booming in the UK. It found its way to New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, but it was in that Southeastern tourist trap known as Orlando, Florida, where American rave culture took off in a big way...AAHZ, a late-'80s mid-week party at the old Beacham Theater, served as the precursor to the Florida rave scene. But it was really the summer of 1993, at a club called the Edge, where a series of underground music events—headlined by the likes of the Dust Brothers and 2 Bad Mice—would birth the funkiest interpretation of all things rave this country had ever seen..."The Edge in Orlando was where everything started,"...Florida ravers do not jump up and down or fist-pump; we pop and lock and grind. Florida raves were where B-boy dance crews intertwined with candy ravers and psychonauts to form a particularly edgy environment, and with that edgy vibe came a hardcore, in-your-face attitude. By then, the scene had shifted in Orlando from the Edge to the Club at Firestone...Bunny: "The thing about Florida is the weather, the venues, and people," says Bunny. "Back when it started, there was no right, no wrong, no direction or clear path. Radical self-expression, love for the music. That's the way it was back then it changed what I thought was possible with music and parties. Back then, it was a very candy raver and industrial scene. Nobody in the dance music world had seen anything like it. It was so underground.”... MusicWith a sound that took a hardcore foundation and fused it with breakbeats, smooth basslines, and the occasional...sample, Rabbit in the Moon was the epitome of the Florida rave scene...Rabbit in the Moon would go on to break out internationally...“The scene in Florida [was] a gathering of creative outcasts, misfits and miscreants too eccentric for the norm of society,” says J. Vinazza, director of The Scene, a documentary on Florida rave culture. “Together they formed a large social circle that [became] a psychedelic family.”...Contributing to Florida’s rise within the global rave scene were the many outsiders coming into our corner of the world every day, from up North, way West, or across the Atlantic—plus Floridian ex-pats who would themselves bring back rave culture from elsewhere and combine it with the dance music base the state already had in place...“Orlando was hugely influenced by UK hardcore, Italian piano house and Miami bass—big, progressive piano samples, sped-up breakbeats, car stereo-driven Low End Theory-like bass, freestyle and electro,” Wohelski explained to the Orlando Sentinel last year. “In Tampa, there was a tougher edge because of the scene’s early industrial influences—proper Detroit techno and Chicago acid house, rougher proto drum & bass breakbeats, and later German trance on labels like Harthouse and EyeQ, all of which influenced the likes of the Hallucination/Rabbit in the Moon crew.”...Florida became a rave hub for many of what would become household names in electronic music...according to Bunny, the locals deserve more credit for the formation of Florida rave culture. “A lot of it was homegrown--The locals really took the sound of the breaks to another level.”..."The breaks,” as we Florida ravers like to call low-end freestyle, influenced electro and trip-hop music. It is the area’s signature musical contribution to raves. Electronic dance music down here was all about stuff you could breakdance to, so regulars were more likely to sit out the four-on-the-floor tracks and bust out once the “funky breaks” dropped. Meanwhile down south, the Ft. Lauderdale incarnation of the Edge and the notorious Miami-based rave Fever at Warsaw had infused the Florida rave scene with a distinctly street-tough disposition...some of the DJs and acts who pushed the Florida scene’s sound to the brink...But after a while it got stale. “The breaks turned into a one-trick pony,” Bunny explains. Drugs “We pigeonholed ourselves, and a lot of people threw the scene into more of a drug culture. People died at a few parties, the media took it and ran with it, and the authorities got involved. The government didn’t help.”...The Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act, commonly known as the RAVE Act, was the death knell for the wild, anything-goes atmosphere of Florida raves. On the heels of a 20/20 exposé on the dangers of the rave scene—half of which was filled with footage from Florida raves—Orlando officials in particular cracked down on the local rave scene, which they (along with chief resident Walt Disney Co.) figured to contribute to a “negative” branding of the city. They didn’t want to scare off the family vacationers that drive almost every business interest in the area. “It got to a point where you couldn’t even use the word rave 10 years ago,” Bunny recalls...Rise of festival After that, the underground one-offs and weekly raves at smaller venues were few and far between. Only major festivals—which could afford security and lawyers—were able to thrive. The state’s first major annual festival was Zen Festival, which debuted in 1995 in Central Florida...Zen Fest set the stage for even bigger festivals like Ultra, which launched in 1999 and goes down annually in Miami during Winter Music Conference, and Electric Daisy Carnival...In today’s rave culture explosion...the larger audience is not only more aware, but more receptive. The rave scene is bigger and more popular than ever, and while many corners of this great planet have had their moments and contributions to rave culture, let it be known that the hot and humid subtropical surroundings of the Sunshine State have a stake in it all...

[Guida2011-13] Guida, Humberto (April 27, 2011). "I Was A Florida Raver Chapter 1 The Edge". www.clubplanet.com. Scene: The rave scene was still mostly underground. Hell, they were still called "raves." Like other great musically-driven sub-cultures and youth-movements that came before it, the rave scene seemed like something literally out of this world and ahead of its time. It was matched only by what hippies did at acid-parties in places like Haight-Ashbury, parties also referred to as "all night raves." But unlike anything that has ever preceded them, modern raves were abstract and beyond words...A decade after being vilified to death by the authorities and eroded from the wear and tear of getting played out,..regional rave stories...rise and fall of the edgiest, most intense American rave scene - The Florida rave scene, from Miami to Orlando...The Florida rave scene was chronicled by Rolling Stone contributing editor Simon Reynolds in his seminal, rave anthology Generation Ecstasy as "infamous for taking excessive hedonism to the point of near-death experiences and sometimes taking it all the way."... not always pretty, but sometimes it was beautiful...especially in the beginning...To say that the rave scene induced a collective hangover is an understatement. For some people things got ugly. Some didn't even make it out alive. The Edge (southFL): It happened at the place that for all intents and purposes created the Florida rave scene - The Edge... And it spawned the rave scene in the FLA, no doubt about it. But The Edge ran its course relatively quickly... As important as The Edge was in igniting the fire, it didn't represent the end of the Florida rave scene, only the beginning. As crazy as The Edge seemed, it was not the heaviest interpretation of the Florida rave scene, and it didn't cause the most damage.Music: At the time there were really only so many underground techno and trance records to play. Florida DJs would transition from trance to trip-hop, breaks, tracks that were heavily influenced by old school breaks, freestyle, and Miami bass...Orlando's Icey and Rabbit in the Moon's Monk, plus residents like Bruce Wilcox and Mike Sharpe who developed the Florida or Funky Breaks sound, building on electro-funk and breakbeats and fusing them with the trancy sounds playing at raves in other parts of the world... {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); line feed character in |quote= at position 10 (help)

[Abbott2013-14] Abbott, Jim (June 27, 2013). "Make a return to AAHZ once more". orlandosentinel.com. The Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved August 5, 2016. scene: DJ Kimball Collins reflects on the role that the building itself had on the mystique of AAHZ, the progressive house-music parties that put Orlando on the international map as a hotbed of electronic music in the early 1990s...Between roughly 1989 and 1992, AAHZ blossomed into a weekly all-night Saturday dance party that attracted devoted fans who would travel from across the state to dance until daylight...Between roughly 1989 and 1992, AAHZ blossomed into a weekly all-night Saturday dance party that attracted devoted fans who would travel from across the state to dance until daylight. Before becoming an AAHZ DJ, Fortier was one of those fans...Fortier became one of the aspiring DJs who stood all night next to Collins, watching the way he changed the mood on the floor by changing records. Fortier, 42, is now an internationally known DJ and head of his own label, Fade Records, one of the numerous successful careers launched at AAHZ... music:Cannalte was challenged by the way his new partner constantly pushed new underground music into the mix. At the time, it was customary for DJs to stick with a formula that worked. "By him taking chances, it made me want to take chances," says Cannalte. That philosophy yielded AAHZ... something that happened so long ago in a nightclub," Collins says. "It's managed to hold a reverence for people..." {{cite web}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 960 (help)

[jive2005-15] "Chris Fortier: Much More Than "Progressive"". JIVE Magazine. 2005-07-26. Archived from the original on August 14, 2007. Retrieved 2016-08-16. MusicChris's long 15 year trajectory as a highly successful label and record pool owner, DJ, producer, and remixer has all influenced the impact of dance music in America. His roots can be traced to the early nineties in Orlando, Florida, where he was spotted by DJ Icey and quickly heralded by Kimball Collins as resident at the infamous Aahz nightclub. Scene These visionary and legendary nights served as a platform to bring Sasha and John Digweed to America for the first time, and establish the early "progressive" sound that would become synonymous with clubbers and DJs alike for years to come

[Gettelman1997-16] Gettelman, Parry (February 9, 1997). "The Orlando Sound Although Hard To Define, It's Hot Among Lovers Of Underground Dance Music". orlandosentinel.com. The Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved November 5, 2015. scene: When it comes to live music, Orlando is something of a backwater. In the world of underground dance music, however, the city has become an international capital. If you check IDs in the long lines that form outside downtown Orlando's Club at the Firestone in the wee hours, you'll find foreign passports as well as Florida drivers licenses. The crowd might well be queuing up to hear a celebrity British DJ whose exploits in Florida have been chronicled in mixmag and other British club-culture periodicals...singles are often released first on international labels and then appear in local stores as imports... Orlando labels such as Knightlife, Kram, Positivibes, MCO, Fade, Sunkissed and HipKat,... Orlando has also made a practice of exporting its DJs,..making big money spinning records in cities all over the country...The mainstream is starting to take notice... The song "Passion," by K5 on Orlando's Kram Records, has gotten airplay on local commercial stations ...FFRR, a label distributed through Polygram, released a whole album of DJ mixes by Icey as well as a compilation of Florida artists called Sunshine State of Mind, which will feature a number of Central Florida DJs...Neil Harris, an A&R; (artists & repertoire) executive at FFRR, said he made one visit to Orlando and was "blown away" by the proliferation of record stores and studios and the number of people involved in the dance-music scene."It's almost like what Seattle was for grunge rock; that's what Orlando is becoming for dance music," Harris said. "It seems to be the most vital local scene in America."... MusicSome of those involved in the scene like to talk about an "Orlando Sound," and in fact, some dance-music distributors have taken to marketing new tracks with descriptive labels such as "Orlando-friendly." Harris said that so far, people in other cities tend to associate Orlando either with the European progressive-house sound favored by DJs like Kimball and preferred by older clubgoers or with the somewhat simpler breakbeat sound that has made Icey a hit with younger clubgoers. Orlando club kids first encountered the style in the late '80s at the old Beacham Theatre ... on Orange Avenue where DJs such as Kimball Collins, Dave Cannalte, Chris Fortier and Andy Hughes got their start at Aahz dance nights. House music, which blossomed in Chicago in the '80s, is the most prevalent style of underground dance music...In general, however, melodies are only hinted at, by means of brief, repeating vocal and instrumental samples. The key element is the steady four-four beat that pounds away at between 110 to 150 BPM (beats-per-minute) and at floor-shaking decibel levels. The newer breakbeat style has a more syncopated...beat based on sped-up hip-hop rhythms.Those hip-hop rhythms, in turn, were based on samples of old jazz or funk rhythms. On records like Icey's, the beat breaks down (slows down) and rebuilds frequently, which is a good thing,... "funky breaks," as the breakbeat style is sometimes known...The style is positive...Although there's no universal agreement on what constitutes "the Orlando Sound," if indeed there is one, the consensus is that Orlando crowds tend to want to hear some vocal elements and have always favored a "happier" or "more positive" style. Stace Bass, who has been involved in the scene since the Aahz days and contributes to some of the international dance magazines, said the British DJs who started coming over in 1988 set the tone."Like Sasha - his sound was all very positive, a very good influence. It wasn't negative lyrics or dissonant chords. It wasn't like techno - it was very positive music," Bass said...Orlando crowds go for a more "uplifting" sound. "It always has that feel-good sound to it," he said. That feel-good aspect plays well in other cities, whether a track is progressive house or breakbeat. "Right now, anything coming out of Orlando seems to be big,"...dance music expanding beyond the hard-core club crowd "I think it's opening up to everybody right now," Rosario said. "As more dance music is being played on the radio, I'm seeing more people come in with an interest."...Rollins College station, has several good shows that play underground dance music. There's plenty of local product to air with several new local 12-inch records coming out each week...Pete de Graaff, assistant program director/music director at XL 106.7, said the station began playing "Passion" during its weekend dance-party programs last spring and moved it to the regular rotation a few months ago..."It's done very well for us," de Graaff said. "People like it, and it has nothing to do with them being local. It's just a Top 40-sounding record with an underground dance feel, and that catchy little female vocal hook really grabs listeners' ears. The song has had quite a successful run here, and it's just starting to pop up nationally now." In his circle, de Graaff said, when people talk about Florida music, they're usually thinking of the Miami sound of '80s artists like the Cover Girls. "Right now, there really isn't a definition of an Orlando dance sound," he said. "However, with a record like this ('Passion'), it's a good place to start."...Harmon: "generation wants music that puts them in a good mood, and that's why they're turning to dance music..."Now it's a more positive thing, and dance music is much more positive. You hear a dance track going, and it makes you want to get out and have fun... "Orlando has definitely gotten more attention from the majors," O'Neill said. "It was a groundswell - there were too many artists with success stories for them to ignore."Orlando used to be overshadowed by his hometown, Miami, O'Neill said. However, he feels Miami hasn't grown beyond the old deep house sound while Orlando seems to be diversifying and developing...AK1200:There are no more politics inside the music genres. Everybody relates and gets along." That makes it harder to define the Orlando Sound. However, that diversity could be Orlando's strength. "There's trip-hop and jazzy acid jazz and trancey house stuff - it's all over the board.

[Weir1997-17] Weir, John (1997). "Hot kids with Macs Sound and their own records labels are turning the pre-fab Disney backwater of Orlando, FL into the Seattle of Electronica". Rolling Stone. No. 0767. Orlando: Rolling Stone via AM Soul Records. Archived from the original on August 23, 2016. Retrieved July 29, 2016.

[Allout2015-18] "Aahz...An era of Electronic Music". Orlando.AllOut.com. Orlando.AllOut. January 24, 2015. Retrieved June 4, 2015. 'scene… if you lived in Orlando in the 90′s "AAHZ" meant and still means family. AAHZ was a late night event that was held at The Beacham nightclub back in the late 80′s/early 90′s. It was so much more than just a night at a club though. It was more of a family reunion every time you walked through the doors. This was in the era where PLUR (Peace, Love, Unity, Respect) was still the main player at these sort of events. This was back in the day before distractions like cell phones and digital cameras were in everyone's hands and it was just you, the crowd, and the DJ. The time when music connected people in a way that very few will ever understand. People came from all over the state to attend the famed AAHZ events. This was a place where you could go and totally let loose without fear of judgment by others. People came to AAHZ for the music and the vibe. The way the DJ's were able to use their turntables to emotionally connect so many different people through their music could not be duplicated anywhere. They quite literally had the mood of the entire room in their hands behind the decks. People thrived off of this new underground culture that was being introduced to Orlando through these AAHZ events. AAHZ was in a league of its own in the Orlando club scene, hosting international talents like Sasha and John Digweed, … There is no doubt that AAHZ and its DJ's helped put Orlando on the map and in the forefront of the entire Electronic Dance Music movement across the United States. There really is no way to adequately convey the true meaning or raw emotion of what AAHZ was, or why so many people considered it to be "home." ... Unfortunately, AAHZ came to an end in 1992, and with that came the end of an era for the Orlando club scene and Orlando Electronic Dance Music as a whole. The days of AAHZ …little piece of perfect that used to reside in the heart of Downtown Orlando.^{[dead link]}

[Ferguson2013-19] *Ferguson, Jason; Le-Huu, Bao (July 2, 2013). "Dance dance revolution: An oral history of how the Chemical Brothers, all-night raves, and a massive club scene made Orlando's EDM scene legendary". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved July 28, 2016. scene The 1990s was formative in the electronic dance music awakening of America, and that fire-catching cultural momentum would vault Orlando to the vanguard of it all. As one of the premier global epicenters of the rave big bang, the city found itself on equal footing with not just New York or Los Angeles but also with the trailblazing U.K. scene (English breaks DJ-producer Nick Newton named his 1996 record Orlando), even siring its own sound (Florida breaks). Back in the city's O.G. days, the house music scene was a legitimately underground thing … It was a freak and renegade scene filled with new reality. It was all about music, drugs and the fellowship that stemmed from the mounting velocity of a burgeoning counterculture. But it was also incredibly popular, with weekly club nights at venues like the Edge, the Beacham, and Firestone Scene Kimball Collins is one of the most defining names in the EDM story of Orlando and, by extension, the U.S. Collins wasn't just there when it first happened, his work specifically ushered the movement from seed to blossom. … AAHZ started it all, really. It was the hub of the boom [from] '88 and '89 to 1992 [and when it] re-opened in '93. [AAHZ] stood alone, really, until the Edge opened [in] 1992… Back then, it was just underground dance music. Techno, house, whatever you want to call it. Most people didn't even have an idea of what to call it, but they loved it. People came together for the music at clubs through the mixtapes that were copied over and over because there was no way to hear this music other than to go out… Promoters like Stace Bass were also pivotal to the establishment of the electronic music scene by using their passion and commitment to create some unforgettable events, which included some incredible DJs and live performers… Music Orlando was hugely influenced by the U.K. hardcore, Italian piano house and Miami bass sounds – big, progressive piano samples, sped-up breakbeats, car stereo-driven low-end theory like bass, freestyle and electro. Alternatively, in Tampa, there was a tougher edge because of the scene's early industrial influences – proper Detroit techno and Chicago acid house, rougher proto drum & bass breakbeats, and later German trance The Edge was the other Orlando big room after AAHZ. [It] opened in 1992 with Icey at the helm. This is where Icey crafted his sound and helped launch the breaks genre…Edge: large raves at the venue three to four times a year, with biggest always being the Memorial Day and Labor Day Sunday parties… AAHZ, the Edge and Firestone were the most important, influential clubs in the scene. AAHZ because that's where it all began, the Edge because of their massive parties, and Firestone for really putting Orlando on the map with dance music and bringing in literally every renowned DJ from around the world. They broke all the rules of what clubs were supposed to be at the time…. By 1992, things had settled. There was the start of an "industry" forming. There were a ton of people and businesses built around the music. Record stores, clothing stores, clubs, bars, people making tapes, making T-shirts, magazines and more. CLARK: Orlando was the leader of it all and brought international EDM to the States … [it was] like Seattle was for the indie bands in the early '90s. Icey: rave events I threw at the Edge were very successful for their time; however, part of the success was that we attracted people from the whole state, especially on those bank holiday weekend shows. We had Edge venues in Ft. Lauderdale and Jacksonville during various years between 1992 and 1996, so it was easy to cross-promote… went from being almost a little bit of a secret to this awesome scene that [got] clubbers to Orlando to party all night long. Back then, the clubs stayed open as long as they wanted, so the scene exploded artistically. It was pretty magical... [There were] loads of independent white labels coming out of Orlando at the time, and many were selling loads, and not just in Orlando… Suddenly there were dozens of late-night choices record stores in cities on the west coast … a divider card designating a section as "Orlando Breaks."… Orlando was the leader of it all and brought international EDM to the States …. Trance, progressive, house and breakbeat had the biggest impact here... All the shows at the Edge were impactful back then:…bringing people to Orlando that had made their mark – musically – here. On July 4, 1993, there was a gigantic rave at the downtown Orlando club, the Edge. … the Edge was one of several downtown nightclubs that regularly hosted huge crowds at electronic dance nights. But this landmark event signaled that, although this was the beginning of something big globally, it was already in full swing here… not just of a pivotal night in Orlando's electronic music culture, but also of a music culture that was itself pivotal.… realized we were witnessing something very special… It was one of those nights where the vibe was perfect … so were the drugs… It showed that with the right talent and the right promotion, the scene would come together for a big party, and it made promoters step up their game to deliver an even bigger, better, larger experience. What it did internationally and nationally was solidify the Orlando and Central Florida scenes as a hotbed of electronic dance music in America. What the band thought was a promoter's whim turned into 5,000 kids going bonkers to the soon-to-be Chemical Brothers' first U.S. show. From there, word filtered back to the U.K. press that there was something special going on here in Central Florida and in the U.S… At the time, and probably for years later, it is and was just another show. When they came, they were just guys from Manchester who had made a bunch of tracks that were big in our clubs here. They weren't the superstars they would eventually become many years later as the Chemical Brothers. Before this particular show, we'd already had Sasha and John Digweed at AAHZ. At Marz, we had a lot of other bands like the Chems with a very similar sound, as well as future local stars Rabbit in the Moon. And Brassy's had Moby and a little band called Cybersonic that included a young Richie Hawtin. I think what we can look back on now about all this, including the Chemical Brothers gig was that we, as a scene, were really on it, forward-thinking and a leading light in the electronic scene… That show kicked off the scene en masse. It was that show where the promoters, clubs and club-goers realized there was something magical happening and that those kinds of shows could draw thousands. City officials still didn't get what was happening until Rolling Stone did an article about the late-night scene. Many people said it was Disney that thought it was bad publicity for family-friendly Orlando and forced the city to do something. Ironically, it was a time when acts like the Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Moby and Fatboy Slim were breaking the mainstream… One overdose or death was bad enough, but because the numbers of people going to these events and clubs had grown so much, it was only a matter of time until things got out of hand. People started getting careless, clubs didn't enforce their policies enough, and truly, it was just the fact that it had gotten to be so big, there wasn't much they really could do…ultimately, the Orlando officials perceived that this "negative" scene was ruining the image of Orlando… People were leaving clubs at 9 a.m. right down the road from the Catholic church when people were going to service.. The anti-rave bill was the death blow to our scene… The scene had gotten so out of control, and many of the clubs were not exactly discouraging the behavior, so the "crackdown" was no surprise… the scene in Central Florida and Orlando, specifically, had been existing under the radar in a bubble for a long, long time. By the summer of '93, drugs were quite present and some clubbers' personal behaviors began to get a little "messy" and irresponsible. While that happens with any sort of alternative culture – not just dance music – city and state officials can let a lot of things slide as long as a scene is policing itself and keeping things as discreet as possible. But when you've got people overindulging and even overdosing at the same clubs and parties consistently, creating what could be perceived as a potential nuisance or public safety liability, it's going to get on the powers-that-be's radar real quick…Closing clubs down early sent shockwaves through clubs and promoters and the clubs just did fewer events… As our scene grew, the industry grew and opportunities opened for us, such as gigs in other cities, spending more time out of Orlando than in Orlando. … there started to be more distractions within, and with that, …, a bit of decay over time… It only takes a few fearless, motivated people doing big things to create a scene…too many of those in Orlando either left town or got discouraged and stopped after the "crackdown."…destroyed by greed. promoters read this and take note: Don't kill what you work so hard to produce [just] for money. Orlando's Lasting Influence on EDM… [EDM is] so big now because of the previous generation setting the groundwork… Florida as a whole in the '90s electronic scene more than Orlando…pinpointed. Orlando indeed was an epicenter, but it seems to me much of the memory of that, in terms of national awareness, has been washed away… Orlando was a game-changer on so many levels… back at the tail end of the '80s and blazing into the '90s, there was this little movement of dance music that happened here that was mirroring what was going on over in Europe and around the world – something that eventually caught on nationally, but for a brief time, it could only be found here in Orlando. Drugs …But responding to the growing drug problem, the city passed an anti-rave ordinance, a crackdown that eviscerated a major subculture in mid-stride…… what once had been strictly about the music started becoming more and more about the parties and the drugs, so I think [the scene] lost some of the original innocence. the tourism thing worked in Orlando's favor, as visitors would spread the word about what was happening here. That made our scene seem pretty important, and it grew by feeding off of that. The infamous Rolling Stone article certainly was fuel to the fire.. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 856 (help)

[20] Ferguson, Jason; Le-Huu, Bao (July 3, 2013). "The Places: The venues and club nights that propelled Orlando's EDM culture in the '90s". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved July 28, 2016. AAHZ: Unanimously cited as the mother of the movement, this seminal dance night at the Beacham Theater cultivated the late-night dance soil in the early '80s that made the massive '90s explosion possible. With an emphasis on the then-nascent European acid house sound, AAHZ vaulted the international DJ careers of residents Kimball Collins, Dave Cannalte and Chris Fortier. It also debuted stars like Sasha, Digweed, Cosmic Baby and Dave Seaman in Florida before closing in 1992… The Edge: … open from early 1992 to the summer of 1996, the Edge started life as an alternative rock club, hosting early-career shows by the likes of Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, Blur, and many others. … these rock shows were complemented by after-hours dance nights, which would often kick off around midnight and go until the very early morning. Due to its large capacity, the Edge also hosted enormous raves on holiday weekends that would often draw thousands of attendees…Firestone opened in 1993 and went on to carry the big prime-time torch lit by the Edge with budget and flair, further cementing Orlando's party credentials and earning national recognition by the likes of Rolling Stone and Billboard. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 480 (help)

[Le-Huu_2015-21] *Le-Huu, Bao (November 28, 2015). "AAHZ respects the breaks that made Orlando global, overdue propers for DJ Stylus (The Beacham)". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved July 28, 2016. The AAHZ days, though absolutely foundational, were an elementary phase in the late '80s and early '90s that heavily featured European house sounds. But the breaks – a breakbeat subgenre braided of hip-hop, Miami bass and electro – was the Orlando sound, our original chapter and contribution to the EDM world. And when the breaks surged in the mid '90s, it was the Orlando dance scene at its apex, … playing the leading sounds but making and exporting them.

[22] Le-Huu, Bao (December 2, 2015). "This Little Underground: AAHZ honors Orlando's breaks legacy". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved August 19, 2016. doesn't get any more seminal in Orlando dance culture history than the AAHZ nights...The original AAHZ days, though absolutely foundational, were an elementary phase in the late '80s and early '90s that heavily featured European house sounds. But the breaks – a breakbeat subgenre braided of hip-hop, Miami bass and electro – was the Orlando sound, our original chapter and contribution to the EDM world. And when the breaks surged in the mid-'90s, it was the Orlando dance scene at its apex, when we weren't just playing the leading sounds but making and exporting them...Icey was the superstar household name that drew thousands to world-famous downtown nightclub the Edge... just around the corner at small local bass den the Abyss, Stylus...a golden era...late night 1993, when downtown was underground and going subterranean was the entire point...all very nostalgic, yes. But it's certified with documented legitimacy. People talk about Orlando being a major player on the national music scene in far-fetched, just-for-conversation's-sake tones, but we were exactly that during the '90s EDM boom...we were worldwide in a way that can't be fully fathomed unless you were around then. Can you think of anything here since – DJ, band, scene, whatever – that left enough of a mark in hearts and minds to be able to pull respectably at a venue the size of the Beacham almost 20 years after the rest of the world stopped listening?...exited this scene for reasons that are true – its eventual dilution and regression...

[Romero2016-23] Romero, Dennis (June 13, 2016). "Before L.A., Orlando Was a Club Culture Capital". laweekly.com. L.A. Weekly. Retrieved June 17, 2016. ...In the contemporary history of club culture, New York, Chicago, Miami, London, Berlin, and Ibiza, Spain play prominent roles...But there was a time when a much smaller city dominated domestic EDM and influenced the global emergence of the DJ as a superstar performer. That place was Orlando, Florida...The city has been an uncompromising and beloved party mecca for nearly three decades...Orlando had the right elements — clubs, drugs (ecstasy, LSD) and an unusually exceptional pool of DJ talent — to become one of America's greatest club towns...The music of legendary DJ Sasha "fit perfectly with the sound of Orlando — this uplifting feel-good music with an edge to it."...In the early 1990s, British DJ duo Sasha & John Digweed formulated a post-disco sound composed of sublime synths and funky house and breakbeats. Most just called it "progressive." In 2005 we asked Digweed if the duo's early trips to the United States helped the two create that influential style..."New York just seemed untouchable, you know," he said. "It was like, we're not going to get to play New York, 'cause it's Danny [Tenaglia] and Junior [Vasquez]. It seemed like a closed shop..."And then coming back to the States, I'm playing with Dave Cannalte and Kimball Collins, and I'm meeting people like Chris Fortier," Digweed said. "You all find this common ground. We're all into the same thing musically... DJ talent agencies...About that time DJ Icey was creating a one-man genre, "funky breaks," with ... Miami bass and London progressive, the sound put EDM on a break-dancing drive train...Northern Exposure, which practically defined the DJ mix CD...Orlando's heroes... were regular DJs at the world's most influential dance music club of the time, New York's Twilo, on a groundbreaking rock-style tour, Delta Heavy, with Sasha and Digweed in 2002...produced mixes of Delerium's Sarah McLachlan–sung "Silence" in 1999. The tracks represented a breakthrough, introducing pop audiences to the long builds and breakdowns that would come to typify EDM more than a decade later...the biggest names to emerge from Orlando...remained top-of-the-bill DJs for well into the '00s...few of the Orlando veterans survived EDM's shift from clubland to massive festivals fueled by what essentially has become pop music.Those originators helped create what we know as American EDM, however, by touring and circulating mixtapes across the land. "We were traveling so much outside Florida, [gaining a wider audience]

[homage-24] "Best Homage to Orlando's EDM Heritage AAHZ's "These Are the Breaks" event". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. August 24, 2016. Retrieved August 24, 2015. EDM is a major worldwide player in music again, but shockingly few realize that Orlando was both epicenter and forefront of the original American dance boom of the '90s. We were up there with the usual hotbeds like NYC, London, Chicago and LA with our legendary parties and clubs. But what really certifies us is that we weren't just an army of followers, but innovators with our own original sound that caught fire and inspired a whole generation of nu-skool breaks across the pond. And AAHZ's "These Are the Breaks" reunion party at the Beacham was a prime nostalgic capsule of that golden era.

[ThumpDJThree-25] Milo, Christopher (January 23, 2017). "Ep. 030 - DJ Three. Burning Man Regular DJ Three Has Some Thoughts on the Rise of Playa Tech". Rave Curious Podcast: DJ Three (Interview). Interviewed by Joshua Glazer. New York: Thump. Retrieved January 26, 2017. …the Central Florida rave scene of the early 90s… was a era that left an indelible mark on the America rave consciousness spawning local heroes like …, but also acting as an early port of call for European DJs such as … for whom cities like Tampa, Orlando and Gainesville were early ports of entry on their way to the top of the American club scene. <!Tons of content 1/2 way through interview>

[Moyer2017-26] Moyer, Matthew (November 21, 2017). "Wizard of AAHZ: Orlando lord of the dance Kimball Collins is serious about throwing a party". orlandoweekly.com. The Orlando Weekly. Retrieved October 3, 2017. The last thing on DJ and Orlando dance music linchpin Kimball Collins' mind back during the fabled Orlando Summer of Love in the early 1990s was that he would someday be responsible for preserving the legacy of Florida Breaks… an era when Orlando was ground zero for a new type of dance music, … how that music has changed over the years: "Florida, and Central Florida in particular, gravitated heavily to all types of genres that relied on a type of break-beat from electro, techno, freestyle, Miami bass to straight-up U.K. rave breaks. Those influences went on to develop what would soon become the signature 'Florida break-beat sound.' In the original early days of AAHZ '89-'93, I knew it was a truly unique and special chemistry that was happening there and then and on a nightly basis. The music, the people and their love of sharing something new and exciting would put an indelible mark on their lives from there onward."

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