The Smiley: From Hippie to Punk to Raver

DUST in conversation with DB Burkeman

The explosion of the rave scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s marked a cultural revolution. Originating in the UK and spreading globally, these underground, often illegal events became symbols of freedom, unity, and resistance, breaking barriers between subcultures and social classes and leaving a lasting impact on music and youth culture. An infamous symbol of this historical moment is the iconic Smiley face, closely linked to rave culture from its inception. Yet, this symbol has a deeper and more intricate story, traversing various music scenes over decades and continuing to influence culture today.

DB Burkeman, also known as DJ DB, was a British jungle and drum and bass DJ who moved from London to New York in 1989. A pioneering figure in the US rave scene and credited with helping to introduce Jungle and rave culture to America, he was also the founder of NASA, the renowned NY hardcore breakbeat club night. In recent years, he has focused on art and publishing. He recently launched his own publishing company, Blurring Books, focusing on art, music and counterculture. Blurring Books aims to disrupt some of the practices of what DB calls the antiquated corporate publishing industry. He is currently working with Rich Browd on an art history trilogy of books, spotlighting artists that have used the Smiley in their work.

DUST met with DJ DB to discuss the origin of the rave scene, the use of the Smiley, and how it has impacted youth culture through the years.

DUST – You moved from London to New York in the pivotal year of 1989. With the Berlin Wall coming down that year, it felt like a new chapter in history reverberating across all fields. This was when rave culture emerged as a new kind of collective and generational experience, transcending the boundaries of subcultures, genres, and politics that had defined the youth until then. It felt like a wall also came down in people’s minds. What was it like for you that year?

DB Burkeman – It was a very exciting time around the world! As DJ DB, I had just left London that year, where the second ‘Summer of Love’ and raving had exploded across the country. We were able to throw these illicit parties in odd locations not really known for dancing.

It was a fantastic time cross-culturally and very interesting in all the art fields. I don’t know if people, including myself, are able to realise when historical moments are happening while they’re happening. You’re just living your life; it’s your reality. You’re not aware that it’s an important time. I lived through the punk rock explosion in the late 70s and early 80s. Even then, I wasn’t aware of how culturally and musically significant it was until it was over. It’s similar to the rave explosion in a way.
DUST – What was it like when you first moved to New York in the late 80s?

DB – I came to New York simply to DJ in some clubs. I came on a three-month visa, which quickly expired, and then I was stuck here but having the best time ever. When I first moved here, I was booked into mainstream—hip and cool, but still a little mainstream—type clubs. So, I simply played the house music of the day, primarily from Chicago, New York and New Jersey. By 1990, the UK and Italy were also creating their versions of house music, and I played a lot of Italian house and some techno from Belgium and Germany. However, the music that most excited me was this new hybrid sound only coming out of the UK. Every time I played that in clubs, the reaction was not good, which led me to want to throw our own parties.

DUST – In the early 90s, you also played at the Limelight, literally known as the rave scene mecca in NY. You were responsible for bringing much of the UK electronic sound of those years to the US and the larger public. As a bridge between the two, how did the UK scene compare to the US scene at the time?

DB – I’ve been blamed for bringing Jungle/DNB to America (joking), but it was simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time and wanting to play this odd British music to a mostly American audience. There were enough expats here to help the cause, too. The older, hip downtown New Yorkers didn’t like this new shit; they only wanted house and hip-hop, and playing hardcore breakbeats would clear the floor. The Limelight crowd hated it! So, we started throwing our parties outside the mainstream, and it took a while for people to want to listen to what I was playing. In fact, in ‘91, before NASA, I did a club night called Brilliant.

Even though Brilliant mainly had the same DJs and concept as NASA, it failed. It was simply six months too early for NYC. But even NASA took a few weeks before it started doing OK. We were losing money until then, but it suddenly took off, and we had a line around the block! Only a very young crowd came; a new generation welcomed it and made the club and the culture their own. It turns out that some of those kids grew into being very influential New Yorkers. Harmony Korine wrote the screenplay for the Larry Clark film KIDS while he was a teenager running around my club night. The club is mentioned multiple times in the film. Chloë Sevigny was like NASA’s unofficial door girl, just hanging out and greeting the other kids as they arrived. Michael Dayton Hermann was also just a kid and now holds an important position within the Andy Warhol Foundation. He is also a respected artist in his own right. NASA was also the only ravey option if you wanted to hear something other than four-to-the-floor house or the very hard industrial techno that Limelight was pumping out on Fridays. It took a younger, open-minded audience here to appreciate what was happening in the UK.

DUST – Witnessing this period from that privileged viewpoint, what has stayed with you from that experience? If you were to compare, what are the fundamental differences between the youth then and now?

DB – That’s such a hard question to answer. I learned early on not to try to predict what will catch on. I suppose the biggest difference is money. Back then, it simply wasn’t an industry, not even a real business. We would have been amazed if a DJ had earned $1000 to play music in a club. Now, big-name DJs are regularly getting $100,000+ a show. Also, the 90s were like a laboratory for experimentation, expression, and research, while now it’s as if the music scene is eating its own tail. I don’t want to come off as one of those people who say music was better back then, and right now, it sucks! I don’t listen to old music; young, new artists constantly inspire me. I am talking about a very exciting period, ‘88- ‘94, when crazy shit was being invented and reinvented. To give you an example, in ‘91 or ‘92, the music we were playing at Nasa was called hardcore. Then it morphed into what was called Jungle, and that morphed into drum and bass.

It just kept simply speeding up, and people needed to find new names to call it, as everything was evolving rapidly. Some other DJs and I were all obsessed with this UK stuff. We were the ones pushing it. The changes we witnessed between ‘90 and ‘94 musically never really happened in another genre. The music changed so fast, so quickly, and so dramatically. The technology was moving so fast and becoming widely available. Kids were making tracks; nobody knew how they made them, and everyone tried to copy them, creating something different. It was an incredible moment in music history, unlike any of the other scenes.

DUST – Let’s talk about the Smiley icon that became the symbol of the rave scene. But it actually crossed subcultures over decades. During the 1970s, the peace and love culture embraced the Smiley; later, the Punk scene used it, too. By the 1980s and 1990s, it had become a symbol of electronic music and rave scenes. But not just that, it further cemented its iconic status by appearing on a poster to advertise Nirvana’s Nevermind album release, inspiring the dawn of the 90s grunge movement. This mainstream design became the emblem of underground, anti-system youth movements. How did it follow your early fascination from Punk to electronic music?

DB – If you were young, into music and in London, Punk was just what was happening. It was like a tidal wave—you couldn’t avoid it. I was lucky because I was exposed to it very early on. Initially, Punk was very small. These bands played in small venues around London, similar to other pub shows. For a young person, it was cool because big concerts were expensive, and these punk shows were cheap and easy to access. So, it naturally drew young people. You also felt like you were involved in something very new! As far as the Smiley goes, I’ve always been drawn to the concept of reappropriating something, taking an existing idea and twisting it into something new. That’s what I did when I was designing my flyers. What I like about the Smiley is that it adapted to the new music scene in its own unique way. When Nirvana used it for Nevermind, I loved it. At the time, we were all listening to Nirvana and rave music simultaneously. I was into British bands like Oasis, Radiohead, Stone Roses, Primal Scream, and The Verve, as well as American bands like Nirvana, My Bloody Valentine, and others. In the 90s, it wasn’t about sticking to one sole genre or closed group. Everything started to come together more, and the rave culture epitomised that. That was the real aggregator before the internet came along and changed everything. The internet messed it all up, breaking down the boundaries that once kept different musical worlds apart. But before that, in a sense, it had been the rave scene, a force able to cross all boundaries. I can say that it had a significant social impact in England. Just think about how it helped significantly reduce football violence and shift the youth culture. When everyone under 30 started going to clubs and taking ecstasy on Friday nights, they stopped fighting at football matches on Saturday afternoons. This was a real cultural shift, demonstrating the profound influence of the rave scene in the UK.

DUST – Let’s go back to the original Smiley story. Franklin Loufrani, a French journalist, came up with the symbol in 1972 while working at France-Soir newspaper. His goal was to highlight positive news stories amidst the social and political tensions of the time. The Smiley, a simple yellow circle with two dots and a curved line for a smile, was initially used to mark ‘good news’ stories in the newspaper. It quickly became a widely recognised positivity and optimism icon, deeply ingrained in various cultural movements.

DB – Actually, the true origin story is different; in the US, most people know the history of it, but outside of it, especially in Europe, it is still quite unknown. In 1964, Harvey Ball, a graphic designer, was commissioned by an insurance company to design something that could fit on a badge or a sticker to uplift the spirits of the workforce at the insurance company. His fee was $45. He never copyrighted the design, and till the day he died, he was happy to see it go out into the world and spread a positive vibe. Nirvana twisted the Smiley, making it wonky, dark & druggy. It also references its use in punk rock’s history, moving away from the positive, happy 60s/70s hippie association it was known for worldwide. American iconic punk band The Dead Kennedys had already shown Smilies on their record sleeve for their 1979 single, California Über Alles. Anyway, here’s my understanding of why you and many Europeans believe it to have been created in France in 1972. In the early 90s, the son of Franklin Loufrani made a business by trademarking or copywriting the symbol to be able to charge a fee for licensing it out to people. It does feel like the French:owned Smiley Company is pushing the idea that they invented it in 72 and maybe writing Harvey Ball out of the history books. :( Sorry, I couldn’t resist the use of the emoticon!

DUST – You are focusing on the Smiley, even for your upcoming book.

DB – Our first book, Sm;)e, spotlights artists who reappropriated the Smiley and incorporated it into their artwork, covering artists from the last three decades. The second instalment of this art history trilogy should be out by October. Norman Cook, AKA Fatboy Slim, has written a great introduction to Sm;)e…again. He was heavily involved in the early rave scene and frequently uses the Smiley in his work. I’m also working on a book about rave flyers in the US, where the Smiley was less prominent than in England, but as the 90s progressed, you can see the Smiley featured more and more on flyers across the country. I’ve done a lot of research; being a DJ in the 90s and getting booked across the US, I made friends with many promoters and other DJs. I’ve tracked many of them down and had them send us images of their flyers. This book is like a historical document, capturing what was happening in music, technology, and graphic design throughout the 90’s. During this extraordinary period, new graphic design software became available to anyone with a computer, enabling the creation of innovative designs. So, the book will not only be fun for people who remember that era but will also be appreciated from a design perspective. The title is ILLEGAL: Rave Flyers of the 90s because most of these events were either illegal or at least illicit, also something unimaginable today.

DUST – How do you remember the Smiley appearing in the electronic music scene? Did it enter gradually, or was it immediately embraced?

DB – The story has been very well documented in the UK, but here goes with my memory of how it happened. In 1987, in London, one of the very first acid house parties was called Shoom, and they used the Smiley on their membership card and flyers. From there, it grew like a virus and became an icon or representative symbol for the underground Acid House and rave culture. From that little seed, other promoters started putting it on their flyers, and fans began wearing the T-shirts, which became a subtle wink to others in the scene. If you saw someone with a Smiley T-shirt, you knew they were in the scene. That was in the UK. In the American rave scene, it didn’t happen in the same way. In fact, if I saw someone wearing a Smiley shirt at my parties, I figured they were British. I’d say: “Hey, are you from London or Manchester?” And they were usually from one or the other.

DUST – If we look deeper, this simple symbol is incredibly multifaceted. It has been embraced in many different ways, at different times, with naivety, lightheartedness, irony, cynicism, hopefulness, or escapism, as a way to fit in or to mark a fundamentally different identity. Still, it was able to connect many different youth experiences. How has your attitude towards it evolved over time?
DB – The Smiley face embodies both positive and negative impulses. For example, in a doctor’s or dentist’s office for children, a sticker with a Smiley face is used to help the child feel happy about their visit. On the other hand, a graffiti artist who criticises society can use the same symbol ironically. This duality is unique; no other symbol maintains such contrasting meanings while remaining so popular.

In the rave scene, the irony was probably more pronounced. But it’s often hard to tell whether people wearing the Smiley T-shirt were doing so ironically or if they were genuinely happy to be part of the dance music explosion. Maybe it was both. My quote in our Sm;)e book is:

“In the history of graphic design, no other symbol has ever held such a duality—used simultaneously as both a positive mainstream driver and a counterculture subverter of that very mainstream.”