NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/alt/rave/5981

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-28 | 10.9 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!olivea!mintaka.lcs.mit.edu!ai-lab!silver.lcs.mit.edu!cutter
From: [e-mail] (we got all lined up)
Newsgroups: alt.rave
Subject: SASSY rave article
Summary: *groan* Write these people some letters.
Keywords: rave review
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 28 Dec 92 18:41:08 GMT
Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
Lines: 203
NNTP-Posting-Host: silver.ai.mit.edu

Reproduced without permission.

The writer of the article is _Sassy_ senior writer and entertainment
editor Christina Kelly.

If this has been posted before, my apologies.

The address to send letters to (hint! hint!) is:

    SASSY
    230 Park Ave.
    New York, New York  10169



WELCOME TO MY RAVE NIGHTMARE
----------------------------

Join me, won't you, in a muddy airfield in Winchester, England.  Watch
sheets of rain fall from the sky and 30,000 tripping teenagers smeared
in Vicks Vapo-rub rave their little hearts out until the sun comes up.

BY CHRISTINA


I just got back from London.  A few weeks ago, Shelby, the Elektra
Records chick who was publicizing this techno band, the Prodigy,
called with an offer to fly me over to England to experience the
biggest rave ever.  Quick definition of techno courtesy of staff boy
Charles Aaron: really, really fast electronic dance music that sounds
like a video game constantly going off.  Quick definition of raves:
huge (often outdoor, often illegal) parties where people high on the
quasi-psychedelic, mood-enhancing drug ecstasy dance to techno
wearing funny accesories.  Raves are big in London and on the West
Coast of the United States (though perhaps past their peak of
ultimate hipness in these places) and I had never gone to one before.
Also, I did find rave culture interesting from a sociological
standpoint, even if I knew all the drug use would skeeze me out.

Earlier today I called Liam Howlett, the 20-year-old who creates all
the music for the Prodigy on his synthesizer and keyboard.  He's been
into the rave scene since 1989, so I figured he'd understand the
philosophy behind what I had just experienced.

Most ravers seem to think it's just about having fun, but I had read
that it was also about using technology to release the primordial
energy of the earth.  "That's too spiritual for me," Liam said,
laughing.  "It's more like when you were little and your mom and dad
told you not to do something.  You want to be a bit naughty.  I
suppose it's like a rebellious thing.  Raving in a field until it
gets light."

I asked him to address the conventional wisdom that people have to be
on ecstasy to enjoy techno.  "It's not all about drugs," he said.  "I
think the people who have to take ecstasy to enjoy it are a bit sad,
really, because you don't have to take drugs to enjoy music."

But Liam, aren't all the people at raves on ecstasy?  "Well, of
course," he said.  "But a record should be strong enough to stand on
its own without the use of ecstasy or LSD or whatever, you know,
mind-changing drugs."  Should be, but in the case of techno,
apparently not.

I asked him how he rated the rave I had just been to.  "I didn't
enjoy it too much," he said.  "It was too wet."

I'll admit that I don't have a taste for techno as a genre.
Allegedly started in Detroit in the mid-80's by these DJs named
Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, techno has its roots in hip-hop,
disco, and the early '80s Sprocket-esque band Kraftwerk.  Back then
it was called acid house.  It was later exported to Europe, where
producers sped it up, sometimes to 136 beats per minute.  In England
techno fans created a whole subculture.  It spawned various
sub-genres like New Beat before the current label was introduced.
The rest is history.  As for my own trip...

I flew to London with Shelby's colleague, Miss Beth Jacobson, and Mr.
Jon Pareles, a scholarly music critic for the New York Times.  I
tried to listen to the Prodigy tape on the plane but couldn't.  It
was just too fast and the nutty synthesizer noises were
headache-inducing.  Even on my Walkman, this music made me feel like
I was in a club.  And unfortunately, it stuck in my head long after I
had turned it off.  I read the press clips that Shelby had so
thoughtfully provided.  I learned that the Prodigy had had a lot of
commercial success (in England).  Their song "Charly" sampled a
children's cartoon public service announcement starring a cat, as
well-known there as Smokey the Bear is here.  It was a hit, and set
off a big trend of techno songs with cartoon samples making it to the
charts.  Soon after, the dance music magazine _mixmag_ felt compelled
to blame the Prodigy for the "death of rave" -- i.e., the hard-core
underground ravers felt their scene was being sold out because techno
was now fit for radio airplay.  Those superior underground types sure
do *hate* it when the uncool masses start co-opting their scenes,
whether they be fans of the Nation of Ulysses or T99.

Anyway, we got to England at, like, 7:00 in the morning on Saturday,
went to our hotel, slept until 1:00 or 2:00, drank tea, ate dinner,
and headed out to the rave at 8:30 in a car sent by XL, Britain's
premier techno label.  The rave, which was to feature four XL bands
playing live (although "live techno" seems to be a contradiction in
terms since it's usually the creation of a producer in a studio), was
taking place at an airfield in a suburb called Winchester.  It was
being put on by Vision, big rave organizers over there.

We entered the airfield at, like, midnight, and drove to the VIP
entrance, which was decidedly un-VIP-ish.  It was pouring rain and
chilly, and I had to walk over a huge mound of mud in my platform
sandals, making me pretty miserable.  We stood outside with all the
young rave-scene luminaries, waiting for someone to let us in past
the gates.  Finally a girl led us to the press area, outside the
actual site of the rave.  Luckily, that was in a building.  People
were standing around drinking water (to combat their ecstasy-induced
dehydration) or little bottles of a greenish liquid called Gluconate,
a Gatorade-like drink that ravers consume to keep them dancing all
night.  Emma, who is English, said that her mum used to give it to
her as a child when she was sick.  Someone gave me one.  It was fizzy
and sort of vitaminy-tasting and it did make me feel slightly less
jet-lagged.

Beth was looking for Leah, the publicist from XL.  When we found her,
a youngish woman with long dark hair, she told us that the Prodigy
would probably arrive at about 3:30am; they weren't set to go on
until 5:00.

Leah led us down to the site of the rave.  It was pretty much an
extravaganza.  This particular one was supposed to have 20,000 people
at it, but there were more like 30,000 when they closed the gates at
midnight.  Amusement park rides, like a ferris wheel and a spinning
nausea-inducing thing, were lit up against the pitch-black sky.
There were five huge tents on the premises.  The Main Arena, also
called the Science Fiction Techno tent, was purported to be the
largest big top in Europe.  It was where all the bands played.  Arena
two was a smaller version of the same thing, where recorded techno
was played.  There were also two large "chill-out" tents.  The
advance promotion promised a tent with a foam machine going all
night, but that didn't happen.

We entered the Main Arena.  There was a stage in front, with huge
video screens that flashed words like "Love Life" and "Rave On."  The
lights were very trippy.  The music was predictably loud, fast, and
electronic -- and to my ears, unlistenable.  When there were vocals,
it was just some girl saying "ecstasy" over and over.  The
unmistakable odor of Vicks Vapo-rub filled the air.  The ravers smear
the stuff on their temples to complement the ecstasy high.  Some of
their faces were glistening.

As a group, the ravers could not have been more pasty and
unattractive.  There seemed to be a lot more guys there than girls,
and they danced, as in an epileptic fit, facing the stage.  They
pretty much kept their feet planted and worked their upper bodies
furiously, their white-gloved hands shooting spasmodically up and
down to the music, like little self-contained, inwardly directed
units.  The ravers wore your basic oversized T-shirts and sweatshirts
and jeans.  But they accesorized with such truly weird things -- like
those doctor's masks that over your mouth and nose, or white hockey
masks of the sort worn by Jason in _Friday the 13th_, topped off with
Gilligan's Island hats bearing little pins with the letter "E" (for
ecstasy).  They sucked on pacifiers or blew on disco whistles.  I
wondered if Karl Lagerfeld would be incorporating ravewear into his
next collection for Chanel, as he did with rap.  I imagined Linda
Evangelista smeared in Vicks and sucking on a pacifier.

While watching I noticed another more chemical smell comingling with
the menthol of the Vicks.  It was amyl nitrate, a drug which a lot of
kids were sniffing from little brown bottle, then dancing really
fast.  Call me a square (I prefer straight edge, actually), but I
find it increidbly sick when people go to such bizarre lengths to get
a buzz.

Beth, Emma, a friend of theirs and I stayed together as a posse,
eventually moving to the chill-out area, where hundreds, maybe
thousands, of kids were splayed on the muddy ground while techno
played at a slighly lower volume than in the Main Arena.  But it was
still raining really hard so we headed back to the main tent.  By
this time, I was even more miserable, what with pissing rain,
disgusting mud and music that I am just too uncool to get.  And we
*still* had four hours until the Prodigy was to play.

A boy who looked about 14 turned around and asked us pleasantly: "Are
my pupils dilated?"  "A little bit," said Beth.  A few minutes later,
a guy dressed all in white -- overalls, Gilligan hat, and cotton
gloves -- asked if he could have some of my water.  I gave him the
bottle, and asked why he was wearing gloves.  I guess no one had ever
asked such an obvious question.  He looked like he felt a little
silly.  "So people can see my hands," he said.  Oh.

Onstage, an MC or whatever yelled "We're 40,000 strong!"  The rave
was seemingly like an apolitical, synthetic, alientated Woodstock of
the '90s.  There was definately an atmosphere of love and sharing and
rebellion against authority.  And even though it was totally packed,
when people passed by they did not push.  Any event in the United
States with a crowd this size would certainly have a major police
presence, but there were no policemen on the grounds.  There didn't
seem to be any violence.  Even so, it all seemed so desperate to me.
And soulless.

Three-thirty came and went, then 5:30, and no Prodigy.  As the sun
was coming up, I decided I'd do a phone interview back in NYC.  We
met Jon Pareles back at the VIP arena and left.  "Are you thrilled?"
Beth asked him.  "I'm touched," said Jon, "that people will go
through so much to have a good time."  I was actually more disgusted
than touched.  We got into the car and watched the rain fall on the
mud fields as we drove back to London.