Rave On

A Dance Party for the 90’s Flower Children

Publication title: Edmonton Journal

Pages: A1

Publication date: Feb 26, 1993

Copyright: (Copyright The Edmonton Journal)

Author: MARINA JIMENEZ Journal Staff Writer

A transvestite with blue eyelids and pretty lips waves a feather boa in time to grinding music. Boom, boom, boom. One hundred and sixty beats a minute.

A teenage girl in a black bra and garter sways on a scaffold high above the dark dance floor. Beside her, a man, his youthful face hidden behind a gas mask, swings his arms around to the endless beat.

Friday at midnight. This is no ordinary nightclub pickup joint.

It's a rave - an all-night dance party for the city's leading-edge hipsters. A movement for the very young.

Bodies are packed together. They're dancing fast. Dancing alone. Dancing till 5 a.m.

The Journal's page A1.  Source: DJ Pain.

"You don't go to a rave to pick people up," explains 21-year-old Art Sproul, one of 300 at last Friday's rave in Nix, a private downtown warehouse. "It's not a top 40s bar where you sing along. It's where you go and get lost in the music. It's trance-inducing."

Raves, a British import, are the party of the '90s.

Dressed in ragged jeans and woolly tuques or Spandex underwear and bustiers, some ravers call themselves today's flower children. They experiment with psychedelic drugs like Ecstasy and LSD. They listen to futuristic, robotic underground sounds called techno music.

They're turning on and tuning in.

But forget dropping out. Unlike hippies, who shunned commercialism, ravers embrace it. They wear $30 T-shirts with designer labels. Parties are high-tech with wild computer art flashing on walls.

At first glance, ravers may look like a bunch of sweating teenagers in underwear. But there's communication and energy among them. Sensuality, but no lust. A sense of togetherness, a connection through music, like at a tribal ritual.

"Every generation had something of its own," says Brian Burgess, 25, one of six DJs at Friday's party. "We're trying to find ours."

Organizer Nick Delgado said Friday's scene was even more underground than most Edmonton raves, with transvestites, new alternative music and gays. Word-of-mouth invitations only.

Drag queen Shea, a 23-year-old English major who sewed his blue dress himself, explains: "The point of a rave is to be your own self. If you go to Denny Andrews, you can't dress the way you can at a rave party. Here it's a different atmosphere, very warm."

Raves attract mostly white high school and university kids, trendies from the alternative and gay scene, clothing and record store groupies.

"I wouldn't go and give a handbill to someone who was, say, 30 years old," says Sproul, organizer of several Edmonton raves.

Raves began in England in the mid- to late-1980s - counter-culture parties held in open fields or abandoned warehouses, the location kept secret until the very last minute to avoid police raids. Despite the huge numbers, fights rarely broke out. Instead, free love flowed.

In Vancouver, rave parties follow this trend; 5,000 people gather secretly in out-of-town warehouses.

Raves here, dare we say, are more tame. But they still push the limit, look for new extremes in fashion and music.

"We the young people have to do it for ourselves. I don't want to see people above me, 40-year-old nightclub owners, dictate how things work," says John McFarland, 22. "The movement encourages people to go out and do what they want, including making money. Find a way to market yourself."

Kelly McInroy, a preppy Ross Sheppard high school graduate, likes raves because they're something different, a break from the regular bar scene.

The Bronx has held six in the last year, private parties attracting crowds of 500 who drink booze or Smart Drinks, non-alcoholic, vitamin-laden refreshments for extra energy.

Sproul holds his raves in clubs or other spaces. To advertise, he sneaks into Barry T's On Location and the Bronx and hands out tiny invitations. Following another rave trend, the invitations spoof commercial products. The one for Sproul's February party read Fresh Vibes to Cleanse Your Soul and resembled a Tide detergent label. The party drew a crowd of 500 and made Sproul a $2,500 profit.

Those party-goers dress in fashions that are eclectic, sometimes baffling.

Jamie Tardif, a buyer for Edmonton's hip clothing store Gravity Pope, says raves take the best from all trends since the 1950s. They want to go one step beyond the norm.

"The higher you can go the better, the longest hats, the most stripes, the highest (platform) shoes," Tardif says. "Women are involved too: the disco ladies, the grunge girls."

At Friday's party, go-go dancers in their underwear whipped themselves into a frenzy. Glow-in-the-dark necklaces, referees' whistles and over-sized Dr. Seuss hats swung around the dance floor. A fortune teller burned incense and read Tarot cards.

Hot oil or lava lamps from the 1960s are back.

At Gatorave, a summer party, everyone got three-dimensional glasses at the door. At another - jars of Vicks VapoRub. Kids rubbed the stuff on their necks, to enhance the effects of Ecstasy, or MMDA, a psychedelic drug.

Drugs such as LSD and Ecstasy - an integral part of European and west coast raves - are popular here too, according to some. Ecstasy is a chemical hallucinogen like LSD. A New York magazine described Ecstasy as amphetamines cut with Valium or LSD.

While Ecstasy is hard to get in this city, Sproul has found telltale empty foil packages - used for hits of LSD - all over the floor after some of his parties.

At his raves, drugs are banned, though he admits kids may take magic mushrooms beforehand or drop acid in the parking lot.

"Drugs make the atmosphere, music and lighting more interesting for some," Sproul says. Enlarged pupils and a propensity to sit down in the middle of the dance floor for a seance are signs.

In Edmonton, police know about raves, but have never been called out to a noise- or drug-related rave complaint. Police haven't seized Ecstasy in recent years, and acid only in minuscule amounts.

Despite the do-as-you-please philosophy, many ravers end up looking suspiciously similar.

That's the commercial side of raves, the carefully packaged look.

Clothing distributor Garret Louie promotes zany California fashions at raves he organizes in Vancouver.

"I like to build up a whole scene, keep things going," says Louie, 22. "Fashion is just for fun."

His pursuit of fashion profits is as aggressive as the movement's loud music.

He likes to keep the clothes in demand, so he limits supply in Edmonton to a few "hardcore" stores: Gravity Pope on Whyte Avenue, New Ground in St. Albert. Gravity Pope stocks just one of every Fresh Jive T-shirt and hat design to keep them special.

Delgado, a DJ, keeps rave music in short supply too; he doesn't overplay songs and always covers up his record labels. Music from underground techno bands like Phenomena, Age of Love, Opus 3 and Germany's Liquid Bump aren't even available in Edmonton; Delgado imports the stuff from New York and Vancouver.

"The music is fast, grinding, annoying," says Delgado.

The 19-year-old high school graduate scratches, or flips back and forth, between songs. He mixes beats, so the music sounds like one song that goes on for hours and hours.

And hours. At the Bronx, parties usually go until 5 a.m. Friday's party ended at 3:30 a.m.

"You walk into a very good rave and you'll feel and see the energy," says McFarland. "You should have the right music, the right people, the right lights. Not to sound hippie, but the right vibes."

Even in Edmonton, mainstream nightclubs are cashing in on raves' popularity. Malones Night Club held a few in January. And Barry T's On Location had two successful rave parties. Capacity crowds of 700 came.

Already, as raves start to be co-opted by mainstream clubs, something new is brewing underground.

Edmonton's underground DJs call it strictly groovy funk. Deep house, soul music.

Huh?

Stick around, it's not likely to stay hidden for long.

~ ~ ~ ~

WHAT is a rave?  An all-night dance party, with light shows, wild clothing and a raging fury of techno underground music. The weirder, the better.

WHO goes?  Only the very young: 26 is old. Mostly white middle-class students, clothing and record store trendy types. Also, the alternative scene.

WHERE are they held?  Private raves take place in warehouses and old nightclubs. Clubs such as the Bronx and Barry T's On Location also hold raves.

HOW do you hear about them?  Nightclubs advertise them. Private raves rely on word-of-mouth. Organizers pass out invitations at other rave parties and in record stores. Tickets: between $5 and $10.

WHEN are they?  Don't start until midnight; go till 4 or 5 a.m.

WHY? Mostly for fun. Ravers want to create their own thing, enjoy new music, clothes, maybe even drugs. Like the wild parties hippies used to have.