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Interview With A Raver!
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» PoiSoNeD_CaNdY replied on Tue Dec 14, 2010 @ 1:36am |
 Coolness: 91630 | I just wrote this looooooooooong paper on Rave culture for my Youth Culture class. Its due Wednesday so it would be awesome if anyone took the time to read it and make any suggestions or comments. Its in the form of a series of fictional interviews.
Foreword: The following “interviews” are entirely fictional, and Dessi, Mike, and Lizard are entirely products of my imagination. I decided to do a cover article on the ‘Rave’ subculture after hearing about a proposed law called the ‘Dance Event Safety Initiative’ or DESI. Proponents of the law claim that it would help regulate events to ensure proper safety standards, while opponents allege that it is designed to target and eliminate the ‘Rave’ scene as we know it. As part of my research, I have decided to interview youth that attend Raves. I created a profile on [ Purerave.com ] a social networking site for ravers, and sent messages to a handful of youth. My first interview subject is called Dessi, an 18 year old female. I met Dessi on May 18th, at a local Starbucks cafe. She’s an attractive, bubbly girl, wearing a bright pink hoodie, baggy black jeans, and Adidas sneakers. Both her wrists are covered in bracelets of multi-coloured beads. The following is a transcript of our interview. Reporter: Nice to meet you Dessi. Tell me a little about yourself and how you got into the Rave scene. Dessi: I grew up in a suburb of Toronto, and moved Downtown to go to U of T. I’m in my first year of university, doing a major in Sociology. Back in October, this one night I was supposed to go to this dude’s birthday party, but this girl I just met, Lita, said we should go raving instead. I’d never gone to a rave before and didn’t really know what to expect, but it was one of the best night of my life. I’ve been really into the scene ever since. Reporter: Can you describe your first party? Dessi: It was in some random community center in a really far-off part of town that they rented for the party. I was kind of nervous on the way there, but Lita told me not to worry, that she’d gone to tons of Raves before and that they were awesome. I stepped through the door, and it was full of kids dancing, but not like anything I’d ever seen before. Everyone seemed so happy and energetic, the speakers were blasting super fast beats, and the costumes....everyone was wearing really bright and colourful clothing, kids had pacifiers in their mouths and stuffed animals, it was just unreal. I felt kind of awkward at first because I wasn’t wearing special, just normal drab clothes, but it was okay. Lita introduced me to some people and told them that it was my first party. Everyone was super nice to me even though I was a newbie, they gave me some of their candy bracelets and told me about the DJ’s that were playing that night. The rest of that night was just a giant blur, but by the time me and Lita left the party, the sun was already rising and I’d just had the most amazing night of my life. Reporter: You mentioned the crazy costumes that Ravers wear. Can you tell me more about the Rave style? Why do party kids wear those clothes? Dessi: The most popular style right now is Candy...and the people that wear that style are called candy kids. It’s basically like getting in touch with your inner child again, and expressing it in the clothes you wear...we love bright and bold colors. Candy kids buy coloured beads and make candy bracelets, and then we can give them away or trade them during parties. I only wear a few during the week, it’s like a symbol of being a raver...and a great way to recognise other ravers when you’re waiting for the bus for hanging out in the mall. Lots of candy kids wear pacifiers at parties, some people say the main reason is to prevent you from grinding your teeth when you’re on E, but I think it looks really cute and wear one even if I’m not dosing. Candy kids also love wearing T-shirts with their favourite cartoon character from when they were little, even Sesame street shirts. It’s not that we’re juvenile or childish, it’s just that we remember the joy of being a little kid and express that in our clothing, and that we believe in PLUR. Reporter: Can you explain what PLUR means? Dessi: PLUR is basically the Rave motto, it stands for Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect. It’s like a code for how ravers should behave to each other, and even to people that aren’t in the scene. Some people make fun of PLUR and say that it only exists when you’re high, but I love PLUR. When you think about it, if more people acted according to PLUR, then so many of the problems we have in the world would disappear. If people could just learn to be peaceful, love each other, show each other respect and be like one big family, then there wouldn’t be so much war and violence and hatred in the world. Maybe it sounds kind of naive, but I really believe in it. Reporter: Can you tell me how going to a Rave is different from going to a club? Dessi: Are you kidding? Going to a Rave is TOTALLY different. I don’t even go to clubs anymore, because they aren’t really that much fun. People go to clubs either to get really drunk and wasted, or to try and pick up. One of the things in the Rave scene is that it’s like a big family, we all know each other, and nobody tries to take advantage of you or hit on you obnoxiously. Sure, if you meet someone at a party you like, it’s cool to hook up with them or date them, but it’s totally different from the way things happen at clubs. Reporter: So you’re saying that people interact differently at Raves? Dessi: That’s exactly it. You probably know this already, but a lot of people do Ecstasy at Raves. And when you’re high on E, it’s like it encourages you to really open up and talk to people without worrying about how they’re going to judge you. About a month ago, I met this girl called Laura at a party. We were hanging out in the chill room, sitting on these really comfy couches, and we just started talking for hours. I never even knew Laura before, and we were telling each other all the personal details like the guys we’d dated before and our parents and whether they knew we raved or not. Also when you’re high, touch feels so amazing, so we gave each other massages. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but we started making out too. It’s not like we were making out just to get guys’ attention, like so many club girls do, it just felt right. We still see each other sometimes and do things together. I never thought I was into girls before, but now I think I might actually be bi. Reporter: You mentioned the use of Ecstasy in the Rave scene. Can you tell me more about that? Dessi: I don’t want you to think that going to a Rave is all about getting high, because I know that’s what a lot of older people think and that’s how it’s talked about in the media. It’s totally untrue. I know some kids that go to raves and have never even tried E. That said, I think Ecstasy is amazing. It doesn’t even feel like your wasted or messed up the way drinking does, it just gives you energy and makes you feel happy and connected with other people. I can’t believe that alcohol is legal and ecstasy isn’t, it just doesn’t make any sense. I can’t even stand being around drunk people anymore, they’re so obnoxious. The only think I don’t like about E is the comedown. Sometimes the day after dosing, I just feel really depressed and tired for no real reason. Maybe because I know I have to face classes and square people and wait for the next party to come around. Reporter: Speaking of classes, how has going to Raves affected your life as a student? Dessi: To be honest, it isn’t always easy balancing partying and school. Going to a rave means spending the whole night at the event, so I need the next day to rest and recover. Then, it’s harder to concentrate in my classes when really I’m just thinking about all the things that happened during the last Rave. I’m doing okay in school, I’m passing all my classes, but I’m not the straight-A student I was in high school anymore. Actually, I’m a little worried my parents are going to flip out when they see my grades for this semester. Reporter: So do you plan on Raving much in the future? Dessi: Yes I do, because there’s nothing else like it. Sometimes when I’m at a really good party and everything feels right, I start to think that the party scene could actually help change things out there in the world. There’s a song I really like called “Children of the Night” and it’s about the younger generation uniting and making the world a better place. When I see how wasteful and violent the human race can be it makes me really said, but then when I see how beautiful the rave scene is it give me hope that things could change. Because if the younger generation grows up experiencing Rave culture and PLUR and carries that message when they grow up, then they won’t continue all the violence and hatred that’s been happening so much lately. Reporter: Thank you Dessi, its been a pleasure speaking to you. My second interview subject is Mike, a nineteen year old male. He’s wearing baggy jeans and a black hoodie. His skin is pale and unhealthy looking. The following is a transcript of out interview. Reporter: Nice to meet you, Mike. Tell me a little about yourself and how you got into the Rave scene. Mike: I started going to parties when I was sixteen, four years ago. I was at a friend’s house party when someone suggested we go to a rave, we all packed into some guy’s car and partied all night. I think I did two E’s that party. Reporter: What happened next? Mike: I started hanging out with a new group of friends, and we were all really into the scene. Not that many people know this, but I used to be a candy kid. Yeah, that’s right, picture me wearing candy bracelets and twirling fucking glow sticks! It feels like a million years ago. It’s incredible how naive we all were back then. Reporter: What do you mean by that? Mike: I guess we just didn’t have a clue what we were getting into; the lifestyle, the drugs, the late nights. We did whatever seemed like fun at the time, without really thinking how it was going to change things down the road. Of course I had a good time back then, it was really amazing. I met Dana, my first girlfriend, at a party. My friends and her friends all started hanging out, we would all party together and go back to someone’s place and just talk, watch videos, and do bumps of K [reporter’s note: K is a slang term for Ketamine, a party drug] until it was time to go home. Me and Dana lost our virginity to each other, we were both high on E and it was the best thing ever. You can’t imagine how good it feels to make love on Ecstasy, it feels like every part of your body is hyper sensitive. Reporter: Why caused things to change? Mike: Some of my friends started getting into drugs too much. I remember one morning, after a party, two of my friends started yelling at each other over the proper size of a bump of K. Things started going downhill. I was doing three or four E’s most weekends, and my parents started to notice that I was acting moody all the time. Every time I went to a rave I told them I was going to sleep over with a friend, they didn’t have a clue. But the turning point came the weekend of my seventeenth birthday. My regular dealer wouldn’t answer his phone, so I bought pills from this guy I knew from the scene. I shouldn’t have trusted him. The pills weren’t real E’s, they were cut with DXM or something else and I overdosed on them. Reporter: What happened, exactly? Mike: I’d taken three of the pills, I was at the rave with my friends, and my heart started beating super fast. It was the worst feeling ever, like my heart was going to explode out of my chest. I couldn’t even move, I was just lying on the floor hoping it would be over. My girlfriend Dana panicked and called 911, and I spent my seventeenth birthday at the hospital getting my stomach pumped. Reporter: So your parents were contacted? Mike: They flipped out. Obviously, I’d been lying to them for months, and in one night all the lies came out. They found out I’d been going to raves, doing drugs, everything. The day I came home from the hospital, my parents told me they were sending me away to a behavioural modification program called Youth Care in the States. They were going to send me there for a whole year, until my eighteenth birthday. I called Dana and we spent hours crying on the phone. She promised me that she would wait for me, no matter what. Funny thing is, I actually believed her. Reporter: Tell me about the year you spent in Youth Care. Mike: It was really regimented and strict. At the beginning you couldn’t even take a piss without someone else being in the same room. The more you co-operate you move up levels, and then you get more privileges. I was doing pretty good for the first couple of months, until I got a letter from my friend saying that Dana had started dating another guy in the scene. She was the love of my life, and I lost it. I spent the next month refusing to talk to anyone, basically just crying myself to sleep every night. Eventually I pulled myself together and started talking about things with the therapists in the program. They were always analyzing you 24/7, but I did learn a lot from them. Reporter: When you returned home, did you return to the Rave scene? Mike: Not at first. I went back to school to try and finish my high school diploma, and for the first few months I was really on the straight and narrow. I didn’t even talk to my old friends or party, just studied and played video games for hours. Eventually the loneliness got too much. I wasn’t supposed to talk to my old friends because they were still partying and doing drugs, but I couldn’t really make new friends either. Nobody that hadn’t been in the scene could really understand me, they all just heard rumours that I was a giant fuck up. Eventually I caved in and called Derrick, one of my old Rave friends. We started hanging out, just on weekdays at first, but then one week he told me that my favourite DJ, Luna-C, was going to spin at the upcoming party. I know I shouldn’t have gone, but I really missed the scene. When you’re into raves, it takes over your life. And once I stopped, it was like there was this giant hole in my life, and nothing could fill it. So I went to the party and took an E. Reporter: Did your parents find out? Mike: The day I got home from the Luna-C party, my mom was crying and my dad was demanding that I take this drug piss test he’d bought from the pharmacy. I was so furious, I had worked so hard and done so many things right, and they were totally over-reacting. I refused to take the piss test, and my dad threatened to call the cops. I just stormed out and slept over at Derrick’s place, and I’ve been living with Derrick ever since. Reporter: Have you been going to school or working since then? Mike: My friend Derrick is a dealer, he sells weed, E’s, and ketamine to party kids. Derrick told me that I could live with him rent-free as long as I helped him with his business, doing deliveries, small sales, and other errands. I wasn’t prepared to face my parents, so I stopped going to school and became Derrick’s drug runner. I’ve been doing it for the past year. It was fun at first, being back in the scene and seeing all the kids, but it also got old pretty fast. Nowadays I get high so that I can forget the truth, but then the truth boomerangs and kicks my ass. The truth is that I’m a loser. I didn’t finish high school, I lost the only girl I ever loved, and basically all I do is sell drugs to kids that are heading down the same road to nowhere. Me and Derrick have started snorting heroin. It makes me feel comfortable and I can relax and stop stressing over things, and that’s what I need right now. Derrick says that he would never shoot up, but honestly I don’t even care if I live or die anymore. Because honestly, what kind of future is there for me? Reporter: Do you still go to raves? How do you feel about the scene? Mike: I go to a party almost every weekend, but now it’s strictly business. I don’t dance or socialize anymore, I go to sell drugs period. All the kids know me, they think I’m a “jaded raver” because I wear dark hoodies and stand by myself in the corner waiting for a sale. They don’t know half of what I’ve been through, they’re just stupid little kids like I was when I was sixteen. Reporter: Any final thoughts on the Rave scene? Mike: Honestly, going to parties depresses me. I see all these new kids talking about PLUR and how amazing raves are, but when you really take a hard look at it, a rave is just a place where troubled kids go to escape society and do drugs. It’s all Peace and Love and candies and hugs, at least until the high wears off and reality hits. Then the cracks begin to show. I just wish someone could’ve explained things to me back when I was a new kid in the scene, but honestly I doubt I would’ve even listened, just how none of the new kids pay attention to me. By the time you’re experienced enough to understand, it’s already too late. My final interview subject is a twenty-four year old male who goes by the pseudonym “Lizard”. He is listed on [ Purerave.com ] as a “Rave promoter” – someone who organizes events. Lizard arrives to our meeting dressed in smart business casual attire, but his piercings and sleeve tattoo suggests an alternative lifestyle away from the office. Reporter: Nice to meet you, Lizard. Tell me a little about yourself and your involvement in the Rave scene. Lizard: I was into electronic music way before I even knew what a rave was. I’ve always been really into computers and fooling around with new technology, so when I heard techno music for the first time – music without any instruments, entirely produced using computers and software – it blew my mind. I think I must have been 15 at the time. It really seemed like computers were opening up whole new ways of living, and I wanted to part of the revolution. I was learning computer programming, web site creation, even started experimenting with making my own beats using Fruity Loops. Reporter: So when did you finally experience your first Rave? Lizard: When I heard that Raves were the place to go if you wanted to hear techno, for sure I wanted to experience it. I went to my first Rave on my seventeenth birthday, with one of my good friends who was also producing music with me. It was amazing to find a community of people who were into the same music that I was in, but at the same time I kind of realized that a lot of kids were in the scene for different reasons than me. Reporter: What do you mean by that? Lizard: I guess I was mostly there for the music, listening to how the DJ would take two tracks and make them blend so that you can’t even tell where one track ends and the next one starts. I would go and vibe to the music and dance, but I was never into the whole Candy thing or getting wasted on tons of pills. I did try E a few times and still do it occasionally. But the music was always enough of a drug. Sometimes I would talk to kids who didn’t know the first thing about electronic music, they were just there for the chemicals or because that’s where their friends went to party. That really turned me off. I did find a few party kids who basically shared the same interests as me, we’d talk for hours about computers and programming and making beats. Some of them are still my best friends to this day. Reporter: I understand you currently organize Raves. How did you get involved in that? Lizard: It came down to me and some of my friends complaining about the lack of hard, dark electronic music in the scene back in the day. Most of the parties back then were dominated by Happy Hardcore, which can be fun and all, but just isn’t really my thing. We decided that if we wanted to hear our kind of beats being played, the best way would be to throw parties ourselves. A few of our crew had turntables and were learning how to DJ, so we decided to save up over the summer, pool our money together, and buy a sound system. That’s the key ingredient in throwing a Rave – a good sound system can cost several thousand dollars, but once you have one, you can throw parties anywhere you can find a space to liberate. Reporter: What do you mean by ‘liberating space’? Lizard: If you look at our city, practically every square foot of space has been appropriated by the capitalist system and given some sort of purpose. Here’s the mall where you shop. Here’s the cubicle where you work. Here’s the concert hall where you go to watch some manufactured pop star. It’s all about money, all the about oiling the wheels of the corporate machine. When we’re planning on a party, we hunt the city for a location that we can liberate from its intended purpose and use for something completely different – music, dance, and art. Sometimes we have parties in open spaces in the summer, and in the winter we look for unrented warehouses or other unused spaces that we can take over for one night. It’s risky, we have to take precautions to throw the police off our trail, but so far our parties have never been busted. What we usually do is set up an info line – a number to call the day of the party. You call the info line, you get a message telling you to meet at a location. Then we usually rent a bus to take the kids from the meeting place to the actual event. Reporter: Wouldn’t it just be easier to rent a club? Lizard: It would be a hell of a lot easier. But frankly, I think we’d lose something if we moved our parties to a mainstream location. First of all, our scene is basically made up of freaks – kids that don’t really fit into mainstream consume society. That doesn’t mean their bad or dangerous of anything, just that they love to dance and express themselves and you can’t really have that in a club. A mainstream club is all about corporate tie-ins, promoting this brand of beer, this car, this energy drink. Our scene isn’t receptive to that, and I don’t think club owners are really receptive to our kind of people anyway – they prefer yuppies with cash to spend. We just want a place to be free, to listen to good beats, to dance, and that’s what we provide when we liberate a space. Reporter: How do you go about organizing a party? Lizard: It’s funny because everybody and nobody is responsible for making a party happen. Everyone contributes in some way, so it’s not fair to give any one person credit. Some people scout the city for locations. Some people DJ. Some people do the event decoration, some handle security, some design the flyer. My contribution is that I’m one of the owners of the sound system we use, and I also spin occasionally. But if someone comes up to me and asks who organized this party, all I can do is grin and point to two dozen or so people because literally that’s how many people are involved in one way or another. Even the kids that just come to dance, they’re also contributing something. They’re bringing their energy and spirit and love for the scene, and if we didn’t have that, then it wouldn’t even be worth having a party in the first place. Reporter: Are your parties profitable? Lizard: You’ve got to be joking, right? Counting all the money I’ve spent on the sound system, DJ equipment , records, and what not, I’ve spent several thousand dollars on the scene. Some of our parties are free, and even when we do charge cover, we’re just trying to recoup our expenses. If we can’t find a free space, we do sometimes rent venues – we’ve had parties in loft buildings, dance studios, you name it. Then we have to rent a shuttle bus to take all the kids to the location. I’m making pretty good money as an IT consultant right now, so I don’t really care about losing cash on events, but if I was in it for the money then throwing Raves would be the last thing on my mind. Reporter: Are you ever concerned about the drug use that may happen at your events? Lizard: I knew you were going to ask about drugs sooner or later. Yes, they’re probably kids who get high at our events. We hope kids will be responsible and we encourage harm reduction. That’s about being informed and making smart choices, and if you’re going to do drugs, at least take every measure to do them safely. There’s an organization called TRIP that gives out informational pamphlets about different drugs, and we always give them a space to set up a booth at our events. We always make sure that there’s a source of free water to keep everyone hydrated. And one of my friends is a registered nurse, so there’s always someone on hand to give first-aid. Of course, there are always kids who take things too far. I don’t really talk much with most of the new kids who show up at the events, they know who I am but we’re at different points in our lives. Drug abuse is a big problem in society, and not only with illegal drugs, but with alcohol and tobacco. It’s certainly not just in the Rave scene. We try to deal with it the best we can. Sometimes I see kids who show up at our parties all the time, and then one day they’re gone. I like to think that they’ve just grown up or moved on, but I know that at least some of the kids in our scene will end up having to go to rehab or worse. At the end of the day, my love for the music and for the community outweighs all the negatives, and that’s why I keep throwing events. Reporter: Thank you for your time, Lizard. Notes: After speaking to three subjects, I’m still at a loss for what kind of story I should write. Dessi, Mike and Lizard have had such different experiences in the Rave scene, I’m still searching for a common thread. The only universal theme I can think of is that being in the scene has had a really profound impact on all of their lives, for better or for worse. It’s almost like this force that comes in like a whirlwind and sweeps you up in it, and when you finally get spit out from the scene you aren’t the same person as when you got into it. Life is all about change, and there’s nothing that will change you more than getting involved in the Rave scene. Do I think Raves should be shut down? I really don’t know. |
| I'm feeling andy c in t.dot! right now.. | |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» DynV replied on Tue Dec 14, 2010 @ 2:00am |
 Coolness: 108745 | I find this format of interviews uninteresting. I'd like to see the highlights of those interviews in a paper.
Perhaps you know that when making documentaries there's about 10 times as much material (video) that was rejected for the film which likely feature more interesting things than the average joe say/do in him evening but it still didn't make it. Also there's usually a narrator that piece it all together or some kind of expert testimonial that pushes the producer agenda. This is just my opinion, I have absolutely no credential for writing/letter/storytelling/... I truly hope that you won't reconsider your project just because I don't like it ; creators can take their project quite personally. |
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| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» PoiSoNeD_CaNdY replied on Tue Dec 14, 2010 @ 2:03am |
| Coolness: 91630 | Thanks for the input DynV! |
| I'm feeling andy c in t.dot! right now.. | |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» AYkiN0XiA replied on Tue Dec 14, 2010 @ 2:09am |
 Coolness: 166515 | the characters portray three different realities, and that is really interesting to read, but i don't know what else to say.
alternative culture will always exist. people need to dance and be free, people need to escape the competition and the advertising, and connect to each other. it's a tribal part within each of us, especially with the dancing rituals... it also worries me when i see too many people take too many drugs. the health of the whole rave depends on this. is the DESI a real thing? does it concern montreal? i'm definately gonna go look for more information on this....... |
| I'm feeling inspired right now.. | |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» PoiSoNeD_CaNdY replied on Tue Dec 14, 2010 @ 2:15am |
| Coolness: 91630 | Thanks for your insights Yoshin!
Don't worry I made DESI up :) |
| I'm feeling andy c in t.dot! right now.. | |
| Good [+1]Toggle ReplyLink» AYkiN0XiA replied on Tue Dec 14, 2010 @ 2:19am |
| Coolness: 166515 | |
| I'm feeling inspired right now.. | |
Interview With A Raver!
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