AND THE PUBLIC RAVES ON

"Are We Too High?"

The cover of the latest issue of the American dance-culture publication Urb
poses a question that's taking on an unfortunate resonance within the local
rave community.

The widely reported fatal overdose of a 21-year-old man at a party last
weekend was the last thing the Toronto scene, already unnerved by two other
apparently drug-related deaths linked to raves this summer, needed - not
least because it has, once again, cranked the media's middle-class-panic
machine into overdrive.

The loaded language has been flying all week on TV and in the papers, most
of it doled out by reporters and police hopelessly out of their depth. Some
of it is unintentional, the product of people grappling with a cultural
movement impenetrable to those who aren't part of it; some of it is
deliberate, arising from the desire to juice up the news to outrage the
public.

For whatever reason, though, it's there. Stories talk of raves becoming "an
increasingly serious problem," while headlines trumpet a "battle" to be
mounted by police and government against the events. Cops are quoted
decrying the "filthy" conditions inside the venue promoter Hullabaloo!
chose for its party. Robberies and car break-ins orbiting around the rave
are posited as further evidence of the scene's tumble into biblical
debauchery.

No matter that the blame for almost every drug-related fatality falls on
one person: The victim, and the unfortunate choices he or she makes. Or
that garbage tends to accumulate in any space where 3,500 humans congregate
for eight hours. Or that robberies and break-ins also happen at Raptors
games, Tragically Hip concerts and in the parking lot behind my apartment.

It's easy to demonize countercultural movements - even those as large and,
arguably, mainstream as the global rave phenomenon - because they're alien
to the larger population and generally denied a voice in the outlets that
do the demonizing.

Rave is particularly susceptible to misunderstandings because two of its
key components are youth and, for many of those young adherents, drugs.
That's hardly an uncommon combination, but it's a pretty volatile mixture
when filtered through a media culture fond of "children are our future"
aphorisms and the branding of recreational drug use as a moral, not a
health, issue. Plus, rave's raison d'etre is an electronic soundtrack that
really doesn't connect with most members of older generations, just as rock
'n' roll's appeal confounded horrified parents in the '50s.

Ravers are bound, beyond the confines of their own community, to be painted
as curiosities or deviants. And they're well aware of it: Prophecies of
doom at the hands of the media and Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman are shooting
to and fro across the ether (again) as I write this (try Tribe magazine's
online message board at www.tribe.ca for a sampling). Promoters and DJs
linked to the local scene are keeping mum, as is custom, since most of them
long ago tired of being targeted for "kids on drugs" stories.

The rave movement is hardly the first interested in getting messed up en
masse, as the sea of dilated pupils at Grateful Dead shows or, for that
matter, the piss-up that is Kitchener's Oktoberfest will attest.
Nevertheless, the knee-jerk response to Urb's query from outside observers
has always been: "Yes, you are too high."

On the inside, the answer isn't so black and white. Some of us, I grant
you, are obviously "too high" when casualties start appearing, and it's
particular cause for alarm when they come in such quick succession. At the
same time, a decade in which thousands have passed through Toronto parties
with few ugly incidents is a reminder that the old cliche of a rave being
one of the safest, friendliest places to be holds more than a little water.

Oddly enough, the subject of drug use is the rare sticking point that
threatens rave's PLUR (Peace, Love, Unity, Respect) ethic. There's actually
a fair amount of hostility directed by the more responsibly inclined camp
toward those who wind up too damaged to move at parties.

The ongoing "GHB kills" flyer campaign at raves shows the scene is willing
to take care of its own. And there's also a welcome onset of self-criticism
evident when North America's largest dance-music publication starts
debating our blase attitude toward drugs or when rave-history chronicles
like Simon Reynolds' excellent book, Generation Ecstasy, are at least as
cautionary and critical as they are celebratory of the culture.

Too bad amidst all this we forget the one thing that brought us all
together in the first place: The music.