2007 June:

2007 May:

2006 November:

2006 September:

2006 August:

2006 July:

2006 June:

There's one thing that's been pissing me off for a while now. You all know how important I think it is to give the scene a good image on message boards. There's one particular type of attitude that's particularly annoying and insulting to the people who struggle to make the scene alive. I'm talking about the people who keep claiming that raving is dead. Comments such as "trance is dead, no one listens to it", "no one should dress candy, it's all over" or "don't go to raves, clubs/bars/afterhours are the real thing". People who post things like that should remember the name of the websites they're posting on, RAVE.ca, RAVEmontreal.com or RAVEzone.qc.ca. Even smaller message boards shouldn't get this kind of attitude. If it's a rave board, then the rave scene should be respected there.

First, the "trance is dead" attitude. I'm not just talking about trance here, but any style of music that gets dissed. No one's forcing you to listen to trance, or techno, or hardcore, or any of the other styles of electronic music that's popular at raves. We all agree that these might not be as popular as they used to be, and more "mature" styles, such as house or breakbeat, gain more popularity. There's a difference between a style that lost popularity and one that's dead. The producers and djs who work hard all deserve respect, even if their style isn't as popular as before. That the quality of the matterial released isn't as good as it used to be is an opinion, and it's ok to say it if it's being said politely. Most of those comments are made by people who don't like the style of music they're dissing, and for some reason think it shouldn't exist. You can have that opinion if you want, but don't drag people who might be interested to find out about a certain genre into it. Would we diss people for listening to 80s new wave? No, because it's a style of music that was once very popular, and that influenced many artists. The same can be said of trance, happy hardcore, or any other kind of rave music. Respect the artists who make it alive, because as long as tracks are being released, it's still alive, and even if no track is being produced, people still have the right to listen to it.

Now, the "no one dresses candy" comments. I'm not just talking about dissing candy ravers, but about any kind of "rave" attitude, such as spinning glowsticks or having massages. Some type of behavior that aren't allowed in normal every day life are common at raves. It's the kind of things that make raves so different from other parties, and make them unique. Anyone who complains about those things should remember that they have the rest of the world where they don't have to see those things. Please, leave raves to the ravers. On the other hand, we should encourage people to do things like that at parties. A rave is supposed to be a place where we can go crazy and do things we'd never do the rest of the time. Why would anyone want to make parties exactly like every day life? The worse part is when new ravers get scared of trying these things, because they've read diss about them, and don't want to get judged. This is killing the scene, for real. Let people have fun, live and let live.

Finally, there's the "clubbing is better than raving" argument. This one actually goes both way. Ravers shouldn't diss clubs or afterhours, because raving is also about promoting electronic music, and some clubs put up a lot of efforts into that. Now, it's perfectly normal that a big club like aria gets more attendance than underground parties. It's also normal that some people will prefer going to the commercial clubs. If you're not going to raves, then why do you need to diss them? Just don't go. People must realize that we're all sharing the same message boards. Respect where other people like to go out, and respect the promoters who make parties possible. Most importantly, let the people try out raves! You have no business telling someone who wants to go out that raving sucks, let them decide for themselves!

In the end, the important part is to give the scene a good image. New people are gonna read the message boards, and they shouldn't get the feeling that raving is totally over. Undergroud raves still happen, and even if you don't like them, a lot of people do. I know some people never liked raves too much, and are only interested in one particular branch of electronic music. That's ok, just remember other people. There's no reason to diss events you're not gonna attend. It's just a question of respect. Keep in mind that when you're saying that "it's all over", you're insulting the people who work hard to make all of it still alive.