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                                                                                CULTURE, Page 60

Tripping the Night Fantastic


Fueled by techno music and neo-hippie vibes, a wave of "raves"
is putting a new spin on the pop scene

By GUY GARCIA -- With reporting by Sally B. Donnelly/ Los Angeles
and M.E. Sarotte/Bonn


    The skinhead's T shirt says SMILE -- IT'S THE APOCALYPSE.
And judging from the scene around him, maybe it is. Several
hundred young hedonists join him in dancing wild tribal stomps
as strobe lights flash and 50,000 watts of techno-house music
blast from the speakers of a New York City nightclub called the
Shelter. On the fringes, others watch an upside-down projection
of Flintstones cartoons or sidle up to the nonalcoholic "smart
bar" for bottled water or vitamin-enriched fruit juice. "It's
a good crowd tonight," observes Moby, a techno deejay with a
loyal following. "I don't sense the usual nightclub aggression."

    The high-decibel delirium is "Timecapsule One" of a weekly
Friday-night event billed as "NASA" (Nocturnal Audio and Sensory
Awakening), an all-night techno "rave" that culminates with
breakfast and bungee jumping from a Hudson River pier as the
sun's first rays warm the spire of the Empire State Building.

    "It's a love circle," explains Laze, a 26-year-old
graffiti artist from the Bronx who has also attended raves in
Philadelphia and Washington. "It's like a 1960s scene -- all the
races are together, dancing, having a communal experience. We
want to go to Woodstock and rave for a whole week."

    Ravestock? It just might happen. This summer, from San
Francisco to Berlin, Detroit to Paris, a wave of raves is
overtaking conventional night life with unbridled energy and a
brash new sound. Part funky fashion show, part techno music
dance-a-thon, part politically correct flea market, raves are
loopy high-tech love-ins laced with a playful sense of the
absurd (and with a dollop of illicit drugs).

    Raves mirror the national disenchantment with the
traditional, the conventional, the status quo -- whether in
politics or pop music. Their appeal lies in their quirky
spontaneity and vaults of rhythmic rapture. By singing the body
electric in a blizzard of refracted light and pumped-up sound,
ravers embrace a collective catharsis -- and sometimes one
another -- in a cuddly bear hug.


    "It's the disco of the '90s but with a harder edge and
without the lyrics," says Eddie Hardesty, who runs Street
Sounds, a techno-music store on Los Angeles' trendy Melrose
Avenue. "It's a form of release from everyday life."

    At the pounding heart of every rave is the galvanizing,
metronomic beat of techno, a term coined to describe an
intensely synthetic, hyperkinetic form of dance music that was
born in Detroit during the mid-'80s. A fusion of the futuristic
computer-driven sound of European bands like Kraftwerk and the
rhythmic possibilities of computer-controlled keyboards, techno
caught on first in Britain and Belgium, where it became the
sound track for marathon "acid house" parties.

    Raves can, and do, happen almost anywhere -- on moonlit
beaches, in empty warehouses and in open fields -- thanks to an
underground networking system and mobile electric generators
that use telephones, flyers and maps to get the word out with
as little as 24 hours' notice. Like the hit-and-run "outlaw"
parties that took place in Los Angeles and New York during the
mid-'80s, raves are often illegal affairs that operate one step
ahead of the authorities.


    The controlled substance of choice for some technoites is
Ecstasy, a synthetic mood-elevating drug that is roughly akin
to amphetamines in the long-lasting rush it provides. It has
been illegal since 1985 but is easily obtainable on the black
market. Others frown on drug and alcohol use, stressing that
intoxication is extraneous to the rave experience. "The rave
scene isn't about fashion or getting high," says DJ Disaster,
26, who is co-producing "Psycho Splash '92," a rave taking place
this week in an aquatic theme park outside St. Louis. "It's
about forgetting who's going to be President and having a good
time."

    That escapist streak is evident in rave clothing, which
tends toward loud primary colors, patterned wool caps and
untucked shirts emblazoned with peace signs, happy faces and
corporate logos. A key part of the look is "trip toys," or
out-of-kilter trinkets and prankish paraphernalia like op-art
jewelry, prism eyeglasses and fluorescent body paint. "A trip
toy is something that will catch people's attention and make
them smile," says Niles Peacock, who attends raves with a
ball-point pen that transforms into a tiny soap-bubble blower.
"The whole purpose is amusement."

    Ravers have recycled the hippie mantra "Do your own thing"
and have given it an up-to-the-second spin. A cross-country
traveling rave called "The Moveable Feast" will tour with
circus-like tents at outdoor sites in Los Angeles, San
Francisco, New York, Chicago, Detroit and Washington. "There'll
be booths where people can get information from groups like ACT
UP and Rock the Vote," says promoter Philip Blaine, 24. "It's
a positive feeling. Where else can you get thousands of people
together with no fights or racial tension?"

    In Europe, where the techno movement took off during the
late '80s, raves have reached mammoth proportions. The
so-called Worldwide House Nation gathered in Berlin last month
for a megarave billed as "The Love Parade." Accompanied by about
20 trucks laden with computers, techno deejays and powerful
sound systems, 7,000 revelers danced down the city's main
street, then converged for an all-night rave. An even larger
rave is planned in Mannheim on Aug. 29. And raves are still
going strong in Belgium and England, where some events have
attracted as many as 20,000 people.

    While techno has yet to produce a Top 10 pop hit, its
audience is steadily growing. In Los Angeles at least three
radio stations are devoting significant airtime to the format
(one, MARS-FM, restored its all-techno format after cutbacks
provoked a storm of listener protest). Major labels like Sony
and RCA are signing up groups and putting their marketing muscle
behind techno music. Techno compilation CDs recently released
by Profile Records and Zoo Entertainment are selling briskly.

    But not everyone is thrilled to see raves enter the
mainstream. "It used to be elite, and now it's kind of common,"
complains Andrea, 20, a raver who got into the techno mode on
the West Coast. "A lot of people are jumping on the bandwagon."
The danger is that as the scene becomes larger and more
commercial, it risks losing the cozy counterculture atmosphere
that drew people to it in the first place. To keep that from
happening, ravers will have to find a way to maintain their
subterranean spirit, even as they spread good vibes among the
masses.