Trance Atlantic 2, pgs. 68-82
Sarah Champion
It's raining, but nothing can dampen the euphoia. Green lasers carve a ceiling across the valley and the raindrops caught in the beams form a shower of green glitter. The sounds of half-a-dozen sound systems intermingle. At the top of the ski-slope a Wicker Man burns and as the music gets harder and faster, lightning streaks across the sky. Soaked to the skin, we just keep on dancing, grinning -- can this really be happening? And here, of all places...
May 1995: at a ski-ing and snowmobiling site in Northern Wisconin, a four-day "techno camp out" called Even Furthur is going off. A celebration of the Midwest's rave scene, Even Furthur is promoted by Milwaukee's techno label Drop Bass Network. It is the sequel to last year's Furthur, an insane event at which thre people we arrested and one of the promoters stripped naked and danced on the speakers throughout the Aphex Twin's entire DJ set.
"For three days and two nights we grabbed freedom in our mouths and held on tightly," enthused a free fanzine. "We tasted Freedom on our tongues and it was sweet. We swallowed Freedom in our guts and it was warm. We inhaled the scent of Freedom and it made us high. We achieved Freedom together -- it fille dout bodies and commanded us to dance..." Welcome to the Great Lakes: land of lumber mills, cider farms, cheese castles and tractor malls. Who's have thought this would be the heartland of America's new guerrilla party underground? After all, this is classic rock territory, where the stations spin Supertramp, Boston, Van Morrison, The Who and Led Zeppelin round the clock.
At last this rock establishment is being challened, as dance culture finally seeps out of the Chicago/Detroit rustbelt and into the neighbouring states of Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana. "I meet people from California and they say, Oh you're still raving, that's such and old thing to do!" a girl with pigtails and a Sesame Street backpack tells me. Little do they know that what came and went in New York and LA four years ago is revolutionising hicksville. Just as acid house began in Manchester and London then spread, so in America it is now growing from the underground up. For example, in tiny towns along Lake Michigan -- Racine, Manitwoc, Oshkosh -- you'll find "dayraves" in municipal parks and "microraves" for 50-100 people.
Exuberant kids drive for up to 24 hous, across several states, to party. THey bounce up to you and ask you what your name is/where you're from/what you're on. Weird deja vu -- for a millisecond I'm back at Shelley's in Stoke in 1991 when kids would ride the motorways, dancing in service stations.
In an altered state, American kids press their e-mail addresses into one another's hands. It's as if the Internet was _made_ for this new guerrilla party scene -- communicating across the states, countries and the world. Flyer art is still a big deal, but the immense size of the country makes flying difficiult and the easiest way to publicise a party and swap gossip is on the network of rave bulletin boards. mw-raves@hyperreal.com is one of the most passionate, with a full list of upcoming events, later reported in detail often before they're even finished. The momentary bliss or misery; the first E; a bad comedown: these minute instances, normally lost forever, are captured in type and scroll down your screen. The myth that all Netheads are dweeby bores, sitting at home in their bedrroms cos they've no friends, is well and truly blown. At Even Furthur many of them met up for the first time, sweaty, Xing and wild.
"One of the many highlights of the party was the unplanned, but largest netmeet I have ever seen," reported Dinka. "Kaytee2600 and I were trying to find some papers to roll a joint and in the process accumulated 20 or so of the raddest netravers on this side of the hill. It's great to see all the new faces that I only get to talk to over the computer."
"In a 'club', if you bump into someone they'd fume -- like, Hey, don't touch me, I'm beautiful," says one Milwaukee raver. "Here it's like, Touch me, I'm beautiful and so are you."
Musically, the Midwest scene is one of extremes. St. Louis is positively 'fluffy' thanks to the Superstars Of Love, into silver, glitter, disco kitsch and parties called "Roller Boogie Rave Baby". This is totally at offs with Milwaukee's Drop Bass Network, purveyors of hard acid, breakbeat, driving German techno and gabba. At Even Furthur, the lights were minimal, almost sinister, while DJs like NYC's Frankie Bones spin unrelenting hard and heavy tunes. The rhythms are like gunshots, each beat a bullet, blowing away your body bit by bit until it feels like you're completely invisible. Lost in music.
"We pride ourselves in massive, super-loud sound systems. We like to make it so that the sound is lound and heavy whether you're right next to the speakers or in the other room!"
The midwest scene is about going furthur. "Musically, beat and melody communicate much more immediately than language and lyrics," someone enthuses. "That's why techno is getting massive, it takes you on an emotional journey, hits you in the gut and carries you."
"Aided by chemicals, UFO sightings at parties are another quirk and around Even Furthur's campfires abduction stories are traded. Little green men are a big influence on the American rave scene, inspiring stickers, shirts and hats from posses like Liquid Sky, Shwa and Alien Workshop. Like metal and UFOs, cars are another unique ingredient. A bunch of kids cruise the parking lot in a white Cadillac -- red leather seats, windows down, techno pumping. Cool or what? As they have done in the parking lots of Greatful Dead (RIP) gigs for years, they "tailgate" -- open up their car's boot and party out of the back. Amid ecstatic dancers at a Wisconsin "dayrave", with sound systems nestling in glades of trees, you'll find kids having barbecues!
As your pockets fill with cyberdelic flyers for events all over the States, you begin to realize that things really are changing here. There's "Wicked" in Denver, "Family Affair" in Ohio, "Beat Nonstop" in Indianapolis, and "2001: A Bass Odyssey" in Chicago. Nowhere is sacred, not even in the country backwaters -- there's "Penetration" in Memphis and "Sunshine" in Nashville.
"We are all one, the sooner we ralize this, the sooner we can start to change our hate to love," declares free fanzine _Particular Malfunction_. "We can start to change our hate to love, we can stop buying guns, putting bars on our windows and start using that money to better our people..."
As well as being dissected on the Internet, th eparty scene is analysed in small fanzines, distributed free. In the UK the acid years' anti-style bible was _Boys Own_. Here in the Midwest, there are innumerable personal rants on rave politics like Chicago's _Tripp E Tymes_ and _Beyond_. Oozing with loved-up innocence, they write: "This is your movement, take care of it and it will take care of you"; "Keep our shit underground or it will be under the law"; and "Rave is not just an event... party... gathering... it's a way of life. Rave is a way of thinking, acting, communicating and interacting."
The biggest publication is _Massive_, out of Milwaukee. With a color cover and big name interviews like Ritchie Hawtin, Mike Dearborn and The Prodigy, the provide updates on the Midwest scene, from Columbus, Ohio to Madison, Wisconsin. They complain that while Detroit and chicago have become meccas of the underground dance scene, other cities have been neglected -- like Michigan's Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids. * Massive, PO Box 11373, Milwaukee, WI 53211
"The thing I liked most about the ent was the constant presence of techno," someone wrote on the Internet later. "Everywhere you went and everything you did, you heard and felt the bass of th emusic. WHen I roasted my hot dog, I heard techno; when I jumped on the trampoline, I heard techno; when I used the portaloo, I heard techno." "When I finally went to sleep int he back seat of my friend's car, I felt the bass of jungle virbating the windows. It was as if techno had become the theme music to our lives. WHen I finally got home, I really missed it."
Trance Atlantic 2, pgs. 94-95
David Prince
Snow. Rain. Ice. Mud. Wisconsin. And then...
Cars. Vans. Trucks. People. Lots of people. Tents. Fires. Music -sweet techno music. Dancing. Grooving. Endless movement. THe best DJs in the universe. Drums. Foood. Hugs. Friends. Strangers. No sleep. No time. And then, Saturday night...
FOrty degrees. Sweating. Ecstatic. Naked. On top of the speakers. In front of 2000 people. Next, the unexpected...
Cop. Cop car. Go for a drive. Threats: "You punks from Chicago and Milwaukee don't come up here and fuck with my county. This is my county. I work an eight-hour shift. That's how long I work. Because of you assholes, I've been working 14 hour shifts. I should be home watching TV, but because of you punks, I'm out here. I could arrest you, I oculd throw you in jail and you'd have to wait until Tuesday for the judge to let you out. You might get hurt in jail. Now you go back up there and turn the music off or I'm coming in there to turn it off myself. And if I have to do that, I'm going to find you..."
Response: Giggles. Laughter. High, very high. Some serious shit. But so much fun. The best fun ever. Holy shit -- what have we done?
We did it -- we invaded our own land and took it over; we established our won bullshit-free zone and for 42 hours it was ours alone. We brought the best music in the world back to the land and our people used the music as lubrication for their minds and souls. We reprogrammed the mainframes; we set the controls for the heart of the sun; we fired up the bus and put it in overdrive. We have ourselves a proper education and we all learned more than we expected. We created our own realities and revelled in them.
We went further than we ever believed was possible. And once we got there -- we stayed. And then we did it all again. One year and one month later.
We have to... it is necessary, it works, it grows, it metamorphosizes. It becomes a rallying cry, a political cause, a religion. Going further -even further -- is a way of life.
Holy shit -- what have we done?
You've been there: out of space, out of time, out of your mind. In a field or a dark city crevice. In the middle of thousands of people, intrinsically connected to each one of them, yet completely alone.
Understanding everything but knowing nothing. Transformed, abducted, spun out of control. These are the monents we live for, the little paradigms of existence that make the rest of time seem so funny and so light.
The key to all of theis, of course, can be found in the tiny spaces between the beats. Look for it next time you're dancing. Close your eyes, peek behind a melody, and peel back a bit of rhythm. _It_ lives there.
You are not alone. We are on the same path. It happens all over the place. It even happens... in Wisconsin.
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