7
Yesterday's
9
party
Restrictions on
venues and
concerns about
drug use have
aided in the
collapse of the
electronic music
scene, which
boomed in
the 1990s
BY MEGHANN CUNIFF
SENIOR NEWS REPORTER
Somehow, somewhere along the wa/,
electronic music events got a bad rap.
Commonly referred to as raves, the
events do not happen as frequently as they
once did, leaving those with a love for loud
electronic music struggling to ensure these
events can live on.
The last all-ages electronic music event in
Portland took place Feb. 12, and it didn’t go
quite as the promoter had planned.
Ernest Ryan had been planning a two-room
electronic music event for Friday, Feb. 11, but
lost the venue he was going to use less than
three weeks before the event was to take place.
The internet message board for the Northwest
electronic music scene, nwtekno.org, erupted
in cries for something to be done because, as
one poster put it, “Portland needs this party.”
Ryan said he was lucky enough to be able to
use another venue that had its own insurance
policy because, had he not, the party would
surely have been canceled.
Lost venues and other complications are to be
y expected in a scene built around DJs setting up
turntables in abandoned warehouses and calling
it a rave, and Ryan, who DJs under the name DJ
Wiggles, said the current silence of the electronic
music scene is part of a cycle he has seen during
his years as a DJ and a party promoter.
But some fear this silence could soon become
deafening, as event promoters across the
Northwest continue to scramble to ensure
electronic music events can take place, despite
the heavy economic and societal factors that
some say weigh against them.
Music, drugs and money
Ryan said the decrease in popularity of
electronic music events has left a core group
that is involved with events purely out of love
for the music.
Jed Black, who threw parties in the Portland
and Salem areas for several years and DJs under
the name Electrokid, agreed.
^ “The people who are interested in going to
these things are kind of like the die-hard kids who
have been going forever,” Black said.
Media reports in the past few years have
depicted electronic music events as safe havens
for drug dealers, and the deaths of two teenagers
at Portland events in the late ‘90s and early
2000 brought a level of public outcry that did not
previously exist, Ryan said.
“The deaths definitely did some damage,”
Ryan said. “You start doing something that
supposedly threatens the livelihood of kids, and
I that’s a huge deal to people. ”
But event promoters say the main purpose
of electronic music events has always been to
play and listen to electronic music, and drug
use is something that goes along with any
music scene.
“In the rave culture it’s more accepted, and
it’s more open,” said Zach Gibson, who
operates Next Level Events in Seattle and is
known throughout the Northwest as DJ Ryle.
“Drugs are a part of any culture, and when
you have a subculture like rave culture, things
are going to get exaggerated.”
Ryan said he doesn’t feel drug use is as
r.
J
Danielle Hickey | Photo editor
Turntables are a necessary addition at any electronic music event, though many DJs are experimenting with other instruments like CDJs. CDJs perform like turntables but
function like CD players, allowing performers to incorporate songs they’ve written into their sets as most budding songwriters are not able to get their songs pressed on vinyl.
prominent in the Portland electronic music
scene as it once was, partly because of the
attention given to events and the decrease in
event popularity and attendance.
“The raves have always been kind of an
escape for younger kids,” he said. “You could
go and immerse yourself with a thousand
other kids. The containment level just wasn’t
as feasible as it is now.”
Black agreed, adding that the decrease
in popularity of events could be a result of
the “grotesque amounts of ecstasy” being
consumed during the peak of the scene’s
popularity in the ‘90s.
“Mass ecstasy use probably contributed
to why a lot of the younger kids got complete
ly burnt out on (electronic music events),”
Black said.
Gibson said the ratio of drug users to non-drug
users at Seattle events has remained about the
same, but that the ratio is probably fairly close to
the ratios in other areas of American culture.
“Granted drugs aren’t as freely available as
they used to be; I also think they’re not as good as
they used to be,” Gibson said.
But the Seattle scene is much different than
Portland, Black said, and the level of drug use in
the cities is incomparable.
Drug use has gone down in Portland, Ryan
said, and many involved in throwing the
events that made up so much of the Portland
electronic music scene in the 1990s have
stopped out of pure disinterest or because of
financial problems.
“The first thing that killed the scene was the
money got pulled out from under it,” Ryan said.
Personal loans and insurance plans were much
easier to obtain a few years ago, Ryan said, and
both those things are important to an electronic
music event’s success.
“It’s definitely a vicious cycle to where
promoters can’t spend the money that’s needed
for a good production, and the kids that go out
wanting something really good don’t get what
they want,” Ryan said.
Portland’s electronic music scene reached
its zenith in the mid-1990s, Ryan said,
with more than 1,000 people attending parties
nearly every weekend.
“You really had the budget to do a good
production because people were coming,”
Ryan said.
The popularity of events in Portland inspired
many people to try their hand at throwing shows
in Eugene, said Coral Breding, who has been
involved with events in Eugene for several years,
and DJs under the name Juicebox.
“It was back when there were lines going
down the street and around the block,”
Breding said. “It really stimulated a lot of
growth down here.”
Breding said he sees one of the main
problems for promoters trying to throw parties
in Eugene as being the lack of available
venues, which he said is a result of the
financial problems event throwers experience
and of the reputation for drug use and flagrant
disobedience that electronic music events
have garnered during the years.
Black said he is no longer interested in
throwing events because of the huge financial
risk that now comes with doing so.
“The financial risk involved to throw a sig
nificant rave in a warehouse just outweighs
the benefits,” Black said. “A lot of promoters
feel like they’ve been benefactors to the rave
scene long enough.”
The RAVE Act
Rumors continue to circulate in the electron
ic music scene about the applicability of the
Reduce Americans Vulnerability to Ecstasy
Act, which holds promoters who throw events
where drugs are consumed responsible for the
illegal consumption.
Breding said the RAVE Act has yet
to be seen as a threat to event promoters
throughout the state.
The act had difficulty making it through
Congress and eventually passed after it was
attached to the Amber Alert bill, a bill that
deals with child abductions and the sexual
exploitation of children.
Breding said the language of the act is so
vague, its applicability to the electronic music
scene is minimal.
“It’s got a bunch of loopholes that don’t really
work for it,” Breding said.
Ryan agreed. He said the RAVE Act does not
factor in to most promoter’s decisions and is
largely irrelevant to the Portland scene because
there are bigger cities with larger electronic music
scenes that the federal government would target
before focusing on Portland.
“Unless you’re a drug-dealing promoter, you
have no worries in Oregon,” Ryan said.
“If anyone has to worry about the RAVE Act,
I think it’s the promoters in the cities outside
of Portland.”
Gibson said the RAVE Act is not something
event promoters in Seattle worry about because
it’s not enforced and the chances of it being
enforced are slim.
Gibson said he does more than most event
promoters in Seattle to ensure a drug-free event
by searching attendees upon entry and having
professional security guards at every event.
“I do everything I can to curb (drug use), but at
the same time there’s only so much you can do,”
he said.
What does the future hold?
Opinions differ on where the electronic music
event scene is headed, but most involved agree
something needs to be done to ensure people
who want to listen to loud electronic music with
lots of other people in a party-like setting are able
to do just that.
Ryan said he started going to electronic music
events more than 10 years ago and has seen the
popularity of the events rise and fall.
“It did the exact same thing that’s happening
now; it almost died,” Ryan said of the music
scene. “This is the second rotation and cycle of
the scene.”
Ryan agreed that event-goers and event
throwers are as much to blame for the demise of
the electronic music scene as the financial
difficulties that have marred it in past years.
“If people were more willing to help lend a
hand and throw down to make the scene
better and not better themselves or their
position in the scene things would be a lot
better,” Ryan said. “I think that’s almost more
than the money thing.”
Gibson said one of the main problems with
Seattle events is that some of the people putting
them on don’t understand the amount of work
that goes into a quality show and put on events
that do nothing but “continue to contribute to
ruining the scene.”
Gibson said the initiation process in the
electronic music scene has also changed.
“A few years ago when you got initiated
into the party scene you had someone to walk
you through it,” Gibson said. “Now people
just go and they have no knowledge of the
history of the scene; they have no etiquette of
how to go to a party. ”
Gibson said the future of the Seattle
electronic music scene lies in the club scene.
Every other major city made the switch from
all-ages electronic music events to 21-and-over
clubs a few years ago, Gibson said, but the
existence of NAF Studios, a legendary venue
in Seattle that hosted events every Friday and
Saturday for countless years, allowed all-ages
events to happen in Seattle years after they
disappeared from other cities.
NAF hosted its last electronic music event on
Sept. 27,2002, and Gibson said the only way the
Seattle scene can survive economic and societal
factors without an all-ages venue like NAF is to
move into the 21-and-over clubs.
“We’re continuing to have the same
problems that we’ve been having, and at this
point, no one is stepping up to make things
better,” Gibson said.
Gibson said the switch to the club scene is
an inevitable one that needs to happen but
“Seattle is being very stubborn about making
the transition.”
But Black and Ryan said what’s going on in
Seattle is not relevant to the Portland scene
because of the differences in demographics
and the number of people interested in
electronic music in the two cities.
“I personally don’t think that the club scene
has anything to do with the rave scene in terms of
raving,” Black said. “Anything that’s centered
around alcohol and materialism like the club
scene is it’s bound to create a dichotomy between
the two scenes.”
For the Portland scene to regain the popularity
it once had, Black said it is crucial for the younger
generation of electronic music fans to step up and
start throwing their own events.
“As long as there’s nothing holding us back
from throwing clean, legal, all-ages dance events
they will continue to happen forever here,” Black
said, referring to the lack of city ordinances that
prohibit all-night dance parties.
Although event promoters in Portland
and Seattle may have different ideas as to what
direction the electronic music scene is destined to
go in, everyone seems hopeful that events will
continue to take place.
“I think eventually the popularity will be a lot
bigger than it is now,” Gibson said. “But the
whole 2,000 person thing in an unregulated
warehouse is gone. ”
meghanncuniff@ dailyemerald, com