at 17 because of a Magical Thursday fl yer that he
came across in his hometown of Cottage Grove. He
remembers sneaking out with some buddies and
driving to WOW Hall one Thursday night in 1999.
“People are smiling, people are having a good time,
it’s a dark room — sweet,” he remembers thinking. “I
was like, ‘This is for me.’” Cogburn started helping set
up and tear down EDM shows so he could get in for
free to see the big acts they were pulling in, like the
U.K.’s DJ Dara. In the process he met many players
in Eugene’s original EDM scene — music promoters
Real Kidz, the Stylus Grooves record shop people, DJ
Mattie Mataus, the rave crews Joy Scouts, Vujadé and
Gaia Tribe. Like many scenesters, he went through the
“candy raver” (think neon and plastic beads) and “fat
pants” (“Bell bottoms? No, they’re not big enough. I
need something I can sail away on,” he remembers)
phase, but before long, Cogburn ditched the neon
look and became a self-proclaimed “drum-and-bass
jungle head” (a genre of EDM with heavy bass and
sub-bass lines and fast breakbeats), deejaying at
underground word-of-mouth parties. There were the
“breaking-and-entering” warehouse parties, the BMX
track parties and the astrological “sign” parties hosted
in the basement of a former salon on Oak Street —
parties that dissolved in minutes as soon as there was
any word of the fuzz.
“You’d have your main house trance room where
it was like a big dance party kind of thing. Sometimes
you’d have a down-tempo room,” where people
could relax and cool off from ecstasy (a common side
eff ect is hot fl ashes) and dancing, he says. “Then
there would be the edgy room with all the junglists.”
Cogburn remembers the morning of one sign party
when Mataus was deejaying. “We’re going hard. The
generator cuts out or the breaker pops or something.
So there are no speakers. Turntables with a needle
and a record? You can hear the sound coming off
the needle. Everyone rushes the DJ booth,” he says,
mimicking putting his head down to a turntable and
moving to a silent beat. “We’re just going to keep
dancing. … Since the beginning of time, that’s all
people want to do is shake their ass.”
Magical Thursdays came to a close in the early
aughts. Fennessy says that it was around this time that
hip hop began dominating Eugene’s music scene, and
EDM went back underground. For Cogburn and many
others, it was the introduction of Scratch Live (also
known as Serato) — vinyl emulation software that uses
digital audio fi les — into the music producer’s toolbox
that marked the end of his deejaying days. “I faded
out of the scene mostly due to Serato. I couldn’t beat
it anymore,” he says. “I couldn’t aff ord to pay the 500
bucks to buy a piece of DJ equipment while I [was]
going through school.”
KIDS THESE DAYS
Athena Ortmann, 19, describes entering Oregon’s
millenial EDM scene as a culture shock. Raised in a
conservative Mormon home in Springfi eld, one of
her fi rst concert outings was seeing Israeli dub-step
producer Borgore at the Roseland Theater in Portland
when she was 17; for her, it was a “completely new
world” of music, lights and people. “An EDM show is
one thing and a concert is another thing,” she says,
laughing. “It’s not like going to Mat Kearney.” Her fi rst
EDM show in Eugene was Beats Antique — it wasn’t
long before Ortmann was hooked and photographing
shows like Candyland and Disclosure at WOW Hall.
Now a freelance photographer and a media director
for OneEleven (the production company behind
Kaleidoscope Music Festival), and hot off attending
the Paradiso Festival, Ortmann knows the Pacifi c
Northwest EDM culture well, describing it as “tribal.” In
today’s lingo, the term candy raver has been replaced
by kandi kids and PLUR people — PLUR is an acronymn
for “Peace, Love, Unity, Respect,” a kind of EDM
mantra with roots that date back to the mid-’90s U.K.
club scene. Snarky, candy-colored tanks with phrases
like “Maybe Partying Will Help,” fi shnets, furry boots,
EMERALD
MEADOWS
CONTROVERSY
Outdoor music
festivals bring joy
for participants but
can bring headaches
for neighbors.
LandWatch Lane
County fi led a “notice
of intent to appeal” to
the Land Use Board
of Appeals (LUBA)
on July 1 about the
recent upsurge in
outdoor spectacles at
Emerald Meadows in
the county’s Howard
Buford Recreation
Area. LandWatch
says the group hasn’t
made a decision
about fi ling an
injunction — which
would mean the
events in question
would not be allowed
until LUBA made a
decision.
In a recent EW
viewpoint, LandWatch
President Bob
Emmons writes
that the gatherings
were “piggybacked
onto a 2003 county
permit for a small
campground
and caretaker’s
residence.” Nearby
landowners Jim and
Mary Evonuk of J&M
Farms say the traffi c
and noise aff ect their
ability to sleep and
work on their farm.
Emmons writes that
the festival approval
bypassed a state
statute limiting events
with more than 3,000
people, which requires
a public hearing.
UO architectural
historian Richard
Sundt wrote to the
Lane County Parks
department that the
events are visible
to hikers on Mount
Pisgah’s north slope.
He went to Pisgah
during the Cascadia
Music Festival, hiked
the slope, which
also has views of the
nearby The Nature
Conservancy lands,
and reported hearing
music from the festival
there and in other
areas of the park.
— Camilla Mortensen
TIME FOR
SUMMER
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Longer version at eugeneweekly.com
eugeneweekly.com • July 18, 2013
13