Back in the dilly…

So i stopped at the Starfucks “kiosk” inside my local supermarket this morning to get my daily regiment of caramel apple cider (teh yum) and talked to the young lad who has been making my drinks for me these days. We started talking about parties a few weeks ago and i mentioned stilldream to him… Today he brought me a stilldream flyer he had been handed while at some party in SF last weekend.

“So what kind of music do you play?” he asked

“like… (i always get tongue tied at this part) … slower tempo stuff… midtempo… dubsteppy glitchy stuff… y’know?” (i sensed that he did not)

“I’m kind of a cracker jack.”

“What’s that?”

“You know… like… i’m into happy hardcore and stuff like that.”

“REALLY! (genuinely surprised to hear the HH word in 2008) How long have you been partying?”

“like since… (throws out the name of some party i’ve never heard of)… which was like… i dunno… november?”

“Holy crap! You’re still new! Do you still get that ‘night before xmas feeling’ in your stomach before a party?”

“YEAAAHHHH TOTALLY!!!”

“Wow I’m jealous. Enjoy it while it lasts!”

“Yeah my friends and i are always like ‘we shouldn’t be doing this anymore! what are we doing to ourselves?’ but every time a party comes up, they’re like ‘you’re GOING! We bought your ticket!’… and I’m like ‘oh my GOD what are you DOING to me???’”

I bit my tongue til blood shot out my ears… it was just way too funny to hear him saying that after 6 whole months of partying…. it was too funny to hear him use the names of parties as units of time-measurement like i used to (naw dude i’ve owned this honda since Gigabeats! Remember?)… It was way too funny to remember the 2 or 3 people in my small handful of raver-friends who used to complain about how they shouldn’t be partying… Going into each event with regret on their minds and their resolutions to stop right after this night wore off… maybe tuesday. Like it was naughty or something… and it was funniest to think about how i’ll be coming up on my 10-year anniversary really soon… how the friends who said they “shouldn’t be doing this” have all settled into exactly the lives they thought they SHOULD be doing… and are pretty miserable for submitting to their affluenza.

I think it’s kind of amazing that nearly a decade later (and longer than that for a lot of you) i encounter kids going through the exact same initiations… dancing to the same music… sporting the same bracelets… If there was ever proof that we SHOULD be doing it, it’s this… the fact that it just won’t die… no matter how much legal opposition rave has faced… no matter how much sounds and styles have changed or how many cliques and niches have formed… i mean shit… kids all over the planet are still doing it…

i don’t have to tell most of you this, but i know that we definitely benefited from our experiences with rave and the whole reason so many of us decided to become more involved as we grew older is because we are providing a priceless service to people everywhere. We help make this thing that opens people’s minds into something larger and stronger. And frankly i’m proud of that. Sometimes i forget these reasons when i look around and realize i’m just playing music for myself and for my friends… But even in those moments we are doing our part to keep this fountain of life from crumbling with age. And from the looks of it, it’s not stopping anytime soon.

p.s. The above picture is one of my favorite photos i took at one of my very first parties… 35mm film… the people who developed this roll at longs drug store actually stole this picture out of the deck… fuckers… luckily i saw it in the negatives and i had them replace it.

1 Comment

• 
  SeventhSwami June 10, 2008 at 11:04 pm

  9 Comments add a comment

  Jenny
  464 Tue, June 10, 2008 – 9:23 AM
  what year…
  was that picture taken???

  Kyle
  51 Tue, June 10, 2008 – 9:28 AM
  Great story, thanks for posting this. It truly is an honor to be able to help provide a good time for those kids who remind us so much of ourselves when we entered the scene. Loved your set Saturday, by trhe way- nice flying ace!

  

  Swami
  263 Tue, June 10, 2008 – 9:45 AM
  thanks dude! i enjoyed your set too… sorry i wasn’t around much after that… i fell asleep right when you were wrapping up.

  and jenny… i believe that pic was taken in 2000 at “Eternia” at the civic center. i think it was my 4th party… maybe 5th.

  Bam …
  133 Tue, June 10, 2008 – 10:17 AM
  i remember the flyer from Eternia! didn’t go though.

  Aaron
  24 Tue, June 10, 2008 – 10:49 AM
  Yeah, for sure I too still get a little weepy eyed when I think back to those good ‘ol days. In fact I think that thats the only real reason I still randomly attend things like that anymore, just to pay homage and capture just a little taste of what it was to be a free spirited teenager again.

  More power to that kid!

  But I’ll be dammed if that isn’t one of the sillier post-adolescent rights of passage.

  emily
  88 Tue, June 10, 2008 – 11:16 AM
  aaw, my first rave was in 1997 i think. i feel old. time to check in with the geriatric ravers tribe!

  Eunice
  486 Tue, June 10, 2008 – 11:37 AM
  Um….
  …sorry for the blank posts. All that Vitamin E must have corroded my brain.

  What I mean to say is: RAVE is a way of life. Yeah, we joke about being geriatric ravers. But seriously, I do attribute much of my current identity to being a former candy girl. It was the first time I felt truly at home. Comfortable. A lot of it had to do with certain substances, but the open-mindedness has stayed with me.

  First rave: warehouse party in LA, October 1995. Continued to rave my FACE off in Seoul, Oakland, SF, Boston….can’t say I’ve stopped entirely.

  I accidentally found my Alice Deejay CD the other day and started cracking up.

  Swami
  263 Tue, June 10, 2008 – 11:43 AM
  phoenix texted me a while back saying she saw a guy in a lowered honda civic, blasting “better off alone”… truly partying like it’s 1999!

  Evin…
  407 Tue, June 10, 2008 – 1:47 PM

  

  That was a serious joy to read, my Brother-in-Rave.