The truth about the hype about raves

There's a camera crew from CBS here tonight, on a chilly October Saturday outside the tiny town of Brinnon, Jefferson County, about two hours west of Seattle. They're doing a report on Dance Safe, a controversial group that sets up booths at all-night dance parties called raves and tests the drug Ecstasy to detect copycat pills.

The problem: There's no Ecstasy here to test. No one at this particular event has any pills.

A rave without Ecstasy? Can there be such a thing?

Not according to most media reports on raves, the all-night parties where hundreds, or sometimes thousands, of "party kids" dance tirelessly to beats called electronica.

"Most of the media stories about rave culture have been that it's a drug bazaar," says Nathan Messer, 24. "And there are a lot of kids who say, `I want to try drugs, I'm gonna go to this rave because that's where I can get them,' and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy."

But there is another side to rave culture, Messer and others say, one where drugs take a back seat to peace, love, unity and respect - a motto commonly known among ravers as PLUR.

This scene exists on the fringes of the large, commercial raves that have long been a target of the media spotlight. Like siblings born from a love of electronic music, these two rave cultures have grown up together. But one - the wilder, flashier one - gets all the attention. And the other is left in the dark.

The past six months or so have seen reports on raves from - among others - Time magazine and the television magazine show "20 / 20." What you might have read or seen on TV about raves typically goes something like this:

It's 2 a.m. on a Saturday night. The music pulses, fueling the mass of teenagers dancing with dizzy abandon under flashing laser lights and the neon blue, pink and green of a thousand glow sticks. Signs of the euphoria-inducing drug Ecstasy are everywhere: dilated pupils, trancelike grins, excessive touching and constant sucking on baby pacifiers and Blow Pops. This is a rave.

But on this Saturday night in Brinnon, on remote mountain property just past the GeoDuck Tavern on Highway 101 South, there is nary a glow stick in sight. There are some drugs, but no Ecstasy around. The focus here is the music shared among 50 or 100 friends who are dancing under the stars. This, too, is a rave.

A world of difference

What started as "break-ins" - people breaking into remote warehouses, setting up sound systems and partying till the cops found them - have evolved into licensed, secure events that are widely advertised and attract a mainstream crowd. Now rave music is in movies, commercials, stores and MTV. Now raves are held at the Stadium Exhibition Center next to Safeco Field.

"A lot of the ravers in the early days were social outcasts," Messer says. "They used rave culture as a new social order where cliques and whatnot didn't matter."

Nowadays, the parties are overrun with "white kids from the Eastside who have Mommy and Daddy's credit cards and buy their tickets at Ticketmaster because they heard about it on KUBE," says Jeff Booher, a 27-year-old local disc jockey and a 10-year veteran of the Seattle rave scene.

"The stereotypical raver is a 16-year-old kid who takes a hit of E and thinks that's part of the culture," Booher says. "It's not about that. It's about going for the music and . . . the sense of unity that you get when you're dancing on the floor with 300 people and you're all moving to the same rhythm."

One of the original ideals of the rave culture was all-inclusiveness, but some say that has been lost among this new generation of ravers.

"Those of us who have been around for a while relish the idea of new people coming into the rave scene and sharing what we have, except when they become exclusive about it themselves," says Jeff Clemens, 30, who has been raving for 10 years. "I see that happening a lot."

More and more, people are bringing to larger raves the kind of high-school hang-ups - on how you look, how you dress, how you dance - that earlier ravers had tried to avoid.

The result: "A lot of the original people who were going don't feel welcome anymore," Messer says.

Booher adds: "Rave culture died the day the drag queens stopped coming."

A tale of two scenes

In Seattle, as in many other cities, there is now a distinct divide in the rave scene between what is called "massive" and "underground."

What gets media attention are the massive raves - the kind you'd see at places like the Stadium Exhibition Center, where a rave earlier this month drew anywhere from 8,000 to 11,000 people at $40 a head. With laser light shows, video screens, DJs flown in from around the world and plenty of security, these events are expensive to throw: The aforementioned rave cost in the neighborhood of $250,000, according to Terry Jasinto of Maxamp, the local production company that put it on.

"Massives are not safe," says Adam Starr, a performance artist from Santa Cruz, Calif., who recently played at a Seattle massive. "I honestly don't think people under 18 should go. Because the people who are messing it up for everybody else are the 15- and 16-year-olds who are getting (high), and that's where the dark side of the rave scene comes in."

In Seattle, a law called the Teen Dance Ordinance prohibits those under 18 from attending all-ages dance events without a parent or guardian. But unaccompanied teens under 18 get in to raves, past the off-duty police officers who pat them down at the door.

"There are a lot of people who would like to ban raves, and I don't think that's a viable option," says Sgt. Dan Beste of the Seattle Police Department, who has worked the local music scene for 30 years. "There are going to be raves. The question is whether they're going to be regulated or not regulated."

Beste says he would never allow his 19-year-old daughter to attend a rave.

"It isn't like a dance that you'd have at Franklin High School," he says. "The whole idea about raving is dancing all night. I think at least half the people are on drugs."

Drug use is most common among the "wannabe ravers," he adds: "I think they come to the scene strictly to experience Ecstasy."

The influx of such "wannabe ravers" has caused some longtime ravers to retreat to the underground - to raves like the outdoor event in Brinnon.

These raves are organized among a loose-knit community and typically are held in small warehouses, art studios, private homes or remote campgrounds. Underground events are promoted by word-of-mouth, charge a minimal entry fee or none at all, and cut costs by hiring local DJs and policing themselves.

"Most of the problems we have are sprained ankles," says Jake Paquette, 29.

Yes, there are drugs here, too. Not Ecstasy, but marijuana, mushrooms and LSD.

Still, people say, drug use is far less common in the underground scene than at the massives. It's hard to tell, at this rave in Brinnon, who's high on drugs and who's just high on the music.

"We're more mature about our drug usage," says Quati, 32. "We're handling it responsibly, whereas a 15-year-old at a massive has no idea what they're taking and how much they're taking and how they're getting home."

There are no 15-year-olds here tonight; most people seem to be in their 20s or older. (The median age at underground raves, Paquette estimates, is about 26.) It feels more like a camping trip among friends, only no one here is sleeping. They are instead writhing to electronic beats called psychedelic trance, dancing tirelessly among black lights and reflective tapestries in the middle of nowhere on a Saturday night.

It's not about the party

In this underground community, there are those who don't use the term "rave" anymore because of what it's become.

"What happens with the massives is that we are pigeonholed as part of them," says longtime raver Booher. "We become associated with them, and it's a totally different culture."

Some say the massive scene will burn out; others say it will only continue to grow.

But most agree that the underground scene, which is ever-changing and musically progressive, will survive.

Some say it will thrive. Clemens would like to see underground events expand to incorporate performance and visual art.

"I'm kind of tired of a room and a DJ," he says. "I want it to be interesting and fun, like it was when I started. . . . I'm still trying to think of ideas for that."

For true ravers, it ultimately doesn't matter what happens to the parties. For them, raving is not about Ecstasy or glow sticks or media hype; rather, it's a life philosophy.

"A lot of what was born in rave culture carries over well into general life," Clemens says. "It's about learning to live your life in a state of celebration.

"And you can do that whether or not you're going to a party."