| |
Levitation de-elevation, or how to throw a rave in five
hours.
by Anonymous
"Levitation" was the name of the rave we were going to throw on the
rooftop of an apartment building. Despite warnings from everyone I knew
that the person arranging for the rooftop was not worthy of our trust, I
trusted him anyway. After inspecting the roof, I decided it would be best
to keep this one fairly small, since it looked like only 100 people could
fit up there at a time. So I made 150 flyers and sent out mailings to the
35 people on our list. We didn't post any anywhere, nor did we hand them
out in clubs. In fact, we probably handed out most of them in Colorado,
where we knew nobody would come from to attend. We just wanted to
advertise the hotline/mailing list.
I decided it would be worthless to rent lights, especially since the
effect in the outdoors isn't as good and you can't use a fog machine.
Instead, I rented two slide projectors with auto-advance and a 16 mm
projector with "Donald Duck in Mathemagic Land". This cost about $60. The
sound was from the same place we've always used and cost $80. I had the
pleasure of having speaker stacks fill my living room on Friday, since the
rental place would have been closed on the 4th. I wish I would have been
more prepared as I would have thrown a party in my house with all that
good equipment.
The Wednesday before, we are informed by the guy giving us the location
that we can only go till 2:00 and we can move it to his parent's house in
the suburbs after that. This is agreeable since they had a pool. So I make
up a bunch of little cards that state this fact and gives instructions on
how to get to the second location.
6:00 PM on Saturday, we change the message on the hotline to give the
address of the rooftop location. 6:30, we call the guy giving us the
property and find that he wasn't home. 6:45, he calls us and notifies us
that we can't have it on the roof at all and that we'll have to move it to
his house. *FUCK* He certainly is living up to his reputation. In short,
he wants to turn it into his own little private beer-fest with us paying
the bux for lights and music. I'd rather play drums in a parking lot than
be his personal monkey, so we promptly decide to screw him over and find a
different location. After a bit of driving around, we make a few calls and
come up empty. Then someone suggests the spot where we had DOSE at. I feel
bummed in having a rave in the same place, but I walk (it is less than a
block from my apartment) over to the warehouse to see if they have any art
installations going now. It is empty. I call the owner and she is
delighted with us using it again. After all, two one night rentals by us
in one month has paid her rent. So we had a location, and four hours to
set things up.
My laser isn't working very well. The power supply is pulsing, but the
effect is still fairly good. Just like a dotted-line spirograph rather
than a solid one. We have no fog machine or lights, just the projectors. I
set up my Amiga/Mindlight with it's 13" monitor running graphics. John
manages to scrounge up a mirror ball, a bubble machine, and a light with
rotating color cells. I use a filmstrip projector to illuminate the
non-rotating ball. Again, we were amazed with the results. Everything
looked really good.
I felt so bad about not having it on the roof, I was going to throw it for
free. However after being convinced that this was a big mi$take by my
friends, we decided to charge $3.
People didn't start showing up in force until about midnight. This made us
very nervous since we started at 11:00. I sent a guy over to the old
location to hand out and post flyers with the new location and the
apartment manager nearly arrested him for loitering! We found out that
bozo was still throwing the party at his parents house and advertising it
under our name! We heard rumors that about 100 people got suckered to go
there, but still don't know any hard facts about it. As for how things
went at the new place, I had the best time ever. The DJing went smoothly
and people danced themselves into a frenzy. Only about 120 people showed
up, but they were all hardcore and STAYED with it until about 2:30. The
laser started to function properly when it warmed up and performed well
for an hour before blowing another fuse.
I felt like it was my best night of DJing ever. I was able to work in
requests well, and kept the crowd going strong, but gave them ambient
breaks to rest in. There was one point where I pushed it and played a
track that was around 160 bpm. This made people drop like flies, so I
didn't go that fast again. The crowd really started screaming when I threw
on "Everybody's Free" right after "Free Your Body". Also got a fairly good
response from "Blue Room".
It lasted until about 3:30, when I had three people on the floor. They
kept coming over and requesting different things. I didn't mind, I was
still riding the rush from the previous few hours.
We doubled the size of the mailing list that night. Things are starting to
grow exponentially. Next weekend we're going to try and throw a Winnie The
Pooh themed rave titled "Heffalump Hunt". This time we're chucking in an
ambient room and the smart bar. The big one is still tentatively planned
for August, but not at the original castle that I wanted. The owner was a
complete schmuck. It will either be at a waterpark or at a multilevel
parking garage. I prefer the park, but we've already got the OK on the
garage.
_________________________
Rites of Spring:
Throwing Bigger, Flashier Events
By Pete Ashdown
This article is brought to you courtesy of Hyperreal.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In desperation for a location, I placed an ad in the classifieds that
read, "Wanted: 10,000 sq ft warehouse for weekend use." I'd done this
before, but had mediocre response, and never had anything come of it. I
figured this time would be my last shot at it. Surprise, surprise, it
worked.
The people who responded had a 6,000 square foot warehouse that they used
for manufacturing a cardboard kitty litter box and cardboard bakery boxes.
When I was shown the inside, it was about half full with palettes of
cardboard. The woman who was leasing the place assured me that the
majority of this would be gone by the date I wanted to use it. It was a
little smaller than I would have preferred, but it was literally the only
location that had been offered in response to the ad. I offered her $400
if we had to buy insurance (usually about $300) or $500 if we rode on her
insurance (cheaper). It ended up being $100 extra to ride on their
insurance and I honestly think she pocketed it rather than buying us a
rider. I really didn't care though. Insurance has never been a real
concern for us, just the people we rent from.
I decided that we would fly in a DJ for this event. Moonpup came to mind
immediately. People had told me that he was very dedicated to the scene
and was always willing to bend easily. I had remembered he had worked in
LA during the birth of raves there, so I was curious to meet him and talk
shop. Also, in comparison to other DJs, he was rather inexpensive to do. I
called him up and told him I wanted to bring him to Salt Lake. Apparently,
his girlfriend's parents lived here, so he was very interested in coming.
He was amazed that we had been doing it since February '91. He thought
that we were just starting out, but he said he knew that Salt Lake would
always be a good place for it to happen. He agreed to drop his price a bit
if we paid his airfare, as for lodging, all he wanted was a comfortable
couch.
My friend Grant came up with the idea to use a picture of Winnie the Pooh,
our unofficial mascot, stretching and yawning with the line "The
Hibernation is Over" for the flyer. We had thrown a small house party on
New Years, but in reality our last large event had taken place in the
beginning of October (Sea Monkey Love Castle). People wondered if "Taste"
was still around. The flyer was designed and the back wording was simple.
I've grown really tired of circus-like hype surrounding raves and I've
been shooting more to surprise people with effects than promise them
something I can't deliver. I've always found that it was important to put
the price on the flyer as well. $10 has become a standard, it is also our
plateau. Unless it is drastically expensive, like the Communion tour was,
$10 is the maximum I will charge for an underground here. So the end
result was a flyer that just stated Moonpup and myself as DJs, with "Rites
of Spring", the date, and a few tag lines. Brevity is beautiful. We mailed
out the flyers to our list (last count 260) and left it at that.
I originally wanted to either fly in a DJ or do extensive video. I decided
to do both. The people who had done the video for "Sea Monkey" had since
gone on to do a local club. Frankly, I wasn't very satisfied with what
they had done for us. They needed five people guest listed and they all
got tired around 2:00. Even what they were doing for the club now was
pretty pathetic. Cheap video mixer effects over MTV's "Liquid TV" was
about as far as they went creatively. I had originally wanted another
friend to do "Sea Monkey" but he was under the assumption that he wouldn't
get paid for it. I made it clear to him this time that I wanted him to do
it and he should give me a bid. He couldn't figure out what he wanted to
charge, so I offered him $200. He accepted and went to work rendering
scenes and collecting stock footage to mix with.
Myself, John, and John's girlfriend took a vacation to San Francisco the
week before the 27th. We met up with Moonpup at a weekly. He was really
excited to do this job. I gave him half of his fee there.
I wanted to do really nice audio as well. I rented a large sound system,
and a smaller one and intended to do surround effects. When I finally
found out that nobody in town could rent me a sound processor to do these
effects (apparently the Ensoniq DP4 is the only one), I asked a friend if
I could borrow his home processor. As for displaying the video, I found a
local "Rent-To-Own" could rent us 32 inch tubes for $35 a week. This was
in contrast to the the audio/video places that wanted $125 for one night.
When I arrived back in town, I called the place and they told me that they
didn't have any 32 inch available. They told me they had four 27" though,
so I went down to rent them. Surprise, surprise, they only had one. I left
and wailed to John about how stupid they were. John had been highly
impressed with a projection unit we had seen in San Francisco. He asked
his neighbor, who worked for an audio/visual how much we could get one
for. She said $200, but she'd waive the insurance for us. John went and
rented the 27" from the ~Rent-To-Own" then reserved the projection TV. I
managed to get another 27" from a friend. Then I had to get a video
distribution amplifier to split the signal cleanly, this was $35.
When the 26th rolled around, I went to the warehouse to find most of the
stock still there. I realized that we would have to use the existing stock
as partitions and just deal with it. A forklift had to be rented. John and
I spent most of Friday night rearranging the warehouse. We built walls
around the door so people could not see inside, then built a small
chill-space off the side of the dance floor. The dance floor had one
entrance. The DJ and video table itself was made up of flattened stacked
cardboard.
A nice aspect of the warehouse was the 30" ceiling. This was the highest
we'd ever had to deal with. Putting the usual effects lights from the
rafters would really breath new life into effects which were getting tired
anyway. John came up with the idea to hang kites from the ceiling as well,
but this was abandoned when Grant borrowed a large parachute from his
brother. I shot the laser off the bottom of it. It really looked great.
My surround sound was not working well. The processor sounded like crap
coming through amplifiers. I gave up and ran the audio signal into the
video distribution amp and then ran two signals out to the separate amp
packs. Another problem was the fact that the power setup in the warehouse
completely sucked. We had to use a generator for "Sea Monkey" and even
THAT was better than what I was dealing with now. Extension cords had to
be run all over the place. There were absolutely no outlets near where I
had the DJ booth positioned. Once everything was setup, breakers were
getting thrown on the lights, the video, and the front sound. This was
baffling since I thought I had each of those on separate circuits. I had
to eventually run cords into their office to find other sources.
The video projector was beautiful. We had a 20 foot image on a back wall
that was as sharp as a tack. As for the video itself, the end result was
awe inspiring. He took two VCRs, a Video Toaster, a camera, and tons of
stock footage that he had collected. Time lapse photography of flowers
opening, milk dropping, cells multiplying, thrown over footage of canyons,
clouds, and of course fractals. It was literally eye candy to watch. My
favorite effect was when he took 1950's footage of people in a swimming
pool and reversed the color. It was really etherial to see. I wanted to
record the whole night on video tape, and got two SVHS tapes to do 10
hours on EP. Unfortunately, we couldn't figure out how to switch the SVHS
recorder to that speed, so we got 5 hours on SP. All the audio and mixing
was recorded as well during that time period.
Moonpup made it in about half an hour before 11:00, the time we opened the
doors and started. We agreed that he would play his set after me, about
1:30. I had a local community radio DJ friend who I had worked with in the
past do a set at 11:00. He was leaving town in a few weeks, so it was a
favor to him. I was to start at 12:00.
The front amp was having problems. Even the monitor was losing power on
some heavy bass. I found out after it was all over that it was most likely
plugged into a 15 amp circuit rather than a 20 amp like it needed. We had
three 600W amps, huge bass bins and people were telling us to turn it up!
The volume wasn't near enough as loud as it could have been, however this
turned out to be a blessing in disguise since it was just barely carrying
outside and there were a few residential homes near. If it was any louder,
we could have attracted a lot of complaints. I've decided that from now
on, I'm paying the audio shop to do delivery, setup, and takedown. I'm
sick of hauling speakers and then being baffled at various problems as
well.
I did my first set, which went over moderately well. I was playing a lot
of trance, but the crowd was wanting harder stuff. I picked it up a bit
and played some real funk which got them moving. What then amazed me is
while I was playing Intermix's "Down and Out", Moonpup came up to me and
said, "This is great! What is this?" That was a real shock. Things got
weirder over the night.
Moonpup came on after me at 1:00. He started messing with the 1200 I had
recently purchased and the second on I had to rent. I had originally
planned to get two new 1200's, but the shop had sold my second one by
accident. He started to curse at the rented table. It was apparent that it
was a piece of shit. He then started to curse me, by this time we were
into the middle of his first track. "NEVER give a DJ a piece of shit like
this." I responded, "Look pal, this isn't my fault. It was either this
table or nothing. I had no idea that the rental shop didn't have a clue."
People on the floor started to notice that the two DJs weren't in a
happy-go-lucky-ravey mood. Moonpup calmed down and then asked for a
quarter. We already had two pennies on the needle already. He taped that
down and shook his head while cuing. He told me to get a CD cued up. We
had about 20 seconds before the first track was going to end. I started to
scramble. I was taking the CD out of the case, when the track started to
fade. Blammo, he started the second record on the crap table. "Look, its
going to skip," he said. Nothing happened. It kept going. Moonpup was
still angry, but continued. I ran to find my friend who owned two 1400's
at home. I asked him if I could borrow one. He agreed and I drove to his
house to get it while Moonpup was playing. When I brought it back, we
swapped the cartridges and taped it up to the wobbly arm. It was working
much better, but still not 100%.
Moonpup started to relax. At about 2:00 things really started to groove.
The sound was just loud enough, the bad 1200 skipped only infrequently but
wasn't terribly noticeable. I relieved John from watching the parking lot
and he appreciated the break. I was half expecting the cops to come and
shut everything down, but they would just drive by and keep on going like
nothing was happening. A neighbor came over and said he couldn't sleep
because of the noise. He left, changed his clothes, then came back and
enjoyed himself.
It felt so good to be back in the saddle again. Because we had sent flyers
out to only the mailing list, we didn't have to deal with a lot of bad
attitudes. The smart bar was doing brisk business and sold out of water
and oranges. I was originally opposed to selling water bottles, but people
were actually amazed were were only charging $1 for them. The smart drinks
were just as yummy as I remembered them, and made even easier with
Nutrient Cafe's mixes. We found that by using a little Sprite, it made it
more of a "drink" rather than a "good-for-you drink". People weren't
complaining to wait in lines for the bathrooms (we had to rent one for the
men's), they weren't complaining to wait in line to go outside, they
weren't complaining at the door price. They were just happy to be there,
happy that we were back. There wasn't one bad attitude in the house all
night. I was really proud.
Moonpup's set started to go in the unbelievable realms. I was on the floor
and people were just ecstatic over it. "So Pete, how long are you going to
keep him here?" "I'll move back home and let this guy live in my
apartment, I'll even pay rent for him." I was really impressed for the
first time since I saw Orb play. Once he moved into some really funky
stuff and stripped off his shirt, things just exploded. The whole place
was bouncing.
I played a second set at 4:00 AM. This time I threw on some hard acid
immediately to satisfy the requests for hardcore we were getting all
night. Then I sloped it back into trance. It worked a lot better. Moonpup
took a break in the chill area, then came back at about 4:30 when I was
doing trance. Although I was spinning a bit of vinyl for the first time,
he was fascinated by the CDs. He told me that he had always been an
advocate of CDs, but had been disappointed with the equipment. Denon had
sent him the first model of their DJ deck and he hated it, but he
commented about how much better the 2000 looked. I showed him a few things
and he watched interested, then he left and started dancing on the floor.
Then he repeatedly asked me what I was playing. Coil's "The Snow"??? He
hadn't heard "The Snow" before? I hadn't played that for almost six months
and was just doing again because I loved it so much. Then he asked about
other tracks. I was amazed. Maybe my collection isn't as crummy as I
thought it was. He thumbed through my stuff telling me that I had some
really great finds. I was dumbfounded, but he sure stroked my ego.
Greg in Berkeley managed to find me a pair of technician flashlight
glasses that I had been hunting for. These suckers were so wonderful to
have. I could see EVERYTHING. No more messing with the flashlight. Plus
they look great. Moonpup ranted about how cool they were.
At 5:30, there were about fifty people left. Moonpup put on two records
and told me that he wanted to finish up with them. Then he decided to do
another set altogether. He played until 6:15, when there were ten people
on the floor. It was utterly beautiful. Trancey, deep, and funky I danced
like I hadn't in a long time. He threw on a final piece, a white label
acid jazz track that he had just purchased. He told me that he hadn't even
heard it yet. God, it was unbelievable. My favorite, big band music over a
funky beat. He came out on the floor and boogied with the rest of us. The
video guy, who had stayed behind the desk all night, continued his magic.
My only regret was the fact that I wasn't recording it at the time. The
tapes had run out at 5:00.
When it was all over, John and I took Moonpup to breakfast. He told us he
was eager to come back to Salt Lake, insisting that what we had heard that
night was not him at his best. He told us that there were a few surprises
for him. First was the CDs, he was really blown away by it. Second was the
fact that there were people with beer there. He said usually he's the only
person who brings beer to a rave. The crowd was good to him, and after the
turntables had been resolved, he really enjoyed things.
__________________________
Guide2Outdoor Parties
By Brian B.
This article is brought to you courtesy of Hyperreal.com
This summer has seen quite a few outdoor renegade parties. Everything from
the large Full Moon Raves every month to the smaller parties such as
Xochipili and Harmony and the Mother Earth Sound System gigs showed that
people in this scene understand and appreciate the incredibly liberating
feel of dancing to music outdoors, where many people feel it belongs,
despite what law enforcement and the predominant government policies
towards "public land" may dictate.
However, many of these parties have been busted, sometimes after a few
hours, sometimes in the morning, sometimes even before the sound got
going. There were also cases where the people who came to celebrate the
beauties of the earth left a very distinct scar where the dance floor was.
It doesn't have to be like this. There is a LOT that you, as an attendee
of renegades, can do to help ensure that the party goes on without a
hitch. What I am about to present here is a checklist, if you will, of
actions/thoughts/memes you should consider next time you head out for that
outdoor party. These rules are primarily designed for the people attending
renegades, though if you're throwing them you should probably read these
too.
BE COVERT
There's a LOT of strategy involved in deciding on a site for the party.
I'll save that for a later communikation; the advice I'll give here
presumes the organizers have done as much as they can to make it as remote
as possible. But no place is gonna be 100% silent. so...
When driving to the site, do NOT blast techno out of your car windows. You
want to make the people living on the route to the site as ignorant of
your presence as possible; which means make SURE you know your way there
(a Thomas Bros. map is essential), have a full tank of gas, and bring all
the water and food and such you'll need with you. Don't presume there'll
be a 7-11 nearby; the quickest thing to alert the locals is 40 ravers
hanging out at 7-11 at 2am in the morning. Try not to drive in big
caravans, either, coz nothing will turn heads like 20 cars following
nose-to-tail down a deserted road.
Upon arriving at the site, there is a lot you can do to help ensure that
if/when police show up, they have as little to gripe about as possible.
When you arrive, park as closely together with other cars as you can, so
that as many cars as possible can fit in the (probably small) parking
area. If there is someone coordinating parking, listen to what they have
to say and don't try to find a closer space. If there's no one
coordinating parking then use a bit of intelligence in parking by avoiding
obvious places and parking under NO PARKING signs and such. Sometimes you
can't avoid the NO PARKING signs, so consider any parking ticket you might
get as payment to the local authorities to allow the party to go on - they
usually won't ticket if they demand that you leave, and they'll only tow
the people parked in really stupid places, like where the shoulder of the
road is only 2 feet wide or something. Besides, a $20 parking ticket gets
stretched pretty thinly between passengers if you carpool, which you
should do as much as possible anyway.
WORK THE VIBE
The best thing you can do now, if the music hasn't started, is leave your
car and go to where the actual site will be - or offer to help carry
equipment. Basically, do ANYthing except be next to your car--you wanna
stay out of the parking lot. I have seen more than a few renegades busted
because the music hadn't started yet and everyone was around their cars,
blaring music out of the speakers, drinking 40's, setting off
firecrackers, etc, and the cops could see it was just a bad scene - had
all these people been down on the beach or on the grass waiting for the
sound system to start, it would have been completely different. Head
straight for the site. If there are residences nearby, be as QUIET as
possible when walking. The last party at Berkeley Marina was busted
because people staying in the nearby hotel heard the people slamming their
cars doors, not because of the giant sound system on the other side of the
hill.
Now, it's time for the three NO-NO's of outdoor events
the three things which should not be present in any significant amount.
They are serious VibeKillers, and even though separately they may be
enjoyable they really have a negative impact almost every time I've seen
them at parties.
1) NITROUS. Nitrous is fun, I've done it. But Nitrous also brings a
mindset and a culture very different from the outdoor experience - when a
guy shows up with a tank and starts selling balloons for people, it does 2
things: it draws people away from the vibe of the crowd, because when they
suck on a balloon it takes them into a world of their own for a while,
lost in their own headspace, pretty much uncommunicative with anyone else.
It also creates that nitrous greed, where you want more and the seller
wants to sell you more and more and more money exchanges hands. I could
care less what you want to do at your own parties, the constant
SHSHSHSHSHSHSH sound that is heard at many parties these days is like a
drill to those of us who wish it wasn't there. And you KNOW it's a lot
more obvious to police, and gives them a huge reason to shut us down.
2) ALCOHOL. This has probably been beat into the ground so it should be
obvious, but evidently not to many people. Alcohol doesn't help you dance,
it doesn't help you stay up longer, it doesn't give you energy beyond a
short-term buzz, and it never works well in combination with other
psychedelics. Again, it's not a drug I'm out to abolish or anything, there
are certainly times it's appropriate, but like nitrous, it can seriously
hurt the vibes. It's also the only reason I've ever seen rudeness or
violence break out at outdoor parties. If you want to bring it, keep it
discreet and don't overdo it.....
3) FIRECRACKERS. This wasn't a problem until a few months ago, but at the
August 1st FMR, when someone set off a bottle rocket, I heard one ranger
say to the other, "that's it, we gotta shut this down". And I don't need
to remind you all of near-disaster of the hill fire at Let Freedom Rave
last July (we are the luckiest scene on the face of this earth, I tell
you.) Please, for the sake of the party, don't bring em.
Okay, *phew* sorry about all that vitriol. Now to more positive things.
RESPECT THE MOTHER
One goal of outdoor parties should always be to leave the place cleaner
than we found it. However, even if we take out all our trash the mark we
leave can be totally obvious. There are things you can do to minimize your
impact:
Respecting the mother means if it's grassy, take off your shoes. I do this
all the time, and never catch a cold because the rest of my body is warm.
If you can't stand the cold, get some thick wool socks; the goal is to
tear up the ground as little as possible. Even tennis shoes are better
than, say, docs or hiking boots. I've seen gorgeous grassy fields turned
into mudpits after a single renegade because people wore boots with thick
cleats and insisted on doing a shuffle dance.
Respecting the mother means not tearing down plants and not urinating in
bushes if portapotties are within any sort of walk. Respecting the mother
means looking out for signs which say "endangered species", and staying
away. Respecting the mother means not pulling down live trees to add wood
to a fire (I've seen all these happen).
And finally, respecting the mother means not throwing cigarettes butts on
the ground. Put them in a spare pocket or throw them in a trash can. But
they are NOT biodegradable, contrary to popular belief.
Why is this important to the non-bust-ness of a party? If a ranger comes
and sees that people are keeping to themselves and not harming the land,
which is what he's worried about, then he may be persuaded to simply let
us go. But the other extreme is the Palo Alto Estuary ranger after the FMR
in May, who was so enraged with the treatment the wetlands got that there
is now a cop sitting in the parking lot every night. "Don't ever come
back!" he reportedly said to the last car of ravers out of there.
DON'T FLINCH
I have been to very few parties where the police do not arrive. And
actually, to be honest, I feel better if the police arrive, talk to
people, and leave, than if they never know about it at all. There is
nothing inherently immoral in gathering outdoors to dance to music - we
may be violating specific laws regarding sound permits and "park closing
hours" (why should public parks have closing hours??), but the right to
assembly is guaranteed by the constitution.
So, when the police do arrive, the handling of the situation needs to be
very careful. There are two main scenarios I've seen:
1) The police arrive to see what's going on, they find a group of happy
people dancing. No local residents have complained, there's no danger of
violence emanating from the group (cops can sense that "vibe" too),
there's no alcohol or other obvious drug use and the site isn't getting
trashed. At this point, they may decide to simply let the party go on.
What is important here is that you treat the officers with dignity and
respect, and understand that they are only doing a job thrust upon them by
superiors. For those of you who are confident and not tripping and
understand what their situation is, go up and say hello, introduce
yourself, explain what's going on, etc. Be gentle, tell them you
understand the park is closed, etc. BE HONEST. You don't have to give your
name, but if the timing and attitude is right giving your name and showing
ID might build trust with them. Tell them the site will be cleaned up in
the morning, the place will be left "cleaner than we found it". Anyway,
eventually you may be able to build up a level of trust, either personally
or from the group, and the officer may simply say, "okay, I wasn't here."
and at that point you're clear. Keep in mind that busting a party is not a
small task, and a couple of cops probably won't want to go through the
paperwork to do it unless they see some reason. Give them no reason to go
through it, and they may let you go on.
2) The police arrive and are not happy. Either they have a pre-existing
and media-formed bent against "your evil rave parties", or something was
done to really piss them off. In such a situation, there's not much you
can do. The party is over, and it should be moved to a backup site. You
can try talking them into an hour more or until sunrise or something, but
do not see this as a battleground. There is a time and place for
everything, and a remote field is not the place for a constitutional
showdown. The cops' bark is worse than its bite - they may threaten to
haul everyone's ass to jail and impound the equipment, but like I noted
before it's a lot of work for them; if everyone just packs up and leaves
they're usually happy. Feel free to catcall and cajole; but remember that
usually the order to disband the party comes from higher-ups, and doing
that can only make them angrier. The worst thing to say: "do you really
want a bunch of fucked-up kids on drugs on the streets?". Drugs are a real
sore point, to say the least, so don't even think of trying to use that as
a bargaining tool!
It is important to remember what you are doing is NOT illegal. It's simply
unpopular with the powers that be. You wanna change that? You can, by
sending letters to your city council, the mayor, to anyone you feel has a
direct influence upon policy. Or, make an attempt to get a site legally -
it can be done, it just takes a bit of legwork and cash. Register to vote,
register your friends, and make them know that you wanna be HEARD. Your
rights are only yours if you choose to defend them.
ENSURE THE FUTURE
If the party was successful, even if only for a few hours, be sure and
help out with donations so that the organizers will know their effort was
appreciated and so they can give some to the DJ's and sound guys and
whatnot. You don't have to give a lot - $5 is a good figure to go by--but
even beyond its monetary worth is the message "I believe in you".
We as a community also need to learn how to police ourselves; if you see
someone pulling down a live tree for firewood, don't just stand there and
say, "Gee, that's awful. I wish someone would tell them to stop" - tell
them yourself, and get your friends to help too. If we don't do this then
the "outside world" can't help but see us as something to be discouraged.
We're better than that.
__________________________
Choosing A Location For An Outdoor Party
By Brian B.
This article is brought to you courtesy of Hyperreal.com
I'm going to present here the guidelines that I've been following in
deciding if sites make a particularly good site for an outdoor unpermitted
party. Why am I telling you this? Because this should motivate you to go
out and look for sites around where you live, maybe spark a memory of a
location you hung out at in high school, etc. This summer is set to be the
summer of renegade parties ALL OVER North America, and see this if you
will as a primer, a guide to finding a good location.
The info presented here is the result of 10 months of location hunting,
for both SFRaves events and the Full Moon parties in SF, and for the most
part the locations have worked fantastically . The FMR last month in Palo
Alto had 285 cars ~= 800-1000 people, and the cops didn't show up until
9am, and even then said to just be gone by 11am. But more on that later.
THE DANCE SPACE
anticipate how many people you are gonna have, and make sure there's
enough room where you're setting u the speakers and such for these people
- also make sure there's room for people to rest and relax without harming
the environment or others. Grass is the best surface, as it bounces back
and doesn't make you tired as quickly as sand does. Sand, especially rocky
sand, is hard to dance in, but if you find a space where it's hard, and
try and clear away any large rocks from the center, you should be okay.
Aim to provide a surface on which people can dance barefoot. Try and avoid
dancing on concrete whenever possible, but also avoid having the
dancefloor be a bed of plants, because 10 hours of pounding Doc Martens
are gonna kill anything but the hardiest grass. For this reason, avoid
using the same grassy space more than onces every two months or so, to
give the grass a chance to grow back. Also, dry grass can be VERY
dangerous, particularly for people who smoke and unconciously drop
cigarrette ashes on the ground.
THE SOUND SYSTEM
- Geoff White is coming up with some specs on what outdoor sound systems
should sound like, but in general terms, two speaker stacks and about
1.5kw of amp power should be enough for any gathering of less than 1000
people. Aim the system towards the waterif you're on a beach, or in
general away from civilization as best as possible. Remember that cold air
can carry sound well, and so can water surfaces and canyons. As for the
generator, take your total wattage needed and multiply by two - most
renegades get 5kw generators which cost maybe $50 per night to rent - make
sure you get enough gasolin. If the location is far away from
civilization, you may want to consider bringing extra needles (we found
this out the hard way at C2) and other small but vital parts, maybe so
much as extra turntables or mixer. If you have trouble finding a sound
system or any other vital piece of equipment, check the YELLOW PAGES.
You'd be amazed what you can find there. The best categories are "PA Sound
Systems" and "Construction Equipment" (for the generator).
ACCESS TO THE SITE
You want to have your system somewhat removed from the road, as you want
to be INVISIBLE to the casual driver passing by if possible. But, you also
don't want to make the sound crew carry their heavy equipment a mile and a
half, so try and find a reasonable spot. The flip side, of course, is that
the farther away from the road, the less likely cops are going to
confiscate equipment (more on that later).
PARKING
This is usually the weakest link in any site. There are HUNDREDS of
gorgeous sites around the Bay Area, I kid you not, which are hampered by
the fact that they couldn't support more than maybe 5 cars :) Anyways, you
want to get the cars as far off the main road as possible, parking them
down a side street, or in a big parking lot. Parking attendents are
mandatory if you expect more than say 30 cars. If you have to park on the
side of the road, try your best to obey traffic laws, park outside the
lines, and make sure there is enough room for emergency vehicles to access
the dance floor if the need ever arose. You want to be as invisible as
possible. Also, have the parking attendents hand out flyers to arriving
cars saying, "Welcome to *blah*. Please leave your alcohol in the car.
Please be careful and aware of your environment and each other. Thank you,
and a donation of $*blah* would be appreciated."
LEGALITIES -
The ideal site is unincorporated land, or Bureau of Land Management land,
or simply property which has a history of being used by the public at
large for parties (high school hangouts in the woods are good sources
believe it or not). Failing this, city parks, then county, then on up the
list - the higher the authorities whose toes you step on, the more likely
they are to be mean.
When they show up, as you should fully expect them to, there is only one
option - be completely upfront, honest, call a spade a spade and say it's
simply a group of kids who want to get together and dance under the stars,
and you didn't want to do it in a place where you'd be bothering anyone.
Pledge to clean up after yourselves and DO LEAVE your name and address. In
every case I've dealt with, being upfront with the cops shows them you're
not trying to be sneaky, and they will appreciate that. If they give you a
line about drug use, tell them they can go around and confiscate any drug
use they see: for the most part this'll prolly mean dumping out people's
beers, but people shouldn't be bringing beer to an outdoor party anyways.
Anyways, do your best to work WITH the cops - don't see this as an US vs.
THEM situation, because that'll land you in trouble faster than you can
say "lawyer". If the cops insist on not letting the party continue, then
politley comply, tear down the system, and move the party either by having
pre-printed directions to the next site or a phone # to call for further
directions. Also, if you do a little research into the laws of the area
you throw trhe party in, you may find a few loopholes that at least would
give the officers pause - if they try and shut you down and you say,
"Sorry, ordnance 123-45 requires you to receive a complaint before
shutting down a party" they will think twice...
DRUGS
as noted above, avoiding the obvious drugs is a definite plus. The worst
offender is alcohol, as not only will it piss the cops off, it's also
likely to harm the vibe and create potential "flash points" of violence.
Nitrous is alo far too obvious, and it should be discouraged, particularly
if someone tries to sell it.
THE MORNING -
as the sun is rising, you should anticipate stopping it if the location is
used by the public during the day. You should also DEFINITELY, DEFINITELY
clean up after yourselves - bring trash bags and LEAVE THE PLACE CLEANER
THAN YOU FOUND IT. Make sure others are in a state to drive home,
especially if "home" is more than 20 minutes drive away. Carry Epheadra or
Vivarin or coffee if you can to help people make it home.
Other assorted info:
if the area is sensetive ecologically, try and maintain a vigil around the
sensetive areas to prevent too much damage; keep in mind in every gatheing
there are Stupid peope who do Stupid Things, so be prepared to educate
them as to what's really going on... try and maintain a database, if just
in your head, of which cops are usually meaner than hich others; and if
you have a relative or friend or other sympathetic ear in the police
force, perhaps letting them know ahead of time, or getting tacit
permission, would be a very GOOD thing.
|
|
