Peace, Love, Unity, Respect, and Doof-Doof-Doof

[mbarrick]

Oh, yay. We have some damned ravers upstairs. What, may I ask, is peaceful or respectful about subjecting your neighbours to hours of doof-doof-doof? It doesn't do anything close to fostering feelings of love and unity to those that don't want to hear it. What's respectful about ignoring common courtesy? If you want to listen to dance music at a volume that reverberates in neighbouring apartments, go to a club - it's not like there is a shortage of places that play that shit - or put some damned headphones on and keep it to yourself.

Now, before you say, "Oh, he's a surly old goth fart: obviously he has an irrational hatred of our happy little world," let me fill you in a bit . Chances are I was raving when you were marvelling at your first pubic hairs, or as would be the case of the people upstairs, still shitting in your own pants and enjoying it. I was quite happily attending raves when the scene was still genuinely underground, and the typical venue was a False Creek or Yaletown warehouse. The parties started loosing their appeal when they started being invaded by suburban yahoos looking to take advantage of girls on X (now called "E"). Around that time the cops started cluing in to what MDMA was and what was going on at the parties. Pretty soon the parties were getting busted downtown. The suburban yahoos were pulling shit like showing up drunk and doing things like setting off the sprinkler system. This happened at one party, which happened to be on the 6th floor of an industrial/office building on Terminal St. - the lower floors were occupied and many thousands of dollars damage were done. We unfortunate attendees got a little wet, the promoters got soaked. Coincidentally at that same party I introduced my roommate at the time to E. In short order she proceeded to blow all her money on E and attending increasingly crappy raves. She stiffed my now ex-wife and I and skipped on the rent.  Some people I knew from the earlier days had, rather than give up on the scene entirely, segued into promoting the watered down, superficially "drug free" raves in sanctioned suburban venues (the beginning of what became the techno club scene in Vancouver). Eventually that worked in my favour since the ex-roomie's desperation to suck up to the people who were quite consciously taking money from the people they saw as killing the real scene (rationalizing that if it is going to suck, then one may as well make some money off it) gave me a wonderful opportunity to serve her with papers for small claims court over the rent. One of my long time friends that the ex-roomie was obliviously sucking up to, conspired with me to invite the ex-roomie to the techo night at Mars where miss spent-the-rent-on-drugs-and-ran found herself being handed a subpoena. As the original Vancouver scene descended into lowest-common-denominator lameness I experienced such fun things as heroin cut with speed and passed off as E, spending $25 to get stuck on Anacis Island in -10 °C weather in a warehouse with no heat, and other crap. My ex-wife told me she was leaving in the few minutes before the E took hold at a rave. Ever wandered around a hockey rink filled with ravers, heartbroken and angry but unable to really feel it or deal with it because of you just ate a happy pill? Right around that same time, as the even the suburban crap spaces started to become a problem to secure, the parties were clearly never again going to be interesting urban events in remarkable spaces downtown, filled with interesting urbane people-- the parties started moving out into the forest, attracting the pot and mushroom consuming hypocritical urban-dwelling tree-hugging contingent. In this city that is no small number. If I wanted to eat mushrooms in the woods while listening to repetitive and derivative disco music I could have easily stayed in Duncan. Nightclub events cropped up, filling the gaps between the outdoor parties  - and if a few drunk yahoos trolling for girls on E was annoying having a bar filled with them was utterly dismal. Rave culture came from urban European 1970's gay-bar drug culture. You can pretty much count on something like that having gone utterly to shit by the time it is picked up by drunk college boys looking to get laid. Bottom line is I've got five years of raving under my belt from over a decade ago and I got my fill of it then, leaving it as it turned into what it is today.

Ex nihilo nihil fit. Especially my opinions. Generally I'm content to let people underestimate the breadth of my experiences. Today, less than a week from my birthday, I'll give a the little hint above about what has gone on these past 37 years... I considered writing more, giving away a few more hints, and deleted it.

Comments

So many things depend...

[logik.livejournal.com]

I live in a building reknowned for its parties. Thankfully the bloody ferrocrete that they seem to have made this building out of makes it a non issue. (I've destroyed 8 masonry bits making a half inch hole in the concrete - yikes).

Where I can completely see your point, and in your position would likely find myself in the power room in the basement with a set of insulated clippers, I also live and work in that rave world and see where the kids are coming from.

Just try to remember that we were all young once, and that when you choose to live in a downtown area, rather than on a beautiful acreage out the burbs, you're gonna occasionally have trouble. The real trick is in trying to negotiate with tne neighbors and get everyone to give advance notice.

It of course helps when after your neighbor refused to turn down bad house by Cher, that you can go into your apartment, set up the PA, and drown Cher out in a wall of Wumpscut played at a volume a little louder than a jet engine... People tend to negotiate after that.

Why loud dance music? Well, it could be worse. It could be gangster rap, or the collected works of german folk musicians like Heinshe, or even worse, the rock stylings of our favorite out of tune Korean - Wing. It makes 'em happy. That's all.

Ten to one, if you get to talk to 'em and offer to bring beer to their next party, you'll make a few friends and can get 'em to cut the decible level.

If that fails, get me to come over with the rig, and we'll see how they take to something like Suicide Commando at a volume that will shake their little world. Remind me to bring ear plugs for the neighbors that you like.

Re: So many things depend...

[ztargazer.livejournal.com]

I love that method, it's worked for me in our current apartment.
I think I bruised his ego as well cause that new sub he bought didn't even stand a chance.

A guy I made a delivery to commented on my "end of an era" shirt. He was telling me about the few years before the greeks bought it or whatever. A total mdma gay rave bar, with no one even thinking of getting anything other than a nice cold glass of water. This sounds like the earliest evidence of a rave scene in Vancouver, no?

Oh ya, he was setting up his new pharmacy, no a real ligit one!
Go figure eh!

Re: So many things depend...

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

> A total mdma gay rave bar, with no one even thinking of getting anything other than a nice cold glass of water. This sounds like the earliest evidence of a rave scene in Vancouver, no?

Totally.

Re: So many things depend...

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

No clippers required. The main breakers for each apartment are easily accessible in the basement. In a truly troublesome situation peace is only one throw away.

To be fair, I don't expect anything of anyone I can't live up to myself. Growing up in apartments I learned to be mindful of the neighbours as a matter of second nature well before I ever had my own apartment. I also learned the fine art of retaliation: my mother's favourite weapon is Beethoven.