Musical Current

DJs, Dateline and drugs\nFreshman Chris Oler tried to explain what's happening with today's rave scene while writing the agenda for the the DJs and Electronic Musician's Association, a campus group, on the board before its executive meeting:\n1. Annie can't hold her liquor.\n2. Exec reports\n3. Venues\n4. Adopt a crackhead program.\n"There are people who are like, 'Oh, I've heard of raves, you can get cheap drugs there' -- they basically crack themselves out from that when people OD, that's when parties get broke up," Oler said. "Which is why the press has been giving everything to do with parties a very bad name lately. Especially 'Dateline.'"\nOler's mom saw the May 2 "Dateline" story that presented raves as parties where drug use is the norm: ecstasy, GHB and ketamine are easy to come by and cheap.\n"'Dateline' doesn't even mention the large percentage of straight-edgers in the scene," he said. "There's always been people out there for the music. Any time you get a group of people surrounded by music, you are going to have drugs. Take it back to the '60s."\nIn fact, the party scene has been compared to the subculture of the peace-, drug- and music-loving hippies. Many ravers are convinced their lifestyle is a legitimate culture, one that is accepting, unique and unifying.\nAt least, it used to be. Oler and his fellow old-school partiers contend this is the way it was when they started a few years ago. But with media publicity, they say, kids are learning that at raves, drugs, not music, equal having a good time.\nThis is why the association has started the "Adopt a crackhead program." \nThe idea is for the mature party kids to find the new etards (kids strung out on ecstasy and other drugs) and take care of them at parties, hoping to educate them and keep them from marring the scene.\n"The scene is not about the drugs, it's about the music," said junior Heather A. Schneck, the association's president. "The music is the most important thing." \nBy the same token, the association's members aren't altogether abstinent from drugs. Still, they stress that the drugs are not important. Although they might use some, they do not want to see kids overdosing, and laying sprawled out in the middle of the dance floor. They said they believe if kids are going to use drugs recreationally, they should use them responsibly.\nThe association tries to promote the scene in other ways. Members hold parties with DJs who spin different subgenres of music, including techno, house, jungle and trance. They try to help out the Indianapolis scene by sending security teams to the parties there to watch the door and keep the drugs from getting inside. They also search for venues in the Bloomington area.\nIn keeping with this goal, Oler, junior Lauren Goller and their friend Anni Vowell hit the corner of Morton and Ninth streets one night to check out an old warehouse that might be perfect for a party.\nAfter dodging broken steps and slipping through an open door, it was apparent the building included some elements necessary for a good party: large floors for dancing and multiple rooms for different styles of music. Oler and Vowell took pictures of the large rooms while a rat scurried away. Before leaving, they wrote down the number of the owner for future reference.\nSpinning and booty\nDJs create music by mixing the creations of others. The basic setup is two turntables with slip mats, felt pads that allow the records to be moved manually. In the middle is a mixer board, with switches to adjust the volume of each record, which speaker the sound is coming from and the levels of treble and bass, among other things. They then use headphones and monitors to match the sounds.\nThe first task of a DJ is to match the beats. Spinners play one album while holding the other until its main beat matches the original one. Sometimes, this involves adjusting the speed of the records. Then the sounds can be layered or interspersed with each other, creating an entirely new noise.\n"When it's there, you can hear it, and you can tell, and it sounds right," said Vowell, whose DJ name is DJ Vixen Swift. "The principle of doing it is pretty easy; it's mostly just practicing and practicing and practicing until you hear it." \nIn Bloomington, club kids can hear DJs spin at Ground Zero, 213 N. Walnut St., and Axis, 419 N. Walnut St. Occasionally, there are special events such as this Saturday's Lighthouse, a benefit for the Middle Way House. The show will be at Ground Zero and will include DJs Slater Hogan, Chocolate, Moses, Korova, Adam Langhoff and others. There are also usually weekly house parties. For travelers, shows are held every weekend in Indy and surrounding areas.\nAt the parties, music means dancing. The goal of the DJs is to get people moving with the help of quick tempos and a strong beat. Vowell likes to play booty house, mixing with more of a hip-hop feel that literally is about "booty."\n"People think it's sexist, but that's mainly why I like to play it," Vowell said. "You can't take it seriously. When somebody hears all this, like, ridiculous, sexist funny stuff coming out and they look up and they see this little bitty girl at the turntables, they just start laughing and everybody dances their butts off, and it's so fun."\nIt is hard to tell exactly how many Bloomington residents get into the DJ scene, but the Electronic Musician's Association has more than 200 kids on its e-mail list. Also, about 30 people came to the last meeting. Currently, with the music of Moby and others gaining popularity, the scene is seeing a surge.\n"There's so many people that go because it's quote, unquote cool," said Vowell. "They don't go for the right reasons -- not because the music means something to them and the people mean something to them."\nBut Vowell said the people who are in it for the wrong reasons never seem to stay. They get burnt out and leave within six months to a year most of the time. Part of the reason is that when raves started out, they used to be secretive and promoted by word of mouth. Now, flyers are everywhere.\nBut Oler, Vowell and Goller said the kids around Bloomington are cool. They are more mature, partly because of the college age, and tend to "keep their head."\nThose who would rather create\n"There are two divisions of electronic musicians: those who perform and those who don't," said George Patrick, producer of Nefarious Records.\nPatrick is a member of the latter group. He believes the DJ scene around Bloomington has grown in the past couple of years. The production side of the electronic music scene has also grown, but perhaps not as much.\nPatrick started in electronic music after taking a MIDI class at IU. He believes there is a lot of opportunity in the University to get involved with the genre. In 1998, Patrick made a track for the first project of the Bloomington Electronic Music Coalition, which resulted in a seven-track CD.\nTwo years later, Patrick and a fellow producer, Jeremy Lindemann of Slave Indvstries, overtook the project and made the most of a small number of submissions while adding his own music. \nBloomington Electronic Music Coalition 2.0 came out in April, and Patrick said it has a good representation of the Bloomington scene.\n"As far as how it ties into the electronic music scene in Bloomington, I think it's basically one half," he said. "It's extremely varied if you listen to the tracks, there's hardly two tracks on there that sound even that similar."\nPatrick left Bloomington in June in search of a better music scene, even though he said they came up with a good collection of music. Now located in Chicago, he is looking for people to perform with.\n"By far the Bloomington music scene, up until June anyway, was still pretty much ruled by indie rock," Patrick said.\nAlthough he left, Patrick said he sees possibility for growth. There was tremendous growth in between the two CDs, a period of only two years.\nBloomington Electronic Music Coalition v. 2.0 is available at Tracks, the Den, TD's CDs and LPs and Borders.\nFreshman Rafi Steinger is looking to be a part of this growth. Steinger got his start in music at a young age from studying piano and attending the Interlochen music camp, an intense program for musicians in Michigan. He didn't get into electronic music until a few years ago when he was able to take a class in it at Interlochen.\nOne of his major inspirations to get involved with the genre came from watching movies such as "Hackers" and "Strange Days," whose soundtracks were heavily doused in electronica.\nSteinger has created an original CD and is hoping to have it picked up by a record label. He said it is currently being looked at by a small label in New York who he plans to record with Tuesday..\nSteinger said he appreciates all types of music and tries to incorporate it all in his CD, even Motown. He said he even draws influence from popular musicians of the day.\n"Ricky Martin, he's a stud," said Steinger. He said he respects the fact that Martin has a good body and has made it big, and he hopes to have the same luck in his future.\nOverall, the Bloomington electronic music scene is growing and might be more prevalent than is at first noticeable. Groups such as DJs and Electronic Musicians Association and the musicians at Slave Industries are looking to advance the scene with or without outside help. The ones who are serious are in it for the music.\n"It is crack; it's the most addicting thing in the entire world," said Goller. "You go one time and it's like, forever"