Golden Spud

Here's an interesting article I found about the Oh My God rave I wrote about earlier this month. It's funny to read (moreso than it is upsetting), and was published in a newspaper in a town several hours away from where the event was. The last paragraph is particularly intriguing since there is nothing leading up to it to explain it.

Drug arrests at holiday rave party in St. Charles

ST. CHARLES (AP) - A New Year's Eve rave party at a place called the Family Arena was the setting for at least nine drug arrests and 15 arrests for "inappropriate behavior," police said.

St. Charles County officials say they're upset with the company that manages the arena, which is owned by the county.

Eight people ages 17 to 20 were arrested for drug possession as they entered the event, said St. Charles County Sheriff's Lt. Craig McGuire.

As word of the stringent search spread among the 2,000 or so partygoers in line, they dumped drugs and drug paraphernalia in three trash can barrels along the line instead of losing their place in line, McGuire said.

A 17-year-old from St. Peters was arrested after he was found in an office area inside the arena snorting cocaine, police said.

Raves are typically all night dance parties with continuous techno music and sophisticated light shows. They sometimes are touted as safe and alcohol-free events for minors, but they can become havens for "club drugs" such as GHB, ecstasy and ketamine. In liquid form, these drugs can be mixed in innocent-looking water or juice bottles.

People do bill (raves) as drug-free, alcohol-free, positive entertainment for young people when, in fact, that is not what they are," McGuire said.

The trash cans outside the arena were filled with pills, water bottles, juice bottles, pocket knives and "one-hitters" -- homemade smoking devices with drugs inside, he said. The trahs also included pacifiers -- which ravegoers wear on a string around their necks.

"Ecstasy causes you to grind your teeth, and they use pacifiers to save their teeth," McGuire said he was told. "We're kind of catching up and learning about the items used at these parties."

A rave being held in St. Charles County at a county-owned building has St. Charles County Executive Joe Ortwerth concerned.

"The management company (of the arena) continues to exercise extremely poor judgment in making decisions like this," Ortwerth said. "The purpose of the arena from the beginning has been to provide a forum for entertainment that is suitable for the entire family. It is our hope that management would not... book events that would invite unlawful behavior."

The county has a $2.2 million contract with Family Arena Management Enterprise to manage and book events at the 10,000-seat arena. The contract stipulates that the company can't hold events that "advocate hate, violence, suicide, sexual depravity or advocate sexual degradation of women or children."
posted by Golden Spud at 12:21 PM

Boys and their toys... I really love my Saturn and the fact that I got the CD+Tape+Radio option. Even though spindles of CDs are super cheap these days, I use a cig-lighter adapter and a tape-cassette adapter to listen to tunes with my Minidisc recorder. This also lets me record from a Shoutcast station while I'm sleeping and listen to it in the car the next day.

But boy would it be cool to have one of these! Now I've gotta check my car's manual to see if my CD+Tape+Radio can control a CD changer too.
posted by Golden Spud at 2:47 PM

Happy New Year by the way! I (over)spent (my money on) New Year's Eve in St. Louis, at Oh My God It's 2001 with Beth and Patrick.

Here's a review of the evening that I posted on the message boards at Syquil:

I went with a couple friends. Fun drive from and back to Springfield (MO), and met some cool people during the whole 24-hour journey.

The rave itself was somewhat lackluster, in my opinion (and in a few others I talked to)... especially considering the hype and the prices... which incidentally were raised to $40 at the door (vs. $35 originally) due to some lame-sounding excuse about unions.

It was at the St. Charles Family Arena. Strong security presence, pushy staff, 12-degree weather, a no-smoking-inside policy (which they later relented on after about 6 hours) and a lot of people to funnel in before midnight made for a less than ideal entry experience. Thankfully we showed up pretty early and were in the 5th wave of people to go inside.

The covering on the ice was pretty trippy. It was a rubber/plastic-ish chain-link covering that gave ever so slightly as you walked/danced on it... didn't affect balance at all but made it interesting to dance. Even being sober it was a trip to stare at while I danced. Beth said it made her feel like someone was standing behind her all the time ;-)

Lights were pretty freakin' cool in my opinion. Very good programming and most of the time had pretty good synchronization with the textures of the music. I didn't see any vid screen action going on though, nor did I see any lasers, both of which were advertised. If they were there then they certainly didn't catch my attention.

Sound was SUPERB, LOUD and CRISP at close to moderate range. Awful reverb the further away you got from the stage, but what can you expect from a big general purpose arena? A couple minor technical difficulties at the soundboard later into the night, but nothing horrendous.

The music took a long time to get good for a non-trancehead such as myself. Too much cheezy trance. Sure I had fun dancing, but that isn't my favorite music to listen and dance to for hours. Perhaps we got there too early and didn't stay long enough?

That's probably it, since I remember the music getting more enjoyable after I wore myself out dancing. Though I randomly met a friend of a friend while I was resting (Hi Kate!)... that was pretty awesome! DJ Micro was spinning just before we left (I wish I hadn't been too tired to dance!) and some friends that stayed a few hours longer told us the music got even better.

In retrospect, I should have brought some No-Doz with me and paced my dancing down a little. Or bought some sort of more illicit substance -- but I don't really like drugging myself up at raves (and buying there i'll certainly never do). Besides, I was the driver.

One of the few interruptions to the cheezy trance was the All Time High Experience with their "one hour LIVE Performance Freakshow Exstraviganza [sic]". Some technical difficulties during certain parts of that set. That I have sympathy for -- shit happens and you can only secure yourself against that, you can never entirely eradicate it.

Their set was pretty funky and sexy for the most part. The best way I can describe it is kind of NewWave-ish and 80's-ish with a touch of Front242-ish. I grooved nicely to it and that was when I was having the most fun dancing. Their dancers were nice looking little kittens, and by the end were in G-strings and pretending to do some naughty things. You could only see 'em if you were right up close to the stage though, so most people missed out.

Where they fucked up was by playing some straight 80's on the rocks... not even a remix with a personal touch! They also told people to grab the person next to them for a slow dance while they were playing a breakdown with some dark rumbly sample. I didn't have anyone to dance with necessarily but I figured, hell, they must have some shit up their sleeve if they are going to try and pull that at a rave.

Then, terror of all terrors... Berlin: Take My Breath Away! Again, straight up with no juice to mix it with. The vibe all around me was confusion and agony. Everyone had been pumped up and was having an awesome time. What the hell did they think they were doing? That song has its merits and certainly has its place. But it is not music you play at a rave unless you're prepared with a damn good remix of it.

Anyway, less than 60 seconds later they yanked it and played something a little more upbeat. I enjoyed them at first, but they sure lost a decent vibe they had going though and brought me and a lot of other people crashing down. Things took a little while to warm back up after that.

As far as the fact that it was a New Year's party -- that was barely noted and it did not "crush any [party] you have ever seen in St. Louis". The clocks in the arena were not synchronized. There was no 10-second countdown, just a startled, belated 4-second countdown followed by the same cheezy trance breakdown that led us into the new year.

I came there assuming that a New Year's rave would be planned so that the first beat to a kickin' floor filler would be dropped on the stroke of midnight. At least that's how I think it should have been planned and how I've heard it's been done in the past. Maybe it was planned that way but just had execution errors. I dunno... :)

So, that was pretty yawn-inspiring. They hyped indoor fireworks which amounted to a couple cheap little fountains on top of the speakers. Not exactly what you'd expect to see when you read "the Fireworks show at Midnight". It was not a show. More accurately, it was simply "the fireworks at midnight".

Was it worth it for me despite the weirdness? Eh... I suppose so, though my wallet says otherwise! I met a couple nice people to keep in touch with that I likely would have not met otherwise. We had fun on the road and after the rave. Still, I was a little envious of those who stayed at home and spent less money for more fun. ;-)
posted by Golden Spud at 11:00 AM

Today I started a blog. It's the trendy thing to do, but blogger still won't make breakfast for me!
posted by Golden Spud at 9:00 AM