[reprint from LA Weekly, May 22nd, 1992]



				  Spin Doctors

			Jams For a Sleepless Generation


by Sue Cummings

	It's 5 a.m. at the Masonic Temple in Long Beach when at the divine
command of the ultra beat, a man leaps into the bass. Sweating and completely
naked, he thrusts himself beyond the black fabric of the P.A. speaker cover and
curls up tight inside the huge, resonating cabinet. Smiling dancers, mostly
oblivious, continue to bob and sway, lifting their hands en masse towards the
speaker stacks, testifying, palms touching the movement of air in front of the 
heavy bass cones. The sound system still throbs at 138 beats per minute,
overlaid by the occasional hiss of a nitrous-oxide tank valve. A smoke machine
fills the room with a grey dry-ice fog, cut by colored lasers and a loop of
old Western movies flickering against the walls. Upstairs, dancehall reggae
plays; off the front lobby, ambient music and the Exotic Drums of Linda 
LaSabre. On the floor of another room stand buckets of paint, where partygoers
decorate with hearts and daisies three loinclothed men posed as statues.
	Still the main attraction is the buzzing, vibrating maze of rhythm
back in the big room. One DJ, Ron D. Core -- a wiry blond figure in a hooded
sweatshirt -- with a mixer, a crate full of vinyl, two turntables and some 
headphones, orchestrates the rush deftly from a dim corner. Sorting through 
records, or bent curing over the tables, he rarely looks up. But he moves 
mindful of the energy of the crowd, matching it, then pushing it, then dropping
down. Using smooth, fast samples and fading, a disc rarely stay on for more
than a minute. Acen's "Close Your Eyes" winds them into a panic, and then a
brittle, repeated scratch moves them to answer with shouts. The techno pulse
drives the dancers tense and hard, until some of them levitate, hop up and 
down, almost pogoing. Then a house track with keyboards and vocals lightens
the mood. "Throw your hands up! Throw your hands up!" a vocal track rasps. The
dancers, in their baggy pants, caps, and Jive T-shirts, euphorically obey,
volleying balloons across the room.
	The rave DJ's influence recalls the DJ's place in the disco craze of
the '70s, except the digital shaman moves with the rapid, aggressive flash of a
freestyle hip-hop mixmaster. Gone is the rapper, with his egotistical boasts
and angry polemics, replaced by the skillfully remixed, uplifting vocals of 
Rozalla. It's the end of February, two months before the riots will turn L.A.
streets into the realization of "Black Korea," and the Masonic Temple has been
transformed into Aphrodite's Temple, a refuge of love with free condoms at the
door, with neon-colored peace signs and '70s smiley faces, where everybody's
free to feel good.
	Even the man inside the speaker has found a place to hide from his bad
trip. Later, people will discover him inside the cabinet, but he will only 
allow females near him. Veron, a petite woman with wire-rimmed glasses, holds
out her hand and soothes him with her thick Manchester accent, finally coaxing
him to fresh air on the street, where her friends wrap him with borrowed 
clothing. The party will go on until about 9 o'clock, when the last raver will
stumble out for breakfast and a day of sleep. Some time during the next few
weeks, Savage House, the rave's producers, will settle with Mike Shredder,
the sound man, for damage to the speaker.

	"If you're going to do the piece, could you not use the word _rave_?"
asks underground DJ Doc Martin with a wry smile. He's a little tired of the
hype. Half Armenian and half Spanish, Doc wears his hair in short bleached
dreadlocks that droop across his eyes. Originally from San Francisco, based
in Los Angeles for the last five years. the 26-year-old is such a fixture at
raves that the word itself is a comma in his language, a rest mark to be
sounded only for the uninformed. At a few minutes past midnight Doc sits with
three friends in a Formica booth at Sanamluang Cafe on Hollywood Boulevard.
It's a Tuesday, and by this time any later in the week he would be on his 
way to a job with 200 records in tow. Wednesday night is Citrusonic, a regular
club at the Probe; Thursday is Joy, a similar setup at the Troubadour. 
Friday's and Saturday's schedules vary depending on the two to four big parties
always happening on any given weekend. Early, early Sunday morning is Flammable
Liquid, his after-hours spot, a favorite set because it runs for five hours,
giving him time to stretch out and work. Other DJs say Flammable Liquid is
where Doc is at his best, steering a moody, wee-hour ride up and down an emo-
scape of organic rhythms and deep-house ambience.
	Most of the mega-raves draw at least a couple of thousand young people,
average age roughly 20, almost two-thirds white, perhaps another third Latino,
and a fraction Asian and black. The youngest come for the all-ages door policy,
for a chance to cut loose from their parents. The older ones like the change
from the uptight celebrity-worship of regular nightclubs. The raves have their
own stars, who earn their status by their contributions to the scene: sound
technicians like Mike Shredder, known for delivering the best bass; lighting
experts like Mirage, who produce the most dynamic displays; promoters, about
20 in the regular circuit, who put it all together. These are the names you
will see on a flyer for an event. Four years ago, the local scene began as 
a transplant of the English rave, with parties held in one sweaty warehouse
room. Lately the events have become elaborate and high-tech, as rave promoters
compete. But the names that consistently bring in the most people are those of
DJs -- Doc Martin, Ron D. Core, Barry Weaver, DJ Dan, to name a few.
	Unlike the promoters, who by their nature seek attention, and the 
drugs, which by their nature get attention, the DJs don't spend much time in 
the media spotlight. Neither do they get much in renumeration. "To get not 
paid," says Doc, "is almost a common thing." Their rewards are more direct:
the admirers who crowd up to the turntables when a hot mix goes off, the
dancers who blow their whistles in time to a perfectly layered sample, the
friends who call to trade tips about new music, or stick around to haul record
crates at the end of the night. DJ Barry Weaver, who at 30 now stuggles like
any rocker at his white middle-class parents' urging that he get a real job,
tells this story: "I have a friend who's a substitute teacher. He called me
one day and said, 'I just have to tell you something.' At school one of the 
kids had doodled 'Barry Weaver' on the cover of a book, exactly like it was
the name of a rock band. Underneath my name they had written 'Doc Martin.'"
	Barry lives in a Crenshaw-area commercial space, a storefront down
the street from the offices of Urb magazine (the bible of the scene), where
the neighbors don't mind if he jams at all hours as loud as he likes. His mixer
and turntables are set up in a concrete-floored living room dominated by 
several thousand records, huge steel industrial fixtures and 5-foot speakers.
Unlike Doc, who is known for warmer, "tribal" house grooves, Barry leans
towards hard-edged techno. Internationally the Los Angeles sound is so 
identified with heavy techno that the Belgian team that produced "James Brown
Is Dead," one of the genre's biggest hits last year, named themselves LA
Style, a gesture intended as both as homage and target marketing. The record's
biggest sales were in Southern California.
	Barry particularly likes the 12-inch singles coming out of Detroit, 
where the earliest records were made. Standing behind the living-room tables, 
he casually cues a few records near the top of his stack: Meng Syndicate's
"Sonar System," Robert Armani's "Magic Tricks," Phuture's "Acid Tracks": 
"This shows where they've gone to, which is real repetitive trance beats,
with all the percussion up front, abrasive. A record can be built around one
acid noise that develops. The kind of sound, the kind of techno that I'm
playing personally, is very repetitive. Kids that are really into it get really
_inside_ of it." A slender, energetic man with WASPish good looks, Barry's
more comfortable standing over the living-room turntables, sorting through
crates of records, than sitting on his couch, where he fidgits.
	"On a record like 'Acid Tracks,' whatever change happens is mostly
through my manipulation. Something like this I would never play out through
the whole thing, I would be bringing in other things to bring about the
change."


	[Roll Circa '92 footage]

	Voiceover of Channel 7's Linda Mour: "Saturday night, and do you know
where your kids are? It's possible they are among the tens of thousands of 
Southern California kids being _seduced_ by the psychedelic and often illegal
party scene of the underground, called raves."

	[Dub in music: LA Style's "James Brown Is Dead"]

	Continue voiceover: "They're _wild_, midnight-to-dawn dance parties
where 4-, 5-, 6,000 kids cram into dilapidated warehouses. Their speakers, 
like altars of music, are worshiped by kids in a cultlike fashion. And, where
the high-tech trip is either traveled sober, or driven by the raves' favorite
drug, the hallucinatory Ecstasy, and the potent gas nitrous oxide. One party
balloon, five bucks. One of the cheapest kinds of highs.

	[Sound of balloon being filled]
	[Shot of pickup truck]

	"Nitrous was what killed three kids from the Valley last month. 
According to police, they had planned to sell it at an underground rave the 
next night. But a tank inside the truck's cabin was left open, the windows
rolled up, and all three fell into a deadly sleep. And found in the back of
the truck, party fliers with the clandestine phone numbers. That is how we
infiltrated the raves' network.
	"The phone call first connects ravers with that night's party
instructions, which often begins at one selected record store. Like a
scavenger hunt, kids have to go to multiple locations before they can even get
to the party. Always moving keeps them and the promoters one step ahead of the
law.
	-- Channel 7 News, April 20


	The Wednesday after the riots, Hollywood's Citrusonic fills up before
midnight. "I thought it would be crowded," Barry says later. After the weekend
curfews forced cancellations of all the raves except one in Palm Springs,
people line up along Highland Avenue waiting to get into the Probe, hoping to
work off a little pent-up anxiety to Doc Martin's and Barry Weaver's mixes.
	Because their styles are complementary, Doc and Barry's names are often
listed together on fliers. Rave DJ's are usually too competitive to work as
teams, and Barry says their appearance as one is more perception than reality.
"We don't really hang out together," he says, although they're far from rivals.
During Barry's set at Circa '92, Doc kept a writer from asking for a photo:
"Don't bug him while he's working!" he said. "I just hate it when people try
to talk to me during a set," Doc later explained.
	At Citrusonic Barry arrives late and flustered, zooming in head-down 
past the manager who had threatened to cancel him. He hurries up to the booth,
hoists the record crates onto the ledge at his back, naps on the headphones
and feverishly throws down Jus' Friends' "As One," the first disc of the night,
onto the left table, twisting the fader knob with one deliberate flick to segue
off the record on the right side, the final track of the previous DJ's set.
While "As One," spins, Barry turns turns to the ledge behind him and looks 
through a crate, his hands moving through the crate in a quick, practiced
shuffle, marking records for later play by wedging the covers sideways so they
stand up. The glass-enclosed booth gives him a good view of the dancers,
although he would prefer to be down on the floor, at the same level as the
crowd. Tonight it's an older group -- Citrusonic, unlike the all-ages warehouse
parties, admits only 18 and over, and for this intimate setting Barry will
program a more mellow sequence of cuts than he would for a big blowout; heavier
on tribal and break-beat hiphop this time, lighter on the acid techno trip. 
Here and there he'll sample an a capella vocal, or another sound he finds from
a track, over a beat playing from the other side, but he won't do any hard, 
abrupt scratching or pull out the more aggressive tricks like backspinning. 
Keeping an eye on the needle's trek towards the center, Barry snaps down an
unmarked record on the opposite table, and cocks an ear into the headphones,
adjusting the pitch so the beats per minute match the record that's on,
waiting for a certain break to come up. When it's time he turns the fader knob
again, jabbing his finger in the air with pleasure as the new record comes in
right on the beat he wants.
	The dancers are just warming up, and the mood holds a hint, after the
riots, of relief. It's still before midnight, a little early, and Sue Dread,
one of the Citrusonic hosts, runs into the booth holding a paper cup from the
smart bar. She does the bump against Barry's back as he bends down, balancing
the headphones between his chin and shoulder. He turns around and hugs her;
everyone in this scene, even the men, are big on hugs. Neither is on Ecstasy 
(not the greatest if you're working), but, like amphetamine to punk, pot to
reggae, acid to the Grateful Dead, "X" still sets the tone for the scene,
although it's certainly possible to do the multisensory trip of a rave 
chemical-free. The drug persists even since the clear disappearance of nitrous
oxide balloons and tanks following the asphyxiation of three ravers in March.
No doubt many tonight have ingested a discreetly palmed capsule. A film loop
of spinning orange slices repeats against a wall; lights flash against a 
giant neon banana.

	"Only a couple of steps in the door and we were offered Ecstasy,
another 20 bucks. The whole scene is like one big promotion for the euphoria-
inducing drug. Ecstasy is projected on the vibrating walls, on T-shirts, hats
and necklaces. The blinding laser lights and ear-deafening hyperbeat of 
the techno music are _obviously_ designed to overload the senses."
	-- Channel 7's Linda Moore, April 20

	Raves admit all ages because no liquor is served; bringing your own
will mark you as uncool even if it doesn't get you thrown out. The subculture
prides itself on its anti-alcohol stance, attributing the peacefulness of these
large, crowded events to the absence of booze. The youthful energy of the
scene is partly a by-product of the liquor laws that exclude teenagers from
regular clubs.
	In high schools the code word is "house." A kid will see another in
baggy overalls and a Clobber T-shirt, and go up to him: "Hey, are you _house_?"
What emerges is a rare thing in the '90s: bona fide street youth culture, an
in-club with a vocabulary of identifying symbols with its own rituals of sights
and sounds. Responsible elders begin a refrain the aging rebel will recognize:
The clothing is vulgar. The music is noise. The drugs are dangerous. It's
corrupting our kids. Underground, antiauthoritarian, idealistic, populist, 
visceral, high-energy, aggressive, fashion-coded -- "It's like punk rock,"
says _Urb_ editor Raymond Roker. "It's punk rock with rhythm. But these kids
don't want a live act; the live acts have been too disappointing. They want
to turn their head into the speaker."
	The DJs who work underground parties in Los Angeles are a feral breed,
one that values innovation over the power to break hits. While record pools
and free promotional products fill the stacks of commercial radio jocks, rave
DJ's prefer to buy their own records, at a cost that can average over $200 
a week. Doc Martin works three days a week at Prime Cuts in West Hollywood just
to have first crack at new shipments. That makes him more "alternative" than 
the college radio programmers fed freebies from major labels. Techno and house
12-inch singles are the stock in trade, releases from small independent labels
in Detroit, Chicago, New York, Italy, England and Belgium. "I have friends
who are _Billboard_ reporters," says Barry Weaver, "and they get records from
every major label for free. They get treated really well and it's because 
they're playing the music the industry wants them to. I can't play that game.
It's nice to have the luxury to be able to spin what you want, when you want,
how you want, and never have anybody telling you, 'I want to hear Madonna.'"
	"Everyone should have their own style or flavor that attracts people
to them," says Doc Martin. "If you're only programming the top 10 hits and
that's your stack -- what's to stop anyone else from taking your job?" The 
most highly prized records are rare pressings, limited-edition "white" labels
and obscure novelties -- anything that will set your stack apart. "The old
Disney records are good," says Ron D. Core. "I use the haunted house record
a lot, just for the witches screaming and the chains and ghosts. I use that
to open a set." An old vocal recording, of speeches or instructional material,
lends itself well to mixing over dance beats. Ron uses a sex instruction record
put out by Warner in the '70s ("I'll sample something like, 'Oh, I had an 
orgasm'") and speed-metal albums from the '80s. He comes across as a former
metalhead who's transferred his hardcore aesthetic to techno. "I can sample
cool guitar solos, pretend Satan voices: 'behold, it's the Lord Satan.' I've
used that for intros and sampling. People say, 'that's cool man. That's 
wicked.'"
	Far more spontaneous than typical mobile party setups, techno/house 
DJs are the truly live performers of the underground scene. "Being on the
turntables is exactly like playing an instrument," says DJ Dan. Major "acts"
such as the Shamen and T99 sometimes tour in support of a record, performing
their set list at raves with the help of DAT machines. In contrast, a DJ's
vinyl-driven set is low-tech, improvised on the spot in response to the crowd.
Performers worry about how closely they can duplicate their polished studio
sound, a problem irrelevant to the DJ. When a "live" act is done, their record
waits by the turntables, raw material for the DJ's sonic sculpting. The records
are produced with that end in mind. "Most of the stuff is not made by real
musicians," says Ron D. Core. "The music is created by DJs and engineer-
technicians, people who have the equipment, who know how to operate it, with
the help of a DJ."


	"By practice, even without understanding, it will be made plain; your
body will understand it long before your mind puts words to it. No amount of
understanding without practice will work. It is not necessary that knowledge 
precede experience. Performance will produce knowledge."
	-- Shiva, the Father of Tantra.


	At 1 a.m., Doc Martin arrives at Citrusonic and heads up to the booth
for a shift change with Barry. Avoiding what Doc calls "bad DJ etiquette," he
tucks his crates out of Barry's way. The two exchange backslaps and Barry
hands Doc the headphones, stepping back as Doc looks for a record. Soon he has
a copy of Two Bad Mice's "Hold It Down" on either turntable, and as one copy
plays he cues the other to a different part of the record, and brings that up
with the fader, folding the song's patterns of riffs and breaks back onto
itself. "What I usually do is take the best part of the record and either
extend it or play with it," he says. "There's a lot of different things you
can do with tones and vocals, one record saying one thing, the other record 
saying another, and getting them to speak to each other. It's like making
two records have a conversation."
	Although reserved, somewhat shy when at the record store or in a
restaurant, Doc becomes exuberant when he steps behind the turntables. Tonight
he smiles and moves with the crowd, watching them through the window as he
bounces on his toes at the end of a taut headphone cord that threatens to pull
the mixer onto the floor. Dancers filter upstairs and peer at him from the
door of the booth, watching with admiration. "I didn't know why I came here
tonight until I saw this guy," gushes a boy with wide, black pupils. The
records flow, one into the next, as Doc carries the night along with an 
intuitive sense of what the party needs. The good DJs do this; the best, like 
Doc, deny their own skill to the casual observer by making it look easy.
	"As far as DJs are conce