Raver & EDM Scene Confessions

Tales of Taboo

Ali Weiss

Society & Culture

4.8 • 725 Ratings

🗓️ 11 October 2021

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I did artist interviews at a camping music festival last month, and it was the first time I’ve ever attended a multi-day rave. Truthfully? It freaked me out. I went to Ultra Music Festival in Miami for 2 years in high school and plenty of concerts and after hours parties since. But the older I get, the more baffled I become by how large-scale electronic music events, specifically engineered for drug usage, sensory overload, and escapism, have become multi-million dollar businesses in countries all over the world.

The age of our anonymous Raver contributors varies from teens to 40s; it’s a mixed bag of traditional folks with corporate jobs, escapees of repressive, sheltered, or painful childhoods, and “misfit” stereotypes of the subculture. Some say the slogan of Peace Love Unity Respect is total delusion, wearing off with the Molly and Acid; others say it’s brought them friends that have become family. Some attend to enrich their lives, others to commemorate deaths. Almost all admit that drugs are a central part of the experience.

While each contributor was asked the same question - are raves productive utopias, or dangerous alternate realities? - their answers, like their backgrounds and motivations, vary greatly. Strap in for a wild trip. (Written submissions start at 16:37, audio submissions at 32:47.)

~ Tales of Taboo is produced and narrated by Ali Weiss. Follow Ali on Instagram & TikTok @aliweissworld. Audio production by Zoe Kuhlkin. Theme song by Chris Stathopolous. Cover photo by Erika Flynn. Cover art by Kristen Montenegro. GOT A SECRET TO GET OFF YOUR CHEST? Share your own confession - or thoughts and feedback - at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The So I attended my first ever camping music festival a couple of weeks ago, and my entire world was rocked.
0:42.6	I was there for work as an artist interviewer. And so, yes, my world was rocked because I got to have really intimate conversations with some DJs
0:48.8	that I have been head over heels obsessed with for years. And I got to watch Closy be like the talented ass hot
0:58.7	ass boss bitch that she is like alone from backstage and that was definitely a moment of holy
1:08.3	shit like I've I've really made something of myself to be here in this position.
1:17.2	But that's not what really like was so earth-shattering for me, as profound as that all was.
1:26.5	This was the first time that I had ever been in a full-blown balls-to-the-wall rave camping
1:37.9	environment rather than being at like, you know, a couple hours of a Brooklyn warehouse party or something in downtown L.A. or like, you know, a couple hours of a Brooklyn warehouse party or something in downtown
1:46.2	L.A. or like, you know, an official gig going to see a DJ, you know, at like a safe venue space,
1:56.3	rather than the Bacchanalia and also kind of free-for-all that comes with camping.
2:06.4	This was literally like eat, sleep, rave, repeat in action, which I had never seen before.
2:14.8	And even though the behavior was really tame by festival standards, it shook me.
2:23.3	More than that, it shocked me. And it made me think critically about rave culture in ways that I hadn't before. And when I came home, I fell in to the most
2:40.7	insane research hole. I'm prone to doing this. I'm known to be somebody who experiences something
2:47.0	or learns about something or reads about something, watches something, and then falls into this
2:50.5	research hole that is all consuming. And when I say that this one was all
2:54.0	consuming, I mean it was all consuming. I immediately watched like every available documentary,
3:00.4	the Evichi documentary, Swedish House Mafia, under the electric sky. Yes, I know that I'm
3:06.8	late to a lot of these, docks, but I feverishly
3:11.5	watch them and I would regularly stay up until three o'clock in the morning watching
3:18.2	YouTube compilations of 20 years of EDC promo videos.
	...

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