Raving USA, Summer 1995
Text & pics by Sarah Champion
A version of this article also appeared in i-D magazine

It's raining, but nothing can dampen the euphoria. Green lasers carve a ceiling across the valley and the raindrops caught in the beams form a shower of green glitter. The sounds of half-a-dozen sound systems intermingle. At the top of the ski-slope a Wicker Man burns and as the music gets harder and faster, lightning streaks across the sky. Soaked to the skin, we just keep on dancing, grinning - can this really be happening? And here of all places ...

May 1995: at a skiing and snowmobiling site in Northern Wisconsin, a four-day 'techno camp out' called Even Furthur is going off. A celebration of the Midwest's rave scene. Even Furthur is promoted by Milwaukee's techno label Drop Bass Network. It is the sequel to last year's Furthur, an insane event at which three people were arrested and one of the promoters stripped naked and danced on the speakers throughout the Aphex Twin's entire DJ set.

"For three days and two nights we grabbed freedom in our mouths and held on tightly. We tasted Freedom on our tongues and it was sweet. We swallowed Freedom in our guts and it was warm ... We inhale the scent of Freedom and it made us high. We achieved Freedom together - it filled our bodies and commanded us to dance ..." Even Furthur fanzine

Welcome to the Great Lakes: land of lumber mills, cider farms, cheese castles and tractor mills. Who'd have thought this would be the heartland of America's new guerrilla party underground? After all, this is classic rock territory, where the stations spin Supertramp, Boston, Van Morrison, The Who and Led Zeppelin round the clock.

At last this rock establishment is being challenged, as dance culture finally seeps out of the Chicago/ Detroit rustbelt and into the neighbouring states of Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana.

"I meet people from California and they say, Oh you're still raving, that's such an old thing to do!" a girl with pigtails and a Sesame Street backpack tells me.

Little do they know that what came and went in New York and LA four years ago is revolutionizing Hicksville. Just as acid house began in Manchester and London then spread in America it is now growing from the underground up. For example, in tiny towns along Lake Michigan - Racine, Manitowoc, Oshkosh - you'll find 'dayraves' in municipal parks and 'microraves' for 50-100 people.

Exuberant kids drive for up to 24 hours across several states to party. They bounce up to you and ask you what your name is/ where you're from/ what you're on. Weird deja vu - for a millisecond I'm back at Shelly's in Stoke in 1991 when kids would ride the motorways, dancing in service stations.

The American kids still adopt many of that era's crazes - Altern 8 facemasks, baby's dummies and children's TV kitsch. But it's evolving fast: now they also have pierced lips, nostrils, eyebrows and tongues; tribal tattoos; cyber make-up and punky haircuts. They wear West Coast hip-hop pants, with bikers' chains swinging between belt and back pocket.

Ravin ' USA, May 1995		Photos: Sarah Champion

"In a 'club', if you bump into someone they'd fume - like Hey, don't touch me, I'm beautiful. Here it's like, Touch me, I'm beautiful and so are you," a Milwaukee raver.

Musically, the Midwest scene is one of extremes. St Louis is positively 'fluffy' thanks to the Superstars Of Love. They're into silver, glitter, disco kitsch and parties called 'Roller Boogie Rave Baby'. This is totally at odds with Milwaukee's Drop Bass Network, purveyors of hard acid, breakbeat, driving German techno and gabba.

At Even Furthur, the lights are minimal, almost sinister, while DJs like NYC's Frankie Bones spin unrelenting hard and heavy tunes. The rhythms are like gunshots, each beat a bullet, blowing away your body bit by bit until it feels like you're completely invisible. Lost in music.

This is what it's about. The party has been going so long in Europe that maybe we've forgotten what it's like to go that far out. In the Midwest they actually head-bang to techno and naturally techno-cover versions of Black Sabbath have proved popular . . .

Even more mental, they suicidally press themselves against the speakers all night long. "You can't get any more into the music than when it's three inches from your face!" says Kurt from Drop Bass. "In Canada or New York everyone is 20 feet from them. You come here and the kids are totally get into being part of the speakers.

"We pride ourselves in massive, super-soundsystems. We like to make it so that the sound is load and heavy whether you're right next to the speakers or in the other room!"

The Midwest scene is about going furthur. "Musically, beat and melody communicate much more immediately than language and lyrics," someone enthuses. "That's why techno is getting massive, it takes you on an emotional journey, hits you in the gut and carries you."

Aided by chemicals, UFO sightings at parties are another quirk and around Even Furthur's campfires abduction stories are traded . Little green men are a big influence on the American rave scene, inspiring stickers, shirts and hats from posses like Liquid Sky, Shwa and Alien Workshop.

Going Further, May '95		Photos: Sarah Champion

Like metal and UFO's, cars are another unique ingredient. A bunch of kids cruise the parking lot in a white Cadillac - red leather seats, windows down, techno pumping. Cool or what? As they have done in the parking lots of Grateful Dead (RIP) gigs for years, they tailgate ie open up their car's boot and party out of the back. Amid ecstatic dancers at a Wisconsin "dayrave" with sound systems nestling in glades of trees you'll find kids having barbecues.

As your pockets fill with cyberdelic flyers for event all over the States, you begin to realize that things really are changing here. There's 'Wicked' in Denver; 'Family Affair' in Ohio; 'Real Non Stop' in Indianapolis; and '2001: A Bass Odyssey' in Chicago. Nowhere is sacred, not even the country backwater - there's 'Penetration' in Memphis and 'Sunshine" in Nashville.

By a campfire on the hill, a bunch of guys drink beers. One is self-confessed hick, "born in Kentucky; brought up on AC/DC, Marlboro, Bud and truck". This is his first rave and he's digging it. There are frat-boys, cheerleaders and lowlife casino dealers too and they're all getting the vibe.

"The thing I liked most about the event was the constant presence of techno," someone wrote on the internet later. "Everywhere you went and everything you did, you heard and felt the bass of the music. When i roasted my hot dog, I heard techno; when I jumped on the trampoline, I heard techno; when I used the portaloo, I heard techno.

"When I finally went to sleep in the back seat of my friend's car, I felt the bass of jungle vibrating the windows. It was as if techno had become the theme music to our lives. When I finally got home, I really missed it."

Techno is the new soundtrack to American teen culture

RAVIN' USA GLOSSARY 1995 X: Ecstasy Xing: Taking ecstasy Dosed: Tripping on LSD" Are you rollin'?: Are you coming up? MicroRave: Small party of 50-100 people DayRave: Daytime free party in local park Balloon: Nitrous oxide Nitrous oxide: Laughing gas Pacifier: dummy Tailgating: partying out of your car trunk Mountain Dew: high-caffeine soda drink