From: greg.ipp@rose.com (greg ipp)
Subject: Most Commercial Rave.
Organization: Rose Media Inc, Toronto, Ontario.
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 16:11:13 GMT
X-Gated-By: Usenet <==> RoseMail Gateway (v1.70)


Date Entered: 12-24-92 11:08
Quoted from: alexpace@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Alex L. Pace)
> 
> Wow, I found this on page B-1 of Today's (12-23-92) WALL STREET JOURNAL!
> This one is so well publicized that it is written about BEFORE it happens
> in a conservative newspaper on the other side of the continent.
> 
> _____________________________________________________________________________
> KNOTT'S BERRY SETS HOLIDAY JAM BUT MAYBE IT SHOULD STICK TO JELLY
> By David J. Jefferson -- Staff Reporter for the journal
> 
>         Every trend-setter knows that once something hits the mass market,
> its no longer hip. Take Peter Max. Disco. Junk Bonds.

If this were a 'real' rave, I'd be worried.

>         So the avant-garde may have to give up "raves", huge, all-night
> dance parties.  Because on New Year's Eve, "K-Rave '93", a rave to end all
> raves, will be held at Knott's Berry Farm, the Buena Park, Calif., theme
> park that jelly built.

If raves already are 'huge, all-night dance parties', wouldn't that 
mean they are a commercial success right now?

>         Heretofore, raves have been mostly underground affairs, often held
> illegally in abandoned warehouses and other remote locations, and
> attracting thousands of young people dressed in neo-hippie and faux-gang
> garb.  Rave revelers gyrate to lyricless computerized music called
> "techno", drop amino acid in the form of vitamin-enriched "smart drinks",
> and pop the occasional, illicit "ectasy" tablet.  The atmosphere is equal
> parts '60s psychedelia and '90s urban street culture:  If rocker Grace
> Slick and rapper Marky Mark got their friends together, it would be a rave.

Hey, they forgot to mention the many other drugs you find at raves... 

He makes it sound like a rip-off of the 1960s Tim Leary days.  Why 
can't we ever be given our OWN culture, our OWN identity?  Everything 
is compared to what older generations did yesterday...  

>         That's not at all what you would expect to find at Knott's, which
> for years has shunned raucous New Year's revelry in favor of its
> "Jubilation" evening of contemporary Christian music.  But the devout have
> been fewer in number, and Knott's needed a revenue-booster.
>         The Knott family was uncomfortable with the idea of letting
> teenagers dressed like the Mad Hatter and go-go dancers invade the park,
> but Dan Anderson, the 22 year-old great-grandson of founder Walter Knott
> and a raver himself, convinced them that it could hold a rave sans the
> seedier elements.  "You don't have to worry about dirty lyrics, because
> rave music has no lyrics," says Knott's spokesman Stuart Zanville.

'seedier elements'?  Don't know about elsewhere, but in Toronto, the 
rave scene is dominated by friendly, non-violent people.  This article 
seems to imply that they're attended by large gangs of scummy kids,
all dressed like they came from an Alice in Wonderland show.  And so 
Marky Mark is a raver now... ? huh?

>         Won't a Knott's Berry Farm rave be like a Muzak rendition of "Like
> a Virgin"?  Knott's doesn't think so.  In keeping with the latter-day
> Renaissance Faire flavor of other raves, Knott's will populate the park
> with bizarre street performers: a snake charmer, tribal dancers, atheletes
> on Stairmaster machines, Vegas-style showgirls riding Snoopy floats.
> "We're juxtaposing elements in a surrealistic way,"  says Jeff Langley, a
> one-time collaborator with feminist folk singer Holly Near and now Knott's
> director of entertainment.  He's hoping that "hokey becomes hip."

Just because it will be surrealistic and have street performers does 
NOT mean it will be a legitimate rave.  I don't really bother with 
raves that have highly publicized locations (unless its Chemistry 8). 
Would I go to this one?  No... deffinately not.  Don't call it a rave, 
call it a New Years Eve party with very little style.

>         The hip crowd may show up simply to poke fun.  But Knott's will
> have the last laugh:  Each raver will have paid $27.50 to attend.
> 

Try, 'the hip crowd simply won't show up for that crazy price'.  After 
all, how are the psychotic, seedier elements supposed to pay for it? 
There should be guidelines set up to outline what is, and is not a 
rave.

> _____________________________________________________________________________


Just my opinion... (that article just pissed me off.  Had to say 
SOMETHING about it.)

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