From: pashdown@javelin.sim.es.com (Pete Ashdown)
Subject: Sea-Monkey Love Castle review
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 14:31:34 GMT


Full blown, balls to the wall, we had our "zenith rave" planned for October
10th, when we managed to find a four story building (with basement) in
downtown Salt Lake City.  The "Sea-Monkey Love Castle" was easily our biggest
rave yet, and probably our biggest rave ever.

A friend who owns a clothing shop connected us with the guy who supposedly was
a co-owner of this building.  We managed to strike a reasonable deal and
started to plan things.  Two flyers were sent out, a week after each other.
The first was rather vague and required some thought, but the second was the
standard glitz.  The building required a lot of work.  There was not only an
entire rotten side that needed to be blocked off, but a ton of trash and
garbage that needed to be hauled out.  A lot of painting was required too, but
since it was an old paint company, we had plenty of that lying around.

The basement would be given to two DJ friends of mine.  They had done a techno
club back in February, and even though they had given me the shaft, I didn't
do the same for them.  I rented the sound and the lights, and they just had to
decide what to do with it.  The found a guy who did some rather fantastic
graffiti art with some spray cans.  I had never seen anything like it.  Really
psychedlic images.  Then they had just two lights and a fog machine.  The
minimalistic feeling of the basement really worked well.  Too bad their sound
didn't.  After about an hour of running during the night, the midrange and
highs got really muddy.  I had been down there earlier to check things, and
there was no way they had blown the speakers, but still they were screwed up
somehow.  Thankfully, the guy who did our computer video had some extra
speakers that we were able to replace the bad ones with.

The first floor was fairly empty.  It just required some blocking off and
opening of the rear entry for the main entry.  We also painted the loading
dock where people would come in blue and orange with white stripes.  It looked
100% improved.  I didn't put the large room to any sort of use, but some guys
did later in the night.  They did sort of an acapella chorus that certainly
took me by surprise.

The second floor was the ambient floor.  We cleaned it out, painted it, and
brought in old couches and furniture that we scavenged from "big trash day"
that was happening in a posh section of town.   For lighting, we took several
broken television sets and placed them around the level.  The smartbar and
concessions were also setup on this level as well.  One black light was all
that was needed to finish this off.  In addition, I invited a friend who had
sort of a percussion ensemble art band to come and play.  They did so most of
the night, but nobody really seemed to get off on it.

Third floor was the paint floor.  120 feet of black paper was purchased and we
covered a wall with it.  In the end, people painted all over the black paper
and everywhere else.  We had to repaint the walls when we were done.

Top floor was my floor.  Everything was cleared out and I setup the DJ booth
using an old white door and several display blocks.  For lighting, I used two
helicopters, the laser, and a fantastic liquid light projector.  While we were
working on the building a week before, a friend who does video dances
expressed interest in doing something for us.  Using two 25" monitors on the
top floor, then putting his projection TV on the ambient floor, by running
about 50 feet of cable down the outside of the building, we were able to come
up with a rather impressive video setup.  He then used the mindlight from my
Amiga and the Video Toaster on his Amiga to do some mindblowing effects.  For
the first part of the evening, people would stroll into the mostly empty
floor, ignore the music and just gape at the monitors.  He also mixed in live
video from the dance itself, as well as running around with a camera through
the whole building, then mixing that in as well.  Out of all the work we did,
the video received the most comments.

Eric Pederson (DJ Spaul) from California drove in to see what we were doing as
well as spin a few sets.  What is up with you folks out there?  Use this guy!
He went over like a star here and did some really fine work.  In addition to
Eric, a friend who has a radio show on public radio did a short industrial set
that went over well.  I also let my neighbor who used to DJ in Arizona spin
for a while.  He did some really great booming slow songs.  It was nice to be
able to run around and enjoy the rave for myself rather than being locked in
the booth all night long.  It was also nice to be able to meet, and (ahem)
dance with a certain female.

The cops did arrive.  At about 4:00 AM, the Marriot across the street
complained and they came in.  Due to some smooth talking via my friend Dan,
they just told us to turn down the volume a bit.  Of course we were threatened
with jail if they had to return, but we were more than happy to obliged with
the volume.  What was amazing was the fact that they toured the whole building
before leaving.  There were bottles and cans strewn EVERYWHERE.  I guess they
can't do anything if they come for one reason and find another.

As for the person we rented from, he turned out to be a complete asshole.  He
guest listed a dozen people, then invited another 20 from the bar across the
street.  We found out later that he was down at another place telling people
there was a rave going on his building and people could get in for free.  Our
guest list consisted of about seven people.  It was like the landlord inviting
people to stay at your house, then being rude to your friends.  But he wasn't
the landlord!  We found out mid-day that the real owner didn't even know what
was going on and we were risking him finding out.  This guy was only the
tenant.  If the landlord did find out (and he did find out after the fact)
then we would have been shut down, out about a thousand dollars.  We got our
revenge in the end though, we shafted the asshole his percentage and took
everyone to dinner on it.

Another hitch with the building was the fact that there wasn't any plumbing or
power.  I had to rent portable toilets as well as a mutherfcking HUGE 60KW
generator.  Needless to say, we had more than enough power, but people still
pissed in dark corners.  There were also several rushes on the door.  We
estimated about 50 people (including the 30 due to the asshole) got in for
free.  There was a lot of "licking the stamp" trick as well.  Next time I want
to put collars on people's necks to indicate the fact that they have paid.  I
was down at the door for a brief period helping out, when a guy walked by me.
I grabbed his arm and said "let me see your stamp".  He said, "I've already
been stamped, I'm in the band."  I told him there wasn't any band and he
turned around and walked out.  What I saw was minor in comparison to what
everyone else had to deal with.

John's and his mother's car had their car windows broken by people throwing
bottles out of the top of the building.  Other than that, there weren't any
incidents.  One guy got paint all over his clothes by accident and blamed us.
We gave him $20, then he grabbed another $20 from the cash box and left.

All in all, it was a fantastic rave.  People are still praising it.  One
comment a friend heard a record store on Monday was from someone who had been
living in LA for the past year.  He said he had gone to a lot of raves then,
but he had never seen anything like what we had pulled off.  Needless to say,
I felt 20 feet tall at that point.  It was also very satisfying to see not
only the employees, but the owner of the half-million dollar "new club in
town" show up and join in the dancing multitude on the floor.  Even though it
was such a success, I don't ever want to use that building again.  I don't
know if I'll ever do anything on the same scale either.  Of course, I'll
probably feel different the next time someone brings me a five story building
on a platter.
-- 
		       "I'm Slash man, Slash!" - Slash

DISCLAIMER: My writings have NOTHING to do with my employer.  Keep it that way.
Pete Ashdown    pashdown@slack.sim.es.com    ...uunet!slack.sim.es.com!pashdown
Newsgroups: alt.rave