A Rave Grows In Brooklyn

I have to admit I'm a bit of a dork. I think it's because I come late to everything. It's not something I try to do; it just happens. Music, televison, fashion, whatever. You name it and I'm a step behind. And raving and happy hardcore were no exceptions.

In 1998 my really cool friend at the time (well, she was more like a friend of a friend) lent me her Happy2bHardcore Chapter 3 cassette tape. From the first note in Unique's "Distant Skies" to the last loop of "gotta to be hard cuz I'm here to set it off" I was hooked. I bought the first 3 chapters on CD, started wearing UFOs and t-shirts with eighties cartoon logos on them, strung up some homemade candy bracelets, and followed that cool friend of a friend to my first rave.

I quickly realized I was late to the party on this one too. By the time H2bH4 came out the same cancer called capitalism that had killed another utopian movement 30 years ago, the hippie movement, was now attacking the rave movement. Overnight everything rave became big business. More and more kids were donning big pants and candy bracelets and pacifiers, having no idea of its significance. Tickets for massives that used to be bought through small outlets were now sold through Ticketmaster. Movies like Go and Groove were hastily put together and spit out as representations of the scene. News shows like 20/20 and Dateline were going undercover at raves to show parents what those pacifiers were really for.

Then in a flash it was all gone. The ‘crescent,’ (as an ‘expert’ in a Rolling Stone article called it) an area starting around Maryland that ran through Philadelphia and Jersey up to New England, once vibrant with parties, was now indefinitely comatose. Over the beginning of the 21st century the patient slowly came back to life, city by city, party by party. But my beloved happy hardcore was nowhere to be found.

That is, until about 2 years ago when I heard about this new all hardcore party being thrown every few months in Brooklyn NY called Candyball. 

 

Of course I came late to Candyball also; I wouldn’t make it to Brooklyn until Candyball 5 in July.  By then, and thanks to Smoke, I was officially spinning HHC and trying to make a name for myself, so the trip was more business than pleasure.  I paid cover for 2 of my friends to come with me from Philly to Brooklyn and help me hand out demos.  Pretty soon I fell victim to their vacation schedules and before I knew it was back home in Philly. 

 

By the time CB6 rolled around I had one fan stompin’ for me in the forums, and I invited her up to Brooklyn with me.  Her name is Anne and she’s a self-proclaimed “raver dork” who passes her time by trading candy bracelets and rave posters around the world.  I had to work Halloween and I was hoping to fit a disco nap in before driving up but she arrived to the house early.      

 

I had shed all things candy years ago and asked Anne to come with a few things I could wear.  She took her backpack off and pulled out a pair of kwikwear and what looked like a seatbelt packed with candy.  She looked up at me with her exotic eyes and wild brown hair. 

 

“I’ve also got a hello kitty backpack in the car if you want it.”

 

“I think this will do,” I said. 

 

A few hours later I found myself in her candy and kwikwear.  She wore a sexy nurse’s outfit, with red and white stripes, red fishnets, and a medical cross across her chest.  Then she pulled out her shoes for the evening: boots with about an inch of coil springs attached to the soles.  “They’re so I can bounce higher than everyone else.”

 

By the time we arrived in Brooklyn Candyball had sold out and the line stretched from Club Exit’s door to the McDonald’s at the corner of Greenpoint and Manhattan.  One kid had his arms covered in candy up to his elbows, wore candy chokers around his neck, and had a rainbow of fake dreads creeping out from under his hat.  A few of the McDonald patrons, while chewing greasy fries and drinking Coke, stared at him through the window. 

 

“Yes darling,” he said while slowly turning once or twice, “keep staring; I am gorgeous.”

 

I realized that Halloween is the perfect time for candy raves.  Like their hippie predecessors, candykids are in the act of constantly declaring themselves in public, and Halloween’s atmosphere of costume allows this act to occur with little disruption.

 

Once inside we walked up the stairs and through a hall that had an artist at work.  He had already painted a Statue of Liberty with a skeleton face that read ‘Vote or Die’ above it and hung on the wall facing him.  Then we turned and the hall opened up to the main dance floor.  We jumped around a bit to Tranzit and Squeak while the club filled up.  Anne jumped carefully in her spring-loaded boots. 

 

Then we went into a room off of the main floor filled with couches and coffee tables.  From here on in Anne became the First Lady of Candyland, holding my introverted hand as she introduced me to kids she traded candy with online and met new candykids for the first time.

 

Then Leela, one of Anne’s favorite DJs and a main reason she came to CB6, started her set.  We raced back out onto the main floor and danced our candy asses off.  We went upstairs to the “assorted genres” room to listen to Everybody’s Daddy, then came back down to hear Crackerjack and Dupont (2 of my faves) and MC Casper’s rhymes. 

 

During all of this local talent like Starkiss, Flyin’ Brian & Auratika circulated cds, and we met more and more kids.  One couple who the First Lady already knew came dressed as cyborgs, complete with black and blue day-glo tubes that appeared to grow out of their heads.  We met more sexy nurses, angels and devils, French maids, pirates, a few Alexes from A Clockwork Orange, and a Mario and a Luigi, all having added at least a forearm or two worth’s of multi-colored candy bracelets to their costumes.

 

In meeting kids I was impressed with the queer element at Candyball.  It’s an element I thought strong when I first was in the scene and suffered as the scene did over the last 10 years, but here it was again in full-force.  A few queens wore the scary Heath-Ledger-as-The-Joker make-up.  One even combined that make-up with a sexy nurse’s outfit.  Another kid sported a full beard while wearing a tutu.    

 

Then S3rl took the decks and we started dancing again.  He laid down “Pretty Rave Girl.”  I was so impressed by his set and that song that I bought his Weekend vinyl a few days later.

 

We walked up to the bar overlooking the main dance floor.  There the First Lady and I met a guy wearing a black Adidas outfit and silver mask.  He was popping (I think?) to the hardcore.  He wore white gloves and held his hand out.  Anne hit it and he went through a serious of quick movements, then looked like a windup toy as he moved a few feet back and forward again.  We both gave him candy and returned to the second room upstairs. 

 

The harder side of hardcore played now—the DJ’s name escapes me right now—and we reunited with the cyborgs.  I noticed the Joker nurse sitting on another couch.  I was so impressed with his outfit that I walked over to him and, with no words exchanged, extended my forearms to display Anne’s candy.  He picked a bracelet for me from his forearm and gave it to me, and I did the same for him.

 

I left the First Lady for a little while and returned to the bar.  By then S3rl was hanging out.  I told him I enjoyed his set and he gave me some sort of ultra-masculine hand shake that I failed to reciprocate correctly and I offered him candy.

 

“I don’t have any candy to give to you,” he said in his Australian accent. 

 

“No problem,” I told him, “it’s not my candy.” 

 

Lethal Theory took over the decks with MC Enemy on the mic and I watched the main floor from above.  By now the floor was packed.  I could feel the sweat of hundreds of bodies hanging in the air.  I looked out at a rainbow of wigs, of candy bracelets and chokers and necklaces, all the different costumes, Mario and Luigi, the bearded tutu, the queen who modeled his candy costume to the McDonald onlookers, all raising their hands in the air, arms outstretched covered in candy, jumping in unified chaos to Lethal Theory.  The same cancer that had killed the hippie movement couldn’t kill this one.  This movement, a movement that in its infancy spit in the face of its parents’ materialism and in its adolescence gave birth to candy culture in America, was left for the dead in the late 90s but slowly resurrected itself, intent on keeping its principle of inclusiveness.  Below me I saw a space for the marginalized, the left-out, the invisible, to express themselves freely, a space that would continue to exist long after Halloween ended. 

 

I wanted to dance but the lack of disco nap was taking its toll.  The First Lady of Candyland was having problems as well.  “I think my feet might be bleeding,” she said after coming back downstairs to the bar.  “I’m not sure I thought my footwear through.”  So after the headlining set ended, we headed back to Philadelphia. 

 

A few days later I saw a picture on raversonly.com showing Pikey’s final set with Lethal Theory sharing the stage.  I was a little disappointed we couldn’t stay until then but after thinking about it knew there would be more moments like that to come.  Considering the top-notch venue, the talent both local and international, the kids jumping from all walks of life, and the army of RO volunteers making Candyball happen, this rave in Brooklyn will just keep growing.