TIRED A$$ THIRTY-SUMETHIN’ YEAR OLDS AT A RAVE?!?
“Oh boy, here we go again… We’ve just listened to a sales pitch on why we should buy drugs,” commented a thirty-something years old giddy graphic designer wearing an ankle brace and dancing in a corporate logo branded chair. “C’mon. Like… really?”
By this time, Molly and her gang had long arrived at the party. Hell, Molly was on the minds and on the tongues of the many drug-induced patrons long before the party, uh-hmm, rave had started. She and her teeny bopper friends stood everywhere, outdoors in the packed parking lot adjacent potheads hacking lungs to the indoor public restroom urinals sucking on hard candy.
Molly, the nouveau designer heroin chick, had shed her former shell “Tina,” and left it behind stranded in some sadist’s medicine cabinet in a glow stick illuminated hellhole. The new “It” girl with spiked pink hair and dyed midnight roots cropped to the outer edges on both sides of the head, wore a leather pink bustier, soft to the touch pink lace panties and pink furry boots, all in stark contrast to the communicable candy jewelry draped around her hands and tatted neck. And to think the candy ravers had retreated into the caves. She worked two elongated arms that ended with ten acute neon pink fingernails slashing through the air. She wore a frozen visage, but with soft and inviting facial features. A silver chain linked her nose ring to the hole in her left earlobe. This spectacle resembled more cyber-punkish than cyber-raverish. Oh well, so much for the stereotypes.
Outdoors, at midnight, standing in 98 degree heat, a 4Deep family reunion of cast and characters, who by the way, were all over the age of thirty gathered outside a club to enter a party. In line, some random droopy-eyed ephebe rambled surfeits to the sober minded. Indoors, Scott Wozniak’s “Breathe” (Instrumental) reverberated off the walls of the club, while outdoors a line wrapped around the building, with ravers waiting for twenty or more minutes behind a velvet rope just to enter the mind-altering premises.
Once inside the apocalyptic Neverland a feverish buzz of activity blew from ever angle, every corner and every view of the room. Like a playground filled with pseudo-adult kids screaming atop lungs and playing on various swing sets, monkey bars, and curvy slides. The aroma of flesh saturated with addicting substances tickled the nose hairs. Three separate spaces, the bar, the main room, and a patio boldly captured three distinct yet unified sounds. The bar area churned out soul-hacked jackin’ house and EDM gems. Next door, in the main room, funky house danced in the arms of electro that consummated the hazy-oxidized environment. While outdoors drenched in Mother Nature’s perspiration drum & bass, jungle and tribal sounds kicked out atmospheric buzzes. The capacious club contained the correct amount of dance space. However, please be aware of the dizzying strobe light display spinning nearby. Someone could sustain massive injuries by those twirling glow sticks the size of massive dildos. The translucent plastic tubes were everywhere; from the wide-eyed girl selling merchandise at one of the many vending tables in the global bazaar to the lad decked in a chemiluminescence glow from head to toe. The single-use objects came in all colors, shapes and sizes, much like condoms atop a panoply display of heads. WATCH OUT!?! This could either get dangerous or interesting.
“This is not my kind of scene,” observed one house head-a mother of two teenagers. This place equaled Paris’ Can Can, an underground circus minus the singing. An inveterate of motleys; misfits, outcasts, deviants and clones paraded around in linear fashion.
Speaking of fashion -which recalled to mind a bad trip down memory lane, to the local shopping mall to visit one of those “toxic” chain stores where facial piercings and body tats are du jour, and guitars scream from overhead speakers delivering a nauseating thump-several miscues misstepped boundaries . Fashion no-no number one, the crack. Natch, crack came with the territory from a lad swinging glow sticks with baggy pants falling low waistline to girls sporting hip hugging dental floss and not much else. Fashion no-no number two arrived straight from the catwalks of Paris. (Not) Shirtless white boys. Bare chests that have yet to graduate puberty danced in celebration. The trend stolen straight (oops gaily) from the pages of boy-on-boy clubs proved all too distracting. Were these kids hetero, homo, bi or try (curious)? Anyhoo, bird-chest boys, pranced around with curvy-chest girls in fluorescent body paint of designs that ranged from the Mehndi to sloppy. These “happy chains” resembled bad hallucinations of the cult Teletubbies rainbow characters. The third fashion no-no, the cat suit. Please, don’t come dressed as a black cat wearing a black pleather spandex top and matching shorts equipped with a black animal tail, lace leggings and boots on the hottest night of the year. Yes, that goes out to the guy wearing glasses over black cat ears and twirling the glow sticks. Adroit? Yes. Intelligent? No. The fourth fashion no-no, the puerile backpack. Is that Mario from Super Mario Brothers fame strapped to the back of some guy? Wait another minute. Is that the crazy cat from “Alice In Wonderland” with the sharper than a two-edged sword teeth strapped to the back of another guy?
There are so many blacks (males) here,” marveled the thirty-something graphic designer with googly-eyes. “Who would’ve ever thought?”
Guess one shirtless black guy with sculpted pecs thought so because within ten minutes he would grab the “I’m old enough to be your older sister” graphic designer for a “bump and grind” session. Two things are for sure these youngins’ like them older and successful.
Not only were there a significant portion of hip-hoppers turned ravers but a lively mix of Latinos (Mexicans) sprinkled with a dash of Asians. After all, the club sat on Buford Highway the city’s hybrid of cultural explosion. Too bad the youth had no idea what they were listening to.
“It’s the alternative to their house music,” beamed the graphic artist. “They have no clue what this is.” She was correct. The playlist paid no relevance to today’s household famous electronica names; David Guetta, Deadmau5, Skrillex or the Ultra Records Kaskade but to inspiring Chicago house artists. Not that the crowd was unreceptive or unresponsive. The freaked-out youth danced, jumped up and down and head-banged to their parent’s-the first and second generation wave of U.S. ravers -electronic grooves.
“Bro, I should have known by the amount of DJ names listed on the flyer this was a rave,” snickered a thirty-something years old chef who always carries around his security blanket-a bottled beer.
The party consisted of a who’s who in Bro-House. 4Deep veterans DJC and Knoxville, TN’s Kevin Nowell tagging and playing the newly appointed British ambassador of soul, Adele’s “Set Fire To The Rain” to the blue-eyed soul maestro Grant Nelson, alongside Earthtone Soundsystem vets musical fillings in the bar area. The Teamsters Reunion with Nashville’s, DJ Sammie, Georgetown, KY’s, Trevor Lamont and former Chicagoan/California transplant Halo Varga tagging in the main room but it was the solo music set from DJ Lego that brought that sweet symphonic North Side Chicago Jackin’ House sound to the playground.
Windy City’s DJ Lego drugged the hyper-active kids with aggressive beats meets psychedelic melodies. Lego hit a home run, knocked the ball out of the park and kept the hits in the family by playing signature crafted tunes from his hometown base. A dubbie version from former Chicagoan Honey Dijon featuring sliced vocals by resident Chicagoan Dajae titled “Until The Day,” played to a fussy shock. As the beats banged faster the crowd danced harder proving the youngsters like it hard and rough.
Onstage, half- baked and half-dressed girls danced off-count (and not because they were intoxicated) while one sprayed glitter from the platform that would take a week or so to rinse out of curly locs. A fog machine spewed its venom on the victims below on the crowded dance floor. As if the glow sticks weren’t enough the young girls pulled out sparklers and lit the fireworks onstage to the sound of cheers. Was this a fire code violation?
The stroke of 2:30 signaled the time for one tired a$$ thirty-something years old’s departure. Outdoors, one of the county’s finest dressed in blue, sat on a steel beam at the egress. It was one of those nights where the law enforcement turned their protective eye to certain illegal ongoings. Into the thick blanket of heat on the hottest night of the year, the sweating thirty-something years old chef remarked, “It’s time to go home. I can only take so much.”
After all, age ain’t nuthin’ but a number. Right?
Photography by Atlas Clothing
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Tags: Atlanta Georgia, deep house music, DJ Halo Varga, DJ Lego, DJC