its easy to get caught up in the simple fact that we never get to see this stuff (although there are some dvd's being sold on ebay that are supposedly the shit), but after the q&a i got the distinct vibe that the filmmakers were 'club scene' dudes that wanted to make a film and thought this would be a great subject for them, rather than serious devotees of the music and the garage who felt a doc needed to be made, you know what i mean?
personally, i would never make a film about the garage unless i could show people - and the actual audio of that footage is essential to this - what it was really like. i thought these filmmakers failed miserably in this.
― heywood jablomi (heywood), Tuesday, 30 August 2005 19:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― heywood jablomi (heywood), Tuesday, 30 August 2005 19:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 30 August 2005 19:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 30 August 2005 19:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 30 August 2005 20:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 30 August 2005 20:04 (eighteen years ago) link
I enjoyed this a lot.
― sleep (sleep), Tuesday, 30 August 2005 20:30 (eighteen years ago) link
I don't think his parties are invite only. If you have any contact to him, call and ask.
― Confounded (Confounded), Tuesday, 30 August 2005 20:35 (eighteen years ago) link
'small town ecstasy' is a fucking trainwreck. how can you enjoy that?the producers and director of that were snooping around my outer circle of friends, making inappropriate suggestions (like asking a good friend if she'd take e with her mother) and generally looking to create the most sensationalist story they could. the fact that they found some moronic sucker to go for it pains me.
and who can forget the rave episode of Beverly Hils 90210? anybody got an egg?
― heywood jablomi (heywood), Tuesday, 30 August 2005 20:44 (eighteen years ago) link
Hahahahahahahahahaha....
― arlee, Wednesday, 31 August 2005 01:35 (eighteen years ago) link
― viborg, Wednesday, 31 August 2005 04:41 (eighteen years ago) link
I suppose I would say that the audio during the available video may have been of sub-par quality, but more importantly, as a 1-2 minute slice, it may not have been representative. Even on a recording of a longer duration like Larry Levan Live at the Paradise Garage CD, I'm not sure that it's truly what a night out there would have been like. I really liked hearing "Timewarp" and some of the other classics heard during the film, despite the fact that the video itself might have had Cher's "Take Me Home" or Company B's "Fascinated" (great tracks of course, but which one of the three is more 'important' as a document of Levan's innovation?).
Also, many of the other interviews in Maestro are really excellent, things like when FK talks about AIDS or just the look in Louie Vega's eyes when he's talking about "Go Bang", or the clips at the end of Keith Haring and even Levan himself dancing. It's a flawed film to be sure, but the highlights are priceless.
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 31 August 2005 05:33 (eighteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 31 August 2005 06:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Robin Goad (rgoad), Wednesday, 31 August 2005 06:57 (eighteen years ago) link
human traffic and go, ive never seen but they just sound painful
― ambrose (ambrose), Wednesday, 31 August 2005 10:24 (eighteen years ago) link
Not strictly a film, but IMO the best bit of film about raving is Flowered Up's Weekender video, really dated now but 30 minutes that really sum up 'that time'.
― oats (oats), Wednesday, 31 August 2005 10:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― TastesLikeProgress, Monday, 19 September 2005 05:16 (eighteen years ago) link
"The story of rave outlaw Disco Donnie" is pretty dreadful but kind of realistic (unfortunately)
Somebody should make a movie out of Kureishi's "The black album" - that could be ace.
― Jacob (Jacob), Monday, 19 September 2005 05:37 (eighteen years ago) link
raves are for faggots
you are a faggot
― ESTEBAN BUTTEZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, Monday, 19 September 2005 05:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― CAP STROLL, Monday, 19 September 2005 05:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― ESTEBAN BUTTEZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, Monday, 19 September 2005 05:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― CA PSTROLL, Monday, 19 September 2005 05:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― ESTEBAN BUTTEZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, Monday, 19 September 2005 05:55 (eighteen years ago) link
Duh!
― JOrdan FOrbes (Jordo), Sunday, 30 July 2006 03:21 (seventeen years ago) link
In some ways I think Kids is the best rave movie, even though it only is vaguely related to the rave scene. To me, it accurately portrays the culture you find in New York and various other Northeast clubs/parties (Hartford CT, Nashua NH, Fitchburg MA, etc., etc., etc.)
― Matt Olken (Moodles), Sunday, 30 July 2006 16:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― blunt (blunt), Sunday, 30 July 2006 16:21 (seventeen years ago) link
― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Sunday, 30 July 2006 16:42 (seventeen years ago) link
I'm sorry to say it, but Moodles is right: it's Kids.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9UXgB_R5_U
NASA at Shelter was technically a club night, and not a rave — but it was the epicenter of Rave in America at its time. I lived in Chicago in the 90s—not NYC—and I never saw Kids until probably 2010. Everything about this is correct: the noodly dancing, the barrettes, the superfluous chains, the racial balance, the music, the body language, the lights.
I knew a party kid named Teddy who was the absolute spitting image of this doorman from Kids (who was apparently a real employee at Liquid Sky). There was an all-ages club in Chicago that looked exactly like NASA, down to the caged-in half pipe. I threw a party once with a promoter who stole $1000 from the door, with the help of the bouncer, who was exactly like the bouncer in this scene: Med/Slav guy, seemingly slow in the head. We drank 40s, hopped turnstiles, did whip-its, went swimming in our underwear, and skated.
What Kids gets wrong: there were never sloppy makeout sessions at raves, or rampant fucking and date raping. House parties didn't have shirtless 11-year-olds getting stoned. If Larry Clark and Harmony Korine had toned down some of the debauchery, or made the characters even somewhat likeable, this film would be sweet nostalgia. But as it is, I would probably never want to watch it again. I remember the cute Asian girl with the bleached-blond pixie haircut, but she was never cheering on a Black guy getting beaten half to death with skateboards.
Party Girl is also dead-on correct for what it is. However, it revolves around 'outlaw parties', which were slightly rave-adjacent and appealed to slightly older people (20s vs teens). Party Girl is also a fun, watchable movie (unlike Kids) that I could watch over and over again.
Almost every other rave movie is all wrong, with tight jeans and Big Beat music. Honorable mention is the hilarious Vibrations, from 1996. Maybe someone will make a movie about the mid-90s Rave scene and get it right. Maybe it's already out there, but I just don't know about it.
― Publicradio (3×5), Monday, 26 October 2020 16:49 (three years ago) link
Makeout-wise, I do remember one of my 90s CD etc. store colleagues coming back from Atlanta and reporting that two girls had done that while sitting on his lap at a rave club (didn't use that term but seems about right), and he knew that it was going to be one of his favorite memories ever: maybe he made it up, but didn't seem like that kind of goy, and he wasn't boastful about it, just humble and grateful.Also in the Deep South, there were raves in fields.
― dow, Monday, 26 October 2020 17:06 (three years ago) link
This has reminded me that I have yet to see Beats.
― Noel Emits, Monday, 26 October 2020 18:59 (three years ago) link
Beats FTW. :-)
― stirmonster, Monday, 26 October 2020 19:21 (three years ago) link
what about 'everybody in the place' ? been on my list ...
― Vapor waif (uptown churl), Monday, 26 October 2020 19:27 (three years ago) link
The only film I've ever seen that really captures the experience is EDEN, literally everything else has been trying way too hard. Helps that the soundtrack is absolutely on point as well.
― Matt DC, Monday, 26 October 2020 19:53 (three years ago) link
I was an extra in this, and it was very very bad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaD-NYYe8DU
― Wayne Grotski (symsymsym), Monday, 26 October 2020 20:05 (three years ago) link
Seconded for Beats. The sequence with Plastikman - Spastik is <3
― the article don, Monday, 26 October 2020 20:15 (three years ago) link
I didn't go into this detail in my post 14 years ago, but there was ABSOLUTELY that kind of gross, debauched behavior going on at raves I went to in NYC and elsewhere. There were always groups of thuggish dudes acting badly and doing shitty things. I thought that a lot of stuff in Kids was a wild exaggeration when I first saw it, but realized over time that it was really happening on the margins of the scene.
― Mr. Cacciatore (Moodles), Monday, 26 October 2020 20:28 (three years ago) link
What's the super cheesy movie from the 90s involving electronic music that had a clip that was making the rounds on the Internet a few years back (well maybe close to 10 years ago)? It had a guy in his bed room explaining his overall music and lightshow setup?
― MarkoP, Monday, 26 October 2020 21:19 (three years ago) link
Well... OK Moodles. It was bad at times. I don't think I ever saw a fight break out at a rave, ever. But I had a friend get jacked for his records en route, and another got shot in the leg by a venue owner, and some of the promoters were straight-up gangbangers. Eastern-European gangsters selling 'glass', and shady sexual behavior outside the parties. Chicago kids snuck/broke in to a lot of venues, shoplifted a lot, and had a bad reputation in the Midwest.
Then around 2000, rave culture became 1) outlawed, and 2) extremely low-status — on par with being a Juggalo. I remember mid-90s raves so, so fondly and I wish there was a more positive and accurate representation committed to film.
The LA and SF scenes seemed goofy to me, and crossed over with a lot of Burning Man culture. Chicago and NYC scenes seemed virtually identical.
MarkoP, are you thinking of Vibrations?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEc7O8ChYgs#t=51m20s
― Publicradio (3×5), Monday, 26 October 2020 21:33 (three years ago) link
The clip you're probably thinking of is at 52 minutes.
― Publicradio (3×5), Monday, 26 October 2020 21:34 (three years ago) link
Yes! That's what I was thinking of!
― MarkoP, Monday, 26 October 2020 21:39 (three years ago) link
I remember them fondly too, but there was a lot of shady shit that lurked on the edges that I luckily managed to avoid for the most part.
― Mr. Cacciatore (Moodles), Monday, 26 October 2020 21:48 (three years ago) link
Before Kids there was this George Michael video, which rocked my fucking world when I was 13 and it still does:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaeCnGOaE98
― Publicradio (3×5), Monday, 26 October 2020 23:16 (three years ago) link