Dark Side of the 90's S3 Episode 10 - Rave Culture - Under the Influence
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00We need to stop the raves.
00:07It's not a safe place for your kids.
00:09In the 90s, what many young people craved is an all-night music and drug-fueled rave.
00:15Everything about it was a middle finger to authority.
00:19Until all these good vibes.
00:21Raves celebrated hedonism and pleasure.
00:25Provoked authorities to harsh the partygoers' buzz.
00:28I think that made politicians uncomfortable.
00:31It made parents uncomfortable.
00:33Bull does it down.
00:35The government cracks down.
00:36They've made Exit Seattle look like it was crack.
00:39The biggest fear is that one of these parties will turn tragic.
00:42Promoters are scared to death for fear of getting raided.
00:45Criminals prey on fun-seeking ravers.
00:48These guys came to kill me.
00:50Straight-up mafia style.
00:52And the bright, naive promise of the rave movement.
00:54People just letting their freak flag fly.
00:57Gets twisted into something darker and more sinister.
01:00It was exactly the opposite of peace, love, unity, and respect.
01:05♪♪
01:26Young adults and teens, many of them underage,
01:29find their way into this secret world.
01:33Take a look at what makes kids crave the rave.
01:36In the 90s, America's getting turned on
01:39to a new kind of midnight-to-past-sun-up party.
01:43Sometimes outdoors, sometimes in warehouses.
01:47Typically illegal.
01:48It's about the lights. It's about the atmosphere.
01:51Raves deliver the opportunity for sex.
01:54It's a pretty hedonistic environment.
01:56Mood-enhancing drugs.
01:57Without ecstasy, this would have never happened the way it did.
02:00Impossible.
02:01And an innovative musical soundtrack.
02:05The dance music is just a catalyst for all these things.
02:08It becomes an ideal setting for young people
02:11seeking an alternative to mainstream conformity.
02:14The early raves were like the Noah's Ark
02:17of every kid that didn't really fit in in high school.
02:20Everybody thinks that we just do drugs here.
02:23It's not for the drugs, really. It's for, you know, together.
02:27I do think that raves felt a bit transgressive.
02:31They were a reaction to what was going on in the broader culture.
02:38So tell me, is this a lifestyle or just a moment in time?
02:41It's a lifestyle and a moment in time.
02:45But this lifestyle's moment in time
02:47can be traced back to an innovation in the early 1980s.
02:51Introducing the world's most advanced rhythm machine,
02:54the Roland TR-808.
02:57Roland's user-friendly electronic drum machine
03:00helps launch a revolution in contemporary music.
03:03So-called house music was first made in the creators' houses,
03:07but it was also performed at clubs called the Warehouse and Powerhouse.
03:10Wannabe music producers now have a cheap and easy way
03:13to produce electronic music,
03:15and it quickly takes over makeshift dance venues in cities like Chicago.
03:18They started playing house music at this Michigan Avenue hotel
03:21and helped a black bummer, and they've been packing them in ever since.
03:24Around the same time, techno music begins in Detroit.
03:28I'm Michelangelo Matos. I'm the author of
03:30The Underground Is Massive, How Electronic Dance Music Conquered America.
03:36On the one hand, you've got song-based house music
03:40with women singing powerfully over it.
03:45And then on the other, there's this sort of synth-heavy,
03:49non-vocal, sample-heavy techno music.
03:55But the creation of house and techno
03:58was only half of Rave's origin story.
04:00The other is how a mood-lifting pharmaceutical known as MDMA
04:04finds its way into U.S. nightclubs.
04:07If you want to start back in 1914, that's when MDMA was patented.
04:13I'm Julie Holland. I'm a psychiatrist, and in the 90s,
04:17I was a medical student, and then I was a resident at Mount Sinai Hospital.
04:22Also, I was going to raves.
04:25Alexander Shulgin is a chemist who, in the 70s,
04:29was really interested in various psychedelics.
04:32He had been testing on himself, and he felt like MDMA
04:36would be really useful for processing trauma.
04:39It turned out to be particularly good for couples therapy.
04:44It creates this enormous sense of empathy,
04:47like your worst enemies are now your best friends.
04:52My name is Frank Owen, and in the 1990s,
04:57I became an investigative reporter
05:00probing the dark underbelly of club culture.
05:04It was like a year's worth of therapy and a pill.
05:07And so that leads to an idea that if everybody takes it,
05:11then everybody will be on the same wavelength.
05:14Everybody will love each other.
05:16And who doesn't want to love each other?
05:18MDMA's promise to spread good feelings helps drive recreational demand,
05:22and production of the drug ramps up to meet it.
05:25MDMA also gets a street rebrand.
05:28The drug is now referred to as ecstasy.
05:31People were dancing all night and taking this drug.
05:33They were buying it with credit cards.
05:35They were even being charged, like, sales tax.
05:38And so more and more people were taking this drug,
05:40which was not yet illegal.
05:42Good evening.
05:43But in the early 80s, some grown-ups want to stop the fun.
05:46Drugs are menacing our society.
05:48They're threatening our values and undercutting our institutions.
05:52And when it comes to drugs and alcohol, just say no.
05:56Good morning.
05:57The DEA responds with emergency scheduling hearings
05:59to determine the legal fate of a popular new party drug.
06:03MDMA, or by the street name ecstasy,
06:07under emergency controls in Schedule 1.
06:10The DEA's own administrative law judge thought it should be in Schedule 3.
06:15That would mean that research could be done,
06:17but people couldn't use it recreationally.
06:19And the DEA basically said, you know, thank you for your advice,
06:23but we're just going to keep it in Schedule 1.
06:26Schedule 1 means MDMA is now classified, like LSD and heroin,
06:30as a drug with high potential for abuse.
06:33The only thing that making it illegal did was stymie clinical research.
06:38They didn't really stop any recreational use.
06:41Especially with the crowd in the 80s most attracted to house music.
06:45House music becomes very popular with older, blacker,
06:49Hispanic crowds and gay crowds.
06:52House music becomes very entrenched in the gay dance scene.
06:56In 1986, at New York's famous Paradise Garage,
06:59Frank Owen gets his first taste of combining house music and ecstasy.
07:06It was like nothing I'd ever experienced before.
07:11It was the combination of music, drugs, the sense of acceptance,
07:15the sense of community.
07:17I'm this white blimey with long hair,
07:20and they were like, as long as you're here to dance, you're welcome.
07:23And that was what I fell in love with.
07:27But this precursor for rave culture remains underground in the U.S.,
07:31in part because of 1980s homophobia, fueled by the AIDS crisis.
07:36For the longest time, ecstasy continued to be a gay drug.
07:40Straight boys didn't take ecstasy because they thought it would turn you gay.
07:44Basically, that was the rumor, right?
07:47But house music-loving Europeans don't just like ecstasy.
07:51House music-loving Europeans don't share these stereotypes.
07:55That music begins to get popular in Europe in the mid to late 80s.
08:02In 1987, a number of British DJs go to the island of Ibiza,
08:07and they encounter a DJ named Alfredo,
08:11who is playing in an open-air all-night club called Amnesia.
08:16And these DJs take MDMA.
08:22And they dance all night to this music.
08:26The MDMA opens them up and becomes a sort of bonding agent with the music.
08:34When these DJs return home, they start throwing parties,
08:37openly advertising the music and ecstasy to attract crowds.
08:42You don't need to take ecstasy to understand the music,
08:45but if you did a good pill of MDMA, and in those days it was medical grade,
08:49and then with this music, it just locks you in.
08:53All right, what's up? My name is DJ Frankie Bones from Brooklyn, New York City,
08:57original rave pioneer of rave culture in America,
09:00and here we are, we're going to discuss a few things.
09:07You get locked into the groove, and people would just dance all night long.
09:12Almost like it was manufactured, in a sense, to start this huge thing called rave.
09:16In Britain, suffering from a severe economic downturn,
09:19young people gravitate to this new kind of party
09:22that can be enjoyed with only a decent pair of dancing shoes
09:25and the purchase of some low-cost MDMA.
09:28It becomes pop culture within a year.
09:31All of a sudden, everybody wants to dance all night to this crazy, minimalist music,
09:37while rolling on MDMA.
09:41And it transformed youth culture practically overnight in Britain.
09:47What starts in established nightclubs quickly spreads to almost any place
09:50that can power a massive sound system and accommodate a large group of people.
09:55Sometimes outdoors, sometimes in warehouses.
09:58It was very anti-authoritarian.
10:02It was happening in illegal spaces. It was mysterious.
10:06Even the music was breaking the rules of what music was supposed to sound like.
10:11These renegade parties evolve a new name, raves,
10:15and the social movement becomes so widespread that by 1988 and 89,
10:20the MDMA-fueled phenomenon is dubbed the second summer of love.
10:25And that's the culture that really takes off in Britain.
10:28Instead of going out to the pub on a Friday night, you go to a rave.
10:34And they become huge, 20,000 people going to these things.
10:39And it was amazing. If you look at videos of the UK in 89,
10:43people are having the time of their lives, you know?
10:52And soon, DJs and producers in the US making house music
10:56are getting calls from their counterparts across the pond.
11:00Me and Tommy Musso, we were a group called Musso and Bones for a little while.
11:04And probably around May or June of 1989, we get a phone call from an agency in London
11:10asking if Tommy and me want to come over there to DJ these things called raves.
11:14And, you know, we want to bring you over to play in August when you guys want to come over.
11:18So we were like, hell yeah.
11:22And it was like the first time two American guys were playing at one of these events, right?
11:27And we became really big really fast in the UK.
11:32So I basically was going to London once a month for the rest of that year.
11:37But it's his trip in September that is most memorable.
11:41You have 20,000 people in cars trying to get to this aircraft hangar in Ipswich, right?
11:46The cops were trying to stop this event from happening.
11:49The police had it all blocked off, but over a period of five hours,
11:53we had to turn the car around on country roads.
11:55You'd be like on a one-lane, you know, country road,
11:58and then somebody would be out of the cars telling you,
12:00you've got to turn around and go back this way.
12:02It was like a wild goose chase to get to this place.
12:04It's during this rave road trip that Frankie first tries Ecstasy.
12:09We're on some country road with dead traffic. Nobody's moving.
12:12And, you know, this is like in the early days of Ecstasy.
12:15I heard about Ecstasy. I didn't know what it was. I had not tried it yet.
12:19Did like my first pill.
12:22And then playing from neighboring cars,
12:24Frankie experiences what it's like to hear house music while on MDMA.
12:28But not just any house music.
12:30I had my one song coming out of one car.
12:33And another song coming out of another car.
12:36And, like, to have this kind of experience where you're in a foreign country,
12:40you're somewhere, you know, that you never thought you would be,
12:43and your music's coming out of two different cars at the same time.
12:46I mean, I kind of melted down in the back of this car.
12:54Frankie finally arrives at the rave near daybreak.
12:58It was one of the most awesome experiences of my life
13:00because when you're in, like, an aircraft hangar with 17,000 people,
13:04it was all love, and it was black and white and everything under the sun,
13:09and it was all about the music. And, wow, it was just amazing.
13:14And he's inspired to bring that experience back to the States.
13:17Nobody in America knew what rave was.
13:19And rave became like my calling, really.
13:24And as the 90s begin, he's not alone.
13:27Rave will become a hot new product.
13:29But the utopian ideals of the movement will prove to have a short shelf life.
13:35I thought that ecstasy and dance music would change the world, you know?
13:39But what it ended up as was exactly the opposite of peace, love, unity and respect.
13:47Here are a few of 1990s pop chart toppers.
13:51As the 90s begin, teens in the U.S. are craving something new.
13:56Pop culture by the late 80s is just turgid.
14:00You turn on the radio and it's just, like, Paula Abdul and power ballads.
14:05Alternative rock hadn't really blown up. Hip-hop was only beginning to blow up.
14:10And dance music was, like, the other thing that was really active and interesting at that point.
14:16So when young urban Americans learn their counterparts in the U.K.
14:20are commandeering buildings to throw unauthorized music and drug-powered parties, they're like, sign us up.
14:29In terms of warehouse raves, in terms of breaking into a building, that really starts to happen in 89.
14:37And it starts to happen kind of simultaneously on the East and West Coast.
14:42L.A. is, from the beginning, the biggest scene.
14:45L.A. had two things. It had a bunch of British expats who were traveling back and forward to London.
14:53And they had a bunch of warehouses.
14:56And the growing L.A. scene soon books someone they think is a big-name talent from Britain.
15:02I wound up getting a booking in Los Angeles, June 1st, 1990.
15:07When I get off the plane and they hear I have a New York accent, they were like, who are you?
15:11They thought they were duped. I'm like, I'm Frankie Bones.
15:13It's like, wait a minute, aren't you from the U.K.?
15:16If they knew I was from Brooklyn, I would have never got the gig.
15:19Frankie soon learns he's made a deal with young devils in the city of angels.
15:24They taught me how to break into warehouses where you cut the locks off the gate,
15:27you put your own lock on the gate on a Saturday or a Sunday, and you come back Thursday or Friday.
15:32If your lock's still on the gate, you know you can throw a party there because nobody's going to come check up on you.
15:37But back in New York, to attract a crowd to what he'll call Storm Rave, he needs a source for ecstasy.
15:43So Frankie reaches out to folks he met in England.
15:46I met a few people in the U.K. that were very interested in bringing ecstasy to New York.
15:52I'm not a drug dealer in any size, shape or form, but I was like, well, if I can meet with your people, I'll put them on with my people.
16:00I didn't even know who my people were at that point, but I wound up getting like 2,000 pills to start the scene in New York City.
16:07And he was basically the person who introduced ecstasy to straight kids.
16:18When I got that first delivery of ecstasy, we started giving pills to people.
16:23The word just spread really quickly. It just kept doubling in size until we did 5,000 people.
16:28These parties would go to noon the next day, whereas the club traditionally closed at 4 a.m.
16:33We're out there watching the sunrise, you know, looking at the city across the water and just playing this music.
16:41Anybody that came to one of these parties knew something special was going on in 1990 and 91.
16:47In December of 1991, Details publishes a major feature by Legs McNeil about the making of a party.
16:54in L.A. at a water park. And all over the U.S., people read this and that's their blueprint.
17:02By 1993, there was a rave in every city across America, you know, and so the whole country by 93 was raving.
17:10Especially underage teens who have no other place to party.
17:14Rave becomes a thing for kids who can't get into clubs. It's not for adults. It's a DIY kid thing.
17:20So I started going to raves in L.A. when I was 13.
17:26I'm Vivian Host. I also go by DJ StarEyes. I'm a DJ, producer, party promoter, music journalist, podcast host.
17:35And in the 90s, I was raving my balls off.
17:39Of course, you're going to use that one. I'm going to hate it.
17:42Back in the early 90s, it was a lot more complicated to go to a rave than it is now.
17:48I used to go to this coffeehouse with my friend, who was also 13, and there was a guy that worked there that was 19.
17:55And he took us to a rave in an unmarked white van. It's like every parent's nightmare.
18:03I think I was like, oh, I'm going to die.
18:06I think I was kind of freaked out because everybody was older than me.
18:09I was definitely being offered nitrous balloons and all kinds of drugs.
18:16And I think it was a lot darker than what I was expecting. But I kind of wanted more, so I kept going.
18:24Because for young ravers like Vivian, these parties provide more than just house music and ecstasy.
18:29They're a place to feel accepted.
18:31I never felt like I fit in with any of the mainstream dominant culture.
18:37I didn't have the right guest genes. I didn't... all of these things.
18:42I wasn't a popular kid. I didn't play sports. I didn't give a shit about any of that stuff, you know?
18:48And rave was a place where I could, you know, be myself.
18:54I think acceptance of people just letting their freak flag fly and people that are different than you is like a real core tenet of rave culture.
19:08There was an ethos about how you were going to behave at a rave.
19:11You know, there was going to be a certain amount of empathy and respect for each other.
19:15And that comes from the drug that's most associated with it.
19:19As the scene grows, these rave ideals evolve into a formal declaration.
19:24A little bit later on, you started to get the rave values codified into this term called PLUR.
19:30P-L-U-R.
19:32Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace.
19:34Love. Love. Love.
19:36Unity. Unity. Unity.
19:38Respect. Respect.
19:40Peace. Peace. Peace.
19:42Love. Love. Love.
19:44Unity. Unity. Unity.
19:46Respect. Respect.
19:48Respect.
19:51It's just this idea that the rave community is one community. You know, those are the rules. That's the ethos.
19:57And that was the sort of guiding light for a lot of the early 90s parties. It still kind of is the idea.
20:05But not every raver practices what they preach.
20:08This idea of PLUR that everybody was so nice at the rave, like, it wasn't really like that.
20:16There was beautiful times on Ecstasy, but yeah.
20:20There was a lot of creepery in the early 90s, a lot of people taking advantage of other people, a lot of promoters not paying people.
20:32In New York City, it's a new generation of the long-established underworld that'll target the rave scene.
20:38The irony of the rave scene in New York was that it took root among, like, these Italian-American street toughs.
20:46Rave's reliance on the drug Ecstasy draws sharks.
20:50So we start to see the infiltration of the criminal element into the rave scene or into the Ecstasy scene pretty early on,
20:59because they understood that we can make a lot of money out of it.
21:03Especially a club promoter known as Lord Michael Caruso.
21:06Michael Caruso, you know, he was our buddy, my close friend in the beginning.
21:11What happened was, Lord Michael wanted control of the Ecstasy thing in New York.
21:15He wanted to be that guy, and we put him up with our people.
21:18They would come into New York City with pills, they had to bring 10,000 at a time.
21:22I didn't want to be, like, having my people even hanging with that many.
21:27So we let Lord Michael in on our side.
21:29Lord Michael begins promoting a techno club night in Manhattan he calls Future Shock.
21:35This Future Shock thing, it got really big, really quick.
21:39Future Shock draws a crowd that's attracted by the drugs, but is less interested in upholding plur.
21:45It was more like a soccer rave, you know?
21:49You have all these Italian, you know, little weightlifter guys, you know, steroids, and they're all aggressive.
21:54All hugging each other and saying, I love you, man, I love you, right?
22:01Future Shock also introduces Lord Michael to some guys who share his ambitions.
22:06These gangsters start turning up, he forms an alliance with them,
22:11and they start robbing all the Ecstasy dealers.
22:15So they basically take over the Ecstasy trade with violence, gangsterism, kidnappings.
22:20Home invasions.
22:22I mean, they literally terrorize the f*** out of people.
22:27Yeah, at the same time, they put on great shows.
22:31He knew how to throw a great rave, but he was also, at the same time,
22:36you know, basically the Al Capone of raves, you know?
22:40He basically wanted to be king of New York.
22:43And the wannabe king sees Frankie Bones as a threat.
22:46I came home from a storm rave one night.
22:49Four guys, each one took a swing at my head.
22:53These guys came to kill me.
22:59In May of 1992, the free week-long Castle Morton Common Festival and Rave
23:04draws up to 40,000 partygoers in the UK.
23:08And that was really like a wake-up call, I guess, for me.
23:13A wake-up call, I guess, for the British government and the British police.
23:20You know, when your kids are going out every weekend to these raves and doing drugs,
23:24it alarmed the government.
23:26The government responds by passing the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act,
23:30effectively outlawing raves across the country.
23:33If there was more than 20 people dancing in a location,
23:39the police could come shut it down.
23:40It was insane, and you had actually pretty big protests
23:46in the streets against the criminal justice bill.
23:50And all it did was basically push the culture into the nightclubs.
23:54And the scene explodes on a more mainstream level.
23:58In 1992 in the States, raves are still super underground.
24:03And in Lord Michael Caruso's corner of the underground,
24:06this wannabe ecstasy kingpin is running the gangster playbook.
24:10If somebody did put on a rave that coincided with one of these nights,
24:15he would send his goons to beat the promoters up.
24:19There's that famous story about Frankie Bones, right?
24:22I came home from a storm rave one night,
24:25had groceries in my hand in a brown bag,
24:27and four dudes come up right in front of my house.
24:30And I see a guy with a gun, and I see a guy with a baseball bat.
24:33And I get whacked. It was straight-up mafia style.
24:41Four guys, each one took a swing at my head.
24:45A bat, a bat, a pistol whip, and a pistol whip, and they were gone.
24:49My ear was hanging off backwards. It was a mess.
24:53When the police did the report, they were like,
24:56they only hit you in the head, and then they left.
24:58They wanted to kill you. And I'm just like, wow.
25:00This is like, I'm trying to promote a peaceful thing, and this is what happens?
25:04But Frankie won't quit.
25:07We had a party that weekend. I had four holes in my head, like 290 stitches I had.
25:11And I'm still DJing that weekend. I still have scars on my head from it, so.
25:15Worse, he still wrestles with the belief
25:18that he was betrayed by someone he once called a friend.
25:21These guys came to kill me, and they were contracted from Lord Michael,
25:25who to this day would tell me, no, that's not how it went down, Bones.
25:27When Lord Michael's tough-guy empire collapses in the late 90s,
25:31most people forget all about him, but not Frankie.
25:34And, you know, I don't talk to him, but like, you know,
25:37I think I got on the phone with him once, and I said, you know,
25:40the only reason I'm speaking to you right now is because I know what you did,
25:44and you tried to have me killed, and I'm still here talking to you.
25:47So, I'm cool.
25:52Because Georgia's county police are trying to put an end to a deadly crime,
25:55Georgia's county police are trying to put an end to a dangerous craze
25:58before someone gets hurt.
26:00By 1992 and 93, local authorities are finally waking up
26:04to some of the dangers posed by large, clandestine raves.
26:07The biggest fear is that one of these parties will turn tragic,
26:11not unlike the Happyland Social Club fire in New York,
26:14in which 87 people, jammed into a small dance hall,
26:18were killed in a raging inferno.
26:21It introduces us to this very secret world.
26:22The rising popularity of raves prompts local news stories,
26:25which prompts local authorities to take an interest.
26:28And for the first time, Prince George's County shut down a so-called rave party.
26:33But authorities don't really know what's going on at these events.
26:36That ignorance becomes clear when police in Wisconsin finally decide to act.
26:42There's a party that takes place in Milwaukee that happens on Halloween.
26:46It's called Graves.
26:49About a thousand kids go.
26:51And by all accounts, there's lots of MDMA on the premises.
26:57Drugs galore.
27:06The Milwaukee police decide to bust them for underage drinking.
27:13Guns out.
27:15Everybody on the floor.
27:16They zip cuffed 900 kids.
27:19The offense? Aiding and abetting the consumption of alcohol in an unlicensed public setting.
27:24And they arrested 900 kids for drinking, which none of them were doing.
27:29And they all beat the rap.
27:31What the MPD didn't do was find any of the enormous number of drugs on the premises,
27:38because police just had no idea what they were doing.
27:41They didn't know what MDMA was.
27:43When the promoters went back to clean up the warehouse,
27:46they found $10,000 worth of drugs stuffed into the cracks of the walls.
27:53The authorities' obsession with stopping the consumption of alcohol
27:57blinds them to a public health problem in early raves
28:00that they could help solve with some simple education.
28:03The people who are going to take ecstasy and go to raves and dance all night,
28:07they don't want alcohol for the most part.
28:09So they're really only drinking water.
28:10And the bars would sell water, because how else were they going to make their money?
28:14And not everybody had the money for water.
28:16So they'd be dancing for hours and hours and getting overheated and not drinking any water.
28:21And they would often need medical attention because they were having heat stroke.
28:25Plus, Ecstasy Schedule 1 status makes scientific research into its harmful effects all but impossible.
28:32If you don't know what's happening, you can't give any good advice.
28:36You can't give harm reduction information if you don't know what the harms are.
28:40Instead, unfounded speculation about the dangers of ecstasy
28:44dominates mainstream discussions about the drug.
28:48Do you plan on having children? And if so, do you think they're going to come out normal?
28:51I was on a show called Jane Pratt on Lifetime Television in 1993
28:56with some other ravers and DJs and producers.
29:01I was out of medical school.
29:02I was a full-fledged MD.
29:04It does not drain your spinal fluid.
29:06It does not cause Parkinson's.
29:08To the best of our knowledge, it does not cause mutated babies.
29:12As an experienced raver, Dr. Holland becomes an outspoken advocate
29:16for improved harm reduction and drug education about MDMA.
29:20What do you think it's therapeutic? You name it.
29:22I think a lot of reasons.
29:24Pain control, hypnosis, creative visualization, couple therapies.
29:27That was pretty early for MDMA.
29:28I mean, a lot of people had never heard of raves.
29:31They hadn't heard of ecstasy.
29:33Depression, we don't know. We haven't tried.
29:35I'd like to see.
29:37And the lack of more detailed ecstasy research is literally killing people.
29:42It was a mess. It was really a mess.
29:44And people were dying.
29:46Because it turns out it's not just that overheating is a problem with MDMA, with ecstasy.
29:51It was also that overhydrating was a problem.
29:54When teens start dying at raves,
29:55taking too much ecstasy is often blamed,
29:58when the real cause of death is taking too much water.
30:01MDMA causes some water retention.
30:04Like, if you haven't taken MDMA,
30:06you can drink a gallon of water and pee a gallon of water, basically.
30:10If you have taken MDMA, you won't be peeing out a gallon of water,
30:14and you will essentially sort of drown your brain or your lungs
30:18where you've got too much fluid, not enough salt.
30:21And that creates a situation where you can't breathe.
30:23There's too much salt.
30:25And that creates a situation where you get seizures and you can die.
30:28But in the early 90s, the drug is always the problem.
30:32We're losing the war on drugs.
30:34More people are consuming drugs,
30:36more violent crime associated with it,
30:38more drugs coming across our border.
30:41Ravers are left to find their own DIY solutions.
30:44We all kind of had to figure this out for ourselves.
30:46And eventually the message got out,
30:49keep cool, take breaks, don't overheat,
30:53but also don't overhydrate.
30:55Just drink fluids to replace what you're losing from sweating.
30:59I mean, it really had to come from the streets.
31:04But as the 90s go on,
31:06what's coming from the streets will threaten the entire rave scene.
31:09What happened in 94 to 95 was
31:12all the good MDMA started being cut with, like, bad drugs.
31:15And it's hard to pursue peace, love, unity and respect
31:19while you're dying from an unintended drug overdose.
31:21I was walking up this very dark staircase,
31:25and then on either side,
31:27there's just like seven or eight ketamine dealers.
31:30And I was just like, wow, this is,
31:32there are more drug dealers than, like, people in this party?
31:35Like, what's going on?
31:40Tens of thousands of people are camped out
31:42in upstate New York tonight for three days of music.
31:45If the scene sounds familiar, so does the name Woodstock.
31:49The return of Woodstock in 1994
31:52brings a side stage devoted to electronic music called Ravestock.
31:57I played this party,
31:59and it's like an amazing event to be a part of.
32:04This is where they were introducing rave to the masses, pretty much.
32:08And it works.
32:11When we were doing Storm Rave,
32:13the biggest party I did was 5,000 people in 1992.
32:15Then by, like, 94, 95,
32:18there was 10,000 people parties.
32:21Music industry executives suddenly see rave music
32:24as their next big thing.
32:26Alt-Rock is losing steam.
32:28Kurt Cobain has killed himself.
32:30Pearl Jam is shunning the spotlight.
32:32Soundgarden is about to break up.
32:34The music business is ready to push
32:37what they are now calling electronica.
32:40Electronic music producers quickly become industry superstars
32:43in part because their music has other profitable commercial applications.
32:47It's the perfect music to sell crap to, right?
32:50Because essentially it's soundtrack music, you know what I mean?
32:53So fashion shows, advertising, Hollywood movies,
32:56that's the way it becomes mainstream.
32:58But nothing kills a cool underground scene
33:01like being accused of selling out,
33:03and God forbid, becoming popular.
33:06But when the San Diego Convention Center
33:08hosts the underground party scene,
33:10rave is mainstream.
33:11The capitalism part of it was always there,
33:14but bit by bit,
33:16it starts to become more about
33:19the money and the big business.
33:22You're happy to hippie, you're happy to punk.
33:24I mean, it's like, it gets co-opted, right?
33:26It's not that it's a good or bad thing,
33:29it's just the natural process of
33:31how an underground culture becomes part of the mainstream.
33:35Even the drug dealers, you know what I mean?
33:37They start off, like, just selling drugs,
33:39to their friends or whatever,
33:41and then they don't care what kind of drugs they're selling,
33:43because they're just trying to, like, make a quick buck.
33:46And the fastest way to make more money
33:48is to charge the same for a lower quality product.
33:51As more people heard about ecstasy and raves,
33:55more people were interested in trying the drug.
33:58And unfortunately, what happens when demand outstrips supply
34:03is that you start getting counterfeit products.
34:06And the more popular the drug became,
34:07the more you just didn't know what you were buying.
34:11Starting in the mid-90s, pills being sold as ecstasy
34:15could no longer be trusted to contain much, if any, MDMA.
34:20Other things infiltrate.
34:22A lot of MDMA got cut with speed.
34:25And that's kind of a real party killer, too.
34:27Like, people are just speeding out of their skulls
34:30and it becomes much more aggro and macho
34:33and not as loving and not as fun.
34:36A lot more sneering, a lot less hugs.
34:39The lack of reliable ecstasy also leads many ravers
34:43to experiment with other ways of getting high.
34:46Drugs are baked into this thing.
34:48And what happens over time is that it stops just being about,
34:52you know, MDMA as a bonding agent
34:54and just starts to be kind of a free-for-all.
34:57So you start seeing people, like, say, doing ecstasy,
35:00but also combining it with cocaine.
35:01Or crystal meth.
35:03Or GHB.
35:05Or Special K.
35:07Or even heroin.
35:12People start experimenting with all sorts of chemicals
35:17and it creates these very unpredictable cross-reactions
35:21which completely changes the mood of the scene.
35:26One of the darkest parts of Rave was, like,
35:28how many people have OD'd or died
35:32or, like, had really bad drug experiences.
35:36I had a problem with stepping over the bodies of 16-year-olds
35:40freaking high on K.
35:42You know what I mean?
35:44People were dying.
35:46It's no good. It wasn't good.
35:49I can't lie.
35:51It's, like, a huge part of the culture
35:53and something that we've all experienced for ourselves
35:55or, like, seen other people go through, you know?
36:02By the late 90s, bad drugs and bad behavior
36:05are causing the Rave scene to buckle under its own weight.
36:09Fifteen people were hospitalized after overdosing on the drug G.
36:13And G poses an additional risk for young women.
36:16Men slip them this lethal elixir as the newest date-rape drug.
36:20Like, there's only so many years of this
36:22that you can, like, endure.
36:24By around 99, 2000,
36:28that's when it was just, like, I don't know.
36:31Like, way more parties sucked and were sketchy than were good.
36:37To see this world for ourselves,
36:392020 attended some Raves with a hidden camera.
36:42Media concern about the dangers of drug use at Raves gains momentum.
36:47We didn't even get near the door
36:49before we were approached to buy drugs.
36:51Want some X?
36:53Then comes the disastrous return of Woodstock in 1999.
36:58Though Woodstock is a mainstream rock concert,
37:01Rave music is now embedded into the event.
37:05But unlike the peaceful version five years earlier,
37:08this 30th anniversary festival descends into chaos.
37:14It's plagued by inadequate facilities,
37:17a lack of security leads to riots,
37:19multiple reported sexual assaults and four deaths.
37:24For those already eyeing Raves with suspicion,
37:27its association with the Woodstock disaster confirms their worst fears.
37:32We're fortunate this morning to have with us one of our allies
37:35in the law enforcement aspect of the club drugs.
37:39Raves and so-called club drugs draw the attention of the DEA.
37:43Law enforcement are convinced
37:46that the only reason people go to Raves is for drugs
37:50and that the only reason people put on Raves is to sell drugs.
37:54Ecstasy is dangerous,
37:56and dangerous people are trying to convince our children to use it.
38:01Ecstasy, the peace and love drug
38:03that helped launch the Rave movement,
38:05is specifically singled out,
38:07despite possibly being the least dangerous drug
38:09being consumed at the event.
38:11More than 50 people could face criminal charges today
38:13after a weekend Rave.
38:15In 2000, federal authorities cracked down hard
38:18on the already declining Rave scene.
38:20Like someone sends out a memo to all the police
38:23and is like, America's youth is being destroyed.
38:26We have to crack down on these things.
38:28This becomes a focus of like the whole US police force.
38:34Raves also draw the attention of a future president
38:37determined to turn on the lights,
38:39end the party and send the kids home.
38:41Arrest the promoter.
38:43Find a rationale.
38:45Unrelated to drugs.
38:47The Rave Act was kind of like the final nail in the coffin
38:50of a sea that was already dying, basically.
38:57The media has played a role
38:59in glamorizing this very dangerous drug.
39:02In 2001, the US Senate convenes a 10 years late hearing
39:06into what they see as the scourge of ecstasy and Raves.
39:09If I were governor of my state or mayor of my town,
39:12I would be passing new ordinances
39:13relating to stiff criminal penalties
39:16for anyone who held a Rave.
39:18Joe Biden decided that he was like the anti-Rave crusader
39:23and trotted out this law from the 1980s.
39:26I'm the guy who authored the crack house legislation.
39:28The crack house law was if you own the property
39:31on which the drugs are being sold or manufactured,
39:34you are responsible for the criminal activity
39:37that goes on in your building.
39:40Bulldoze down their business.
39:41Bulldoze it down.
39:43Literally.
39:45To extend the crack house laws
39:47to include temporary events like Raves,
39:49Biden co-sponsors a bill called the Rave Act.
39:52Raves stood for reducing Americans' vulnerability to ecstasy.
39:56It underlines the idea that if you are
40:00in any way connected with this culture,
40:02you are risking arrest.
40:04And it worked. Nobody ever took it again.
40:07Thanks, Joe Biden.
40:09Biden does finally get a bill passed.
40:13By that point, it's almost irrelevant anyway
40:16because all the American Rave promoters
40:18are scared to death of putting on a party
40:20for fear of getting raided.
40:22For some, this intense resistance to Raves
40:25by those in authority comes as no surprise.
40:28We're a puritanical country.
40:31We have a lot of maybe shame or guilt
40:33around pleasure or hedonism.
40:36You know, it's just a work.
40:38But the Raves really celebrated hedonism and pleasure.
40:44That made politicians uncomfortable.
40:47It made parents uncomfortable.
40:49But as the 2000s continue,
40:51discomfort towards Raves starts to soften.
40:55And it wasn't until like the EDM music came out,
40:582006, 2007, where things started picking up again.
41:03Rave music comes back into fashion,
41:06now rebranded as EDM, electronic dance music.
41:10Suddenly, electronic music is huge.
41:13All these festivals spring up.
41:15They just change the terms
41:17and suddenly it's not a Rave anymore
41:19so nobody tries to bust it.
41:21And it becomes big business,
41:23much bigger business than it ever was in the 90s.
41:27As for the drug that helped first launch Rave culture,
41:30after 36 years as a Schedule I drug,
41:33improved scientific knowledge allows MDMA
41:36to return to its therapeutic roots.
41:39In 2021, the FDA approves a trial
41:42to assess MDMA's promising potential in treating PTSD.
41:46But it's only when it's combined with therapy.
41:48It's the therapy that is the primary active treatment.
41:52And the MDMA, the medicine,
41:54makes the therapy more effective.
41:56When they go through the protocol,
41:57as many as two-thirds or more of people
42:00are getting rid of their symptoms
42:02and don't need to take medication
42:04for post-traumatic stress disorder anymore.
42:06So this is very, very rare in psychiatry.
42:10People don't usually get cured.
42:12The impressive trial results are submitted to the FDA
42:15for final drug approval in December 2023.
42:19We finally have the data that FDA requires
42:22to approve MDMA's safe and effective
42:24when it's used in the context of psychotherapy.
42:27And that's really exciting.
42:29And 35 years after the first UK Raves,
42:32the global movement shows no signs of stopping.
42:36It's so funny to see how many of the older music journalists
42:40I know who are still just like,
42:42when is this going to go away?
42:44It's never going to go away.
42:46I would argue that you still sort of can feel
42:49the messages of peace, love, unity, respect.
42:51At things like Coachella and Burning Man and Bonnaroo.
42:56But I just don't think of them as raves anymore.
42:59It's actually my definition of perimetric.
43:02Being stuck in the mud for three days
43:05with a bunch of frat boys and sorority sisters
43:08high on bad ecstasy.
43:10I can't actually think of a worse experience.
43:13So I admit, it really would drive me to murder
43:17if I had to do that.
43:18Critics aside, the desire for raves is stronger than ever.
43:22Post-pandemic, the raves are crazy.
43:26This thing is still growing.
43:28I still think more people are getting involved in it
43:30to this very day.
43:32And the scene now is much more racially diverse,
43:35more queer, more different styles of music.
43:39On a pop level, electronic music is bigger than it's ever been.
43:43We got to keep doing this.
43:44The world's not going to stop, but a lot of strife out there.
43:48Let's just dance.