RAVES GO OWN WAY IN LR

In Thursday morning's pre-dawn hours, Little Rock police spotted
several shadowy figures walking on the roof of a vacant building on
Industrial Drive. Police surrounded the building and moved in,
expecting a burglary.

What they found was a party.

Actually, they had stumbled on a rave.

One part dance party and one part light show, raves are the creative
playground that critics have called the last youth movement of the
20th century. The frenetic young people on the dance floor are heirs
to a phenomenon that emerged out of Europe's discotheques in the late
1980s.

Police quickly shut down Thursday's early morning dance. The 60 or so
young party-goers dispersed before the pulsing music, in the style
known as "jungle," died inside the building.

Officers said the man who identified himself as the owner of the
building had no proof it was his property.

The party's promoter told police the building was rented and a special
event permit had been issued to him by the city. He had proof, he
said, but it was not with him.

"All that stuff is at my mother's house," he said later. "I'll get it,
bring it up here and this will never be a problem again."

No arrests were made and no citations were issued, but for the night
- -- at least in Little Rock's newest makeshift rave venue -- the dance
was over.

By 8 that morning, a single post on a local Internet message board
asked, "The party got busted up??? What happened??? Give up the skinny
... "

'TOUCH THE FUTURE'

Rave is not new in the United States. It arrived in the early 1990s
and incubated in the cultural centers of San Francisco, New York and
Los Angeles for years before spreading to middle America. This year's
release of the rave-inspired film Groove in theaters around the
country marked the subculture's birth into the mainstream.

The scene is driven by the creativity and initiative of the promoters
and the ravers who make up its dancing throngs. Outlandish costumes
such as pink bunny suits, gossamer fairy wings and military gas masks
all contribute to a surreal atmosphere in the clubs and rented empty
warehouses that are typical rave sites.

"This music sounds like the future to [youth], and when they are at a
rave they can touch the future. And at a rave, the future is utopian,"
said Mark Lacey, president and CEO of Raveworld.net, a Web site that
has become an online hub for ravers.

But as interest grows, so do questions about whether the natural
ecstatic highs that are central to the rave movement's creed are
sometimes augmented by chemically induced one's.

For detractors, it is the illegal drugs with street names like
ecstasy, Special K and GHB -- which have sometimes found their way
onto dance floors -- that cause alarm.

UNNATURAL HIGH

In May, Pulaski County sheriff's office special investigators found
more than 4,000 tabs of ecstasy, the popular name for methylene
dioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), at a house on Rose Street in Little Rock.
The seizure was the result of a month-long investigation and led to
the arrest of three men in their early to mid 20s.

The men told deputies they had been selling the small, off-white pills
for about $20 each. The pills, with an igloo design on them, were
called "Snowballs" and were imported from Europe, deputies said.

Sheriff's Sgt. David Doty, one of the chief investigators in the case,
said the men had been selling the powerful psychedelic-amphetamine mix
to high-schoolers and college-age people throughout central Arkansas.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse reported in May that recent
research has linked MDMA use to long-term damage to those parts of the
brain critical to thought and memory. People who take MDMA risk
permanent brain damage, the report said.

On a Saturday night in June, three young adults were hospitalized
after passing out at Discovery nightclub in Little Rock. One of the
men said that he had taken GHB earlier that evening, and another man
told police that someone slipped GHB into his drink, said Sgt. James
Stephens of the Little Rock Police Department.

GHB, or gamma hydroxybutyrate, is a steroid-amphetamine mix, Stephens
said. The drug produces euphoric, sedative and body-building effects.
There is a chance of coma and seizures associated with GHB, according
to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Doty said he couldn't recall any instances where ecstasy use led to
violent behavior. But he said he didn't want to label ecstasy users as
nonviolent.

"Often [ecstasy] has amphetamine in it, and amphetamine is certainly
associated with aggressive and violent behavior," Doty said.

KEEPING WATCH

Thursday morning's pre-dawn warehouse party apparently wasn't illegal.
If the necessary papers had been provided to police, it could have
continued deep into the morning.

The clandestine party somewhat resembled London's early guerrilla rave
scene that was fueled by a do-it-yourself attitude and youthful vigor.
In London, few if any raves were licensed, requiring they be kept
secret from police.

"[Rave culture] is very secretive. Underground," Doty said, calling
the movement countercultural. "I really think it drives a wedge in the
fabric of the family."

But trading a degree of spontaneity for security is paying off for
dance promoters in Arkansas.

For more than a year, a promotion company called cybertribe has held
near-monthly "electronic dance events" at the State Fairgrounds, said
Chuck "dj chaos" Menefee. Citing a bad public perception of rave and
negative news stories, he shuns the use of the word "rave" to describe
the parties -- which often attract more than 1,000 people.

Jeff Hudnall, in his mid-20s, makes up the other half of cybertribe.
Menefee, in his early 30s, said he spins the records and Hudnall is
the "people person."

Together, the pair have rented the Fairgrounds' Hall of Industry
several times in the past year. The dance parties are seldom
advertised widely, relying mainly on word of mouth, the Internet and
flyers -- the staple media of rave culture -- to inform their audience.

At an electronic dance party, dubbed "Back To The Future Now," held
June 23, three uniformed security guards stood outside the large hall.
The men are employed by the Fairgrounds, and their wage is included in
the rental price for the facility.

The guards ordered men entering the building to lift their shirts and
turn around, checking for the contraband such as weapons and drugs.
Backpacks are also searched before party-goers are allowed to enter,
and no liquids may be taken into the dance hall, security guard Dan
Rico said.

The price of admission to "Back To The Future Now" was $15 at the
door. Anyone leaving was charged a dollar each time he re-entered.
Those who re-entered were also searched again by the security guards.

Cybertribe hired more security officers to patrol the inside of the
building, Menefee said. Those security guards kicked out a few people
that night for trying to sell drugs in the bathroom, Menefee said.

"We really don't have any control over whether people are going to do
drugs or not. But if they do, we let them know that's not what this is
about," Hudnall said.

Sgt. James Stephens of Little Rock's narcotics investigation unit also
strolled in out of uniform amid the pulsating lights and hypnotic beat
of the party.

"I felt like it was pretty clean. I never caught anyone doing dope on
the inside. And no one there was [obviously intoxicated]," he said.
That's been the case at the other dance parties held there also, he
said. "I've been to every one this year except two."

"I'll arrest more people at the [Riverfest Amphitheater] smoking dope
at a concert than I will at one of these raves," he said.

Two years ago it was a different story, however, Stephens said. The
parties were hosted by a different promoter, and police encountered
problems such as public intoxication and fighting.

"[That promoter] had about three raves and then it was stopped," he
said.

The security guards out front said they also remembered a time about
two years ago when fights, drinking and other intoxicants were a
problem at the State Fairgrounds' dance parties.

"Now, they're pretty peaceful," Rico said.

"Well, after we let them know what they could and couldn't get away
with," chimed in another security guard.

BEYOND THE MUSIC

About 2,000 people filled the Hall of Industry for the event June 23,
and cybertribe put up $15,000 to make it happen, Menefee said. A lot
of the party-goers come from outside central Arkansas and from other
states, Menefee said.

They come for the music, Hudnall said.

Rave music is varied, mixing electronic tones, trancelike repetition
and often the tribal rhythms of other cultures -- all driven by a
pulsing beat.

But the music, sometimes described by the blanket term "electronica,"
is only one element of rave lore. Made up of oscillating light, doused
with equal shares of dance and personal expression, it is the music
that serves as the bonding agent for these all-night sensory bazaars.

"We've really developed a reputation for having a clean scene [without
many drugs] in Little Rock. We have big name, nationally known DJs
asking to come and play," Hudnall said.

Last summer, cybertribe brought in several disc jockeys to Little
Rock's Riverfest Amphitheater for a concert. Afterward, some of the
imported DJs approached Menefee after his set on stage.

"They came up to me and said the show was great but asked me why I'd
chosen Little Rock -- as if I was from somewhere else, too -- to hold
the concert. I said to them, 'Because this is where I'm from,' "
Menefee said.

If anything is absolute in the rave scene, it is acceptance of others,
Lacey said, citing the informal rave motto of P.L.U.R., or peace,
love, understanding and respect.

'CHAMPAGNE FOR BLOOD'

Outside "Back to the Future Now," several ravers took a breather from
the party in the cooler night air for cigarettes and conversation.
They agreed to comment on condition of anonymity.

Scott, 20, was surrounded by friends he traveled with from Memphis. He
said he's been into the rave scene since he was 12, when he was
introduced to it by his older sister. When he was new to the music, he
said, he did ecstasy a lot at raves. But now that he's older, Scott
said, "It's really about the music. I collect the fliers. My whole
bedroom is posted with them."

Dave, 17, who is from Memphis, said he cares little about the music,
enjoying more the visceral and sensual highs of lights, dance and ecstasy.

"Yeah, I was having a bad trip till I came out here," Dave
said.

"Are you rolling [on ecstasy]?" he asked a girl climbing the stairs to
enter the building. She quickened her pace to pass him.

"When you're rolling, you know. Sometimes you just grind your teeth,"
he said, addressing another party-goer. "Do you know? No you don't
know, do you? No, because you're not ROLLING!" he said, releasing the
last word with a shout.

Simon Reynolds, author of Generation Ecstasy and a former Spin
magazine senior editor, described the effects of ecstasy as "an oozy
yearn, a bliss-ache, a trembly effervescence that makes you feel you
had champagne for blood."

Chris, 20, and Kristin, 18, are from Little Rock. Kristin is
"rolling," but with her it takes a dreamy-eyed, spaced-out effect.

"With me though, it's just a once-in-awhile thing. Special occasions,"
she said.

Chris has been into the Little Rock rave scene for about two years and
finds his excitement in trance music -- a subgenre of electronica. He
said that before Little Rock's music scene started, he and his friends
made steady trips to Memphis in order to dance all night to their
favorite music.

"Now the Memphis scene has gone to s* with drugs and stuff," Scott
said. So he travels to Little Rock for a "cleaner" experience.

"I mean, right now rave is all, like, mainstream, you know? That'll
die down after a while. And all these other people will leave the
scene. Go back to whatever. After all, rave really began with just
some friends hanging out in some room with a record player listening
to music they loved."