The Rave Generation

Everything written below is merely the author's subjective point of view on the processes taking place in the town of Dmitrov. One could write a separate article about the Moscow period of the scene, so we'll skip that stage. Other participants in the events described may (indeed, must) have a different point of view. So don't take it to heart.

After I finished reading Andrei Haas's book "The Happiness Corporation", I remembered how it all began for me. 1993-94, unfortunately I can't recall exactly now. I was only 13 back then. I was flipping through the radio stations on the receiver, since the main one — radio 101 — had grown boring (there was no FM), and suddenly I heard unusual, beautiful sounds, so unlike all that rock and pop that usually came out of radios. It was a Friday, evening. I think my peers know what music could play on the radio on a Friday evening... Maximum. That's right — Vladimir Fonarev. A little later there appeared an article that hung for a long time on the wall of my old apartment. It was the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, where Kapitolina Delovaya (it was only later that I realized she mostly writes nonsense) told of a new, baffling movement called Rave. I think the article was devoted to some event, I can't recall now — I need to find that clipping and read it, and maybe scan it too. From that article I learned that the young men and women all, without exception, love the series Star Trek, try to resemble the show's heroes, wear the same kind of clothes... And they dance to strange, wordless music called techno. They drink wondrous cocktails called XTC that help them dance all night without feeling tired (yes, yes, that's exactly how it was written in the newspaper). And by that time Fonar's music had already greatly captivated me, and I already knew several names of musicians, DJs. I tried to record the broadcasts, if I couldn't listen live, in order to keep them and, when there was time, to understand them.
Like a madman, I began buying up in town (I'll remind you, I lived in the Moscow suburbs, and for a schoolkid it was practically unrealistic to get away to Moscow) all the cassettes from our pirates with the words trance, techno, rave, and so on. I still have the archive to this day... Then I began to figure out the styles, being, I think, one of the first to do so, not counting the DJs from the clubs who did it professionally. I began collecting music. Lots of music. Then the magazine "Ptuch" appeared. Oh, what happiness that was — to learn the news, to read the articles, just insane texts, the mad layout, the party reports... Then Radio Stantsiya appeared. Again the broadcasts, cassettes, music. More and more names, more and more information. I wanted to play too, to bring that magical music that stirred my brain and made my hands tremble nervously. I was offered the chance to DJ a school disco. That was 1996. Tenth grade. After that, I began spending every weekend, without fail, in clubs. I'd ask a friend whose father worked at the disco to get me in, since money was always tight. I'd come, I'd listen. I never danced. People always poked fun at me: "Why do you even come then?" I'd laugh it off. I'd come, listen, smile when I heard familiar tunes that I myself played at the school disco. I'd open my eyes wide at some melody (at the disco they spun not only pop stuff, but would also play Marusha and house hits). And then, through my girlfriend of the time, I got to know a guy who had just been taken on as a DJ at the coolest club in town — "Bunker F6". I became friends with him, and while he, between drinks, tried to mix, I learned it myself. I'd ask him to come earlier before the disco so he'd turn on the equipment for me, so he'd let me into the DJ booth. (And, I won't hide it, so I could get into the club for free, sitting out the first hour in the booth.) In the end I learned it and apparently outdid him — I was officially (in reality unofficially: no employment record, they just paid me some money once a month) taken on for the disc-jockey position. I worked there until 2000, then fell out with the club's director, having categorically refused to play Russian hits. And in my place they took two of my former buddies from the neighbourhood, whom, to my own misfortune, I had brought along to show what it's like to be a DJ. They weren't afraid to spin. Largely thanks to them and to that director, the club successfully went under a year later. A great deal happened during my time working there. I got to know most of the young crowd, learned to play on vinyl, even bought records, and if it hadn't been for the crisis of '98 I'd probably still be building up my collection. I got to know Gogal, and DJ Candy — the very coolest DJ in town, who spun house, progressive house — he, by the way, was the only professional DJ in town; he studied at Slava Finist's school, there where the office of Radio Stantsiya was. Friends appeared who also loved music. Candy threw wonderful parties, at which even I danced to the very last track without taking anything whatsoever. Incidentally, I've never tried any drugs to this day. We even managed to bring in one of the most popular DJs of the time, Dj Nikk. It was Halloween, '99 I think, or '98, I can't recall. There was an insane club design, the first real full-colour double-sided flyers (printed on photo paper), but the ticket turned out to be pricey for the time and only the moneybags, plus a few of the most die-hard clubbers, managed to get into the club. During my time as a DJ, my friends and I threw the first rave. It sounds a bit funny, but it went like this: we hauled the sound out of the club, brought it to the big hall of the local college, and on stage there was a kind of DJ parade. An electronic band, friends of ours, even performed live. Musicians, designers, artists — all at once. In '99, having come to an arrangement with the youth affairs department, we threw a completely insane event — Youth Day. Insane because we had absolutely no money, but we somehow wriggled out of it — luckily, there were elections in the autumn. That event could be called a scam, because we got involved with the Adidas company (and who were we? A few people — teenagers, brimming with a thirst for action. By then the team was already called "Front Promotion", though we'd banded together much earlier). We got from "Adidas" the hoops for the district streetball championship, and the company wanted guarantees in the form of cash, but by some miracle we managed to persuade them to accept a piece of paper — a letter of guarantee from the administration of the Dmitrov district. From the Coca-Cola company (the "Sprite" brand) we got a set of banners and paints (for the graffiti championship), also without understanding the processes going on at all. Later one of our winning banners decorated a site at Moscow City Day. Apparently we simply infected the manager with our enthusiasm, because she handed over everything we asked for practically without any paperwork. Though no — there was paperwork, of course — we drew up some kind of commercial proposal, a sponsorship package, and so on. Later we even sent things off to the brewery in Klin, had meetings — but in the end got nothing. It was an insane day, that Youth Day.
Good sound (there hasn't been any like it since, by the way), around 10 kW. It sounds funny, but back then it seemed like a world achievement. The music was entirely dance — without the usual routines of folk-dance ensembles and all sorts of VIAs. We brought in lots of DJs — from the Moscow region, old acquaintances from the regional DJ contests. We were happy. As advertising payback we even managed to hang a Sprite banner on the town's main relic — the T-34 tank, which back then still stood in the centre on the square. After that event, whenever someone tells me the word "impossible" about organizing anything — I can laugh in his face.
Ah yes, about the DJ contests. For about five years running, regional DJ contests were held in our town. At two of them I was on the jury. We even wanted to invite Fonar, we drove to see him for an interview at Radio Stantsiya, but in the end settled for just a gift from him — an autographed record. These events drew a whole crowd of guests from all over the region, 20 DJs a night (on vinyl the most I remember was 8 people) and were held under the slogan "Say No to Drugs". Back then everyone joked: "Bees against honey". It was precisely in that period that a great many acquaintances trivially wasted away on drugs. So much is tied up with Stantsiya, with our visits there. My wife, even before we knew each other, worked at Dmitrov TV. And for the first episode of a youth programme she went to Radio Stantsiya, to Slava Finist. The interview, unfortunately, didn't work out, because it later turned out there were sound problems. Many times afterwards we were at Finist's and Fonar's broadcasts. We met with the director of regional development at Radio Stantsiya, German, we wanted to set up a local office, since the station didn't come in in town. We had no idea at all how costly it all is. With Lyuda we dreamed up and realized many projects. We tried to do a programme on Dmitrov's wired radio — I can imagine how weird it was for grandmas to listen in their kitchens to a top 3 of my favourite trance tracks. There was a newspaper, several friends worked at it. We made a whole spread devoted to electronic music. It so happened that an interview with Fonar came out, as the chief ideologist of the dance movement. All of this took place from 1997 to 2000. After that came a lull. At the town's main club there were Russian hits in the middle of a Saturday night. The normal clubbers were put off by this, and they stopped going there. The public changed, fights started, it got to the point of shootings. The club closed.
Until 2003 there was an enormous lull. In November my friends and I came to the director of the town's only surviving club, an old acquaintance of ours, with an idea for a party. He had nothing to lose, and practically no effort was required. He got interested, all the more so since the proposal was for parties on Fridays. Saturdays already brought in money; successful Fridays would round out the weekend. For the first party we quickly cobbled together a design, through Volodya Fonar and Zhenya Orlov we found a wonderful print shop — and we threw a party! A real club party, the likes of which there hadn't been for a very long time. And off it went, the second wave of the revival of club life. Once a month or two, parties with interesting ideas, a good atmosphere, pleasant people. We threw a water party, where people came with water pistols and shot at each other right inside the club. And by 2005 it was already a summer foam party, with two dancefloors, two pools. The whole club was flooded with foam. People were happy! Then there was an insane Halloween. Two years in a row. The club kept an unofficial chronicle of records. Well, the 2005 Halloween beat them all. For the first time 900 people were letting loose in a place that by all counts held no more than 600. For the first time the bars pulled in unreal takings. But that wasn't the main thing. At some point in 2004 we even revived our old brand, made something like a press release about the DJ parade "Friday the 13th", posted it on friendly sites.
"The creative group Front Promotion. Continues its series of club events and presents a new party, "Friday the 13th". For the first time in town there will be a DJ parade gathering all the active DJs. And the whole affair will be on Friday, August 13th.
Front Promotion — a union of enthusiasts, creative personalities and simply good people. Throughout the whole year DJ Gogal, Bart and Balu dreamed up and ran a series of rousing, quality club events at the "Planeta" entertainment complex. The parties "The Night Before Christmas", "Nezabudka", "Immersion into Movement" drew many guests and became the most talked-about events of club life. Photo reports appeared online on friendly sites. The Front Promotion label aims to unite the best creative minds of designers, musicians, DJs — in a word, those who feel a kinship with club culture. The people who make up Front Promotion are convinced that the result of the common effort will be a rise of dance culture that will bring it to a qualitatively new level. The ideas behind the parties are simple — to give the public the chance to live, over the course of a DJ set, a vivid celebration ruled by music, positive emotions and a rousing atmosphere. Among the vivid events dreamed up and brought to life by Front Promotion are the first rave in Dmitrov, "The Sound of Life", and the regional extreme-sports festival "Green Light", held on Youth Day '99."
Steeped through and through in ideology. How I wanted to believe that everything could be good. For some reason it always turned out that we were the first on the Dmitrov club scene. We were the first to bring in a real star — a DJ from the radio; we were the first to put on a large event; we did much of it first. And almost all the projects were successful. Then, at the end of 2004, the first competitors appeared — young, self-assured DJs. They behaved very incorrectly right away; maybe they considered themselves the new hope of the culture, and us the old guard — I don't know. In the end, 2005 passed in a struggle between two promo groups. And now, having run into the betrayal of people I considered like-minded (in reality, from the outside these may turn out to be trifles, but for me it's like this), I'm coming to the thought that that's it, enough. Although, of course, I don't want to leave. After all, there remains a huge desire to give people a celebration, to see their joy, their happiness. To show them my favourite music — for I consider even my DJing a way to bring to people some amazing and beautiful tracks that I find for myself, and which they might not hear anywhere else. Only once again I've become convinced that people who truly love music, dancing, connection — all our ingredients of a party's success — are few, very few. No more than 100 in the whole town. And doing something for the sake of commercial gain, which the clubs' management calls for, is not in my rules, though I did some things at the parties at my own expense — for example, burning 100-200 discs and handing them out to people with mixes, so they'd have the chance to hear other music. Other music. Whenever Lyuda and I met with someone who could help with our parties (for example, club directors), we always said that this business of ours is funk, it's drive, it's pleasure. But now, running into yet another problem, I understand that it has stopped bringing satisfaction.