"Fear and Loathing In Hixton, May '94" Trance Atlantic 2, pgs. 86-93 Astro Grrl (Sarah Champion) As the sheriff's car slid off into the darkness, he leaned out of the window. "If this hippie shit is anything to do with you," he sneered, "we're closing you down!" The promoter had just stepped out of the car in a wobbly state. "I've just been for a ride with my friends..." he murmured, before heading off to unplug the sounds, still shaking from the threats. I guess it was inevitable. What else could have been expected at a rave in Hixton, Wisconsin, population 305? At Furthur, Drop Bass Network's first outdoor techno festival, there were 2000 kids, every one of them totally wasted. Even the promoter had been dancing naked on the speakers. There we'd been chilling out in a van -- me, Frankie Bones, Adam X, the Hardkiss brothers and so on. A pipe was passed around. As I put it to my mouth to take a tug, the door was wrenched open and I was looking straight into the badge of a Wisconsin cop. Next thing we were all speadeagled against the van, guns in our back, an eerie silence all around as they told us to take out our "weapons and needles." The glass in the back of the Jackson County squad car displayed Visa/Access stickers. "I knew I needed a credit card..." I thought, hands cuffed behind my back, so tight the metal cut my wrists. Just me, two cops and a long, deserted road peppered with wooden farmhouses and waterfalls. I felt like I was in a KLF video and expected the cops to be Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond in disguise. No such luck. Other things occurred to me. I had no money. No ID. No phonebook. I wsa six hours' drive from Chicago, where I was staying. Worse, I couldn't even remember the address, number or full name of the person I was staying with. Could they deport me without my passport? All these thoughts mingled with a strange euphoria. (I was tripping, by the way). ========== FILL ME UP WITH GAS After ecstasy (X), nitrous oxide (dental anaesthetic gas) is the drug of choice for stateside kids, who suck maniacally on their $5 balloons. "You don't have nitrous oxide in England?" exclaims Chicago DJ Derrick Carter incredulously. "Over here, it's everywhere! Kids get into it cos it warps you -- spins you very fast. It's like playing spin the bottle and being the bottle." Discovered way back in 1772, in the times when you could still buy opium over-the-counter, nitrous oxide became known as 'laughing gas'. In the 1840's, sideshow entertainers on America's snake-oil medicine show circuit would demonstrate its intoxicating properties. The effect on those who inhaled was to make them "Laugh, sing, dance, speak or fight, according to the leading trait of their character..." Its body-numbing and unconsciousness-inducing halluciongenic effects had been forgotten, until it was revived in the late '60's by the hippies. Sold illegally from tanks at Grateful Dead gigs over the past two decaded, it is now the cheapest high at techno parties. ========== Back at the station, they searched and logged the ridiculous contents of my pockets -- "several colour balloons, a packet of Trebor mints, five party invitations, and 'an orange face mask'". "Gee!" exclaimed a female officer. "You're English. Do you know Def Leppard?" She grappled with the concept of a 'rave' and told me she liked old-fashioned music, "like The Who". She studied my flyers, for parties all over the Midwest. "These look very 'psych-ee-delik'," she commented accusingly. "Aren't The Who psychadelic?" I asked. She went quiet. "What does this mean?" she wondered, pointing to graphics of a record and a letter E, equalling a smiley. I shrugged. Possession of marijuana was the charge, although all I had was the contents of my lungs. "Don't bother pleading 'not guilty'," I'm told. "It'll cost you 3,000 dollars for a lawyer and we'll make sure the judge sends you to jail!" Before taking mugshots and fingerprints and every dollar I had on me, they tried to trick me into admitting possessing cocaine. In the local press, the sheriff bragged about large drugs arrests. At court, the DA attempted to infer I was an international drug trafficker. ========== BLISSFUL ENLIGHTENMENT Dozens of cars made the five-hour trip from Chicago so their occupants could dance all night, frying their eardrums with music and their brains with ecstasy, the halluciongenic substance of choice. Other cars hailed from Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma and Kentucky. Many of them looked as if they were borrowed from unsuspecting parents. The idea of 2,000 tennagers from across the Midwest descending on a town like Hixton for a weekend of loud music, trippy lights and general debauchery sounds like the plot of a late '60s "acid frak-out" movie. But it happened, and it's likely to happen more often in the future... CHARGES PENDING OVER CONCERT/DRUG BASH OVER WEEKEND Charges are pending against several individuals who were in attendance over the weekend at what authorities are calling a hard rock concert and drug bash. The pending charges are drug related, in some cases, and violation of the county crowd gathering ordinance, in others. Sheriff Richard Galster said his office first heard of the gathering of mostly college age hippie-type people on Thursday, the day before the event was supposed to have begun. It was being sponsored by a group calling themselves RAVE. No one seems to know what those letters stand for or who the group is. The event was being held ont he Chris Halvorson farm off Tyler Road in the Town of Northfield. On Friday compaints of loud music were coming into authorities who responded by asking the organizes to tone it down. They did until the authorities left and then up went the volume. All three days the music lared, some by live bands performing and others by recordings. It was estimated there were over 1,000 in attendance at the event. Most just stood or sat around and listened to the entertainment, authorities said. They also claim it was obvious drugs were plentiful at the event. Most of those arrested were stopped for vehicle violations and drugs were found in their possession. Sheriff Galster said Monday that his office would be talking with the County Corporate Counsel to better interpret the county's crowd gathering ordinance ot make it more enforceable, if necessary. The organizers of the event were said to have sent flyers to area colleges, announcing the planned gathering. One big mistake they made however, was holding the event near to the home of Sheriff Galster. ========== Raving is America's new outlaw culture. On one legendary occasion at Halloween, in an echo of the UK's 'Summer of Love', they raided Milwaukee's 'Grave Rave' and arrested all 950 people. Introducing the new prohibition. The laws differ from state to state and county to county -- and at the 'discretion' of your local sheriff. Bribery is essential. In 1920's Chicago, alcohol was banned. In the new pohibition era, they've tired to wipe out the party scene by making clubs 21-and-over (the legal drinking age). There's no entrance anywhere without ID and no new licences have been given to clubs for two years. "The cops are catching up and shutting us down and the media is constantly going on about sex-and-drugs orgies," says Sheri of Minneapolis techno store Cynesthesia. She was arrested at Love Generator in St. Louis for "taking a picture of a cop busting the party", manhandled, charged with 'interfering with an officer doing his duty' and thrown in jail. As in the UK, the local papers run regular stories on this corrupting new youth culture. In one, it said the event seemed to be promoted by a mysterious organization called 'RAVE' -- no one quite knowing who this was or what the letters stood for.