From: bbehlen@soda.berkeley.edu (Brian Behlendorf)
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 23:41:04 -0700
Subject: A M A Z I N G Full Moon Party in Washington DC last night

Well, despite Boston's Full Moon party not getting off the ground, the Washington DC crew plus a few assorted wayward souls from around the nation gathered under a bridge next to RFK stadium outside of this nation's capitol last night and shook some serious booty.

It all began when Inhuman (Michael) was able to gain a controlling interest in the production of his senior class's prom - so he decided to try and make it as ravey as he could. Through various steps of defeat ranging from losing his lighting budget to the kicking out of the "rave crowd", it became increasingly obvious that it just wasn't meant for us to be there. It was fine, because this was just gonna be the warmup anyways. What everyone had really gathered for was to come afterward.

The group of 15 or so of hung out in the hotel snarfing down pizza and acting silly until 1am, when the prom ended. We dismantled the sound system and stuffed it in the U Haul van, and by the time we had rounded everyone up and was heading for the site it was almost 2:30. After parking some ways away we walked to a side parking lot next to the big curvaceous stadium, towards an underpass which was just wide enough for two cars and just high enough for the U Haul, and about 4 car lengths long. We packed the U Haul in the tunnel, set up the speakers outside the truck and the turntables and mixer and amps on the table inside the truck.

I admit I had my doubts about the site - directly below what looked like a fairly well-traveled part of street, within a stone's throw of a hospital, etc... plus Inhuman had us park quite some ways away from the site, just to be sure our cars wouldn't cause us to be noticed (though later on this preventative measure was ignored, to no great loss.)

The sound was set up and Laura had laid down her first slab at 3:17am. There were about 40 people there, mostly dcravers and ne-ravers, asnd a few assorted people who had heard of the party thanks to inhumans subterfugal flyering. Laura put down some deep trance and acid house, and people were really starting to groove. Everything at home base looked okay so I decided to walk around to see what kind of sound levels we were getting. Basically, we were perfectly safe. The speakers faced through the tunnel towards a HUGE parking lot for RFK, with a ridge of trees and a large river blocking the sound beyond. And true to form, the sound of the beat got better and better with distance (to a point :)

Laura was playing an incredibly spot-on set. There were maybe two mistakes, but hey, going from 149 to 164 bpm ain't easy :) The crowd was loving this set, which probably would have seen a mass exodus from the dancefloor in SF or Boston but hey a little mindblowing is good for the soul. So is some diversity!

She spun for an hour, and still the police hadn't arrived. We had reached a point of, "well if it isn;t broken up by now it won't ever be." Deiselboy came on and played a good hour and a half of vicious fast breakbeat. The great part was - everyone who was up for Laura's hardcore was also up for DB's set.... people had transcended the "I've got my tastes and nthing more" mentality that these lists see every now and then, and I'm as guilty as anyone.

During DB's set we noticed potential trouble. A Blazer with a lightbar came around the side to see what was causing all the racket. Yet, an officer never came down to check it out. They seemed more dumbfounded than anything else.

Then Lee came on. This is the same Lee as who spun at Connection 2 - he happened to be visitng Maryland this week so when asked if he'd like to spin he said sure. His set was the emotional salvation for us all. Just as Laura's great set had exposed some minds to what *good* hardcore could be, so did Lee expose dub house, tribal, and trancey acid house to people coddled on 140bpm's. And yet again, just as many as were up for Laura and DB were up for Lee. Proof positive of the sheer transcendance of the music. In fact, one would be hard pressed to come up with a style of dance music heard at "raves" these days that WASN'T played last night.

The sun had just risen as Lee took the tables, and people busted out the oranges, the cameras, and the smiles by the score. I myself went camerahappy and spent a whole 24-pic roll in 5 hours alone. At one point a ranger or cop had stopped beyond a fence near the site. Leah waved him down and and started talking with him. He seemed genuinely impressed with the goings-on. He was simply checking that everything was.. er... normal (??)... and even when Leah mentioned the much-aligned 4-letter word known as "rave", the cops seemed happy to see that it was happening. Also in the morning cars started using the tunnel we were in, so every ten minutes or so we'd part the dance floor and a car would pass trough. The expressions on the drivers faces ranged from sheer indifference to "crazy kids" to a smile here or there.

By special request Lee threw on Stella, to the sheer enjoyment of a particular woman in black. :) As he continued to wind down his fantastic set, the people around started collecting the garbage lying around and throwing it in the garbage. Yay!! People were getting the idea! Word went around that he was about to play his last song, and the whole crowd was there when he threw on "We Are Family", and it truely, truly felt like family.

We attempted to continue the tradition from C2 of going for breakfast at IHOP, but the one we thought existed had closed so we all settled for a coffee shop instead. After that we all headed to Ben Jaffe's and crashed/ showered for a few hours, and then some people left for Boston, others for Pittsburgh, some for home locally.

There was talk of ditching Yellow because we couldn't conceive of spending $20 for an event which won't have anything near what we had for free [btw, Mike and Ben spent close to $100 for the van, generator, gas, etc...]. I for one decided I needed more time here in DC, NY, and Boston, so I'm extending my vacation by a week to give me more of a chance to absorb what's going on here....and because of the way hgitching-rides worked, I won't be able to make it to Yellow :( though I should be able to make an event or two next weekend.

Thanks to everyone who helped in the formation of our TAZ.

Brian

Subject: Mobile Grooves Posse!
From: inhuman@mindvox.phantom.com (Inhuman)
Date: Sat, 05 Jun 93 11:25:18 EDT

Well, I think Brian did a pretty good play-by-play of the night, so I won't go into too many specifics. All I can say is that this was by far the most enjoyable rave experience I've ever had. Grooving underneath an active freeway with net-ravers from Boston, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, New Jersey and beyond was so fantastic. The sound system wasn't the best in the world, but it suited our purposes and it was free (having heisted it from our prom when it was over).

I think a few thanks are in order too, to people who have not yet received them:

--Doug and Fluid, Mobile Grooves Posse was your idea! Let this be the first of many this summer! (too bad you couldn't make it, doug)

--Thieu Le (+8), thanks so much for the help with the sound system. We couldn't have done it otherwise. Sorry you were too tired to DJ at the real thing but there will be others!

--Non-net-ravers: Without our three friends, Jedd, Rob, and Hillary this never would have happened. (You wouldn't believe how close we came to having neither a truck or a generator!)

--Brian, your advice has been invaluable and hopefully we'll get these going on a regular basis down here!

--DJs: Laura, deiselBoy, and Lee: You guys were incredible and I'm not exaggerating! Thank you so much for travelling 300-3000 miles to spin and overcoming the environmental challenges of no lighting, strange reverberations, and spinning out of the back of a U-Haul truck. Thanks!

--Everyone else for coming! This was one of the most incredible experiences from the start of planning to the near disaster of not having the right equipment or a space to the final product of around 40 ravers grooving to all sorts of music underneath a bridge in southeast DC. Incredible...

I won't babble on anymore, but all I can say is, it will happen again! This is only June 5th, and we've got a long summer ahead of us!

"The Power Without the Permits" (right, leah?) :-)

Michael                       |  And now I see the face of god, and I
(inhuman@mindvox.phantom.com) |  raise this god over the earth, this god
PGP Key Available             |  whom men have sought since men came into
Upon Request                  |  being, this god who will grant them joy
                              |  and peace and pride.
skin tight                    |  This god, this one word: I.
hot buttered soul!            |                 -Ayn Rand, _Anthem_

From: she@leland.stanford.edu
Subject: FMR secrets, and bill of rights! Date: Sat, 5 Jun 93 13:30:37 PDT

One way to find out about the FMR location if all else fails is to go out somewhere before it starts... I was at Deep Space in San Jose and Spun announced directions over the mike when it closed at 2. Even if he hadn't, plenty of friendly people seemed to know where it might be...

About the busting of the FMR...

Does anybody know what the justification was for breaking up the party? I mean, is it not in our bill of rights that we have the right to peaceably assemble?!? And what better location is there to peaceably assemble on than public land? It seems to me that when land is declared "public" nowadays it means that it is the GOVERNMENT'S and NOT the people's. To use PUBLIC land, such as the beautiful water temple or Golden Gate Park, we have to get the Government's permission in the form of a permit. Once again bureaucracy is used as an excuse for controlling our freedom and denying us the heritage that our forefathers who wrote the constitution wanted us to have.

Sorry to complain, but it makes me so sad that it is so hard to find a location on which to be peaceful and happy and celebrate life together.

I am happy that candlestick worked out and was safe. I was a little worried when a ranger woman came at 7 or 8 a.m. and took Jeno away! After a couple of minutes the record on the unmanned turntable was about to run out, but Garth ran up in a panic and started up whatever record was on the other one... luckily the woman just made us turn the music down, not off. (It only stayed down for an hour or two... then the volume went right back up!)

Jessica Wing

Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1993 18:09:34 -0400
From: "Benjamin P. Wing" <bpwing@phoenix.princeton.edu> Subject: Re: FMR Woes

In article <9306042259.AA12331@techno.Stanford.EDU> Tamara writes: OK, NOW I'm upset...I'm still in LA for one more week so I missed last night's FMR, only to find that it's at the site that I found in January...(it's only a few minutes away from my house) Oh shit...I always have that kind of luck...anyway, I would be very interested to hear more impressions on the site...

I thought the site was great! It's far enough from the road that you can't hear the music just driving by (of course all the illegally parked cars gave it away :-) There was a lot there, but no one was using it; perhaps it was closed.) It's right on the water. You look out across the inlet to some huge industrial fixtures, I'm not exactly sure what. This is a bit strange, but it's a nice touch in the early-morning light. The space is small enough to feel cozy but not small enough to be constricting, and there's lots of adjoining grassy areas and trees where you can go chill if you want. There's a jogging path along the water and occasionally these early-morning joggers would come by and stop for awhile and stare at all the weird people dancing.

ben

Date: Sat, 5 Jun 93 16:59:26 PDT
From: geoffw@nexsys.net (Geoff White)
Subject: Re: FMR secrets, and bill of rights!

About the busting of the FMR...

Until such time as we have a team of lawyers accompaning us on the FMR, we will have to follow the orders of the police, after all, when it comes down to it they are more willing to use violence then we are willing to stay. I think I've come to that conclusion by watching them don riot gear.

Date: Mon, 7 Jun 93 11:23 EDT
From: laura@usl.com
Subject: Mobile Grooves Possee Lives

Thursday night was one of the most amazing nights of my life. To steal from Robert Smith, "I'd gladly trade 1,000 days of drudgery for one more night like that."

The prom was pretty nasty, and I don't want to talk about it except to say that Thieu Le is a GREAT hip-hop DJ and gave those lovely prom-kids exactly what they wanted, and he did it with style.

We hit the parking lot of RFK around 3.00 am, and very shortly thereafter were ready to go. By the end of my set I was getting tired and my eyeballs were getting wiggly . . . my last mix really sucked and I was happy to give up the tables to DieselBoy.

So I sat in the grass through Damian's set having the most incredible conversation with Brian. The result of it all was that, as we were heading back to the tunnel for Lee's set, I decided we should each go up to three people at the party and hug them and tell them something we appreciate about them. Once I got started I coudln't stop, and I went to everyone there, I think I even climbed up in the truck and hugged Lee while he was spinning. Everyone was so joyful and ALIVE, I never ever wanted the vibe to go away.

Thank you everyone who was there. I really do love you all for being there and for making the night what it was for me.

Laura