Pubdate: Sat, 21 Sep 2002
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Page C01
Copyright: 2002 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Natalie Hopkinson and Barbara E. Martinez
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mdma.htm (Ecstasy)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/raves.htm (Raves)

RAVE OFF: 'BUZZ' CANCELED AFTER DRUG STING

Last night, after seven years of weekly raves, the Southeast Washington 
music club Nation stayed dark on a Friday. The club's popular dance party, 
Buzz, has been permanently canceled. Washingtonians who say they had formed 
a community around the raves instead held a candlelight vigil outside.

"I think all electronic music fans in D.C. are going to miss it," said Tim 
Moore, a Buzz-goer since 1998. "It was the centerpiece of the scene here. 
It was one of the oldest ongoing events in D.C., and it was certainly the 
biggest in terms of the number of people who would come, and the talent, 
the money and effort that went into the production of their music."

Nation, owned by Fairfax-based Primacy Cos., canceled Buzz after D.C. 
police charged seven men and one woman, ages 19 through 25, with 
distribution of the drug Ecstasy after last week's event. The sting 
followed media reports about the military banning service members from the 
club, which is located just off South Capitol Street SE.

Club management issued this statement about the cancellation: "Nation's 
Friday night rave event attracted a peaceful and generally law abiding 
crowd. Unfortunately, it recently has become clear that an unacceptable 
criminal element has infiltrated this event. Despite stringent security 
measures on the part of Nation, including thorough pat down searches, this 
element has been difficult to dislodge."

The police reported the arrests to the city's Alcoholic Beverage Regulation 
Administration, which is investigating Nation. Its findings "will be going 
on to the board, who will make the ultimate decision" regarding the club's 
license, according to ABRA director Maria Delaney.

According to the statement from Nation, the club does not expect its other 
regular parties -- the Thursday industrial/Goth night and Saturday Velvet 
Nation, a dance party popular with gays -- to be affected.

Buzzlife, the promotion company that ran Buzz, vowed to find a new location 
for event, one of the first big showcases of electronic music in America. 
"Buzzlife has nothing to hide," said spokeswoman Amanda Huie. "We are about 
the music and the scene, which is about being as you are." Huie said the 
cancellation decision came after a week of "intensely sad" negotiations 
with Nation management.

Security measures for the Friday party had become increasingly intense. 
"They were doing everything they could," said rave fan Moore, a 24-year-old 
software engineer. "You had to go through a full search when you came 
through the door, practically airport-level security. They would pat you 
down, make people take off their shoes, unfold the brim of your hat. They 
would throw people out on the slightest inclination."

According to D.C. police narcotics Inspector Hilton Burton, Ecstasy is a 
very difficult drug to detect. "The average size is smaller than aspirin -- 
you can hide them anywhere," he said, adding that the individuals who were 
arrested tried to sell the drug to undercover police officers.

The loss of the party hit Juliette Siegfried hard. "It's a good thing you 
didn't call yesterday," she said. "I felt like I was at a funeral." The 
nature of raves, and particularly those at Buzz, she said, made the event a 
cornerstone of her life in D.C.: "It was a place I could go and feel 
unconditionally accepted for who I really am -- and who I am doesn't always 
fit into mainstream society." In other club scenes, "the idea is to score. 
There's a lot of pressure to meet someone and go out on the dance floor 
while drinking lots of alcohol, and that's not what I'm about."

When she began attending Buzz in 1997, Siegfried was a teacher at Sidwell 
Friends School. Since then she has left the teaching job and opened 
Metatrack, a studio and school where people can learn to be DJs. "I grew up 
a lot and finally accepted a lot about myself," said Siegfried, 35.

The scene at Buzz, she and others say, involved drug use, but it did not 
dominate and has visibly declined in recent years. There are other raves in 
D.C., but they are not as well run as Buzz, fans say. "It was nice to be in 
a safe place and still have that liberated feeling and a lack of attitude 
among the patrons," said Siegfried.

That lack of attitude was essential to the Buzz atmosphere, although it 
also meant members of the community who did not do drugs were loath to 
pressure those who did to stop. Siegfried explained: "Drug use is a very 
personal thing, I've gathered. It's not easy to tell them what they should 
and should not do. I had to learn to accept people for who they were. I was 
not fitting into the mainstream well; I was a geeky, awkward person and 
they accepted me."

Chris Gill, editor of Los Angeles-based Remix magazine, was buzzing about 
the cancellation yesterday. He pointed out that musical and artistic 
innovation is often accompanied by a drug culture. "Jazz was associated 
with marijuana," he said, "the '20s with cocaine. For some reason our 
government decided to make Ecstasy the scapegoat."

News of Buzz's cancellation rocked the electronic music industry because 
the move is the latest in a series of challenges to raves. Buzzlife had 
spoken out against the Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act of 
2002 (also called the RAVE Act), which was introduced in Congress this 
summer. The bill would hold promoters responsible if people attending the 
events use illegal drugs. Other club events have been halted in New York 
and Detroit.

"It's affecting the East Coast more than the West Coast," said Roxanne 
Calomfirescu, publicist for the music label Nettwerk America. "It takes the 
venues away from the artists we're trying to promote. . . . We had two 
artists who were supposed to play Buzz in October. Now we have to totally 
reschedule and find another city that will play them." The electronic music 
experience requires powerful sound systems and lighting that only large 
clubs such as Nation have, Calomfirescu added.

"I think there needs to be some kind of national coalition formed," said 
Gill. "I don't think the powers that be recognize what an economic force 
this is. My magazine didn't exist three years ago."

So perhaps a new, public relations-savvy Buzz will return. Organizers of 
last night's vigil outside Nation didn't just hand out candles -- they 
called the media in advance and had press releases at the ready.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager