Speaking and Breathing the Bass
There is something about me that few people realize or know; I used to be a candy kid. Never heard of it? I’m not surprised! It’s a term for those of us who found ourselves living and breathing the ‘rave’ culture. It was all about the P.L.U.R – Please, Love, Unity and Respect. Yeah, it might seem kind of silly to those of you who had no part in it, to those who have never donned their rave costumes and hit the club or the next warehouse rave in order to feel the music while under the influence of whatever intoxicant you had at hand.
I might be 30 now but those years I can count as some of the best of my life. I have longed for it again but the culture itself has slowly been forced out of Louisville, Kentucky. Due to the greed of the club owners who allowed us to rave from dusk to dawn, we now have nowhere that we can call home. It’s a shame that it came to this when the culture was so close, so tight and so eager to spread their love to the rest of the city but so it goes.
As Vonnegut would have said, “So it goes.” and so it does. I have belonged to many groups of sub-cultures during my life but I have to admit that the Rave culture will always stand out to be one of my favorites. Friends that I made during those years are friends that I still count as being the closest that I have. I shared experiences with them that I could have never shared with anyone else. We might have looked ridiculous at times in our rave outfits but I don’t regret a single night that we spent on the dance floor.
