padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
^and a very strange thing as well. not too long ago I spent about a year living in a squatted house in Oakland with a VERY liberal policy about guests and in addition to the hordes of clueless 19 yr old crusties and assorted middle-aged junkies we'd also get all manner of bizarre wingnuts way out on that raver/hippie fringe (as well as dodgy ancient guys in campers who looked like gold prospectors) - I remember one couple who were "Raëlians" and always trying to proselytize people. the guy (self-named "Nomad") in particular would just endlessly ramble on about 2 things - being born on another planet & the philosophical implications of psy-trance. he actually had mathematical formulas worked out that were supposed to explain, I dunno, something about metaphysics & aliens & transcendence all based upon the BPM of trance played by rigs at free parties. I will say there's absolutely nothing worse than getting home at 2 AM on a Tuesday to find psy-trance banging out of your living room at outrageous volume & pissing off the neighbors, especially n/c nearly everyone who actually lived there were fairly serious political punk types w/very low tolerance for psy-trance. not to mention that 1/2 the housemates were illegal immigrants & the last thing we needed was harassment from cops over noise complaints.
anyway, "rave" in the US, a very strange scene indeed. there's also some crossover in traveller culture - I'm more familiar w/the punk side of it which tends to be more freight trains while the hippies/free party scene stick to vehicles (more stuff to carry, I guess) but there's certainly crossover leading to all kinds of weirdness; the A-Camps at Rainbow Gatherings, gutter hippies mixing with European black metal tourists @ Milwaukee, Metalfest, the crowd on any given day at People's Park in Berkeley and so on.
