UTAH RAVE SHUT DOWN

Soooo. Late last night, as I was dozing off, I was listening to AM radio, and on a good night, I can get reception of radio stations from as far away as the South, and Midwest. Well low and behold, with spotty reception, I get a radio station that reports on a HUUGE,. well promoted rave that got shut down by way of, well, A LOT of police. I mean a SWAT TEAM, helicopters, tear gas and the whole 9 yards.
GEEZ ::rolls eyes:..Although I don't live, (and never have lived) in the Mormon state of UTAH, my perception is that this is the RAVE ACT of 2002/'03 in action, although I don't approve of the aggressive tactics by local 50 in UTAH..
The RAVE ACT of 2002/2003 states that police can raid a club (under the crack house laws of the 1980's) if rave goers are using, dealing and in possession of illegal drugs. (Look out candy ravers!)..
Now of course as I've said in journal entry late last month, when do we stop criminalizing the culture and electronic music of raves (or any music subgenre/sub culture as well) and only punish the dealers..Under the RAVE ACT of 2002/2003 party goers can be arrested for what they WEAR (yes, WEAR) to a rave, including glow sticks,pacifiers, candy raver gear ect. ::rolls eyes:
WHY, should people be punished for what they wear, the music they dance and listen to, and a DJ who spins repetitive beats? The drug dealers walk free, while a whole sub/counter culture of music is criminalized, bullshit.
Of course anti rave laws have been inacted in England and Europe as well. The UK's anti RAVE act states that music (sic) predominated by repetitive beats, and spontaneously thrown parties attended by more than 200 (?) people and mass gatherings of such can be shut down by LAW.
Of course back in the late 80's and 90's, spontaneous (and legendary) raves were thrown in warehouses in Europe all the time, sometimes in fields in the middle of now where. A rave party would be promoted at such and such address, with a number posted on the flyer for further info. In route to the party you would find this RAVER helping the lost party goers... (Get it?)..If you looked like a poser, he would point you towards, well 20 miles out of the way of the rave, and if you looked "scene" they would point you towards the RE-location of the RAVE..There fore, spontaneous parties, and well hidden from the authorities.
Of course, my perception is that this rave in UTAH, was a little too well promoted (theoretically speaking on paper, perfect promotion).. That's why this rave got busted and shut down, because after all, 1, 500 tripping (the tripping part is an assumption not based upon fact that early in the night) ravers in the Mormon state of Utah could cause quite the commotion.
Sad but true, the romantic notion that all night parties of that magnitude still exist, is just that, nostalgia and few and far between. The only "party" that was complete, well debauchery was RAVESTOCK/WOODSTOCK '94, '99 (I didn't attend WOODSTOCK '99, thankfully because of shitty music, lack of $, and of course the riots at Woodstock '99) which was attended by NON ravers and stupid kids listening to rap/metal.
My perception is that rave culture, even the "clean" raves and "juice/smart" raves are being unfairly criminalized..In a Mormon state like UTAH, even if a rave is 100% "legal", the conservatives will criminalize mass gatherings of counter cultural people. This is very sad, along with the overall politics of these conservatives, I hope they fuck off..
If you don't like these stupid laws (RAVE ACT of 2002/2003) meant to suppress and quell mass gatherings, VOTE, sober up and VOTE!
Hmm, here's sad the story from the UTAH RAVES.COM:..
Thanks-Tee-Stay Metal, Stay Brootal- \m/ -l-
. This is seriously frightening. Expect events like this to occur all over the country soon.




Please repost this if you care about basic human rights and feel that this is wrong. This happened in Utah please read below.

Here is the video footage:

http://homepage.mac.com/apexgrin/FileSharing2.html



Knick of Evol intent puts the night's events into his own words::

Last night, I was booked to play an event about an hour outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. The hype behind this show was huge, they presold 700 tickets and they expected up to 3,000 people total. The promoters did an amazing job with the show.. they even made slipmats with the flyers on them to promote in local shops.

So, we got to the show around 11:15 or so and it was really cool. It was all outdoors, in a valley surrounded by huge mountains. They had an amazing light show flashing onto a mountain behind the site, the sound was booming, the crowd was about 1500 people thick and everything just seemed too good to be true really. Well...

At about 11:30 or so, I was standing behind the stage talking with someone when I noticed a helicopter pulling over one of the mountain tops. I jokingly said "Oh look, here comes big brother" to the person I was with. I wasn't far off.

The helicopter dipped lower and lower and started shining its lights on the crowd. I was kind of in awe and just sat and watched this thing circle us for a minute. As I looked back towards the crowd I saw a guy dressed in camoflauge walking by, toting an assault rifle. At this point, everyone was fully aware of what was going on . A few "troops" rushed the stage and cut the sound off and started yelling that everyone "get the fuck out of here or go to jail". This is where it got really sticky.

No one resisted. That's for sure. They had police dogs raiding the crowd of people and I saw a dog signal out a guy who obviously had some drugs on him. The soldiers attacked the guy (4 of them on 1), and kicked him a few times in the ribs and had their knees in his back and sides. As they were cuffing him, there was about 1000 kids trying to leave in the backdrop, peacefully. Next thing I know, A can of fucking TEAR GAS is launched into the crowd. People are running and screaming at this point. Girls are crying, guys are cussing... bad scene.

Now, this is all I saw with my own eyes, but I heard plenty of other accounts of the night. Now this isnt gossip I heard from some candy raver, these are instances cited straight out of the promoters mouth..

- One of the promoters friends (a very small female) was attacked by one of the police dogs. As she struggled to get away from it, the police tackled her. 3 grown men proceeded to KICK HER IN THE STOMACH.

- The police confiscated 3 video tapes in total. People were trying to document what was happening out there. The police saw one guy filming and ran after him, tackled him and his camera fell, and luckily.. his friend grabbed it and ran and got away. priceless footage. That's not all though. Out of 1,500 people, there's sure to be more footage.

- The police were rounding up the staff of the party and the main promoter went up to them with the permit for the show and said "here, I have the permit." The police then said, "no you don't" and ripped the permit out of his hand. Then, they put an assault rifle to his forehead and said "get the fuck out of here right now."



Now.. let's get the facts straight here.

This event was 100% legal. They had every permit the city told them they needed. They had a 2 MILLION DOLLAR insurance policy for the event. They had liscenced security guards at the gates confiscating any alcohol or drugs found upon entry (yes, they searched every car on the way in). Oh, I suppose I should mention that they arrested all the security guards for possession.

Oh another interesting fact.. the police did not have a warrant. The owner of the land already has a lawsuit against the city for something similar. A few months ago, she rented her land for a party and the police raided that as well. And catch this, the police forced her to LEAVE HER OWN PERSONAL PROPERTY. That's right. They didnt arrest her, but made her leave her own property!!!

Don't get it twisted, this is all going down in probably THE most conservative state in the USA. And this is scary.. a gross violation of our civil liberties. The police wanted this party shut down, so they made it happen. Even though everything about this event was legal. The promoters spent over $ 20,000 on this show and did everything they had to to make it legit, only to have it taken away from them by a group of radical neo-con's with an agenda.

This was one of the scariest things I have ever witnessed in person. I can't even begin to describe how surreal it was. Helicopters, assault rifles, tear gas, camoflauge-wearing soldiers.... why? Was that really necessary?

This needs to be big news across the USofA. At least in our music scene (edm as a whole)... this could happen to any of us at any time. When we're losing the right to gather peacefully, we're also letting the police set a standard of what we can get away with. And I think that's BULLSHIT!

The system fucked up last night... They broke up a party that was 100% legal and they physically hurt a lot of people there at the same time. The promoters already have 6 lawsuits ready to file with their lawyers and the ACLU is already involved.

I'm sure some pictures (and hopefully some video) will surface soon. I'll make sure to post them up here on 404, so you can see the Police State of America at work.



the video with sound they didnt want you to see





----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Joanna aka Syze
Date: Aug 21, 2005 11:59 PM

UTAH PARTY I WAS PLAYING AT .... SAD


Hey everyone, by now most of you know that I was set to perform at the Versus 2 in Salt Lake City Utah last night August 20th 2005. I am mad, sad, and disturbed at what happened. Here is more info and thank you all for your kind words.......please spread this all around and write letters so we can be heard and fight this.

Ravers mauled by K-9s, beat up by police, CAMERAS CONFISCATED & DESTROYED, SWAT brandishing ASSAULT RIFLES, women KICK IN THE STOMACH by cops, TEAR GAS dispersed!
Make sure to check out Knick's post, linked towards the bottom of this blog.

Utah Raves Forum:
http://forums.utrave.org/showthread.php?t=19971

My story on Seattle DNB

http://www.seattlednb.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2840

Knick from Evol Intents story

http://www.404audio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14814