 |
| Every city needs an underground. |
The first music event I attended after moving to Los Angeles took place in a warehouse.
It was a psychedelic trance party thrown by a crew called Sixth Sense.
The location was somewhere in pregentrification Hollywood, when many of
its commercial districts were virtually derelict. Outside was an urban
wasteland, but inside the party was filled with color, sound and life:
loud, pulsating music, black lights, people in hippie/raver attire —
phat pants, dreadlocks, fluorescent sneakers, T-shirts with mandalas
printed on them. I made a lot of new friends and danced my ass off. It
was fantastic.
In the years since — more years than I care to admit — I've probably
attended hundreds of other underground events in various locales, from
warehouses and lofts to deserts and forests. One event took place after
hours in a gym, with a boxing ring doubling as a dance floor. Another
happened at a paintball park. Soundstages, ranches, decrepit theaters,
churches, abandoned storefronts, construction sites — anywhere you could
set up a sound system and invite a few hundred of your closest friends,
the underground was there.
