“Between The Beats”: A Trip Back To S.F.’s Early 1990s Rave Subculture
Ever felt gloriously alive after an all-night rave on Baker Beach and ending your evening by seeing the Golden Gate Bridge popping out from behind Karl The Fog’s cloak at daybreak? For those who experienced and still cherish that feeling…for those curious about the people who had that experience or the reason why these people took part in that dance, Martin O’Brien and Jeno Lach’s new documentary “Between The Beats” will answer these questions and/or even make viewers nostalgic for those emotions.
Coming October 15, 2024 to such VOD outlets as Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Google Play, this documentary takes viewers back to the early days of 1990s San Francisco rave culture. Early, in this case, means playing house music at a Townsend Street dance club and getting “what the hell is this” looks from ¾ of the club patrons. It talks to such seminal figures in the scene as the underground vet DJ Dan, SF-born DJ Doc Martin, and Brian Behlendorf, a raver whose S.F. Raves message board spread the good word about the area’s rave culture. In addition, the viewer will meet such ravers of the time as Sharon Virtue, Dana Marlow, Billie Sharp, and Gina Paoli.
As directors O’Brien and Lach show, raving celebrated many things that the average Faux News cultist would hate. The parties extolled communal connection whether through losing oneself dancing to the music’s beat with a roomful of people, getting emotionally enhanced with a hit of Ecstasy or even both. The casual nonjudgmental drug use and the admitted disregard for treating private property as sacrosanct (read: using long abandoned warehouses or other empty spaces gathering dust as dance party venues) explains why raving was an underground culture and a source of mainstream news’ scare coverage. Then again, when a show on your network (CBS, cough cough) depicts a rave as occurring in a well-lit dancing space and possessing a working ATM, you don’t exactly broadcast street credibility.
O’Brien, on the other hand, projects street cred up the yin-yang because he was involved in putting on raves back in the day. On camera, he shares a general description of the kind-of- sort-of-legal way rave venues were found and why finding the rave location was like taking part in a treasure hunt. Today’s instant gratification crowd might treat the “finding the rave” process as not worth the trouble. Yet there’s something to be said for keeping the cops away from crashing the party and shutting down the good vibes being generated by the music and the drugs.
— “What?”
— “Are you going to the after!”
— “What?“
And what parties they were. Are you a reader who remembers Wicked at 1015 Folsom, Toon Town, Come-Unity, Recycle, or The Gathering? Footage from actual raves appears throughout the film to remind some viewers and show others what the experience of being there was like. The soundtrack is laced with such bangers of the period as Da Rebels’ “House Nation Under A Groove,” Hawke’s “3 Nudes In A Purple Garden,” and Carl Craig’s “The Climax.” On the other hand, getting the rights to have house music excerpts in the film helps explain the gap between the end of the successful Kickstart for “Between The Beats” and what lucky viewers will be seeing here. Finding and interviewing people who were actually on the S.F. rave scene 30 years ago also provided its own challenges.
O’Brien and Lach’s film will show viewers how rave subculture fits in on a number of levels with San Francisco’s wonderful history of sociocultural experimentation. Learn how the dances at a Grateful Dead concert or even the light, music, and dance parties of the hippie era aren’t that far apart from raves. Also, prepare to get your mind blown when you learn how rave patrons got to play with really early versions of videoconferencing and Virtual Reality. As an article quoted in “Between The Beats” says, “San Francisco is conducive to anyone who is young, wacked-out, and stakes their claim.” Unlike the ravers and the hippies, what have the techies done to raise peoples’ consciousness in a good way?
Between The Beats | Official Trailer | Gravitas Ventures (youtube.com)
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