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Disco Donnie and the Days of Rave
All Disco Donnie wanted to do was throw some wild parties. Then he threw New Orleans into the center of a national debate over music, drugs, the First Amendment and pacifiers.
By
Cristina Diettinger
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The
most striking thing in Betty Estopinal's Metairie CPA office
is a massive portrait of her son Disco Donnie, constructed
entirely of Mardi Gras beads.
Portrait courtesy John Lawson/Barrister's
Gallery |
The stench of
smoke and must rises to the State Palace Theatre's massive balcony.
It's a few minutes until the start of the first local screening
of Rise: The Story of Rave Outlaw Disco Donnie, a new documentary
about the heyday of the local rave scene and its legendary promoter.
The line to get into this all-night party stretches up Canal Street
and halfway around the block on Elk's Place, where paint chips
from the theater's unkempt exterior drop to a sidewalk flooded
almost exclusively with white high school- and college-aged kids.
Girls in halter tops sparkle with body glitter, chatting up boys
in baggy pants. Eager to get inside, each patron meets with a
security bottleneck at the door. Bags, pockets and shoes are searched;
IDs are checked. An enormous sign above the doors prohibits glow
materials, Vicks inhalers, Vicks Vapo Rub, dust masks and infant
pacifiers.
Inside, the curtain opens to whoops and howls. The opening
credits feature QBert -- a seminal hip-hop DJ, hailed for his elevation of turntablism
as an art form -- collecting his luggage from the local airport carousel. Like
most of the passengers on his flight, he's on his way to a Mardi Gras party,
namely Zoolu, a rave at the State Palace Theatre. As the film plays on, a host
of international DJs appear, including marquee names such as Josh Wink, Nigel
Richards and Derrick Carter.
But none of these performers is the star of the film.
That honor is reserved for event promoter James D. Estopinal
Jr., aka Disco Donnie, who first appears dressed in an orange vinyl tracksuit
and a Wagner's Meat T-shirt, gold sunglasses and a bottle opener on a gold rope
around his neck. "We're going to a party," he says to start the film, flashing
both rows of stark-white teeth in a wide grin. "Twenty-five hundred or 3,000
of my closest friends."
Estopinal's wildly popular parties at the State Palace Theatre
became the stuff of rave legend by early 2000. Yet it wasn't just innovative
productions and financial success that landed him in Time, Rolling
Stone and The New York Times. The parties -- along with their venue
and promoter -- won their fame thanks to a national controversy that would eventually
grow to include the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), both houses of Congress
and the entire entertainment industry.
GROWING UP ON THE WEST BANK,
James D. Estopinal Jr. got his first taste of nightlife via his father. A hardworking
attorney, James Estopinal Sr. gave up his practice in 1979 after he separated
from 8-year-old Donnie's mother. Known as "Disco Jim," the elder Estopinal took
a job as a DJ at a bar called Scratches on Behrman Highway. Sometimes on weekends,
Donnie's mother would let him go there with his father. "I would sleep on the
floor, go through records, play video games, help stock beers, stuff like that,"
the younger Estopinal recalls.
Once, Disco Jim staged an "urban cowboy" show
at the bar. Dressed in chaps, he played the theme song from The Good, The
Bad and the Ugly and had patrons sign a liability release form before mounting
the quarter-a-ride hobbyhorse he'd rented for the occasion. Another time, he
encouraged everyone to get naked to a Rolling Stones record.
When he wasn't spinning records, Disco Jim
lived in a motor home parked in a field near the bar. "I thought it was awesome
that he lived in a motor home," says Disco Donnie. "I saw all kinds of stuff
kids aren't supposed to see."
Most of the time, though, Estopinal lived
with his mother, Betty Estopinal, a CPA who now runs her own accounting firm
in Metairie. The most striking thing in her office is a massive portrait of
"Disco Donnie" dancing in a leisure suit, constructed entirely of Mardi Gras
beads. "That's my son!" she says proudly.
As a student at Arden Cahill Academy in Gretna,
Disco Donnie loved sports and social success. "Everyone would call him to see
what he was doing. He was always the one that planned things, that made things
happen," Betty Estopinal says. When he wasn't in school, he traveled with his
mother, often in an old Datsun with no air conditioning, on trips to places
such as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park and Winter Park Resort.
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The raid on the 2000 "Phuture Phat Hong Kong
Phooey" show thrust New Orleans into the national
debate over raves.
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In 1980, Betty Estopinal came down with a
potentially deadly form of meningitis that required a four-month hospital stay.
"It was a scary time, but the thing that upset him the most," she recalls, "was
that nobody told him I could die until after I was OK."
Disco Donnie entered Louisiana State University
in 1990, planning to follow in his mother's footsteps and become an accountant.
In college, he threw small parties in bars, mostly for his fraternity, which
he led as president. When he returned to New Orleans after graduating in 1994,
he briefly worked for his mother and took a job waiting tables at night. One
night, a few gay men he worked with invited him to a dance party at Cafe Istanbul,
a now-defunct club on Frenchmen Street. "I felt misplaced when I first came
back here," he recalls as he twists the sideburns of his 1970s haircut into
little curls. "Until I found this. I was totally floored."
From then on, he set himself on a mission
-- to spread the word about the culture he had found. "My personal crusade was
not to let this scene pass by anybody else," he says. He passed out flyers and
invited his fraternity brothers to attend dance parties around town and quickly
became known as "Disco Donnie," a nickname that he considers an early rite of
passage into the family of ravers he was helping to build.
Estopinal's first dance events were intimate
affairs for a close-knit group of college-aged clubbers. He booked local DJs
at Cafe Istanbul, the Audubon Hotel on St. Charles Avenue and the previous incarnation
of the Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center on Magazine Street in the Lower
Garden District. Working with partners including Dan Millstein, aka DJ Stryfe,
Estinopal organized the parties under a series of "company" monikers such as
Moon Patrol, a precursor to his current entities, Disco Productions and the
Freebass Society.
When the parties outgrew small clubs, Estopinal
and his cohorts found larger, less legitimate venues. They posed as a sound
equipment company to gain access to a stinky fish warehouse on Erato Street
for a regular Friday night event. "No liquor license, no insurance, no security,"
he recalls. "Totally, like, stupid. Five hundred people started showing up to
these things, and it got really risky. It's a six-story place, someone throws
a two-by-four out the window, and it hits someone in the head. Stuff like that
started happening. We knew that if we wanted to get bigger, we had to go legal."
THROUGHOUT THE GOLDEN AGE OF GRUNGE, the State
Palace Theatre had featured acts such as Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam and
had hosted the New Orleans premiere of the Dave Matthews Band in 1995. A family
business owned and operated by brothers Robert and Brian Brunet and their father
Rene Brunet, it had a security staff, proper insurance policies and ticket sales
through Ticketmaster. It was also tailor-made for raves. With its ornate opera-house
architecture and multiple performance rooms, the State Palace could accommodate
dozens of DJs and live acts and throngs of electronic music fans.
The first few State Palace raves, held in
1995, drew crowds in the hundreds, and the first Freebass Society Mardi Gras
party at the State Palace, Zoolu 2, held in February 1996, netted about $12,000.
State Palace co-owner Robert Brunet learned quickly that there was money to
be made from raves: "I said to Donnie and Dan, 'Hey, I don't know shit about
the music you promote, and y'all don't know shit about putting on a show.' So,
I proposed that we partner up. Donnie and Dan were peeing in their pants they
were so excited. Donnie's not a dumb guy." Estopinal insists that he was the
one to put a deal on the table with Brunet and that he wasn't altogether clueless
about putting on shows. But he also admits that the bottom line was never his
primary concern.
"Donnie was always about the music," says
Brunet. "He was always all, 'I'm concerned about how other promoters are going
to feel about this,' or, 'I'm concerned about this not being the right thing
for the kids.' I was like, f--k the other promoters."
Eventually, Estopinal's success meant he began
receiving investment opportunities: a clothing line, a record label, a bagel
shop. "I was so busy goofing off, I was like, whatever," he says. "I was spontaneously
successful and I knew that it would be hard to duplicate that. I had seen enough
VH1 Behind the Music to know that. I was resigned to the fact that one
day, it would end, or slow down, or change."
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| "I felt misplaced when
I first came back here," says Disco Donnie (pictured), who
graduated LSU in 1994. "Until I found this."
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"YOU EVER SEEN A BUILDING'S WALLS SWEAT?" asks
local raver and Web archivist Bruce Burge, referring to the height of the State
Palace rave scene, from 1996 to 2000.
Estopinal's parties became nationally known
for bizarre themes and attractions. There was a dance contest MC-ed by Fred
Berry (the now-deceased actor who played Rerun on the television sitcom What's
Happening!!), a surprise set by 2 Live Crew, a puppet show by local novelty
act Quintron and a traditional Mardi Gras second line by ReBirth Brass Band.
At one party, the San Diego group Crash Worship led a drum-pounding processional
that included a naked woman drenched in wine. Another time, Estopinal turned
on all the house lights at 3 a.m. and had a choir sing "Amazing Grace" into
the cavernous theater.
Some parties had cryptic titles like "Onslaught,"
and "Fire," and others took on more twisted themes like "Psychedelic Pimp-Daddyland,"
"Caffeine Sex Fiend," and "Supaphat Hong Kong Phooey." Later, Estopinal reincarnated
successful parties with "brand" names such as, "Supaphat Hong Kong Phooey Twooey,"
"Phuture Phat Hong Kong Phooey," "Caffeine Mean Joe Greens," and "Caffeine Mr.
Green Jeans."
Freebass Society parties also featured top-tier
electronic music talent such as the Crystal Method, Paul Oakenfold and Thievery
Corporation. In 2001, Scott Kirkland of the Crystal Method told the online magazine
New Orleans Electronica Digest, "[Donnie] is always willing to do something
for New Orleans that no other person in the country is willing to do, to make
a connection to the people that go out and pay $20 and $30 a night to get into
an event."
Talking to Freebass Society devotees, it's
clear that they hold a near-eerie allegiance to Estopinal and the scene he created.
Mostly in their early 20s, these ravers are visibly cautious when asked about
their leader's antics, offering responses like, "Donnie would kill me," or,
"I have a story, but it's X-rated." To some attendees, Estopinal held celebrity
status. "People wanted to meet him, hang out with him or just touch him," says
local DJ and upstart promoter Swede White. "They wanted to shake his hand and
say thanks for the great time."
DISCO DONNIE WAS AT HOME, trying on outfits
and styling his hair when agents from the DEA's New Orleans field office entered
the State Palace Theatre on Aug. 26, 2000, just before "Phuture Phat Hong Kong
Phooey" was set to begin. When Estopinal finally arrived, he found police cars,
lights flashing, scattered around the venue's one-block perimeter. The police
had sealed off the theater's entrance before its doors opened to patrons, leaving
thousands of ravers spilling onto Canal Street.
From 9 p.m. until 1 a.m., DEA agents scoured
the premises, seizing files, computers, party favors and as much bottled water
as they could haul away. The agents found virtually no illegal drugs inside
the theater -- and no proof that Estopinal and the Brunets were involved in
any type of drug dealing. The following Monday morning, the promoters discovered
that that wasn't the issue at hand.
At a meeting with their attorneys, Estopinal
and the Brunets learned that they were being indicted under grand jury charges
of violation of the so-called "crack house statute" and ongoing criminal enterprise,
a charge that carried a possible sentence of 20 years to life. It was the first
time that the federal government used the 1986 law to indict venue managers
and event promoters for drug dealing and consumption at their events, rather
than charging the pushers and consumers themselves. "I was in shock," Estopinal
recalls.
For the next several months, life was bizarre
for Disco Donnie. "It was crazy," he says. "Every conversation had to be outside.
I had to hide everything." His daily duties went from waking up past noon and
planning parties with hip DJs, to waking up for early morning meetings with
his attorney and then driving to his mother's house to have an outdoor conversation
for fear the phones were tapped.
"You feel funny when somebody's watching you
for months and you don't know it," he says. "You start getting paranoid. You
start thinking, 'Oh my God, I'm just going to turn myself in.' I was thinking
of every bad thing I'd ever done, like that time in kindergarten when I cheated
on that test. If they followed Mother Teresa around for eight months, they could
put her in jail."
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Photo by Luke Bullock
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"At the time, we thought we were doing our
best," Brunet says of security measures at State Palace raves. "We thought,
'We don't want people doing drugs in here, but it's not necessarily our job
to be the police.' I wouldn't say it was a foolish opinion, considering that's
how every other venue in town saw it." Reflecting on the roller-coaster ride
that his partnership with Estopinal became, he seems half-regretful, half-amused.
"Someday, I swear," he says, "I'm going to write a book about this. It has all
the makings: music, sex, drugs, cops, attorneys, courts."
It also has a tragic death. In August of 1998,
17-year-old Jillian Kirkland of Mobile, Ala., was rushed to Charity Hospital
after suffering convulsions from drug complications at a State Palace Theatre
rave. She died after lying in a coma for several days. The incident marked a
low point for Estopinal, whose father had passed away just a few weeks before
the incident.
"I felt terrible that that had happened at
one of my events," he says. "At some point, I was like, well f--k it, I don't
want to do this anymore. It hurt. But I had a lot of friends around and they
convinced me to keep going."
About one month after Kirkland's death, Estopinal
says, three DEA agents visited his apartment on Bourbon Street in the Faubourg
Marigny, unannounced, at seven o'clock on a random morning. He says the agents
questioned him about drug dealers at the State Palace Theatre raves, telling
him that they were certain he knew who they were. After he insisted he did not
know, the agents asked him what his yearly income was. They told him they could
"take care of him" if he agreed to identify the drug dealers. Again, Estopinal
denied having the information. "They told me what a horrible person I was,"
Estopinal recalls, "and that I was destroying people's lives."
Richard Woodfork, public information officer
for the New Orleans division of the DEA, would not verify or deny Estopinal's
story or provide any specific information about the investigation.
Estopinal had already suspected that DEA agents
were at large at his parties. By the late '90s, the DEA had made its "Club Drug
Campaign" public, and mainstream media was rife with coverage of raves as drug-fueled
death traps. "Every time we did a party at the State Palace," he says, "somebody
said it was going to be raided." He was well aware that the DEA had launched
a national investigation of raves and the club drugs associated with them. He
wasn't aware, however, that he and the owners of the State Palace Theatre were
subjects.
For eight months, beginning in January of
2000, Estopinal and the State Palace Theatre were under investigation by the
DEA. "I should have known," says Estopinal. "It was on the Internet. They were
calling me on the phone, pretending they were promoters from out of town, asking
me about throwing raves, trying to get me to say stuff about drugs. I'd tell
them security keeps them out of there."
Agent Michael Templeton and his task force
officers were collecting evidence for an application for the search warrant
that they needed to raid the theater. Templeton's affidavit for a search warrant
states that he and other agents, acting undercover, observed rampant consumption
and sales of Ecstasy and LSD that "neither the security guards nor the management
of the State Palace Theatre did anything to curtail." It said that the venue
sold glow sticks, bottled water, pacifiers and other "drug paraphernalia" at
their events. Templeton also stated that at "Zoolu 6," on March 4, 2000, one
undercover agent made "a total of 25 purchases of controlled substances, particularly
MDMA, averaging one every four minutes."
Previous congressional testimony by New Orleans
Field Division Special Agent in Charge George Cazenavette (now retired) revealed
the division's belief that DJs were involved in the distribution of drugs in
the venue and that drugs were stored inside sound equipment and distributed
to the crowd by "runners" with VIP badges.
ELECTRONIC MUSIC HAS SPAWNED DOZENS OF SUBGENRES--
house, trance, techno, drum'n'bass -- and its enthusiasts often travel hundreds
of miles to go to a rave. "We'd sell tickets in 20 states," says Estopinal.
"People were coming from everywhere because they had to see a certain DJ, so
they could cross him off their list." Most ravers say the idea that people only
come to raves to do drugs is ludicrous. It's for the music, they say. Yet few
deny that there are other factors involved.
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Photo by Luke Bullock
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Some say it's about "PLUR." Known as "the
core of the scene," PLUR stands for "Peace, Love, Unity, Respect," a philosophy
that sets up a utopian social atmosphere at raves. Some say the positive vibes
at raves are contagious, that the experience can be life-changing, with or without
drugs. "It's a life we've all chosen to lead," says DJ Tommie Sunshine, who
was dragged to his first rave after a Grateful Dead show in the early '90s.
Sensory stimulation -- frenetic music, laser
light shows, video projection, thousands of partygoers in one building -- is
another draw. Eye candy is provided by patrons, who consider themselves part
of the show. There are few fashion parameters -- especially at New Orleans parties
such as Zoolu. Looks range from multi-colored wigs and hair extensions, feathers,
and bra tops spangled with glitter to homemade cut-up skirts, Mohawks, piercings,
and all shapes and colors of eyewear. At a recent State Palace rave, a man with
a multicolored, checkerboard haircut carried a stuffed monkey painted with blue
glitter.
Like its fashions, rave dancing varies from
region to region and depends on the style of music being played, but the basic
moves consist of curving motions interspersed with sharp poses. The physical
manifestation of the culture, rave dancing combines the fluidity of psychedelia
and the angular "futuristic" aesthetic as it melds together in the bliss of
the dance floor.
If raves are all about sound, lights, fashion,
dancing and feeling good, then drugs can only help to kick the party up a notch
-- or at least that's what some ravers say. The drug most commonly associated
with raves is Ecstasy, or MDMA, which causes body temperature to rise, possibly
leading to dehydration -- especially in combination with hours of vigorous dancing.
Fainting, seizures and, in severe cases, death can result. Although research
is inconclusive, some have also linked Ecstasy to mood fluctuations, memory
loss and a number of other long-term risks. Nonetheless, it remains the drug
of choice for some ravers.
Jim (who agreed to be interviewed but not
identified) is a 25-year-old rave enthusiast who lives in Baton Rouge and works
for the State of Louisiana. "You can have raves without drugs," he says, "but
you would lose what makes a rave so great, the freedom to dance, to get high,
to live. A rave without drugs would be like a bar without alcohol."
"That's so not true," says raver Bruce Burge.
"Drugs aren't the draw to these parties; the music is." Burge, now 24, admits
that drugs are what brought him to the rave scene when he was younger. "But
once I was in it," he says, "I started meeting people that were different than
everything I knew. There were no racists, no homophobes. Everyone was judged
for who they were as a person, and that changed my ideas about my life and where
it was going." Burge, now sober, says he doesn't feel out of place in the scene
because he doesn't do drugs.
Throughout Rise, in an MTV-style "confessional,"
director Julie Drazen asks every interview subject if they are rolling (a slang
term for being high on Ecstasy). Most say yes, many who say no are accused of
lying, and one can't stop chewing gum long enough to speak, indicating the compulsive
jaw-clenching effect of Ecstasy.
THE UNPRECEDENTED APPLICATION OF THE CRACK
HOUSE STATUTE to raves at the State Palace Theatre baffled the attorneys involved.
Estopinal's original attorney, Milton Masinter, advised him to plead guilty
and serve one year in a minimum-security prison. "He had a picture of the jail,"
Estopinal recalls. "He said, 'See, you can't cross the street, but there's some
grass where you can walk around and a basketball court.' I'm thinking, 'Oh,
that's not so bad.'"
But Estopinal believed he was innocent. Shutting
down raves and rave promoters, he thought, would do little to protect children
from the dangers of street drugs. Eventually, he decided that he would neither
plead guilty nor accept any plea agreement he was offered. With a new attorney
(Patrick Fanning) and the help of the American Civil Liberties Union's Drug
Policy Litigation Project director Graham Boyd, he decided to fight the federal
government.
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Photo by Luke Bullock
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Members of the electronic music industry organized
EM:DEF (Electronic Music Defense and Education Fund) to raise money for Estopinal's
defense. "I'm not going to pretend to be all deep or whatever," he says, "but
I have a lot of friends that I made all these years, and they had a lot riding
on me. I was like, 'Well, screw this, I'm not pleading guilty. I'm going to
take the chance. I'm a gambling man. If you want to put me away for 20 years,
good.' That's how I started feeling."
In March of 2001, then-U.S. Attorney Eddie
Jordan dropped the charges. A second case charged Barbecue of New Orleans Inc.,
the local corporation owned by the Brunets doing business as the State Palace
Theatre, with conspiracy to violate the crack house statute. Judge Thomas Porteous
accepted a guilty plea, and the corporation paid a fine of $100,000 (less than
the court costs would have been had the case gone to trial). Owners of the State
Palace also agreed to ban all "drug paraphernalia" such as pacifiers, glow sticks
and Vicks inhalers, all said to enhance the sensory effects of Ecstasy.
On June 18, 2001, the RAVE (Reducing Americans'
Vulnerability to Ecstasy) Act was introduced in the U.S. Senate. Sponsored by
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., the RAVE Act aimed to expand the crack house statute
to target music promoters, venue managers and landowners. The bill carried a
civil liability of $250,000 or twice the gross profits of the event in question,
in addition to its criminal penalties of up to 20 years in prison and $500,000
in fines. On the Senate floor, Biden said that the legislation was necessary
because promoters "profit from exploiting and endangering young lives," citing
the New Orleans case as an example.
The ACLU, the International Association of
Assembly Managers and EM:DEF all attacked the bill as anti-First Amendment.
Two of the bill's original sponsors, including Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Chairman
of the Senate Judiciary Committee, withdrew their support. A retooled RAVE Act
resurfaced the following year. Now called the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation
Act, the bill applied to any type of concert or entertainment event. Its writers
had also removed its controversial "findings" section, which had attempted to
codify an inextricable relationship between raves and club drugs. A conference
committee tacked the new, broad-based act onto the Amber Alert Bill -- a popular
piece of legislation that deals with child abduction and sexual exploitation
of children -- which passed in April. Leahy issued a press release recognizing
objections to the bill and its inclusion in the "hastily assembled" conference
package.
It might be too early to tell what kind of
impact this law and others like it will have on the entertainment industry.
Some promoters, such as the entertainment conglomerate Clear Channel, are not
threatened by it. "Clear Channel Entertainment finds the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation
Act and the amendment to the Amber Alert to be positive legislation for the
facilities management industry," reads the company's official statement on the
matter.
More concerned is the New Orleans-based music
promoter Superfly Productions. Organizers of the annual Bonnaroo Music Festival
in Manchester, Tenn., the independent company regularly promotes concerts by
acts associated with the "jamband" scene spawned by the Grateful Dead -- a band
often associated with illegal drug use. Superfly principle Jonathan Mayers is
wary of the law's possible applications, but also confident that concert promotion
is a legitimate business and a cultural necessity. "People are always going
to want to gather and be entertained," he says. "I'm not going to let a law
that was meant to attack something else stop me from doing what I do. If someone
wants to interpret that law to an extreme degree, then there are going to be
problems about everything we do and how we live."
Biden and the DEA both say that the language
of the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act protects venues from being prosecuted
for incidental drug use by their patrons and that a venue that does not promote
the use of drugs has nothing to worry about. "Where there is a major concern
about the consumption of drugs, we have to get involved," says the DEA's Woodfork,
"but we would never shut down a legitimate place where there are concerts and
music." Harry William, an attorney with the ACLU, is not so sure. "The real
history of this is that Biden slipped this language in the Amber Alert bill
without any debate because they'd lost the debate before, when various groups
were adamantly opposed to it on First Amendment grounds," he says.
Gary Blitz, national coordinator of EM:DEF,
says that for independent producers, just the threat of a lawsuit can be chilling.
"Let's say you set up a tour or event that costs several million dollars to
produce," he says. "Then the venue manager gets wind of the RAVE Act and voluntarily
pulls the plug on your event. Then you don't even get a day in court." Even
if you did, argue some detractors, an independent promoter might not have the
resources and finances to defend itself.
This scenario has already occurred. Just one
month after the legislation passed, a NORML rally to benefit the campaign for
medical marijuana was shut down in Billings, Mont., when a DEA agent informed
the venue owners that they could be prosecuted for drug use by their patrons
under the new federal law. Biden and the DEA both called this instance a misinterpretation
of the law, but not before the event was canceled.
More recently, the owner of Element, a nightclub
in Austin, Texas, was allegedly advised by local police to cancel an Oct. 26
performance by drum'n'bass DJ LTJ Bukem, a show promoted by Estopinal's company,
Disco Productions. Co-promoter Damon Williams says that the club's owner, who
could not be reached for comment, was convinced that the show would bring too
much attention from police because of Estopinal's association with raves. The
Austin Police Department denied the allegations, and the show was moved to a
club in Dallas.
"It's definitely making it harder to get venues,"
says Estopinal. Earlier this year, he helped Swede White move a pair of events
from Twiropa to the State Palace and Ampersand when an investor pulled support.
"My investor and his attorney came across the RAVE Act and were aware of the
State Palace's troubles," says White. "When the new act passed and took effect
immediately, it was time for them to get out." White did not reveal the name
of his investor. "I would love to fight the law personally," he adds, "but I
do not have millions to spend on attorneys."
Cutting-edge DJs still spin in almost every
city in the United States, but there's a sense, at least in the local rave community,
that things just aren't what they used to be. Many people from the State Palace
scene complain that today's parties are less fun -- and attendance has dropped
drastically. New York-based journalist Bill Werde has written about raves for
The New York Times, The Village Voice and Urb, a California-based
electronic music and culture magazine. He penned an article in the February
2003 issue of Urb titled "Rave Is Dead" and thinks that the rave scene
was bound to cycle down, or change, regardless of legal trouble. "This was a
scene that couldn't possibly last," he says. "You just got the sense that it
was a matter of time before it ended. It's a shame because there was this utopian
vision that really worked when things were good."
ESTOPINAL HOPSCOTCHES ACROSS THE PATIO behind
the Tulane Avenue dance club Ampersand, kicks a sandal off of one foot and offers
a hand to shake. "My hand is clean," he says, "but my socks didn't come back
from the laundry."
It's 4 p.m. and the after-party to the previous
night's rave at the State Palace is as lively as it's going to get on this sultry
July afternoon. A DJ mixes from his table at the front of the patio, his deep
pulsating beats blaring into the open air.
Between sips of Budweiser, Estopinal says
that the new law does not change the way he does business. "I still don't deal
with security," he says. "My job is to book talent." Now living in Columbus,
Ohio, with his girlfriend and their 2-year-old child, he still promotes electronic
music events at cities around the country, including New Orleans. He books talent
at festivals such as the local Halloween weekend Voodoo Music Festival, which
features a rave tent. He also books DJs at local clubs, including the weekly
House of Blues S.I.N. (Service Industry Night) dance party. And he still throws
regular parties at the State Palace Theatre, with Zoolu 10 coming up Feb. 21.
Disco Donnie offers a sincere hug to everyone
at the party, even strangers, before he leaves to drive to Metairie.
"I want to go see my mom," he says. "She's worried about me.
I didn't come home last night."
Other Stories This Week in Features:
Cover Story
The Rise of Rave
Feature
CD Reviews
No Absolutes
Hearts and Minds
Health News
The Mackie Report
Health Talk
Dotcom Doctors
Blake Pontchartrain™
New Orleans Know-It-All
Shoptalk
Other Stories by Cristina Diettinger:
Feature 12 30 03
A&E Feature 11 25 03
A&E Feature 11 18 03
Cristina Diettinger Archives
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