Upcoming Event: Imaginary Friends, Friday Nov 2 - Saturday Nov 3

This past week I got a flyer from my friend Raph, aka DJ Helios, for a party he's playing this weekend called Imaginary Friends. While it lacks the pastels and anime-eyed characters of candy rave flyers past, there's no mistaking what kind of party this is intended to be when you read the flyer:

Deep in you imagination
live imaginary friends.
Immerse yourself in a 2 day
one night dance celebration
with four rooms of music hidden
within a 2-acre maze.

Kandi Making Station
Glow Stick Vendor
$1 Water
Chill Out Area
Fully Themed

I must admit, I'm strongly tempted by this party, as there still lives on in me the unrepentant kandy raver boi who would think nothing of a rolling weekend if I could just have a binky, a comfy pair of phat jeans, a hoody, and some cool peeps to hang out with. Though they quickly became the scape goats of the rave scene, it was the candy ravers who always knew how to party, and who, in their most delirious moments, had a sense that maybe these parties meant something more than just getting fucked up. I had great times at candy raves thrown by groups like the Happy Kids, and one of my most amazing party experiences was a free Skills party in Golden Gate Park, where I was awed by the way in which that scene could bring so many diverse kids together to be nice to each other and have a good time.

Candy raves were always amateurish and a little messy, and there were certainly sketchy elements to them as well; I will also never forget breaking up a little scene in the bathroom at a youth club where I was helping produce a party, where one kid was selling his Ritalin pills to other kids. But there was also something refreshing about their "hey kids, let's put on a show" attitude. In a day when bottle service and VIP lines, along with relentless scenester-ism, are what defines a club's offerings, it's hard to not feel a nostalgia for events in dingy warehouses with hand-painted banners and $10 covers.

I doubt that I'll make it Imaginary Friends; camping out in early November, in a location where I'll need to rent a car to get there, makes me think too much of things I'll need to prepare for, and right now life is a little more immediate than that. Still, I'm glad to have seen a flyer for something that has the marks of an old-skool rave; I hope I'll see more soon, when I have a little more energy for them.