CHAPTER 1
You always remember your first.
It begins as words unspoken. A silent nod signals the starting point. You are here. Euphoria slowly seeps up from underneath you, triggers a warmth that comes in slow, deep waves. Your body responds as a rush floods those internal places, a recurring innocence coupled with more waves that slowly crescendo from within.
A nervousness clings onto its last hinge and then deteriorates with the opening draw of violin strings. It's a feeling of complete immersion as you momentarily thrust completely in and then briefly pull back, enough to keep you focused. The decision has subconsciously been made. No point in resisting now as those first moments are the beginning descent into a familiar and an unknown. From out of nowhere, a voice glides to the surface. Words fumble over themselves, half understood upon first listen. They lazily plunk down around you, while mentally, there's a reassurance you can always decipher their meaning later.
The layers seamlessly build higher and higher, climbing as your body begins to cover itself in a film of sweat. It tries so hard to resist its greatest urge, resulting in a restrained shuffle to an unsettling bass demanding some movement until everything converges into a full-body climax.
It arrives with an almost immediate snap and release as you mentally unearth what your body has known this whole time. Eccentric Icelandic singer Björk has described it as such. It's a Big. Time. Sensuality.
You are here.
Around you is a realization that you're not the only one who's had this experience. Deep in a sea of glow sticks, fun fur, and a prevalent smell of VapoRub complimented by Tigger backpacks and high heels, there's an understanding that while your experience was individual, the truth is that everyone on the dancefloor just experienced the exact same thing you did. The music tells a complete story, something that each person experiences differently.
When the DJ's ninety minutes to three hours are up, each person will have a different interpretation of the tale that jockey just shared. When the house lights come up at eight or nine in the morning, those of use who are left celebrate the arrival together. This is the feeling you've made it to point B. Through layers of sweat and heat, with embraces all around, it becomes a communal sense of reaching the finish line. Because for those few hours you spent on that dancefloor, you not only escaped but also experienced.
Whether it's the basic four-to-the-floor of house, the light airy escape of trance, or the Tetris-style shape throwing of drum 'n' bass, there is a simple truth: that it's all connected into this woven fabric called the rave scene. An evolution from disco and the gay-created circuit parties, raves adopted said party's fundamental desire for unity and developed an identity all on its own. Other bits and pieces were embraced to the budding scene and the whole concept, along with an adopted mantra of peace, love, unity, and respect had taken off. However, before the glow gear, the glitter, the mantras, the ecstasy, and the evolved psychedelics was the music. Because in all actuality, all it ever was and is about is the music.
The first time is a voyeuristic experience. All you can really do is either sit or stand off to the side and watch it all unfold. Even though you say you normally don't, you admittedly like to watch. Secretly, everyone is a voyeur, whether it's a video camera, a telescope, the holes haphazardly drilled into the private booth at your local adult bookstore, or that worn-out copy of Foreskin Gump that, at first, you admitted was a curiosity (especially because in the cinematic monstrosity the porn was inspired by, Bubba was African - American and far from being a football jock). So how does this make you a voyeur?
It's an eye on the dancefloor and then over to the DJ and then back again. There is the music you think you'll know and then that sound that briefly leaps out at you and then scurries away and hides once you've been sonically teased. Seamlessly, more music taunts you until you finally experience that one song that makes your feet perpetually move. A signal from your brain exclaims, enough synapses fire off, and it's time for less watch and more do. For the next few hours, you will dance like no one is watching.
At some point, you'll see me across the room, conducting and mixing the music that becomes the story you find yourself gliding to on the dancefloor. Because tonight your voyeuristic experience is complimented with a proper soundtrack that will thump around in your head for the next three weeks. I might get a verbal compliment from you, or you may just silently nod. All the same, the music has that kind of profound effect on you. It might be a religious experience to you. I believe this to be true; however, it's all in a night's work.
I'm Noel Riley, a twenty-three-year-old disc jockey who balances an academic career with a spiritual devotion to electronic dance music and its many variations. It's that kind of aural fixation that preserves my sanity while I maneuver a currently static university schedule. Give a few months, and a clear winner in the tug of war between English and political science will be decided. Or I might wander back into the college wilderness yet again, like most of my peers attempting educational enlightenment.
Back to the music.
My first experience was when I was sixteen. My group of friends who had discovered the rave scene two years before me were going mental on the dancefloor while I was off to the side, slowly making sense of the glow gear, soothers, candy necklaces, feather boas, and colorful sparkles everywhere. It didn't take long. My best friend and soon-to-be "brother in rhythm" had explained it in painstaking detail to me. Whether it was intuition or a blind leap of faith, the reassurance was "When it happens, you will know."
"It" happened during Deko-ze's opening staple at the time. It was Björk, reconstructed over a funky techno coolness that scored the big connect and made everything, and I fucking mean everything make sense. I'd embraced it completely, filling my weekends with an entourage of which was the tight-knit group that had left us overall different from most of our peers. In essence, they were the best friends one could ever have. And upon graduation, some of us grew apart, entrapped in other things and moving on with life. A couple of us persevered and kept in close touch, still managing a night out or few.
A couple of years in, and I had not only grown addicted to the music but also felt inspired enough to want to help weave the magic I'd experienced on the dancefloor. So like those before me, I bought two turntables and a mixer and a set of headphones. I picked up some records that I trainspotted from other DJs whom I frequently watched in the DJ booth. Other tracks, I'd just discover in the wee hours of the morning on Muchmusic when I couldn't sleep. I'd mentally piece together my own DJ set and then translate that into the practice in my parents' basement. I played house parties and invited friends onto my patio for grilled eats and techno beats. Eventually, I'd get a chance to open a couple of empty clubs before securing a residency.
The music was always the constant. Genres came to the forefront there and basked in their fifteen minutes in the spotlight. Fashion trends came, evolved, and went. The scene was a contrast from the cloud of Canadian indie music that seeped through radio and concert venues. Because of its underground nature, most of the kids in university stuck to the Tragically Hip, while I found refuge on the dancefloor. And while I could appreciate homegrown rock, it was the thump through the speakers that left me spent and drenched in sweat. Because in reality, there's nothing like the feeling of going all night and experiencing that complete body rush that reminds you that you're alive.
You are here.
CHAPTER 2
It was Lea's rustling out of bed that had woken me up. I glanced over at the alarm clock and then over to her bent over, slipping her panties over her knees and gradually up. The room was scattered with half-melted candles, the light from the outside replacing the minimal illumination from the night before. I stretched out as she glanced back and blushed.
I asked, "Where are you going?"
She innocently smiled. "Unlike you, I have to research a paper on campus."
She then turned her back to me and began to fidget with her bra.
I watched this for a few minutes, observing the muscles tense while she fought with the clip. Finally, after she stopped short of giving up, I slid over to the edge of the bed and hooked it together. She glanced back at me and gave me a small smile. It was easy to get lost in her gaze, the eyes that almost immediately beckoned me to do whatever she asked.
She then asked, "What do you have planned for today?"
I let out a sigh. "Probably go to campus eventually. Also, I think I'll drop by the club and pick up my record order."
Lea did her best to hide her displeasure. She sweetly smiled, and I asked, "Call you tomorrow night?"
She nodded and then bent down to pull on her favorite jeans. In actuality, they were my favorite jeans for two simple reasons: I bought them for her, and they showed off some of the most beautiful features of her body. When she bounced to the dresser and pulled out one of my T-shirts, she then effortlessly glided into it and leaned in to kiss me.
When she pulled away, I mumbled, "What's eating you this morning?"
"Nothing. I'm fine."
With that, she kissed me again, this one lingering a little more. She ruffled what little hair I had. "You know how to let yourself out?"
I nodded, and she hurried out the door. "I'll catch you tomorrow."
Left alone and naked, I quickly rubbed my fingers through my hair and mentally deconstructed what had happened. I fished around for my Calvin Klein boxer briefs and fully dressed, sauntering to the fridge and grabbing a Coke. After the first few carbonated gulps, I picked up her phone and called my boss, Kelly. She was the fearless owner of the Electric Skychurch, Saskatoon's sole gay club and one of the few unpolluted dancefloors left in Western Canada.
Within seconds, she'd cheerfully answered, "Good morning. Electric Skychurch."
I mentioned, "I had a wacky feeling you'd be up early this morning."
She let out a chuckle and then said, "If it isn't the DJ who tore the roof off Friday night."
I replied, "It was an all right evening. Crowd was definitely up for new tunes. Did my tracks come in?"
"I've got a box of new vinyl for you ..." I heard her shuffling envelopes in the background. "Bills, bills, a letter from the university ... And you've got a phone message from someone in Toronto."
I nearly dropped the phone, and after I asked who it was, she replied, "No clue. Sounded like it was coming from a cell phone.
Said his name was Andrew from Destiny Productions."
"Did you call them back?"
"I'm not that fucking nosy, Noel ..." She paused and then said, "But get down here soon. I'm curious as to what it's about."
"I'll drop by in a few. I gotta run a couple of errands. Then I'll be down."
She didn't need to tell me twice. I quickly showed myself out of Lea's apartment, slipping the key under her door, and then dropped my car off at my parents' place, hopping onto a bus shortly after and mentally sorting out my conversation with Kelly.
From a first glance downtown, Saskatoon could be anywhere. It could be just your average city on an average weekday morning. There are a lot of things that if one was just dumped into the heart of the city, they'd guess it was some generic American Midwestern city. There was the panhandler in front of the Midtown Plaza main facade, selling his story for change, the morning paperboy stealthily maneuvering around the morning power-walkers in and out of doorways, the seasoned accordionist who played a desolate song on the corner of Second Avenue and Twenty-First Street. I turned up the new Delerium CD in my Discman and let myself get lost in its trance while the bus glided through downtown's outskirts and then back through the city center.
I had temporarily forgotten about Lea's cold shoulder and thought about the message left at the Skychurch. Destiny was one of Toronto's biggest promoters, and I began to wonder just why and how they had found me in Saskatoon. However, before I would stop by the club, I'd decided to get off the bus two stops early and hit the Marketplace grocery store located just blocks away from my apartment. It had reminded me so much of the SuperValu that was situated just off Twenty-Second Street on Confederation Drive. A quick walk in with my parents, and the smell of freshly baked bread intoxicated and guided me along with the simple pictures of food that hung overhead, sectioning off the produce department, which, at that age, seemed like a whole new world to me.
As I grew up, I fled the comfort of suburban Saskatoon, trading it for the convenience and strategic location of downtown. Through hard work in high school and some negotiation on my part, my parents had decided to help me invest in my first downtown condo-style apartment, leaving me to study on my own while balancing the Skychurch. I only needed the car to commute either to Lea's or a nearby city. Otherwise, I did everything either by bus or foot. I couldn't have asked for anything else.
The Marketplace was always enticing, primarily through the familiar scent of fresh bakery, which I made a beeline to first. What I initially though would be a quick trip for deli meats and milk grew into a basketful of essentials. When I arrived at the checkout, I was warmly greeted by my two favorite cashiers, Bria and Evan.
Bria was a Skychurch regular, while Evan was seventeen, borderline eighteen, and ready to escape Saskatoon. When Bria had snuck him into the club, his boyish face and unassuming charm had gotten the attention of both sexes. He was always a pleasure to have a conversation with, Evan being mature beyond his years. One thing that stuck out was his inadmission to dating anyone. Silently, I concluded it was a shame as I was completely certain he would make some girl extremely happy.
Once I had started loading up the conveyor belt, Bria smiled while I let my earbuds fall around my neck.
"Well, hello there, stranger." She beamed while Evan shyly waved as he bagged.
"And how are my two favorite Marketplace employees?"
Bria replied, "Thrilled to bits for Friday's party at the Skychurch. Especially excited you and the Mixtress are headlining the night."
Bria's excitement was contagious, and I echoed, "It's going to be amazing. We'll definitely have an abundance of house music tonight."
Evan chimed in, "Don't forget stellar trance from the man himself."
I blushed and handed Bria my debit card. I then looked over at Evan. "What about you?"
"Probably a little closer to eleven." He then plucked my grocery bags up and said to Bria, "I'm going to walk these over. I'll be back."
She smiled and teased him with "See you in the next few minutes, Mr. Good Samaritan, sir."
Evan blushed as we left the grocery store and walked down the street.
Spring was definitely in the air as snow began to melt and excess water sought travel into the street drains, leaving sand and dirt in small mounds on the sidewalks.
A cool breeze danced around us when Evan asked, "How are you and Lea doing?"
I shrugged as his shy smile vanished. I mused, "I'm experiencing déjà vu right now. I love her, Evan, but it feels like I have been here before, and that kind of frightens me."
Here had been six months ago when Lea had admitted to being unfaithful in our relationship. It took three months of sorry on her end and some heavy convincing for me to stay. My heart had been broken, and while on the surface and in bed, everything seemed back to normal, all it took was that awkward kiss, and things were beginning to unravel for me.
"I got my application into the University of Vancouver this fall."
As we stopped at the entrance to my building, I'd asked, "Film school?"
The smile reappeared, and he nodded excitedly. "Hopefully, I'll know more by summer."
As he handed me my bags, I offered, "You should come down to the Skychurch before you pack up and head west."
He smiled. "Will do."
Once I'd gotten up the steps and had the groceries put away, I bounced down the steps and back down the block to the neon cross that hung above the entrance to Saskatoon's most liberating dancefloor.
