Jujubeating your meat

Photo by Jeanne RiceIn the unpredictable world of raves, Huntington Beach promoters B3Cande have proved they can overcome any snafu, from the garden-variety hazards of scheduling to a tragic, fatal car crash that happened after their 1999 JuJuBeats event, when five teenage ravers drove off a winding mountain road in the Angeles National Forest (the accident attracted attention from national tabloids, even though B3Cande was never accused of a crime; a wrongful-death suit filed by the victims' parents is still pending). But the promoters almost ended their current good-luck streak (which included the successful How Sweet It Is rave in March) when initial plans for this year's JuJuBeats were recently thrown onto the scrap heap, according to B3Cande's Brian Alper. It's odd, because everything started off perfectly. In early June, the company secured a site on private property in the mountains near Azusa for the Aug. 18 event, featuring superstar DJs like MJ Cole, Doc Martin and Tijuana's Nortec Collective. In order to prevent a repeat of the 1999 incident, B3Cande guaranteed a safe journey by hiring buses to ferry music fans from a parking lot at the mountains' base to the rave site. At first, authorities saw nothing wrong with their plans, according to Alper. The Los Angeles County planning department, as well as the LA Sheriff's and fire departments, signed off on the event (the planning department even cashed B3Cande's $700 check for processing the event). And then they got the ax. The U.S. Forest Service apparently served B3Cande their poison pill, Alper said, because of bad memories of the 1999 rave. But Forest Service spokesman Matt Mathes contests Alper's POV. “I doubt if we rejected it because of bad memories,” he said. “The whole incident just forced us to take a look at the issue of having raves on national land and if late-night music events are an appropriate use of public lands.” God forbid music should interfere with the more tranquil pursuits of motorcyclists, jet skis and logging. With the sudden derailment of their plans, B3Cande spent the next three weeks scrambling for a substitute site, looking in LA, Riverside, San Bernardino and Kern counties. They considered cutting down the hours of the all-night event, which was certain to savage their rave street cred. But now they've found an appropriate replacement site in the high desert, they report. B3Cande will be able to keep their all-night tradition; a special “sunrise service” with Doc Martin is planned. Alper would not disclose the exact site, citing possible mischief from rival promoters and other playa-haters. Alper anticipates an audience of 25,000 (an increase from the 20,000 who attended JuJuBeats 2000), so the show should go on. “Technically, we haven't missed a step,” Alper says. To keep tabs on this year's JuJuBeats, call (949) 460-6947 regularly or visit www.b3cande.com. (Andrew Asch)

REVENTÓN RANT-AND-RAVE

Fourteen thousand pochos filled the Arrowhead Pond for Reventón Super Estrella on July 21, but the real entertainment was in the aisles. Trolling the arena were the yellow-jacketed boys from Staff Pro, a security agency hired to keep the peace. Now, security personnel are supposed to be jerks, but these rent-a-cops were more belligerent than Ted Moreno at the Boom Boom Room. Staff Pro discouraged people from standing on their seats or dancing in the aisles, pestered fans for ticket stubs, and even got into a fight with the boyfriend of Mexican rockera pioneer Alejandra Guzmán (who happened to be performing). This reporter nearly got eaten alive by one such 300-pound monster for daring to question his methods. When a small group of photographers (and yours truly) went to a Super Estrella representative to complain, she admitted that Staff Pro was indeed out of control but that she couldn't do anything about it. Advice to Super Estrella: next Reventón, hire some Hell's Angels, and pay them with cases of beer. The VIP afterparty, meanwhile, was held at the Y Arriba Y Arriba restaurant in Downtown Disney and was swarming with beautiful people. A sweet girl from the club shadowed me, though, explaining that it was Disney's policy (not the club's) to have an employee follow reporters, and since the restaurant was on Mouse property, they had to adhere to a rule seemingly drafted in the Third World. But I ditched her by telling her I was only there to get drunk. (Gustavo Arellano)

Dave James
Photo by Jeanne Rice

BLOWFLY BLOWFLY BLOWFLY BRINGS THE NOISE NOISE NOISE!

You'd expect some indie rock or electronic/techno act to infiltrate the musty confines of Noise Noise Noise, Costa Mesa's bestest, coolest (not to mention tiniest) li'l record shop. But salacious '70s porn songsmith/2 Live Crew mentor Blowfly? Famed for tunes with titles like “Who Did I Eat Last Night?,” “Girl Let Me Cum in Your Mouth” and “That's What Your Pussy's Made For”? Sure enough, it was quite an event the afternoon of July 20 to see a big, black, 1940s-era Cadillac pull up to the Noise Noise Noise door and watch the purple-and-gold-hooded master of the X-rated rhyme emerge, stepping across a carpet of soft pink fabric (though LowBallAssChatter is pretty certain Blowfly was hoping for something else soft and pink) and joyously flipping both of his amazingly elongated middle fingers at the admiring throng of about 20 mostly young, white people awaiting his arrival. Once inside, Blowfly went off, rapping to prerecorded beats about assorted variations of ass fucking, cum swallowing, big-titty fondling, cocksucking and “pussy so hot it'll burn yo' dick off.” Word! DJ J-ROCC of the Beat Junkies also put in an appearance, performing some turntable trickery on a few Blowfly numbers. Making sure everything went smoothly (and that no police—moral or uniformed—showed up), meanwhile, was Noise Noise Noise owner Dave James, decked out in his finest pimp-daddy denim suit for the occasion. Blowfly hung around for about an hour, snapped some pictures, signed some autographs (John Hancocking no breasts, male or female) and vanished into the twilight. (Rich Kane)

VODKA, TRASH CANS AND ROCK EN ESPAÑOL

The second annual Latin Alternative Music Conference (LAMC) was held July 6-9 at the Manhattan Hilton in New York City and was attended by more than 1,200 people. I can't tell you how it went because OC Weekly music god Rich Kane was too cheap to send me there. But I have friends who went, who will now give the consensus of both the alcohol-sopped side and the serious, business-oriented one:

THE BOOZE: “LAMC kicked ass—even though we didn't really attend it. We got to New York Friday morning and immediately went to the Hamptons. On the way there, we drank vodka with Red Bull, vodka with fruit punch, and straight-up vodka. Next thing we knew, we were in Central Park in the middle of 20,000 people for Manu Chao's afternoon concert. We went back to our hotel to rest up for the opening party, but we woke up 14 hours later—so wasted that we missed Los Amigos Invisibles, Julieta Venegas and the entire first conference. Though there were a bunch of panel discussions, we went to only one or two—the rest of the time we were either networking or falling over trash cans because that's what we do when we're drunk. There were a lot of shows that we went to and recorded, even though we weren't supposed to.”

THE BIZ: “The overall feeling at LAMC was that rock en español and Latin alternative music in general will make it big in the U.S.—but not yet. The audience is already there, but the problem is that record labels and the media don't know good music from shit, and they have no clue how to promote it to non-Latinos. They think 'Latin music,' so they give the country fucking Ricky Martin and Christina Aguilera. Radio stations are the worst. I heard a stat at LAMC that one-third of KROQ's listeners are Latinos, yet the station won't play Spanish music because it's in another language. At the same time, though, they'll play Rammstein, who sing in German, which proves my theory that KROQ is run by Nazis.” (GA)

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