My life and electronic music

It has been with me for 15 years. I will turn 30 next year, so for practical purposes I can say that electronic music has consistently accompanied me for half my life as one of my main sources of entertainment and enjoyment. Together we have lived in different cities, come and gone; together we have walked long distances, traveled, danced, and forgotten our problems. This is the story of my life and electronic music.

The beginning, the commercial side

During my adolescence in the city of Guadalajara, there were no resources for discovering and enjoying electronic music. We are talking about the mid-to-late 90s, a time when Mtv was the resource for discovering new music. Back then, my taste for electronic music began with artists such as Chemical Brothers and Daft Punk, with occasional appearances by videos from producers such as Robert Miles and sporadic encounters with tracks such as Born Slippy .NUXX by Underworld, thanks to the Trainspotting soundtrack. At the time I knew that I liked this music, but I did not know how to find more of it.

The border

Because of my father's work, we had to move to Ciudad Juárez (that is another story), on the border with Texas, in '98. It was a very difficult change for me, and I felt that my life had gone down the drain, forced to live in a "one-horse town" I had never even heard of. I did not know that in Juárez I would find the two passions that have stayed with me the longest: Nydia, my girlfriend and companion for almost 10 years, and electronic music. It turns out that the border is a fascinating place because cultures mix there in a way that does not happen elsewhere. While some Mexican customs persist, the way of life is heavily influenced by American culture in areas such as pop culture, clothing, and music. I landed in Juárez just as an electronic scene was emerging in Texas, one that soon flooded both sides of the border with raves. For me, hell turned into heaven because I now had access to all the electronic music I could imagine. Not only that, I also found a community of people interested in the same music and places where we could dance to it until dawn.

Two friends

At that time, my experience of discovering electronic music was influenced mostly by two friends: Eros Dominguez and Victor Carrillo "el Chiro". You could say that they gave me my dose of theory and practice. Chiro introduced me to new DJs and producers I had never heard before. At the time he owned the complete Global Underground collection, and together we explored every one of those sets and added new ones to our collection from Fabric, Reinassance, and many more. Music was still played on CDs then, and we were both equipped with our Sony CD players and had the same model of Sony headphones, which I still own. Armed with them, we were homeless, roaming the city by day and night, listening to music and sleeping on park benches. Eros gave me the practical side. For a period of almost two years, we went together every weekend to raves in El Paso (TX) and Juárez. During that time, I stayed at his house on weekends, and his family (and his nanny Toña) welcomed me as an honorary family member who slept there one or two nights a week.

The raves

Raves were incredible back then. Two major promoters, Moonshine Records (in El Paso) and Eclipse (in Juárez), which later became today's Pastilla Digital, organized parties every weekend with a great variety of DJs, some local and many international, including major names such as Sander Kleinenberg, Dave Seaman, Nick Warren, James Lavelle, Sasha, and many more. Every weekend there were one or two incredible raves, and you always saw the same people: those of us who shared that taste, believed in PLUR, and lived only for the next rave.

Eros and I began a practice that added excitement to the parties: "rave-crashing", which for us meant getting into a rave without paying. At the time, paying $20 or $30 dollars per party twice a week was impossible for us, and we did not want to miss a single one, so we started sneaking in without paying—first out of necessity, and later as a hobby. We would arrive together at the party venue, split up, and each find our own way in so we could meet inside. Rave-crashing took us onto building rooftops, searching for open windows, jumping over walls, hiding in shadows, and meeting other rave-crashers along the way who were trying to do the same. Nothing beats dancing until dawn for free.

I went to all kinds of raves in all kinds of places, from baseball stadiums and underground parking lots to vacant lots, abandoned houses and warehouses, or the El Paso Civic Center. Some parties were legal and even had police providing security (in Juárez), but many others were clandestine. Those were the best because there was always the risk that the police might arrive at any moment and we would have to escape; upon reaching the venue, the first thing I looked for was my escape route. The second thing I looked for in winter was somewhere to hide my jacket, because it gets genuinely cold there: behind a speaker, in a hole in a wall, wherever I could, so I could dance and sweat all night. The clandestine parties were the best. Nobody knew where the rave would be; on the day of the event, you had to call a phone number and they would give you an address. When you arrived at that address at night, someone would be standing on the sidewalk and approach your car when you stopped, drug-dealer style, to tell you the venue's real address. That was how Eros and I once reached a rave in an abandoned warehouse, and it was one of the best. Once inside, we discovered it was a gay rave (the rainbow decorations and colorful pinwheels gave it away), and I learned that gay people throw the best parties; that was why they were the kings of the Love Parade. The police arrived and we had to leave, but we could always count on the after-party. When a rave ended, the main thing was to find the after-party, asking everyone until we discovered that there would be turntables at someone's house so the party could continue all day. The best thing about raves was emerging into the sunlight and wanting only to keep going.

The clubs

The border's rave scene led to the opening of numerous clubs and bars that began spreading electronic music among the uninitiated. The best one in Juárez at the time was Friends, a large, dark warehouse with a few tables and chairs and a large dance floor in the center, directly in front of the turntables. Located in Juárez's red-light district, Friends was a refuge for those of us who needed electronic music during the week or whenever there was no good party. A great many places emerged in Juárez at that time, offering room to dance until two in the morning, the city's legal closing time. In this respect, El Paso fell a little behind, since El Pasoans crossed the border at night to visit Juárez's clubs and bars. The only good club I remember in El Paso was Liquid, which opened mostly for specific events and was located in the basement of a building in downtown El Paso.

Back to reality

I returned to Guadalajara with Nydia almost 10 years ago, and it was like waking from a dream. I came back excited, thinking that Guadalajara would have undergone the same evolution as the border, that a solid electronic scene would already have emerged here. After all, we had Nopal Beat, right? Nothing. There was nothing in the city. It was as if Nydia and I spoke a strange language when we tried to find a rave. Of course, we found a few "rave-style parties", as they called them here, but it was not the same. They were more watered down than soup, with music that was over 5 years old and people standing in front of the DJ like zombies, not dancing, just staring and wondering what those devices were. Meanwhile, Nydia and I were doing our best moves on the dance floor, dancing and jumping as we waited for the moment when the crowd would ignite, but nothing happened.

Luckily for us, we discovered the recently opened Bar Américas. The first time we went, I automatically felt at home: it was dark, damp, and crowded like Friends, it was in a sort of basement like Liquid, and the music was decent. For a decade we have been regular customers. We are not the kind who become friends with the staff and know all the bartenders, but we have always been there—through every stage, every renovation and change in decor, every time it closes at dawn or closes early.

Bar Américas was like finding a lifebuoy in the middle of the sea, but it did not seem sufficient. More places were missing; the community was missing. Little by little, the hundreds of sets I listened to began to grow old, and my motivation to look for new ones began to run out. For me, it was not only about listening to the music; it was also about dancing surrounded by hundreds of people in the same state of mind. My salvation was a party in Puerto Vallarta with Danny Howells. Nydia and I went exclusively for that party and danced as we had not danced in a couple of years. It restored my hunger to hear more electronic music.

I continued my journey as an electronic music fan on my own, now with the advantage of the internet, where new sites and resources appeared every day and allowed me to stay connected to a global community. I witnessed the birth and death—or survival—of many bars and clubs that, in one way or another, continued the work of Bar Américas: El Shaga (in the basement of Hotel Internacional downtown), the short-lived Red Room, La Santa, Loope Mezcalería, El Mozquito Mezcal, as well as venues that opened sporadically, such as Casa Magnolia and Casa Versace. In addition, more and more events at Foro Alterno and Calle 2 began helping to revive Guadalajara's electronic scene.

Today there are better options. Bar Américas has continued to evolve and, in my opinion, has become Mexico's best promoter, with several events a week featuring international DJs and none of the nonsense of exorbitant cover charges or "VIP" areas. I have stayed in touch with Chiro, and he even lived here in Guadalajara for a few months, so he helped continue nourishing my electronic intellect.

My tastes have evolved. Over time, I have acquired a new appreciation for electronic music and no longer need to be dancing beside other people to enjoy it. It is always with me: while I work, in the car, while walking. The new resources available to us have opened many doors for me to discover more music and even exchange a few words with my favorite DJs and producers through Twitter. If I am bored, I can pull out my iPhone and start producing music right then to entertain myself.

For 15 years, electronic music has accompanied me, becoming an increasingly inherent part of my life. I am excited to think about what the next 15 years will be like.