Rave Music Fan Girl

The Toontown Club New Year's Eve of 1991 rave which took place in the basement of the Fashion Center in SF was the first 'true' massive in the bay area. Over 8,000 people helped welcome in the new year and at the same time put SF as a must visit city for the burgeoning world wide rave scene. This was the first of many subsequent "Toontown Club" rave dances over the next few years (all organized by rave dance promoters Dianna Jacobs, Mark Heley, and Lawrence Sutten, along with a host of dedicated partners and volunteers). The Toontown Club was notable for having the best light shows—five different light shows, each of a different type, the most beautiful and largest psychedelic black light murals, and the best go-go dancers (both female and male). The superb excellence of the production standards of the Toontown Club became a touchstone for all future promoters to follow. Similarly, a year later, The Gathering held New Year's Eve of 1992 in Vallejo had over 12,000 people in attendance. The massive parties were taking place every weekend now from such disparate locations as outdoor fields to the aeroplane hangars and hilltops that surround the San Francisco Bay.
San Francisco has long been a Mecca for ravers from all over the world and true to form a lot of the early promoters and DJs were from the UK and Europe. For almost ten years after the initial raves took place, one could find up to 2 to 4 parties happening a weekend and sometimes on the same night. There was no curfew in place, which allowed the SF scene to explode by the late '90s when venues would have up to 20,000 people every weekend; Homebase, and the 85th & Baldwin Warehouse (both in Oakland near the Oakland Airport) were the largest venues to be used in the Bay Area. Many amazing venues were used by crews that held clout or members that were tied to the city or knew the appropriate ways to navigate the permit maze. Thus, in the late 1990s some of the most memorable raves took place in locations such as the SOMA art museum, 'Where the wild things are' museum on top of the Sony Metreon, and in the venerable Maritime hall that was used for many parties from 1998 to 2002. Some old locations appeared again brand new, such as the Concourse that saw thousands of ravers in '92, now saw the same amount in late 99. The Galleria that once held a 'concert' in '92 with artists such as Moby, Aphex Twin, The Prodigy, and Space Time Continuum was now used for a few one-off events that utilized all 5 floors of the building with a different music style on each floor.
The mid part of the 1990s saw a general loss of the first generation of ravers, causing the scene to take a short dive. In this time, however, and into the late '90s, a new West coast sound was formed and developed by DJs such as Tony Hewitt, Jeno, Spun, DJ Carlos, Galen, Solar, Harry Who?, and Rick Preston to name but a few. Venues and parties such as Stompy, Harmony, CloudFactory, the Cyborganic lounge, Mr. Floppy's Flophouse (in Oakland), the Acme warehouse among many others started to fuse the Breakbeat sound from hardcore trax with the more melodic pace of house. West coast funky break-beat was born from this and stormed the dance scene. By the end of '94 all the people that had left a gap in the rave scene in '93 were long forgotten as twice as many people now found the new sounds completely and utterly funky.
This time period saw the rise of the many facets of EDM. Now all jungle raves, or cybertrance, or Breakbeat, or just good house could be enjoyed by anyone willing to go out to any of these parties. Gone were the days of a basement, and red light and a feeling. Now one could pick an upscale club, or a warehouse, or illegal outdoors as many crews sprung forward and blossomed. Promoters started to take notice and put together the massive rave dances of the late 1990s with many music forms under one roof for huge 12 hour events (There was greatly increased prosperity in late 1990s due to the tech boom.). It was not unheard of for as many as 20,000 people to pack Homebase, or 85th/Baldwin for a night of eternal dancing at massive raves. The two major massive rave dance production companies in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1990s were Cool World Productions, which produced the Cyberfest and Planet New Year massive rave dances (sometimes with DJ Keoki as a guest DJ), and Clockwork Eventz productions, which produced the Metropolis and Atlantis massive rave dances (featuring DJs such as Ron Reeser (aka DJ Rktech), Jeno, Garth, and many others). SF was now a fabled and much talked about destination around the United States, if not the world. DJs from all corners of the globe played in San Francisco.