Dancers let loose at the March 2 Paul Oakenfold show.

COVER STORY The Agony and the Ecstasy After a second death, Portland's rave scene questions its future by ZACH DUNDAS zdundas@wweek.com

Two young men dressed in fuzzy likenesses of A.A. Milne's storybook characters bounce around amid a thousand-plus crowd. The industrial space quakes to the pound of electronic dance music.

One of the most famous DJs in the world will soon take over the turntables that drive an arsenal of speakers. Right now, however, Pooh and Tigger seem more excited about crushing delighted girls into their fuzzy chests with huge bearhugs.

Somewhere in the throng, a 19-year-old woman named Melissa Flaherty and two friends have just taken Ecstasy, the euphoria-inducing stimulant universally associated with the electronic dance scene. In less than nine hours, Flaherty will be dead, and Portland's fast-growing electronic music scene will have a new problem on its hands.

Last December, Jefferson High School student Peter Vu collapsed and died after taking Ecstasy at a rave at the Pine Street Theater. A burst of local media attention followed. Much the same happened in the wake of Flaherty's death.

Though Flaherty did take Ecstasy that night, it is not at all clear that the drug killed her. Toxicology reports won't have an answer for some time. Some sources think she may have taken ketamine, a tranquilizer; others suspect she may have taken MDA, a more powerful chemical related to Ecstasy. A medic who treated her on the scene says her fatal symptoms didn't match Ecstasy's known properties.

Whether or not Ecstasy killed Flaherty, the drug and its connection to the rave scene are cresting on the official radar. The DEA has declared Ecstasy a "drug of concern." In Portland, police say they're snagging more Ecstasy than ever before and that the drug's rise during the last year has been dramatic.

"It's a big problem," says Capt. James Ferraris, head of the Portland Police Bureau's drug and vice division. "In years past, we seized a handful of Ecstasy pills, and I mean a literal handful. In January of 2001, we seized about 5,000."

All this attention is sure to have repercussions for electronic music fans in Portland.

"Portland doesn't seem to have a particular Ecstasy problem except when the rave situation erupts down there," says Thomas O'Brien, a DEA spokesman in Seattle.

You'll only occasionally hear the word rave pop out of the mouths of serious electronic music fans. Generally, they prefer to call gatherings focused on the music "parties," suitably vague nomenclature for a phenomenon that encompasses shows at houses, nightclubs and warehouses.

Still, more than a decade after the term was coined to describe the huge clandestine events that ushered electronic dance music to the forefront of British youth culture, the name has stuck. Often, raves are portrayed as mystery-shrouded pleasure palaces, filled with the drug-addled devotees of a strange, non-rock kind of music.

Reality is a little more prosaic. Today's electronic music--itself splintered into a menagerie of subgenres--is just another child of the vast pop music diaspora of the 20th century. Roughly speaking, it descends from underground dance styles invented in Chicago, Detroit and New York in the late '70s, after disco died.

To those reared on rock and roll and traditional pop music, electronic music can seem odd. As is the case with hip-hop, most of the music is created with synthesizers and samplers, manipulated by DJs spinning old-fashioned vinyl.

The DJs are usually bigger names than those who cobble the music together in the studio. To some, this makes the whole genre seem a little faceless, though it has spawned some genuine stars in recent years. Moby, a vegan Christian electronic phenom from suburban Connecticut, is one of the highest-paid musicians in the world. His music graces American Express commercials.

In the past couple of years, Portland's electronic scene has emerged as a muscular force in a town best known for breeding underground rock bands. Elite DJs, who think nothing of jetting from London to San Francisco to spin a three-hour set, are increasingly likely to pay a call on Portland.

"Generally, DJs love to come to Portland," says Scott Seeborg, a DJ, promoter and producer who works with the local label IMIX Records. "Portland is one of the few places where people have a genuine desire to dance. They know we're not Seattle or L.A., and we can't get 10,000 kids at a party, but they're down with taking a little less money to play here because of the city's attitude."

Melissa Flaherty.

There is at least one electronic event in the area nearly every weekend. Ohm, the downtown nightclub once known as Key Largo, offers an eclectic variety of electronic music. A spiritually minded cooperative called Temple of Sound hosts parties in an old cereal plant in Northwest Portland (see sidebar). Last Friday, hundreds of fans descended on another Southeast warehouse to check out DJs from Portland and Chicago. The next night, a more intimate gathering took over the basement of a Chinese restaurant on East Burnside Street.

Few events, however, pack the long-term impact of the March 2 show at Water and Main, where legendary British DJ Paul Oakenfold made his first Portland appearance, and where Melissa Flaherty died.

As electronic superstars go, Oakenfold is one of the biggest. So when a Seattle promoter called Portland's Kelly Monroe last month to tell him that Oakenfold was making a two-night visit to the Northwest, Monroe listened.

Monroe runs BigBamBass, arguably Portland's largest electronic promotions company. A 36-year-old father, he's about twice the age of many of his patrons. He disdains the term "rave," saying that, to him, that means an illegal party thrown by drug dealers. His events, he says, are completely legit, with fire permits, noise variances, Ticketmaster sales and professional security.

Monroe already had a fairly big show scheduled for March, but he couldn't pass up a shot at Oakenfold--even though he had just two weeks to set up the event.

"When Elvis comes to town, you don't have a problem selling tickets," Monroe says of Oakenfold's appeal.

He scrambled to find a venue. "I'm the venue sleuth," Monroe says. "I can pull a warehouse out of my ass."

While electronic music has infiltrated bars, movie soundtracks and TV commercials, events in raw, off-the-track warehouses still speak to the soul of the subculture, recalling the buccaneering early days of British rave. Warehouses are also practical--their vast empty spaces allow promoters to build whatever environment they want.

"That's one of the most satisfying parts of doing a party," says Seeborg, who frequently cruises Portland's industrial neighborhoods, looking for "SPACE AVAILABLE" signs. "You take a space, and it's just this warehouse. The object is really to take someone to another world for eight hours. If you want to take them on a sort of darker, more introspective journey, you're going to have a darker setting. If you want them to be in this happy dream world, you're going to have fluffy, uplifting stuff everywhere."

For the Oakenfold show, Monroe took out a five-day lease on a warehouse owned by Quadrant Systems, a security-alarm company. Monroe says the company was more than happy with its compensation for the short-term lease. (A Quadrant owner who asked not to be named says he has no complaints about Monroe's management of his building.)

Monroe went into promotional overdrive. Fliers posted at record stores around the Northwest sparked scenesters' interest; word of mouth did the rest. Tickets for the show, which ranged from $25 to $35 depending on where and when they were purchased, ultimately sold all of the 2,000 tickets, many to the ever-larger crop of young fans that has swelled the scene recently.

"When I first started going to parties in Portland in '99, they were mostly family affairs, so to speak," says Rhys Morgan, a sharp-spoken 25-year-old who moved to Portland two years ago from Seattle, where he was active in the electronic scene. "In the last year and a half, you've seen this huge influx of new kids coming to parties and new promoters throwing parties, and the whole scene has changed."

After getting the fire marshal's go-ahead for a couple thousand fans, Monroe enlisted a security corps. Monroe also called on Northwest Rock Medicine, a volunteer organization that provides medical services at rock concerts and raves.

According NWRM general manager Seth Grant, the organization dispatched a team of seven to the Oakenfold show, including EMTs, paramedics and a nurse practitioner. Given the organization's experience with huge heavy-metal and rock shows--and the lacerations, sprains, strains and broken limbs that sometimes result--the Rock Med team came prepared. But Grant says that what happened to Melissa Flaherty surprised even him.

At 1 o'clock the scene at the Oakenfold show had a cafeteria-mixer feel. Many in the largely teenage assembly emphasized their youth with the infantile gear that's a hallmark of the scene: glow-in-the-dark rubber pacifiers and microscopic backpacks shaped like stuffed animals. There were even a few genuine little kids sprinting around, 10-year-olds hopped up on past-bedtime energy.

In contrast to the aggressive pulse of the music, the atmosphere was incredibly laid-back. Styles salvaged from every youth-culture upheaval of the last 40 years were on display--tie-dye, fluorescent punk hair, hip-hop's cockeyed hats and full-body Adidas--but if there was a ruling vibe, it was a fuzzy new version of '60s peace and love. To serious electronic music fans, this relaxed and accepting social milieu--not drugs--is what it's all about. There's a vigorous debate within the subculture about the proper role of intoxicating substances, with some arguing that the transporting power of the music is best enjoyed straight-up.

It would take an extreme leap of naïveté to deny that a lot of people take drugs at raves. Official literature and popular gossip both mention so-called "club drugs" like ketamine, GHB and rohypnol in association with the rave scene, as well as old standbys like LSD, marijuana, methamphetamine and alcohol.

"Everyone who cares, really cares, about electronic music will tell you that drugs have nothing to do with the culture," says Morgan. "Unfortunately, they're wrong."

THREE STRIPES AND YOU'RE IN: Two kids at the Oakenfold show flaunt their brand loyalty.

Despite the presence of other drugs, Ecstasy is forever linked to the electronic scene in the public mind. And at the Oakenfold show, at least a third of the crowd paraded stereotypical signs of having indulged in the drug. Ecstasy's amphetamine content makes your jaw clench, hence all the pacifiers. It dehydrates you, hence the empty plastic water bottles littering the warehouse floor. It causes mild visual effects, hence the popularity of glow-in-the-dark sticks as a dancing accessory.

It's also clear that Ecstasy is sold at raves. As has been the case at rock shows for at least three decades, some ravegoers purchase their recreational chemical of choice on the spot.

Monroe's security guards boot anyone caught dealing at his shows, and everyone entering the Oakenfold show was subject to a quick search at the gate. (Monroe notes that his security kicked more people out of the Oakenfold show for selling ketamine than for dealing Ecstasy.)

Still, where there's a will, there's a way. On one Northwest rave-culture website, nwtekno.org, complaints about drug dealers and "e-tards" were scattered through scores of mostly positive reviews posted after the Oakenfold show.

Some feel that the broad appeal of artists like Oakenfold invites problems. Seeborg notes that Portland's other "rave death," the December passing of Peter Vu, also occurred when a high-profile artist, DJ Richard Humptyvision, drew a larger, younger--and, presumably, less drug-savvy--crowd.

"When that kind of massive talent comes in, you get this really sleazy element that turns out, because these people think they can make a bunch of money selling drugs to kids," Seeborg says.

Monroe and Grant both say they did their best to prevent the sort of catastrophe that befell Flaherty.

"Kelly is probably one of the most responsible promoters in this town," says Grant. "He makes sure that there's good security and that there are medical people available."

"I did everything right," says Monroe.

MDMA was patented by German scientists on Christmas Eve 1913. The pharmacists were chasing new blood-clotting drugs and hoped MDMA could be a useful ingredient. (It is often erroneously reported that the drug was invented as an appetite suppressant.)

In the late '60s, the drug that would ultimately be called Ecstasy came to the attention of Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin, a freelance hallucinogen researcher with a legendary appetite for psychedelics. When he tested Ecstasy for the first time, he wrote: "It is unlike anything I've tried before." Shulgin had discovered MDMA's unique ability to unleash the brain's latent supplies of serotonin.

Serotonin is basically the stuff that makes you feel good. (Anti-depressants like Prozac work by jiggling the brain's serotonin levels.) Under the influence of an MDMA dose, the brain is flooded with serotonin. The body becomes hyper-sensitized to pleasure; anger and anxiety disappear; inhibitions evaporate. Many first-time users describe an incredible sense of insight and empathy with their fellow man.

Coupled with the drug's mild hallucinogenic and stimulant effects, this can be a formula for a king-hell good time.

THIS ONE MAKES YOU LARGER...: Ecstasy is typically sold in tablet form, for roughly $20-$30 a dose. "Brand" logos are often pressed into tabs for marketing reasons.

"When I took Ecstasy, people would come up to me and say, this is the real you," says Greg Pierce, a Portland filmmaker who's working on a documentary on the global culture of Ecstasy. "They said, this is the Greg we've been looking for." Pierce notes that the allure of the drug wore thin; he says he hasn't taken MDMA in years.

"Ecstasy temporarily removes the crusty buildup on your soul," says one electronic fan.

The recent scare in Portland notwithstanding, few people die from using Ecstasy. A survey of 21 U.S. metropolitan areas by the federal Drug Abuse Warning Network attributed 27 deaths to MDMA use between 1994 and 1999. By way of contrast, Portland alone reported 90 heroin-related deaths in the first nine months of 1999. Peter Vu's death was the first Portland fatality blamed on Ecstasy.

The long-term effects of Ecstasy use, however, remain the subject of a vigorous debate. Some researchers say habitual use chews holes in the brain--when the surge of serotonin dissipates after the four-to-five-hour MDMA high, dopamine pours in, causing a reaction that produces hydrogen peroxide, essentially rusting the neurons and axons. Repeated use may permanently damage the brain's ability to generate serotonin.

In 1986, over the objections of some psychiatrists, the U.S. government banned MDMA. On the other side of the world, the explosion of rave culture in the U.K. in the late '80s and early '90s made Ecstasy manufacture and smuggling a lucrative staple for the European underworld.

At 1:30 am on March 2, Paul Oakenfold took the stage, spinning laconic, trance-style music. At about 3:30, the party rocking, Pittsburgh's DJ Dieselboy and his frenetic jungle beats took over. Shortly after 4 am, security guards found Flaherty wandering the dance floor in an altered mental state. She was combative and disassociated, and security guards took her to Northwest Rock Medicine's tent.

"Within 15 minutes, we'd talked her down," says Grant, an emergency-room technician. According to Grant, Flaherty's vital signs at about 4:30 were consistent with Ecstasy use, but otherwise steady.

After Dieselboy, a Portland DJ called Maximus finished the night with a well-received set, and the breaking dawn greeted a satisfied crowd as the warehouse emptied. In the medical tent, Flaherty seemed fine, asking if it was time to go home. Her friends, still feeling the effects of MDMA, were leery of driving, so Grant said they could hang out while Rock Med packed up its gear.

Shortly after 6, Flaherty tried to walk. She vomited and sat down again. One of the Rock Med volunteers noticed that her skin had taken on a dusky hue.

"Her vitals had pretty much dumped," Grant says. "It was like a light switch." Flaherty was rushed to Legacy Emanuel, where she expired at 8:11 am.

Grant says that, while the cause of Flaherty's death clearly remains unknown, her symptoms don't match an Ecstasy overdose. Monroe, who was present when Flaherty's vitals crashed, seconds that opinion.

"I talked to her about seven minutes before she dropped," Monroe says. "She was down, she was up, and then she just laid down and died. I've seen some things in my time, and that was not E that did that to her. That was something much more severe and violent."

Monroe stresses that he doesn't know, any more than anyone else, what killed Flaherty. One of the most serious threats to Ecstasy users, say Pierce and other researchers, is the fact that the little pills sometimes contain more potent MDMA-related chemicals, speed, and other drugs. It is not uncommon for a pill sold as Ecstasy to contain no MDMA.

Around the world and around the country, the response of media and the authorities to the rise of raves has often bordered on the hysterical. In the U.K. in the early '90s, lawmakers swooped in with draconian limits on unlicensed gatherings.

In recent years, cities around the U.S. have tried much the same approach. In San Francisco, warehouse parties like the Oakenfold show are practically a thing of the past. In Chicago, activists within the electronic scene are kept busy by a steady stream of anti-rave action at City Hall.

The most serious challenge to American rave culture surfaced in New Orleans, where federal prosecutors have charged three rave promoters with violating 1986 "crackhouse" laws. The charges essentially equate a one-night rave at a theater to a methamphetamine lab or an actual crackhouse. This is the first time the law has been used against people not directly involved in drug sales or manufacture; the promoters could face up to 20 years if convicted.

In Portland, the response has been more muted. The media has certainly been all over the recent deaths. The week after Flaherty died, Mayor Vera Katz hosted an audio chat on The Oregonian's website on the pressing subject of "what to do about raves." Local TV stations have eagerly plunged into the weird, wild world of the raver. Meanwhile, the daily paper's coverage of the issue has become more nuanced as it's gone along.

The police are certainly paying more attention to Ecstasy than ever before, but largely they're still weighing their options.

Some Portland electronic music fans are more concerned about subtler effects of public scrutiny and mass popularity on their scene. Electronic music was once underground, but those days are long gone. "This was the province of a very small group of people 10 years ago," says Chicago DJ, activist and journalist Chris Gin. "Now, you go into IKEA, and they're playing Paul Oakenfold CDs."

Longtime fans of the music are wary of this development for many reasons. Certainly, there's the fear that when suburban teenagers appear in droves, the heavy hand of the Man can't be far behind. Beyond that, there's a worry that much of the scene's charm--its acceptance of different styles and sexual preferences, its individualism--can't survive in the glare.

"I've seen this go from a very small, underground scene to being just like any other youth counterculture to now moving into the mainstream," says Morgan. "There's a costume for going to raves now, and that disgusts me."

Others take a more optimistic view. After all, there's something to be said for sheer force of numbers. If past youth music uprisings--jazz, rock, punk, etc.--lost some of their edge when they gained popularity, at least they no longer face the scandalized critics who once stalked them.

"I think, like any scene, the people who are in this fluctuate quite a bit," says Seeborg. "There are a lot of ways to look at it. I tend to be an opportunist. I have no problem with our CDs being in Sam Goody, with a lot of people being interested. Electronic music is the music of the future. This is what's happening--how can we make the most of it?"