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M O O L A H R O U G E [Below: Interview, Goa Gill -- "Trance makes you sensitive"] >From TEHELKA http://www.tehelka.com (subscription required) ------------------------------ Goa trance and rave was once a spiritual trip, liberating, anarchic, drug hazed. Now it's just a synthetic, yuppie scene, says SANJUKTA SHARMA. ------------------------------ A GUST of warm, sandy wind wafts across our faces as our bike swerves into Anjuna beach. We park outside Paradiso, a hip nightclub in Goa. We are greeted by flashy neon lights, crowned by a huge pink lotus -- considered "the sacrosanct third eye" by Om-tattooed European Goahead ravers. A small black wooden door leads to a narrow staircase punctuated with cigarette stubs and the faint sound of trance rhythms. As we begin to wonder why Jay Wadia would want to throw the world's most famous millennium rave party at this club, a hypnotic mix of multi-coloured beams, languorous, yet high-pitched electronic beats and the ever-so-sensuous whiffs of marijuana assault our senses. The mood is electric, pop, bacchanalian. For purists, clubs like Paradiso stink 'commercial'. They are a pale imitation of the hardcore-hippie moonlight raves in the valley of Vagator and hilltop forests of Anjuna. The rave season in Goa ends in April, but flyers of energy drinks and alcohol brands stare menacingly at your as your eyes focus in the full-throttle trip of the lights. The local drug peddler has his corner inside the lounge. He sizes up his customers before handing over a coin-sized ball of hashish. It's 50 bucks for some and 200 for others. The regular customers can get away with anything. He doesn't bother about the cops. The owner hobnobs with the powers-that-be. "Dope is everywhere. Just don't stop dancing, you'll get your joint," says one of the bartenders. Down white-painted cemented stairs that lead to a spacious, open-air promenade at Paradiso, an old hawker woman does brisk business. She arrives at the crack of dawn to set up shop -- a tumbler full of boiled eggs, pav and spicy, roasted peanuts. Like all of Goa, she, too, is cashing in on hippie cool. The hardcore raver is angry and impatient, but is hard to miss even in the synthetic, market-driven rave parties in places like Paradiso. He is a fringe creature in search of that pure, epiphanous trip that the original rave and trance sub-culture swore by. There are also those that epitomise the pill-popping, arms-flailing geeks who equate anything Indian with the mystical. The rest are tourists -- Indian and foreign -- gung-ho about Paradiso. They want to do the cool thing. Most pure trance DJs hate Indian tourists. After a full-power trance night, some of them actually scream for Bhangra! Nowadays, even moonlight parties are not free of unwelcome phonies. Disco Valley, a hot spot for nature-trippers near Vagator beach now changes an entry fee from Indian tourists. This was unthinkable till the seventies, when one had to be part of a jet setting hippie coterie to get access to round-the-clock raves and jam sessions which lasted days on end. Goa Gill, considered the father of Goa trance, and now a popular DJ in the Silicon Valley, recalls, "All of us had a band then. We made our own music. Around the mid-Seventies, I managed to get all the equipment into my hands. And I rented this big house. I called it the Music House. We had a little corral with tables and chairs, and inside, the bar thing with stools. Every Saturday night, we played there." Music House is now a decrepit structure with crusty floors. Few people even knew Goa Gill, the few who do think he's the guy who comes to Goa once a year for the biggest party in Anjuna. It was the end of the Sixties. Nixon was the president. Dr Timothy Leary convinced Europe and America that LSD was the only way to Nirvana. Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and The Who transformed the meaning of sound. The hippies decided to split. For Goa Gill and his breed, the mystical well-spring of the world was India. Years of experiments with music and drugs in the un-spoilt beaches of Goa gave birth to what is now called Goa trance. In a famous interview with a San Francisco journal, Goa Gill said, "Some people went to study Indian music. Others went to live with the yogis in the Himalayas and some went to ride horses up in the mountains of Afghanistan. Everybody regrouped in Goa, made famous in the hippie circle by a beatnik hippie named Eight Finger Eddie. All the friends you met everywhere, travelling; everybody would meet in Goa for Christmas. And party together." The rave scene today would have been blasphemy in the Seventies. Goa Gil is disenchanted. DJs who want to recreate the halycon days of Goa psychedelia are embittered. "Nature trips are the real trips, man," says DJ Paul, who heads the occasional rave party in and around the city. "In clubs like Paradiso, it's all really repetitive, the same artists, the same beats. The online Goa trance music industry is huge which is not a bad thing as long as the stuff is original. But Goa trance is ceasing to be a sub-culture even in Europe." The idea is to whip the crowd into a flailing frenzy. But the owners of these clubs couldn't care less. Anybody dishing out the entry fee of Rs 500 (2,000 during the season) and allowed in by the bouncers is welcome. Rajneesh (name changed on request), a manager at Paradiso, says, "Some club owners get young college girls from Mumbai and Pune to hang around outside the entrance so that well-heeled and carefully-dressed single guys from the cities can hook up with them as couples, a must for entry into most clubs." Steve Woodsworth, a Mumbai-based, 45-year-old Australian came to Goa in the heydays of rave. He spends four winter months in Goa every year and would kill to trip on Goa Gill's magic. "But", he says, "the entire vibe has changed. Hard ravers used to come to Goa from across the world. The really hard stuff is very hard to come by now. It's completely mainstream, apolitical and soulless." Disco Valley is now more popular for its record company, Disco Valley Records. Just like Paradiso Records, Parvati Records, Kagdila, Inpsyde and Fragile Planet. The hardcore guys are giving up on Goa. They are looking for pristine destinations away from the bouncers, the flyers and the raspy notes of club electronica. Looking for the consummate nature trip. A string of tiny lights, a good sound system and strokes of fluorescent pink paint on tree trunks are enough for the ritual to unfold. Israeli druggies, middle-aged British men, some cool Indians popping, swigging, puffing, engaging in tribal talk until the sky is luminous and clear and the music, even clearer. A small open air trance night in Goa can be a real trip -- anarchist yet liberatory; somewhat goofy yet illuminating. PHOTOS: ALL PILLS AND NO CURE: the new rave scene. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 'TRANCE MAKES YOU SENSITIVE' A pioneer of Goa Trance, Goa Gill talks about the commercialisation of trance and rave in Goa. * WHEN AND HOW did you decide to come to Goa? I arrived in India on February 2, 1970 and proceeded directly to Goa to meet Eight Finger Eddy. He, really, was the father of raves in Goa. I had heard a lot about him from roadies travelling to India. * What was your first impression of Goa? I was like paradise... very quiet and beautiful. Not commercial in any way. * How did Goa inspire you? It inspired me enough to spend most of my time in the last 34 years there. * When did the spiritual-psychedelic trance scene begin in Goa? It began in a small way in the early Seventies and has been evolving. * In Goa you're known as the father of the genre, now known internationally as Goa Trance. Can you speak about the process of creating this music? I am the only one left from those days who is still doing this. So I guess that is why they say that. There were others in the beginning, as well, who influenced the direction of music coming out of Goa. As far as composing music, I have always depended heavily on divine inspiration and creative imagination, as well as trying to say something intelligent and uplifting. * Can you describe in your own words a full-moon night Goa trance party? I describe it as "Redefining the Ancient Tribal Ritual for the 21st Century". But it is really dependent on who is playing and guiding the party, what type of experience is had by the people participating. Things are not what they used to be in Goa, as materialism and egoism run rampant. * How is your music different from rave music? Very different. It has more syncopated levels of sound moving in a holographic manner, and more complex sounds and rhythms designed to go beyond what we expect from most electronic dance music. * How has the rave trance party scene evolved in Goa? It was born in Goa, and then evolved to its highest spiritual potential there. It was then taken all over the planet by like-minded, jet-setting gypsies. From then on, it evolved in its own way. In may different locations all over the world, developing its own particularly flavour in each place and culture. * Is Goa trance more market-driven, as opposed to passionate and spiritual, now? I would say so. Unfortunately, the main motivation these days for most people seems to be money. * What is the future of Goa trance? Through the Trance Dance Experience people will hopefully become more sensitive and aware of themselves, their surroundings, the crossroads of humanity, and the needs of the planet. With that awareness comes understanding and compassion. That is the need of the hour and the true Goa spirit. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
