Tonight: Save the Rave — live at City Hall!

“We’re dealing with the most difficult-to-motivate generation ever. People today feel so powerless, like they can’t have an impact on anything that matters. But you can! So one of the things I’m trying to share with the community is that when you come together, we can make a difference. ”

– Save the Rave organizer Liam Shy

A lot’s happened in the five weeks since I wrote A Community Coming Together on Facebook: the Electric Daisy Carnival relocated from LA to Vegas, AB 74 sponsor Fiona Ma went to Beyond Wonderland in San Bernadino, and the San Francisco electronic dance music community has continued to organize.

Tonight’s the meeting with the San Francisco Entertainment and Youth Commissions.  I had signed up on Save the Rave’s site,  the mailing list, and over the weekend, I got a call reminding me.  Yesterday, they posted talking points, and suggestions from Liam in the Facebook group on how to approach the meeting

When the time comes tomorrow for you to speak, speak from your heart! Tell City Hall why EDM events are important to you and how they have bettered your life. Share a funny story, an emotional story, YOUR story about the positive change the music and community has realized in and around you.

We are here to celebrate peace, music, art, culture, community and LIFE. We seek only understanding, compassion and a promise that our constitutional rights will be protected, so that we may dance and thrive!

Yeah really!  I’ve blogged so much over the years about how much electronic dance music means in my life that there’s no way I can convey it in two short minutes, but if I get a chance to speak I’ll do my best — and also try use myself as an example of somebody who visits SF because of the EDM scene, talk about the time I hired Geomagnetic.tv to do work for me at Microsoft because I had been impressed by their work at psytrance parties, and talk about constitutional rights.

None of the legal experts I’ve talked to think AB 74 is constitutional.  Freedom of assembly is a first amendment right.  And on top of that, electronic dance parties can be political speech — Liam’s set in the Castro at Pink Saturday 2008, right after a big marriage equality victory; or a benefit for a political organization.   Saving the rave is a civil liberties issue too, and it’s really great to see so many people step forward and speak up for our rights.

SF is a city where the “rave/nightclub” vote is enough to decide a lot of elections and it’s exciting to see a new generation of activists start to flex their muscles. See you at City Hall!