Something I loved most about our early rave scene, was that how it allowed a bunch of us “misfits” to find one another. We drew comfort in that.
Raves were about celebrating who you were, not what you weren’t, or trying to be something you weren’t. Oddballs who had their own fashion, culture and certainly unusual tastes in music at that time.
In my case, I was a nerd. Was before I was a DJ, was during my DJ years, and certainly now am a nerd.
Being a nerd gave me the skills to use the early internet to make contact with people overseas who could buy me happy hardcore records. I used the usenet group alt.rave to reach people, far before there were message boards or any type of social network.
I never had any clothing style. Some ravers adopted the candy fashions or whatever, for me though what I was most comfortable in was jeans and a t-shirt, and that’s how you saw me.
My nerd skills also allowed me to set up my Anabolic Frolic website, which happened to be the first ever “Happy Hardcore” website listed on Yahoo at the time. Then people found me.
But I could be a nerd, and be a raver. And later a famous rave DJ and promoter, who was still a nerd.
A nerd amongst my people, whomever they were, we were all together. It was awesome.