Danny Avila during his set at SCMF in Ascarate Park during Labor Day weekend. (Valeria Hernández/Borderzine.com)

Electronic music brings me happiness, but it also has a dark side

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EL PASO ­– The beat was big and loud, echoing in my chest, and the flashing lights were like an array of Technicolor feeding the crowd’s hungry eyes. I looked around and I could almost see the pure joy exuding from everyone’s faces. Their ear-to-ear smiles said it all. In that huge sea of people dancing to Tiesto’s “Adagio for Strings,” under the Sun City’s starry sky, I was one with the crowd and it was perfect. Electronic dance music has been around since the mid-1990’s, roughly, but it has been growing in popularity and is perhaps at its peak right now.

(Diana Carrillo/Borderzine.com)

The rave is all about music, but some seek Ecstacy to enhance the dance

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EL PASO – The dancing crowd rides a wave of lights surging to electronic rhythms while neon colors waft the wall and the crowd becomes one with the massive electro-beats as the wave becomes tsunami, flooding the hall up to eight hours at a time. The ecstasy that drives hours of nonstop dancing, typical at music festivals and raves, is sometimes fed by Ecstasy – the illicit drug. “I wouldn’t have lasted dancing, or even standing for the whole seven hours that I was there. I rolled for seven hours straight,” said Robert, 21. For many years, people have combined the music scene with drug use to increase the energy and enhance euphoria.