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bEAN
(Chicago, IL); issue no.6 Summer 1996
Friday, May 24th We headed up to Eagle Cave at about two-o'clock in the afternoon. It was rainy and dreary all over Lake County, which only worried us more about the weather we'd be experiencing over the next few days. Between resting a few times, and then trying to find Nick Nice's record store in Madison, called Seventh Dimension, we didn't make all that good of time. Nick's store is pretty cool though, he has a shit load of old Star Wars and G.I. Joe figures, aside from a good selection of vinyl, that's also available on mail order. Check it out first hand or give him a call. Once we got through some construction going on in Madison, we were back on the highway and to the camp site in about an hour or so. The scenery just miles before Eagle Cave was perfectly gorgeous as we drove alongside the Wisconsin River. At that point, the sun was out a little bit, and we realized, "Hey, it's not raining here!". As we turned onto the road leading up to the campsite, we were in awe. There were like farmlands all around, but a big patch of trees like up on a hill. That's right where the signs lead us to. I know some folks had a hell of a time getting up some of those hills, I mean the vert on that shit was insane. Once at the top of the first hill, we turned in our tickets, and were greeted by the ever famous Chris 26, with some garbage bags. Cool, we were finally there, it was around seven in the evening. Since we had tents to set up, we were guided down to the main site. People who were planning to sleep in their cars, or wanted their cars by their tents, had to park up on this other hill, away from the main attractions. We went on down to the main area, dumped off our shit and began building "Planed bEAN." We were up on this hill, and not having much camping experience, we didn't realize that setting up on a slanted ass hill would cause a sliding problem when trying to sleep. Oh well, at least we had a good sized area. We were basically in the middle of everything, at least so it seemed. The main tent was right down the hill to the left a little, the Drop Bass tent was down to the right, the Free Bass tent was directly down and ahead, and the Massive, and Jungle Love tents were to the far right. Chicago fools like Dan Efex and his crew, and the Jungle bunnies along with Tony from Sense, and the Mushgroove posse, were all up to the right of us, so we felt at home. We were done setting up in about an hour, the Drop Bass tent had some tunes flowing, so we weren't there too early, pretty much just in time. Basically the whole first night, we spent looking for other bEANers, and cooking some grub. The place was slowly filling up, and it was starting to look like a party. Around midnight or so we found some of the fools in our clan, and moved them up by us so we could just combine our shit. We all gathered firewood, ate, and dedided to get trashed off of some Gin and Juice. We concluded that our section and everyone nearby were in the ghetto section of the campground. The Gin and Juice tipped that off, but there weren't like any rich kids with nice ass trailers or anything around, just weak ass tents like ours. It was all good. We finally went wandering around to check out the environment and shit, and the place was pretty full. Unfortunately for us Martin was full too, of gin. He was walking around talking some shit about, "Pussy for sale." He was the fucking shit, that is until he drank that last one. About five minutes after the consumption, the laughter stopped and the hurling began. He ended up face down for the next few hours. Once the barf started flying, so did I, straight down to the Drop Bass tent, where Danny the Wildchild was going off! He's so fucking dope. He literally had that tent screamin'. It was the shit. It was raining at this point, so the ground was moistening up, and as you walked, you sort of sunk. I started wondering about my better half puking in the rain, so I left the tent shortly before Danny was done. Sure enough, Martin was laying in a puddle when I returned. He didn't wanna get up. So I said fuck it, and went to bed about five-thirty, and I could hear Mullan going off on the wax in the Drop Bass tent. Oh well, we needed some sleep. He did good from the sound of the audience.
Saturday, May 25th I managed to somehow fall asleep during Mullan's set. I was pretty tired. But even as tired as I was, I awoke to an unsettling voice over the mic coming from the Drop Bass tent. It went a little somethin' like this... "Your cars are parked, in an assinine manner... they must be moved or they will be towed at the owner's expense... some dumb ass is blocking the road and is a threat to all of us... if there were an emergency, we'd all be stuck... the towing company is like 60 miles away, and it will cost some $500+ to get your car back once it's towed... all cars on the road, or even on the grass next to the road will be towed at the owner's expense... your cars are parked in an assinine manner..." This message repeated itself several times over several hours, causing me to get a migraine several times the size of a normal one. I think it started at about seven in the morning, and lasted at least until eleven, maybe even noon. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep, nor did anyone else. The mood for the day was basically set. We finally got up, cooked up some grub, and checked our car to make sure it wasn't assinine. Up to the top of the very big ass hill... it was good, but we moved it a little closer to prevent the long journeys later. Rain, rain and some more rain. It was getting mighty slick in some parts of the campsite. Basically it was a mud hell on earth. We now know sorta what went down at Woodstock I guess. Whack All day we basically spent looking for fools from Chicago. We ran into the Hot Jams posse, (Brian, Ben, Frankie and the Mushgroove crew) and Tony from Sense. We watched a bunch of people spin in the smaller tents, along with some fools in the DBN tent. Dr. Groo went off in there, and it was the shit, as usual. After him we caught Drew Young, who was equally good with the live shiznit. If you could handle sinking in the mud, you were straight, otherwise... We didn't do a whole helluva lot on Saturday We were just bumping around into folks, saying what's up, and taking some shots (pictures). By dusk, we were about ready to call it quits though. We were so frustrated with the mud situation. It was really outta control. I could not understand how people could get past being so God blessed filthy. I mean, it was so nasty. And like, there were showers, right? But they were so full of mud, and the rain kept falling, it was just so pointless. We hung out long enough to watch Davey Dave spin in the main tent. But the tent was so packed, that we couldn't take any pictures. Now I was frustrated and just pissed. So, we saw an opening to the area in back, by the tables, and we went in there, took some pictures, and chilled for a minute. Not even long enough to get comfortable though. We, along with several others, we asked to leave the area, unless we had a special arm band... (Laminates???) Ughhh... that was a breaking point for me. Okay, the flier made it sound like there weren't going to be any of the "I'm special, who the fuck are you" kinds of attitudes going on, cause it said, "Even for those of you who think you won't have to pay will pay". That just means you'll pay the same but will still get treated better. I was under the impression that we weren't going to accomplish anything at this point, and almost felt regretful for even showing up. Nobody ever said anything about needing special shit to get anywhere. The part that pissed me off the most was that fact that the person who "kicked" us out, knows our intentions and still didn't even bother to help us out, just basically told us to fuck off, cause we ain't nobody. It was still raining pretty hard at that poing, and it was so fucking cold, that my ass was numb. Martin was feeling pretty shitty himself, so we said, "We can't leave, so fuck it, let's go take a nap and try to keep warm." I was so disappointed at that point, that I said "Fine, fuck it." As we laid in our cold ass tent, we heard Phantom 45 do a magnificent job, but we were still sad at the thought of our situation. You know, doing a zine is pretty rough, and being beginners in the whole thing is mighty frustrating. We will not hold nuts to cover and event. We feel we're doing promoters a favor when we review an event. That way those who didn't go can get an idea of what went on, and those who were there, will remember. We don't wanna be treated special, just let us take some pictures, and we'll be on our way. That's all we can ask for...
Sunday, May 26th It was just past midnight when we got up and said, "Fuck it, we're not going to sleep, so let's get up again." It wasn't raining anymore, so we changed, and gave in to the inevitable. We were miserable, and could no longer take the party being sober any longer. So we did what everyone else was doing. We took some fucking E. What else could possible happen? At least we figured we'd have to have a little bit of fun, we'd have to. And it had been so long... fuck it, we couldn't think of a reason not to. We stopped, dropped, and rolled. Hooked up with some balloons, and did shit the old fashioned way, not the right way, but the easy way. We copped out and got fucked up. After feeling a bit higher on life, we headed down to the tent. It was still packed like sardines. It was packed outside of the tent. Fuck... we tried going back to the deejay area, and decided to take the risk of being told to leave again, what did we have to lose? Actually Woody McBride was doing his live PA and it was the shit!! I think those involved in the kicking people out posse were too much into his set, that they stopped harassing everyone. Whoo hoo! We were outta control. The music was phat, and even thought we were slightly altered, it was all good. Woody was dope. After all that we were then turned on to none other than Daft Punk. You know, the last song on Mullan's New School Fusion 2 tape... "Meow, meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow, meow meow, meow..." You know it was them, and they started out with that. (Da Funk) Don't get me wrong, please. They did a really good job. It was pretty cheesy to start out with that kind of, but the crowd ate it up. It was an easy way to be recognized, they did their "Rollin' and Scratchin'" deal too, that was good. Overall, they were good. They looked really crazy looking, not that that's bad, they seemed cool. It was cool, I'm glad I got to check 'em out, it was groovin'. I was starting to think that I ate some bunk shit, cause I wasn't really feeling all that much, I just felt like I was having a normally good time, which was fine, I was just kind of mad at myself for thinking that I really need drugs to make a good time out of some crap. Oh well, I forgot about it, and kept dancing. Once Daft Punk was done, I was like, cool, now what? I had no idea of what was about to happen. This was my first Furthur, call me a stroke or whatever, but I have my reasons. ANYHOW, I had heard about Frankie Bones from several people, several times about several different parties. Everyone said he was the bomb. I had no idea. That dude has got to be my personal favorite performer. Holy fucking shit!!! It's hard to explain. I mean I really don't think it was the E kicking in, but I was feeling really good at that point. Anyhow, I was watching, and listening. I wasn't fucked up, he was bad ass!!! It was like, ol' dude created 1200's and we worked them mutha fuckas!! He was making shit with other records, creating new shit, to fit what he was spinning. I mean, you see people do that sometimes, and it's always cool, but Frankie was the shit. He started out slow, and took that shit to gabber! I couldn't believe my ears. He scratched, too. I'm not sure why he hasn't been booked in Chicago lately, but I'm sure all the promoters out there will have him come out after seeing just how awesome he is. He was the total shit. I wish more deejays would put on a show like that. He was fucking supreme bad ass. I don't think I could put it any other way. I had definitely reached a peak at that point. Whoa, he was good. Laura Grabb was next with a live gabber PA. It was somewhat short, but them hardheads ate it up. It was pretty obvious that we were in Gabber territory, but that's cool. After that, Deadly Buda was up, he was really good with some hard west coast shit, occasionally on the jungle tip, and then Kikoman with some nice ass house, who took us into the daylight, he was really good also. Man, what a night. Within minutes, we headed up to the tent, through the totally mud infested campgrounds; the place was totally trashed. We hit the tent and were asleep in no time flat, especially with the helpful sounds of Mixmaster Morris - nice, slow ass ambience. A perfect ending to that excursion...
Later that day... After getting a good ten+ hourse of sleep, we were ready for more! The TWO-SIX hooked us up the previous night, and we weren't sure what we should do. The decision came to us once we realized, "Fuck, we're dirty, we stink, and everything's trashed." So after running around all day with what energy we did have, we popped the shit. Whoa. All I can say is that I'm grateful that I didn't get tired. I really didn't want to miss anything, and I don't think I did. We passed out a shit load of bEAN fliers, stickers, matches, and even some older zines, met some kids, ate some grub, and went down to the main tent for some more music, after the kick ass fireworks of course. The cave did not go off due to the fact that allegedly some fools got drunk and fucked the shit up. I'm not really all that sure about that, but that's the rumor. Basically, the shit started winding down. We saw Nick Nice, Woody McBride, and Boo Williams all spin. They were all good; sorry I'm not getting into detail, it was pretty cloudy for me at that point. I do recall having a conversation with Drew Young during Auto Kinetic's live PA, and also during the beginning of Drone's set. What that conversation consisted of,well, I really can't say, but it was very humorous nonetheless. I really couldn't handle too much more after that. The music wasn't doing anything for me, not that the music was bad, I just needed to wander around aimlessly in the wilderness, that's all... so I did...
Monday, May 27 Pretty much, I explored, what? I'm still not sure, but I went back to the campsite where Martin was still fueling the fire, but not with wood. Anything and everything BUT wood. He and the Kid managed to burn everything we didn't eat (or drink): Gin (very good flaming material), lettuce, tomatoes, biscuits - the ones in a can (pop! pop! pop!), bread, you name it. The stench was horrific. It was one that could be smelled for yards. Ricky got bored and started playing frisbee with some tortillas, and I got bored enough to start packing shit up. Furthur was coming to an all out halt. The shit was basically over, and we were fried, along with the campfire jumbolia. We packed up, said our goodbyes, and were on the road by noontime. It was a blast. And I just wanna say that we don't condone the use of drugs or anything, but after being so funky, and so irritated, that I really don't think I would have survived Furthur without a little kick in the ass. I just couldn't see being straight in the conditions that we were succumbed to. Oh well, it was cool. Oh yeah, I would like to mention one last thing. Those of you too cool to camp, who got a hotel, and took showers every day, I just wanna say... you may have gone to Furthur, but you did not experience it. Even though I was miserable for some of the time I spent there, the time that I had fun would have never even happened if I wasn't forced to make the best of it. And the fun that I had, will be something that I will always remember.
Fucked up shit that happened
Once you got past this shit, you were good to go!
Furthurmore It's really hard to put our experience at this event into words, but hopefully after viewing the past few pages, you got an idea, even if you did wimp out, about some of the shit that happened at Furthur. It really was the shit. And I cannot wait until next year. Some advice: bring lots of clothes to change into. Cause even if you don't get a chance to shower, at least you'll feel a little bit more sanitary. And plus, if the rain trend continues, you won't wanna sit in the freezing cold with wet clothes on all weekend. Bring clean water for drinking and washing up. Don't count on running water. Don't set camp up on any kind of vertical plain, flatter is better. And the higher you go up on a hill, the faster you will slide down; keep this in mind when setting up camp as well. Get firewood before it rains, or before you arrive, if possible. And bring as many tents as possible, heck build a city of tents, some folks did, and they stayed drier. Most of all, if you go next year, go in good spirits. It really does take a lot of patience and courage to endure Furthur in the weather condidions, but remember, even though it seemed like Hell when you were there, you won't wanna be anywhere else once you leave. Furthur was the bomb. Thanks to Drop Bass, Communique, and David Prince. You guys know how to throw down. Until next year... Peace.
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