EDM comes in from the dark
EDM isn’t just for night owls, as Acid Camp proves
On a Sunday afternoon in May, Aaron Davis patrolled the grounds of his Acid Camp party dressed in a grown-up-sized Boy Scout uniform. All around him, fans of underground house and techno — many still fresh off the night’s after-hours reveries — were happily dancing in the magichour sunshine.
A few thirtysomething fans knocked around in an inflatable Tweety Bird bouncy castle just off the main dance floor. Over by the bar, a metal-head in a Donald Trump-mocking T-shirt spat whiskey straight into a new friend’s waiting mouth.
In a city that’s finally coming into its own as a late-night dance-music destination, the semimonthly Acid Camp is something new. It’s an afterafter party that, despite its cryptic online imagery and word-of-mouth buzz, is a little bit wholesome as well.
“A big part of doing daytime events is to not just feel like you’re in a dark hole,” Davis said. “Some people don’t like to go out at 2 a.m., and this opens the door to this scene to everybody.”
The 27-year-old promoter moved to Los Angeles after a post-college stint in New York. There, he was transfixed by the city’s liminal club scene, where late hours blended into long days.
Parties like Mister Saturday Night (and its daytime followup, Mister Sunday) seemed to bend time over a weekend, attracting like-minded but notably different crowds to each.
Also, traveling through Berlin and its legendary 72-hour indoor-outdoor venues like Berghain and Club der Visionaere, it underscored his hunch that the balmy L.A. scene could use something similar. Davis loved L.A.’s progressive late-night parties, like the gay-centric Spotlight series, but there was nothing else around to keep that underground feeling alive while easing fans into daylight.
So, despite not having much of a music-industry background beyond running a podcast, he found a room in downtown L.A. and booked a Sunday afternoon showcase himself.
“It was an experiment,” he said. “Maybe it would work, and maybe it wouldn’t.”
But the party quickly found a dedicated audience, and not just because of the scarcity of similar daytime gigs that weren’t more upscale hotel pool parties.
In its first year, Acid Camp lived up to its whimsically evil theme. Davis’ booking tastes run from the relatively upbeat, such as ’90s techno prodigy Bill Converse, to flinty acts like Berlin’s Nick Hoppner. Often, the music is a wry as it is danceable — when the 10 p.m. curfew finally hit at their one-year anniversary party, DJ Patrick Russell sent everyone home to the Clash’s “Straight to Hell.”
Between the amusement rides, backyard-barbecue refreshments and a sense of backyard bonhomie, the mood is never decadent or nihilistic, even for people who are tying one on from the Saturday night before.
“In Europe, it’s totally normal for people to go out for two or three days at a time,” Davis said. “There’s this old fear here that partying all night and into the day is some bad, naughty thing.”
For those who frequent Acid Camp, the gentle ease from all-night raves into Sunday afternoon is a novel option.
“Techno, disco, and underground house music were relegated to the late night in L.A., but not anymore,” said Jeremy Lingvall, an Acid Camp regular (he owns eight of its limitedrun T-shirts). “Aaron is always circulating around the crowd with a big grin on his face. That sense of joy and fun is is what sets Acid Camp apart.”
The same goes for newcomers to the scene.
“It was a lovely lengthening of the weekend,” said Dustin Bookatz, a musician and recent L.A. transplant from Sydney who performs as Indigo Children. It was his first techno party since moving here. “I danced and just dissolved into it,” he said.
Davis is a talented DJ himself, and recently played the Sunset Campout festival and the queer experimental party Ostbahnhof. He also has a knack for merchandising, and those Acid Camp T-shirts popped up in the crowds at many major dance music festivals this year.
With the launch of an Acid Camp vinyl-and-digital record label this year, and a few bigger late-night parties planned as complements to the day shift, it could be the start of a new Los Angeles club-music institution.
When fans part the gates to his parties, Davis said, “I always want it to feel like you’re walking into a different universe.”