Lisa Lapin asked Richard Marioni to pay her rent at the end of their first date together. "I met Richard at Goa Gate 5, and I thought he was so handsome and charming," Lisa told Rave News. "I was delighted when he asked me out on a date at the end of the night."

They spent thirty minutes talking over coffee at Cafe Velours. "I told Richard all about my family, my eight cats and the wonderful people I met in rehab. He was so invested in everything I had to say. It was love at first sight. I told him I'd bring my mother with me on our next date, because I thought it was important that he meet his future mama-in-law as soon as possible. His reaction was adorable! He was so shy. He just sat in his seat, fidgeting, nervously looking around, eyeing the doors."

Lisa said things only got better from there. "Oh, I was already telling him about our wedding plans fifteen minutes after he sat down. It's going to be a white wedding, he'll pay for everything of course. I've got my wedding dress all picked out, I know which ring I want, what suit he should wear, I've got the bridesmaids dresses all figured out. His jaw just hit the floor when I told him about our plans for our special day! He was obviously impressed with my organizational skills."

When the time for the check came around, Richard quickly paid for it before leaving. "As he was heading out the door, I grabbed him by the hand, looked into his lovely blue eyes, and I asked him when I could expect a check for the rent at my apartment, since he'd be moving in. He just shifted his eyes nervously again and laughed. He's so shy. I can't wait four our second date."

Richard, however, doesn't think a second date is in the card. "That bitch is crazy," he told Rave News. "That's the last time I pick a girl up at a Goa party."

"Smartphones are the new glowsticks," says sociologist Helen LaFemme. "I've been tracking both the sale and popularity of glowsticks for the last decade. Once smartphones took off, glowstick sales plummeted," says Helen. "It's getting to the point where most people at parties are shunned if they wave glowsticks around instead of their smartphones."

Antoine Legault, a salesman for Glowsticks Emporium, tells Rave News that business has fallen. "The last few years have been horrible," says Antoine. "Apple and Google have eaten our lunch. In the past, we could count on blitzed out party goers to buy our glowsticks, but not anymore. We've had to diversify our product line in order to stay in business."

Glowsticks Emporium stays afloat these days by selling a variety of glow in the dark sex toys. "Condoms, anal beads, vibrators, dildos, whatever. It's crass, but it brings in the dollars, unlike glowsticks."

Rave diva Jen Dartagnon is a recent smartphone convert. "I used to be all about the glowsticks, but then my friends started snickering behind my back whenever I'd wave one around. I wanted to be cool like them, so I got an iPhone, which I love to wave in the air once the bass starts thumping."

Todd White, a spokesperson for Apple, says it's about time glowsticks died out. "Years ago, when our company was in financial turmoil, Steve Jobs wracked his brain trying to figure out how to bring us back to profitability," says Todd. "He realized that Apple's future could be saved if we came up with a more expensive alternative to glowsticks. It took many years to accomplish Steve's vision, but his day has finally come. The glowstick is dying. Long live the smartphone."

These days, you can't go to a show without noticing a sea of phones in the air. It's a brave new world, a world that some rave veterans find terrifying. "First they got rid of the pacifiers, now they're getting rid of glowsticks," says 40 year old booty house enthusiast Bob Roberts. "What's next? Are they going to stop playing happy hardcore? The future scares me."

Samuel Desjardins was high on LSD when he wandered away from the campgrounds of Unnatural 2012, a three day music festival and into the forest. "I was tripping balls and for some reason, I thought if I followed the moon, eventually I'd be able to touch it. So I left the party and wandered into the woods," Samuel told Rave News.

He woke up the next day by the edge of a river, without a phone, a map, or a compass. "I was completely lost. I had no idea where I was or where the campground was. So I just kept walking and in the process, I got even more lost."

When night came, Samuel started getting hungry. "I was starving, so I just foraged for berries and fruits. I was getting worried that I'd never get back home."

He would spend the next week surviving on his wits alone, living in the wild, far removed from society. "Every night, I'd start a signal fire by banging two rocks together. It took me awhile to find a pair of rocks that could start a fire, but after six hours of searching, I got lucky. No one ever came for me though, which sucked. By the end of the fifth day, I had resigned myself to the fact that I might never find my way home. Unnatural 2012 took place hundreds of miles up north, in the middle of nowhere. There weren't that many roads around. At least I hadn't stumbled across any during my search," says Samuel. "Eventually I decided to find high ground, to get an idea of the landscape in hopes of finding a road somewhere, anywhere."

He noticed a small mountain in the distance while drinking water by the river. "I walked towards the mountain for a few days. By this point, I was hunting small animals with a spear I had fashioned out of a stick."

In time, he made it to the mountain, only to discover that it was a luxury ski resort. "I was ecstatic to find out that I wasn't nearly as far away from civilization as I had feared. The people at the resort were very kind and I was back home within days."

Samuel considers his time in the wilderness to have been well worth it. "It was a transcendent experience," says Samuel. "It's a shame I never did get to touch the moon, though."

Rock fanatic Charles Gaudin says he wasn't always popular with the ladies. "I'd go to parties and try to strike up conversations with women, but they'd all look at me like I had leprosy. Once, a girl kicked me in the balls just for saying hi," Charles told Rave News. "That all changed once I started collecting rocks."

Two years ago, Charles inherited a dozen rubies and emeralds from his late grandmother. He fell in love with the bag of gems he'd been bequeathed, and would often spend his afternoons obsessively polishing them. Soon after he started reading books about gems, jewels, and minerals.

"Eventually, I decided to switch my University major to geology. I became engrossed with the subject. Now I live, breath, and sleep rocks. That's all I think about. And it turns out that chicks dig passion. I wasn't really passionate about anything before, but now that I am, it shows. When I invite a woman over to check out my rock collection, they always say yes."

Charles first fortunate love connection at a rave happened after he decided to turn one of his grandmother's emeralds into a piece of jewellery. "I love showing off my rocks. I've got over nine thousand different kinds right now, from adularia to zircon. And if I can't bring girls home to my rock collection, than I try to bring pieces of my collection to the girls through the jewellery I make."

One of his first rock related lays, Cynthia Betencourt, relates how she first fell for Charles charms. "He came up to me and asked if I wanted to touch his angelite, a pale blue rock he'd turned into a ring. And it was really pretty, so I said yes. Then he asked me if I'd come over to his place and check out all his rocks. There's just something about precious stones that turns me on, so of course I said yes."

Since then, Charles has been on a roll. "I date a different girl six days a week, and then on the seventh day, I do like God and rest. if you're struggling to find love, study geology. If you know your dirt, the girls will do dirty things for you."

Partiers pummelled Paul Gauthier, a whistle sales man, at Dub Hawk Down this week-end. The rave, promoted by Louis Rinsom of Phat Louis Productions, descended into chaos once ravers started attacking Paul. "I just wanted to bring joy to the rave community with my colourful whistles," says Paul. "But instead, I was the target of hatred and violence. Now I can't look at a whistle without breaking into a cold sweat."

The trouble started after several dozen people started using the whistles they bought from Paul. "I paid to listen to dubstep," says Jonathan Farouk, one of Paul's many attackers. "I didn't pay to listen to whistles. A bunch of us just got fed up and beat the shit out of that whistle selling asshole."

Louis Rinsom, who had given Paul permission to sell at his event, had to intervene to protect him when things got out of hand. "I was fending off ravers with a mop, pushing them back. They were like mindless zombies, full of bloodlust," says Louis. "They wanted to kill Paul. I felt bad for him and since I had told him he could sell his whistles at my party, I had take responsibility for the whole fiasco. My parties are all whistle free from here on out. I think people over-reacted, but I don't want to risk another riot."

Emma Manson disagrees. "People were right to get violent. Whistles are obnoxious. Anyone who uses a whistle at a party should have their arms tied to the back of one car and their legs tied to the back of another. If the ravers don't repent their whistling ways, the cars should rip them in half," says Emma.

Paul wasn't the only victim of a whistle related beating that night. "After we attacked Paul, we started jumping anyone who blew a whistle that night," says Jonathan. "We must have kicked about fifteen, maybe sixteen whistle blowing asses that night. I hope the carnage we wrought sends a message to the rave community. No more whistles. Or else."

A new fad is sweeping through Montreal, causing ravers to open up their apartments to strangers for what some have dubbed Mystery Drug Parties. Cegep student Jacques Couriers threw his first mystery party last week and was bowled over by how well it went. "Mystery drug parties are a blast," says Jacques. "And they're easy to throw. Just invite people over to clean up your apartment, and whatever drugs they find they get to keep. At my party, one girl found a dime bag of pot I'd forgotten about, another guy found five tabs of LSD I had lost last spring. You never know what high you'll get, so it's a mystery. By the end of the night, everyone is wasted and your place is spotless."

Mystery Drug Parties are the brain child of veteran promoter Paul Finkelstein. "I'm far too lazy to clean up after myself plus I also do a lot of drugs," says Paul. "I do so many drugs, that I'm always finding strange pills on the floor, or half smoked joints in the cupboards. Drugs are always playing hide and seek in my house. Last year, my girlfriend was complaining about how there was mould growing on my bedsheets, and told me if I didn't clean our place up, she'd stop having sex with me. Apparently, she'd get yeast infections whenever we'd do it at my place."

Faced with this ultimatum, Paul did what any lazy promoter does, and got a bunch of other people to do the work for him. "I asked for volunteers over Facebook. I told my followers that I was having a clean-up party, and they could keep whatever drugs they found. The response was huge. Fifty people showed up. You'd think with a crowd that big, the apartment would be worst off by the end of it all, but it wasn't. It was clean and sparkly. Every one got high, everyone got drunk, a couple of people had sex in my kitchen, but when everyone left, my apartment was so clean, you could have eaten off the floor."

After Paul's party, dozens of copy cats followed in his wake. "These days, a week rarely goes by without a mystery drug party," said Jacques. "I even heard that people in other cities are starting to throw them. My friend in New York went to one. Mystery drug parties are going global."

Jasmine Baldwin and Eric DuFresne have both been arrested in what police describe as a horrific Raver enslavement ring. "We discovered a terrifying scene Friday afternoon when we busted into a club owned and operated by Baldwin and DuFresne." said Officer Wrigley. "Hundreds of ravers, all of them chained to the wall, many of them in a state of undress, being prepared for shipment across the world."

The criminal pair had been kidnapping ravers at parties for over a decade. Dancing teenagers would be drugged, only to wake up to a terrifying new reality: as chattel for the slave trade. "They've been doing this for fifteen years. They'd set up camp in one city, kidnap between a hundred to two hundred ravers, and then move on to the next city. Thankfully, one raver managed to escape her chains late Thursday night by calling on the power of dance."

The escaped raver, Marcel Marteau, said it was miracle. "I woke up naked, my legs and arms bound, with a giant man in a gimp mask looming over me. Just as he was about to do some awful things to me, I started humming a Skrillex song, beatboxing to dubstep, and I don't know why, but it was like the strength of the universe just channeled through me. Suddenly, it was like I had superhuman strength. The adrenaline rushing through my body gave me the power to break free from the rope that had bound me. I punched the gimp in the face, knocking him out. I ran out so fast. It was a pure rush. I found a police officer, I brought them over, and they freed all the other ravers."

The police found Jasmin Baldwin and Eric DuFresne passed out in a back room, their faces covered in a thick layer of cocaine. "Every night after they were done violating ravers in preparation for their new lives as slaves, they had a ritual where they would just bathe themselves in coke until they passed out," said Wrigley. "It's a both a miracle and a shame that their coke habit didn't kill them."

Montreal ravers can now breathe easy. With the raver slavers behind bars, party goers are much less likely to be drugged and kidnap, although officer Wrigley warns partiers from being complacent. "We arrested those two criminals, but there are other predators out there, licking their lips at the thought of enslaving ravers. Be vigilant, be smart, and if you suspect anything, call the police and let us know."

John DeGaul, president of High On Demand, is one of the few successful entrepreneurs Montreal's rave community has produced. His drug subscription business rakes in hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue every week and currently employs fifteen people. "The illicit narcotic industry is in dire straights because most drug dealers aren't very innovative," says John. "My business, High On Demand, is all about innovation. Drug dealing has become a passionless enterprise for most dealers. They treat drugs like a mere commodity. I view it as a luxury service. Getting high is an experience, and that's what I'm in the business of selling. Not drugs, but experiences."

John considers himself the Netflix of the drug dealing world. "How I sell drugs is just as important as the quality of the drugs I sell. Branding, packaging, image. It's all important. My clients expect elegance, ease, and class. They don't want to worry about the drugs they're taking. They want reliability and they want convenience. Using High on Demand, they get it."

High On Demand offers subscribers their choice of narcotics and delivery schedules. "We make everything as simple as possible for our subscribers. Once they've signed up with us, they get access to a secret website, and depending on their subscription package that they choose, we'll send them a regular supply of whatever drugs their heart desires. We ship them in air tight containers that come in a variety of styles. Our high end subscribers absolutely love our diamond engraved stainless steel models."

John is optimistic about the future of High On Demand. "The more subscribers we get, the better our services become. We've added fifteen new varieties of marijuana this month alone. The amount of drugs regular subscribers could get in a month has doubled over the last year. A larger membership base means cheap drugs, because the more people we have, the cheaper harvesting and procuring drugs becomes."

One new service John's especially excited about is Drop Off Plus. "Some of our customers are paranoid about being caught by the police, so we've started experimenting with secret drop off locations. Once a month, we deliver our containers to out of the way locations which customers can choose via our website. It's an incredibly simple process."

John says the only downside to High On Demand's profit margins are the occasional crooks who try to game the system. "Since we're not the most legal of operations, we can't expect the police to help us deal with our wayward customers. However, we have an effective security team in place that can be sent out to savagely beat a subscriber whenever it needs to be done. It's magical."

Bruno Botwin, one of High On Demand's enforcers, agrees. "John has built something truly special. Even the way he has us beat people up is stylish. We only use the finest iron pipes, we make sure to clean up after ourselves. We might bloody your nose, but we won't bloody your carpet. Details matter. The little things make a difference."

Carly Jacobs was poised to snitch on her ex boyfriend Mitch Oshawa's meth dealing business over the weekend but backed out at the last minute. "I managed to convince Carly that Mitch was a dangerous criminal who was ruining lives," said Todd Ryerson, Mitch's old high-school friend. "She was going to help bring him to justice, but then she chickened out and told Mitch everything."

Mitch Oshawa found the whole business amusing. "I saw Carly on Friday at this dubstep event. She had this guilty look on her face that she get whenever she does something wrong, so I knew something was up. I just kept harassing her until she told me what was going on. That's when she shared her master plan for putting me behind bars. She was going to show police all these emails I'd sent her when I first started cooking meth, and then tell them about how my operation had evolved since it first started. She knew everything from where I kept my equipment to where I hid my spreadsheet files that I use to keep track of my sales. I could have been in real trouble, but she got her head on straight after I slapped her. She was really apologetic, which is good. She knows her place. Anyways, when I got back home, I hacked into her email account and deleted all the incriminating emails I had sent her. I swiped my hard-drive, moved my meth lab, and now instead of spreadsheets, I have a notebook that I hide in a secure location. I'm much more careful now about getting caught now."

Todd was devastated by Carly's betrayal. "It hurt like hell when I found out. Mitch got several of my friends hooked on meth. He got my younger brother, who's barely 14, addicted to the drug. He's ruining lives, and he's got to be stopped. What I don't get is that he's also abusive. He used to beat Carly all the time. He's an abusive prick, and yet she broke down and told him everything. It's a bloody tragedy."

Carly defended her decision to tell Mitch about their plan to turn him in. "Mitch, I think, is a good guy underneath it all. Sure, he used to hit me now and then, and sometimes he trades meth for sex with vulnerable underage girls, and I know he's partly responsible for at least three people trying to kill themselves, and sure there countless other lives he's probably ruined. But that doesn't mean he's a bad person who should go to jail. He deserves better than that. I was stupid to want to punish him."

Ravers who unwittingly trespassed on to Henry Becklenburg's field were splattered with shit after they refused to leave the farmer's land. "Those young bastards were trampling all over my grass," said Henry. "I told them to leave. They wouldn't. So I got on my muck spreader, drove it to my field, and I let those dancing idiots have a taste of animal waste. I covered all of em, head to toe, in manure. I covered their cars. I covered their tents. I cover their fancy music equipment. All of it in shit. They went to the cops to complain. I'm told that they're out nearly ten thousand bucks in broken electronics. Maybe that will teach 'em not to throw parties on other people's property. it's rude."

The leader of the renegade party, Jessica Ringauld, was livid. "We thought it was public land," said Jessica. "It didn't look like a farm field. It just looked a giant empty place that was perfect for dancing. There weren't any buildings in sight. We didn't know that anyone owned the place. There wasn't a fence, or a no trespassing sign, or anything. By the time Mecklenburg found us, we'd been partying for five hours, it was 3 in the morning. He should have just let us finish. We asked him politely if we could stay, we told him we'd clean up afterwards, we even offered to pay him for using his land. He wouldn't let it go. He just kept telling us to leave. We got upset at how stubborn he was, so we ignored him. Which, I guess, wasn't smart in hindsight."

One of the DJs, who brought his own equipment, says he plans on suing Henry. "He wrecked my stuff. And why? Because I was partying on his land without his permission? I don't think anyone needs permission to party. We have a constitutional right to get our groove on, wherever, whenever. That old farmer, he's going to pay for what he did."

Henry is unrepentant. "Young people have no respect for private property these days. They're all a bunch of godless communists. I did the right thing. I'd do it all over again if I had too. They were on my land. They deserved it."

Meth addicted Dubstep promoter Bernard Bosworth swiped the cash box at a rival's party on Friday. Clarrence Turgeon, the promoter who was robbed, chased after the wily thief with the help of DJ Tasha Tamberlyn. Unfortunately for the pair, Bernard eluded capture, and hasn't been seen since the time of the crime.

Tasha couldn't believe Bernard's brazen act of thuggery. "He just walked up to the table, grabbed the cashbox, and ran off like a moron. At least a dozen people saw him do it, most of us know who he is, and several of us know where he lives. He's been taking meth for at least a year now, and I know crystal makes you stupid, but I never thought it'd make someone that stupid. He'd have to be a real imbecile if he thought he'd get away with this."

Sophia Papadakis was on door duty at the time of the theft. "I don't know what was going through his mind. I was taking tickets when he walked up to the table, got this big stupid smile on his face, and grabbed the cashbox. He started laughing, turned his back, and ran away. And he didn't run the way a normal person would. He was moving his body like some sort of demon possessed freak. Imagine what Big Bird would look like if he was wearing a butt plug while being chased by a tiger. That's how Bernard was running. Like his legs were made of silly putty or something. I was so shocked, I just sat there dumbstruck."

Clarence, meanwhile shrugged the theft off. "Bernard got away from us, but it's not a big deal. The cash box only had a few hundred bucks in it, and sooner or later, I'll get it back from him. I know where he lives, and if he doesn't play nice and return the money, I'll just rob his party next time."

Promoter Paul Finkelstein was accosted by a group of punks after they witnessed him videotaping a girl hula hooping on the dance floor at one of his free events. The resulting assault lead to a giant brawl between ravers and punks, leaving several people injured.

"That fat pervert Paul was wearing a t-shirt for PornCloud. He was sexually exploiting a poor defenceless hula hooping woman, brutalizing her with his camera in the name of patriarchy," said Ebert Collins, the punk who threw the first punch. "This woman was expressing herself through dance, and I wasn't about to let that sick pervert turn her into a sexual object for the profits of a giant pornography conglomerate hellbent on transforming all women into products for men to consume. I'm all about smashing the patriarchy, so I smashed Paul in the face with my squeegee."

The promoter was baffled by the assault. "It was my party. I was filming people dancing at a free event that I threw at my own expense," says Paul. "Sure, I had a PornCloud t-shirt on -- I used to work there as an accountant. But just because I've got that shirt on doesn't mean I'm filming raver porn. It was a Saturday morning in the middle of a public park surrounded by parents having picnics with their children. It's like these anarchist punks don't even bother trying to use their brains."

Sophia Gaulois, the hula hoop girl at the middle of the conflict, was infuriated by the assault. "I'm out there having fun, and these anarchists come in and attack my friends. They talk all about objectifying women, yet they don't realize that's exactly what they did to me. They objectified me, they treated me like I was an empty vessel without desires or needs of my own, and instead of asking me what I wanted, they assumed they knew what was best for me. And apparently what was best for me was attacking the very person who made my hula hoop dancing possible. They call themselves anarchists, but they're just fascists. They're not fighting for freedoms, they're fighting to take them away."

Wendy Thomas, a libertarian feminist, agrees that the anarchists were out of line. "Anarchists have a victorian sense of morality. They hate pornography. If you're a woman and you like porn, and we do exist contrary to what these mohawk sporting conservatives think, you're a horrible person and you deserve to be beaten with a squeegee. When those punks attacked Paul for simply wearing a t-shirt with the name of a porn company on it, they were attempting to censor not only his sexuality, but the sexuality of all people who enjoy porn, which includes millions upon millions of women. Anarchists want to come into our bedrooms and tell us what we are and are not allowed to find arousing. The anti-porn wing of the left is anachronistic nonsense, and they need to be stopped."

Many of the ravers who were assaulted by the punks aren't too concerned with the reasons behind the fight.

"It doesn't matter why those anarchist punk attacked," says Kayla Crovartis. "The fact is, instead of talking to us, instead of using diplomacy, instead of using reason, they just violently assaulted one of our own with a squeegee. That's wrong. And we weren't going to stand for it."

And the ravers didn't. They fought back, and soon dozens of ravers were tangling with dozens of punks.

"By the end of the fight, we had pushed back the anarchists," says Paul. "Maybe they should consider moving to the Taliban controlled parts of Aghanistan, seeing as how they like controlling people's sexuality."

Emily Bacile had sex with a rave promoter in exchange for a pair of headphones and a hamburger. "I was at his flat with some friends and he was eating take out from McDonald's," says Emily. "I rolled a joint, and when I passed it to him, I noticed he had a pair of blue Nixon whip headphones. When I asked him if I could see them, he looked me right in the eye and told me he'd give them to me if I sucked his cock. I held his gaze and told him I'd do him one better -- I'd fuck him if he threw in a Big Mac. And just like that, we had ourselves a deal."

Sociologist Helen LaFemme isn't surprised by Emily's actions. "Trading sexual favours for headphones and hamburgers has become increasingly common among ravers," says Helen. "Courtship rituals have changed over the decades. We've gone from dating to deal making in just a few short generations. Ravers have been central to this shift. In some ways, they've pioneered the commodification of sex."

Not everyone is a fan of this brave new world that ravers are pioneering. Jessica DePalmo, a spokesperson for the Family Value Federation is an outspoken critic of the sexual mores of ravers. "They lack self-respect," says Jessica. "Sex isn't something you should trade for a pair of headphones, it's an intimate expression of two people doing their godly duty to create children."

Helen LaFemme isn't so sure, however. "If you go back fifty years, you'd find that hippies would trade sex for Bob Dylan records and milkshakes. Sixty years ago beatniks would trade sex for poetry and coffee. Seventy years our past zoot-suit wearing hep cats would trade sex for radios and a bottle of cola. For the past several decades each new generation has come up with a unique form of sexual bartering. This generation, it's burgers and headphones. Who knows what the next generation will bring -- but it probably isn't bloomers and wedding rings."

Emily is unconcerned with her critics and is happy with her business acumen. "It was a delicious Big Mac, and the Whip are a very decent pair of headphones. Sure, some people prefer Sennheiser's and a Harvey's Burger, but I think I got a good deal out of it. Besides, the Big Mac is a classic. You can't really go wrong with it. The sex was alright also. I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

Dominic Manteau hasn't played the guitar in weeks. "I might never play again," he told Rave News. "I know I shouldn't have been so careless, but I think getting bikers to break my fingers was extreme."

The trouble all started when Dominic decided to sell drugs at a rave without the promoters permission. "The promoter wanted a cut of my profits, and I told him to back off. I mean, it wasn't like I was going up to everybody asking if they wanted to buy from me. It was just a few people. Maybe I should have asked for permission, but I don't think what the promoter did was right."

After being rejected, the promoter called a member of a local biker gang, who showed up at the rave with a couple of thugs. They dragged Dominic out of the party and threw him into the back of a van. "It was scary, they drove me to the middle of nowhere. They didn't say a single word the whole drive, no matter how much I begged and pleaded, they just sat in the van without saying a word. Then they pulled over to some field, and I swear I thought they were going to kill me. Instead, they took all my drugs, my jacket, my dignity. They told me that if they ever caught me selling drugs at another party, they'd kill me. Then they pushed me on the ground, pulled out my hands, and stomped on them.

Eric Morrissey, an ex-biker, was surprised at the lenience his former comrades showed Dominic. "He got off easy. Back in the day, we wouldn't have just broken his fingers. We would have fucked him in the mouth too," said Eric. "Independent drug dealers should always make sure they're in the clear before selling at a party. Be courteous, and give the promoters a cut. Otherwise, you might be in for a world of pain."

Dominic now spends his days watching Back to the Future over and over again. "I wish I had a time machine. When you break the law, you run the risk of getting your bones broken. If I could do it all over, I would. I miss having fingers that work."

Don Vogel, the owner of a third rate Montreal music blog, has spent the summer pretending to be famous. "I paid a bunch of photographers to follow me around as if they were paparazzi," said Vogel. "I've always wanted to know what it felt like to be special. I already act like a diva, and I thought it was about time that people started treating me like one."

One of Vogel's photographers, Alyson Beaubois, told Rave News that following him around has been surreal. "He's a huge weirdo, but he knows it. Every few weeks, he'll hire a limousine to drive him to various clubs around Montreal. It's important to him that people think he's major league, which is bizarre, since only a handful of people read his blog. He wants to be the next Perez Hilton. Heck, he'd probably be satisfied if he was the next Paris Hilton."

Vogel says his experiment in fame isn't over. "I've started my own fan club. I sell t-shirts with my face on them on my website, and I'll even sign the shirts for an extra thirty dollars. Some people think you have to work for fame, but they're wrong. People are stupid, if you act like you're famous, they'll believe you. And when they think you're important, they give you more respect. You should see how well people treat you when you're riding in a limo or you've got photographers chasing you around. You can be rude and people will think you're charming, they give you free drinks at clubs, and men and women throw themselves at you. Fame is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Everyone wants to be around you when you're famous."

Jonah Smith is one of Vogel's early fans. "I bought his t-shirts before he was fake famous, and one day when he's real famous, I'll sell it on e-bay and make a fortune," said Smith.

Every summer, dozens of free parties are organized in Montreal. Whether the music is Psytrance, Dubstep, Drum & Bass, ravers gather by the hundreds in remote, isolated fields to party all night long. But how do they make it? Are free party organizers stupid, rich kids with no friends, or actually brilliant and successful promoters? Trevor Thibault, an obscure yet prolific free party organizer, gives us a glimpse on the free party business side. This is his story.

"On a good summer night, I can easily pull in $2,000", says the 21 year old man. "At first, we organized a few pay parties, playing mostly psy trance and dubstep. Even if we attracted a fair amount of people, we would systemically loose money. DJs would ask to be payed, venues would cost thousands of dollars, sound systems, deco, police fines, etc. People would constantly try to sneak in for free. It was just not worth it. Then at some point one of us just came up with this idea: Let’s throw a free party!"

In early 2009, realizing the potential, Mr Thibault and his team planned their first summer of free parties. "After some discussion with local crackheads, we managed to secure an abandoned warehouse that wouldn’t cost anything. Using the free party argument, we convinced a bunch of wannabee DJs to spin and promote for us all for free! As for the sound system, we convinced a local philanthropist to lend us his equipment and generator for a 12-pack of Blue Ribbons."

People came by the hundreds. "We could not estimate the attendance, because we were too busy with our hot new groupies or counting all those Elizabethan faces. Yes, MONEY! We had the Ketamine man, MDMA man, speed man, etc. We even had the water and red bull guys!!! On our first free party, we pulled in close to $800. Hot girls would send us friend requests on Facebook by the dozens. DJs would beg us to spin at our parties. Sound systems? Rich kids would take care of that. Realizing we hit the jackpot, we hired more reliable trade-men and negotiated with bikers for better prices. One local biker even eagerly provided us with free Ketamin in exchange of hungover underage girls. Our refined business model made the summer of 2012 particularly prolific, allowing us to cash in close to $10,000 in pure profit."

Some of the more traditional promoters received this new wave of competitive free parties with skepticism.

Stephen Virtual-Darkness, one of the local psy trance promoters, never believed in free parties. "Before those free party people came in, I could easily cash in $3,000 in a single night. Hell, I could play the same track 3 times in a row and people would not even realize! There was nothing else in the scene. Now, all my events loose money or barely break even. It is even impossible to get underage girls anymore as they now attend free parties. The way things go, I will probably have to go back to school soon." This promoter is however optimistic his artisanal online psychedelic candle business will flourish in upcoming months.

Another local purist, Osama Ketanim, believes that free parties kill the spirit of the rave scene. "These people don’t understand what this is all about. Our events are all about quality and the spirit of trance. Them, they have shitty sound systems, wannabe DJs, shitty drugs. I never saw them bring an international act in Montreal. Us? We bring Bizounesque Records artists in this city every month! Most of the underage girls they promote their free parties to were introduced to the rave scene by our high school recruiters."

The next season will be interesting to watch as free party promoters and more traditional ones clash once again!

Nick Beatty was clutching on to a marijuana plant when police found him, his eyes red with tears. "He was sobbing pretty hard," said arresting officer John LaVoie. "He'd been barricaded in that house for a couple of weeks, though we only learned of his actions recently. His landlord tried taking care of the situation himself, which isn't something we would recommend others do. If a tenant barricades themselves in one of your rental properties, you should immediately call the police. There's no telling what they might be up to inside."

In Beatty's case, he had been growing marijuana for several months, and the plants were just a few weeks from being smoke worthy when his landlord told him he was planning on selling the house.

"I didn't know Nick was growing pot. I'd rented the place out to him late last year, and haven't been there since. When I told him I'd be bringing over potential buyers to look around, he went a little crazy.

The first time I brought some buyers over, he wouldn't let us in the house. I tried to reason with him, but he just wouldn't budge. I wasn't in a huge hurry to sell the place, but after two weeks of waiting for him to let me in, I got fed up and called the cops."

The police were shocked at what they found. "Marijuana was everywhere. Wall to wall lamps and plants. it was a very impressive set-up." said officer LaVoie.

Nick was devastated by the arrest. "I borrowed money to buy all that equipment. I just couldn't deal with cutting my losses and running. I put my blood and sweat into growing those plants," said Nick. "And now they'll never grow into mature bud, and all because we live in an oppressive society with antiquated drug laws. I'm going to be under house arrest for the next 4 months because a bunch of elderly rednecks hate marijuana. 20 years from now, when they're all dead, pot will be legal. I'm being oppressed by geriatrics."

Officer LaVoie scoffed at Nick's remarks. "Drugs are evil. That's why they're illegal. It has nothing to do with old people standing in the way of progress. Evil is against the law. It always has been and it always will be."

A blood feud between two DJs culminated in a shoot-out at a Montreal club on Friday. DJ Patterson, a 42 year old veteran of the Rave community who has been spinning records long before many of today's ravers were even born, was the target of the assault. Patterson told Rave News that it all started over an internet argument.

"I was trolling this no-named Jungle DJ named Bro-9, giving him a hard time. His music sucks, and he's a pretty awful human being. He's a blowhard who takes shit too seriously. I told him Skrillex would kick his ass in a bar fight, and he got all huffy about it. He started following me around the internet, trying to insult me, thinking I give a damn. It was hilarious. I'm sure he spent hours and hours obsessing over the stupid things I wrote, trying to figure out how to get even with me, but when he realized nothing he said bothered me, he went full crazy. He started harassing me in real life," said Patterson. "Most of which I brushed off. Until the gun incident. I'm not sure what it is about Junglists, but man, they're an angry bunch."

Thomas Coteau witnessed the shoot-out and recalls chaos on the dance floor. "We were just dancing to some old school electro when this guy in a bright yellow t-shirt walks up towards the DJ booth, pulls out a gun, and starts shooting. People started screaming and running. It was like a scene out of a horror movie. Or Star Wars, because that guy was like a storm trooper. He kept shooting, but he couldn't aim for shit. It's a good thing too, otherwise people might have died."

It wasn't long before Bro-9 and his cap gun were tackled to the ground by Jerome Abasi, a security guard who worked at the club. "The attacker kept shouting something about jungle never dying and how the rave will go on. I think he might have been high on bath salts," said Jerome. "No one even plays jungle anymore. Maybe that's why junglists are so angry. I've never met one who doesn't have serious rage issues."

Bed bugs have invaded the homes of at least two dozen ravers after they sat on a pest infested love couch that was placed at an outdoor party. While clueless ravers were giving each other backrubs, hoardes of bed bugs were climbing on to their clothing and laying eggs.

John Beaudoin, a fumigator for DéPesté, has been warning ravers for years about the risks of bed bugs. "Ravers, they're very dirty. I keep telling them that if they find couches in the garbage, to make sure that they're bug free before they use them at their parties. But they rarely listen! Instead they just throw any dirty old couch on to the dance floor without a thought or care about what might be living inside of it. I'm not at all surprised that party goers are bringing home flesh eating parasites. If anything, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often."

Rave promoter David Thuster agrees that dirty couches are a threat to raver health. "I think we have to be more careful. Promoters shouldn't use ratty old furniture at their parties without at least checking them for fleas and bed bugs. The party goers who got infested all had to throw out a lot of clothing and bed sheets, some of them even had to higher professionals to clean out their apartments. That's a huge, huge hassle."

One of the bed bug victims, Gerard Custer, suspects the pest epidemic might be the product of a conspiracy. "I think the fumigators are planting bed bugs at raves in order to drum up business. The fumigation business is controlled by the mob. I mean, it's like that TV show Breaking Bad. You can't trust bug killers. They're just in it for the money."

Beaudoin, for his part, was incredulous that any ravers would suspect such a thing. "People who think fumigators are all tied to the mob should lay off the drugs, and rave promoters should lay off the dirty couches."

Gatineau born chiptune DJ Jerome Depardieux has been living on the streets for the last month, eating out of dumpsters and sleeping in alleyways as well as the occasional couch. His fall into itinerancy has nothing to do with being broke. Depardieux makes enough money off odd jobs that he can afford to pay for food and rent, but instead to spending his cash on what most people consider basic necessities, he spends it all on looking good.

He's the best dressed bum in Montreal. His monthly dreadlock haircut ran him over $500 alone. He has his clothes professionally cleaned and pressed, which he stores in a locker at a downtown gym where he showers and shaves. He spent $250 on a pair of running shoes hours after munching on a half eaten bagel he found in a garbage can on Park Ave. His friends can't wrap their heads around the choices he's been making.

"I think he might be having some kind of nervous breakdown. We keep trying to help him find an apartment, but he refuses to listen to us. Instead of buying food or paying rent, he'd rather spend his money fixing up his hair or getting flashy clothes. We don't want to let him sleep on our couch either, because we think he'll never leave if we let him stay. We want him to grow up and get a grip on his priorities."

Depardieux, for his part, is unrepentant. "My friends are over-reacting. Yolo, you know. You only live once. And I don't want to live my life looking like shit. Everywhere I go, people look so drab, so boring. Me? I stand out. I look like a movie star. When I walk down the street, people turn their heads. They want to look like me. They want to be me. There's power in being gorgeous. Food, rent, all of that? It's overrated. When I die, I'm not going to regret living on the streets, but I would regret not looking my best, because if I don't look my best, I can't be my best."

An unhinged Montreal drug dealer attacked one of his customers this week after the two got into an argument over his name. Our narcotics peddler fancies himself a budding super-villain, and insists that everyone call him The Warlock, and when the customer refused and chose to instead call him by his government name, the dealer punched the man in the face several times, breaking his nose.

"This wasn't the first time he attacked a customer and it won't be the last" said Alex Dovan, an old friend of The Warlock. "He wasn't always like this. His attitude changed after the last Batman movie came out, the one with the Joker. He was dealing weed back then, but after watching The Dark Knight, he decided he could be a better kind of criminal. He told me that most crooks are boring, and if he was going to break the law, he was going to do it with style. He wanted to live every day of his life as if he was giving the rest of the world the middle finger, and you can't do that just by selling pot."

Dissatisfied with being a mere pot dealer, The Warlock committed himself to becoming a true criminal. After adopting his new name, he started dealing heavier drugs, got involved in fraud, theft, and even tried his hand at blackmail.

"He wants everything he does to be imbued with a disregard for social conventions, rules, laws, common decency. He hates people, he hates society, he hates pretty much everything, and he wants all of us to know it. That's why he started calling himself The Warlock. He knows that people think his name is stupid. It's his way of telling us he doesn't care what we think of him. He's become a real jerk. The last time I saw him, he stole an ice cream cone from a little girl, couldn't have been older than nine. What kind of grown man steals ice cream from a little girl?"

Alex isn't the only person who has fallen out with The Warlock, but despite all the stories of the self-styled villain's propensity for violence and boorish behavior, people still buy from him. "The Warlock might not be the drug dealer Montreal ravers want, but since they keep buying from him, he's definitely the dealer they deserve. I'd rather be stone-cold sober for the rest of my life than deal with him, but that's just me."

A female photographer has fled the city after a dozen parents threatened to kick her ass when they discovered that she'd been prepping their daughters into becoming sex workers. Andrew Tabaque, a disapproving boyfriend of one of the girls targeted by the photographer, was responsible for tipping off the parents.

"This photographer has been preying on teenage girls for years. She gets them interested in doing a few tasteful modelling photos, spinning stories of how glamorous the fashion industry is and how wonderful it is to be a model. She softens the girls up over weeks and months with honeyed promises of future fame. Within weeks of the girls turning 18, she has them do a lingerie or burlesque photo shoot, then she has them move on to some artsy nude photos, and before you know it, she's managed to convince them to be photographed sucking some 50 year old fat guy's cock. She's brilliant at brainwashing her models. Once she has them wrapped around her finger, she farms them out to porn companies, strip clubs, and escort agencies," said Andrew. "She's been doing this for so long, it's incredible no one ever called her out on it until now."

When the parents found out about what the photographer had been doing to their daughters, they decided to take the law into their own hands. "We couldn't press charges against her" said one upset father. "Technically, she never broke the law. She was very careful in how she conducted her business. She'd befriend young girls at raves offering to do free non-commercial photo shoots for them and help them build up their portfolio. Once she'd earn their trust, she'd spend months singing her siren song of porn and prostitution, but she'd never clinch the deal until after they had their 18th birthday. Since we couldn't press charges, we decided to kick her ass."

Unfortunately for the parents, by the time they arrived at her apartment to lay down some vigilante justice, our femme photographer had flown the coop. No one has seen her ever since her dirty work was revealed to the world.

"I heard she ran off to Edmonton." said Andrew. "She's got friends over there who own a porn company. She's probably trolling parties right now, looking for more ravers to corrupt. She'll never change."

A massive bee attack disrupted an outdoor event last Sunday after a DJ accidentally stepped into their nest. When the swarm of honey loving flying pain machines decided to exact retribution on the hapless purveyor of beats, he sprinted off like a mad man.

"I was taking a piss out in the bushes before my set -- I play better on an empty bladder -- when I hear this buzzing sound. The next thing I know, I'm being swarmed by a dozen bees, and a couple of the bastards start stinging me. I just ran without thinking. Which might not have been a smart idea, but my mind was working on instinct at that point. I remember looking behind me, and it was like this yellow cloud of death was hunting me down. It was scary." the DJ told Rave News.

Unfortunately for the crowd of raving revelers, the DJ ran straight into them as the giant swarm of angry bees followed him in hot pursuit. Nature's agents of pain then decided to unleash their fury on anything with a pulse.

"It was nuts. One minute, we're grokking to some righteous old school happy hardcore, getting our dance on to some classic Anabolic Frolic, and the next minute everyone's running around yelling and screaming and howling in pain. It was pandemonium. One girl fell down during the bee attack and some fat hippy stepped on her ankle, and when she cried out in pain, it was like the bees smelled her suffering, because they all zeroed in on her. You should have seen her face after the attack. It looked like oatmeal." reports Dave Noodlemann, the event's promoter.

"I got stung about six times. I think this was just a freak incident -- dancers probably won't get attacked by a swarm of bees at our next party. We also plan on having designated panic areas for our future parties. If people are being chased by something, bees, bears, whatever, we don't want them leading their pursuers to the dance floor."