Updated 2 weeks ago ago
This was all hearsay at the time, around 1999, but I had great sources. AFAIK there is no record of it on the Internet, until now. Darin, wherever you are, I hope you got away!
Edit: See bottom for update and clarification from someone who was actually there.
A note from Nick Crayson:
Let’s clear this all up as THE TRUTH COUNTS – doesn’t it!
It’s cool to write fun stuff – but it’s got to be accurate – especially given the subject matter and people’s reputations. I value mine – as I’m sure you do too!
I was the head of Blue Room America’s – and that was our lovely 1972 American Lafrance Fire Truck parked outside our warehouse.
Blue Room was not busted for any drugs or anything of the sort. There was a certain individual who took the piss at the time – doing his own shit – and who has been long since forgiven. We all do dumb things sometimes.
So just to put the record straight Blue Room Americas never got busted for drugs or anything like that. What we did do was bring on some great tunes – make great loudspeakers – and put on a wicked party or two 😊 We’re coming back – as our recent journeys within other worlds have inspired more good shit for the people of Planet Earth. Looks like it’s needed right now!
Big Love
BIG UP!!
Nick 2
Also, a kindly gentleman from Saafi Brothers noted that Darin helped Tsunami throw a party in 1999:
I was pretty blasted at this time of my life, as was everyone I knew – I don’t even remember writing some of this, it has details I don’t remember, so I probably copy and pasted from the morass that was 604 & the NYC fin de siècle email lists.
Blue Room has relaunched in 2020 – join that group if you are reading this. Please give them your support!
/snip
“Blue Room Americas was conspicuous by its absence from Burning Man last year. Gone was the blue fire engine squirting us with something refreshing, most say water.
We here on the East Coast often get new trends downwind from the West, but we’re good at getting to the bottom of shit like pigs hunting for truffles. Breaking new ground in ecommerce, Darin, who had thrown some parties under the Blue Room name, stuck it to authority.
An anonymous package with trance stickers on it was mailed to Blue Room America’s New York Office, routed through San Francisco from Amsterdam. Police found something illegal inside – some say coke, most say MDMA, and what we thought was the head of Blue Room Americas but was really just a party animal a la Chauncy in Being There is now on the run. So here is The EastCoast/West Coast Gangsta TranceRap Face-off:
BLUE ROOM USA THINGS TO DO LIST IN Q4
10/19 — Review plans to relocate to a place that’s farther from the music industry and even freakier than San Francisco. Burning Man 1, New York 0.
10/19 — Buy another fire truck.
10/28 — Forget about trance music. Locate and sign the worst “ambient” producer in the history of mankind. Make 20,000 cd’s.
11/3 — Ship pills from San Francisco to New York, by first shipping them to Sweden in an empty ammunition case, then to Cuba, then to New York in a box labeled, “Cigars: Keep from Heat.” Burning Man 2, New York 0.
11/09 — Ignore X-Dream, Total Eclipse, and the Saafi Bros. Send out copies of the Reverb Queen’s new “ambient” cd, Staring Up Our Own Ass, to all the “Blue Angels” in a package with 100 stickers, a half-assed mix cd we aren’t selling, and 200 useless Reverb Queen postcards.
11/11 — Send out emails informing the Blue Angels that if they don’t return a questionnaire that they never asked for, we won’t send them anymore bad cd’s in the future.
11/16 — Buy expensive advertisements with the Blue Room logo in all magazines that have nothing to do with trance. Don’t mention any of the artists.
11/18 — Send out emails reminding the Blue Angels if they don’t return the questionnaire that they never asked for, we won’t send them anymore bad cd’s in the future.
11/23 — Realize you own two fire trucks. Set CCC commune on fire. Burning Man 2, New York 0, San Francisco 1.
11/25 — Thanksgiving: Be thankful the owner of B&W hasn’t had a “moment of clarity.” Ship case of vodka to London.
11/30 — Set VCR to tape former employees on “America’s Most Wanted.”
12/02 — Send out emails reminding the Blue Angels if they don’t return the questionnaire that they never asked for, we won’t send them anymore bad cd’s in the future.
12/15 — Buy Golden Gate Bridge from the State of California, and paint it blue.
12/21 — Solstice Celebration: dance naked under full moon and pray for a world without accountants.
12/29 — Make plans for the following year to avoid any industry conventions.”
Funny article on your site … But a couple of glaring factual errors: Darin is not, was not, nor has ever been “the head of Blue Room America (sic).” He was an independent contractor responsible for doing parties in various locations under the umbrella of the Blue Room Americas name, and working out of the SF Blue Room Ameircas offices. So…”the head of Blue Room America (sic)” is most definitely NOT “now on the run.” Darin may be…who knows…who cares. Oh yeah…the U.S. operation is called “Blue Room Americas” (plural). FYI…
–Chris Stimson CEO Miraloma Music
(Miraloma Music is exclusively responsible for distribution of Blue Room Americas in the United States)
In 1996, a group of us left London and headed to Burning Man. We landed in Los Angeles and rented these enormous RV campers — forty to fifty feet long, with hydraulic sides that slid out to create extra space. Each one could sleep six to eight people, so we were travelling in serious comfort. There was about 250 of us including the San Francisco family (CCC).
We made the long journey up to the Black-Rock Desert, excited for what was ahead. Back then, Burning Man was a very different place to what it is now. The event was tiny compared to today — only about 2,000 people in attendance — and there was no electronic music at all. It was more of an arts gathering, with acoustic performances, wild installations, and a free-spirited energy. People cycled around naked in the heat, and some spaces were more like the old Rajneesh communes — with open rooms where people were, well, romping around. That wasn’t really our scene though. What we wanted was to party.
So, we came up with our own plan. We pulled all the RVs into a big circle and asked permission to throw a party of our own — and they said ‘yes’. For three days, we created something completely new on that desert floor.
Our friend Simon Ghahary, the designer of the Blue Room Speakers, the Techno -POD and his engineer had brought cones for bass, mid, and treble. On the way up, they’d stopped at a carpet warehouse in the desert and picked up these huge cardboard rolls, the kind carpet comes wrapped around. The cones fitted perfectly inside. We cut the rolls down to about a metre each and built our own speaker stacks: three bass, two mids, one treble, topped with a tweeter. We built four of these Blue Room stacks in total.
With a generator running from one of the RVs and our DAT machines plugged in, the sound came alive. And that was it — the first proper electronic party at Burning Man.
I like to think of it as a turning point. We were the Goa Trance Posse, the Underground-fresh from a winter in Goa, and that summer in the desert we brought dance music to Burning Man. Today it’s huge and very commercial-Carl Cox et al – play to hundreds of thousands out there, but back then it was just us, the dust, the speakers we built, and a few hundred more curious people who wandered over to dance.
That’s a little piece of history for you,
– Ian St. Paul
