Durango’s music scene is most commonly associated with bluegrass or jambands, but live shows for these genres only serve a portion of the community.
Electronic dance music, the kind most commonly associated with raves, is not only produced but also enjoyed by residents of Durango, and is considered an up and coming genre, according to Eugene Salaz, the talent and production manager of Animas City Theatre.
Carter Landon, an EDM fan and sophomore at Fort Lewis College said “rave” is another word for an electronic music concert. Raves are events that people attend, rather than a genre of music itself.
EDM originated from a rise in techno and disco music and evolved with the creation of new technology for producing to form subgenres, such as house music, dubstep, ridum and others, Landon said.
These types of music are not new developments in the music industry but has been developing since the rise of techno music across Europe in the 1980s, Landon said.
“Techno was probably the origination of all of it because techno has been Europe's biggest crave of music,” Landon said.
Raves originated in Europe as secret events for the youth, Salaz said.
“Raves used to be an unground scene, where kids would find a warehouse and host a party,” Salaz said. “That's all changed quite a bit over the last 10 years where electronic music isn't really underground anymore.”
Multiple DJs who create varying types of these genres call Durango home. One, Malik Mariano, a local DJ who goes by the stage name BraptheGoat, produces house music and releases it over various music platforms, as well as performing them at various locations around Durango, he said.
House music is very upbeat because there's a constant rhythm happening, Mariano said.
“If you like to like dance or just like to feel the music, house music is the place to be,” he said.
People in Durango generally attend funk, electronica, bluegrass and rock shows in town, Salaz said.
Salaz considers the EDM community an up-and-coming scene in Durango due to the creation of Unified Mountain Soundz, a Colorado-based audio support company, he said.
Matt Ralph, a local DJ and co-founder of Unified Mountain Soundz, created the company with a small group of people to provide the equipment needed for concerts – including a stage and sound system for music gatherings nationwide, Ralph said.
“They’ve held their own music gathering called One Vibration at Hesperus for the last four years, and it's really starting to generate some serious kinetic force,” Ralph said.
The One Vibration gatherings are typically held in May, and the group has been planning the next festival since the most recent one ended in Spring, Ralph said.
Unified Mountain Soundz expects to bring back One Vibration in Spring 2019, according to the UMS website.
EDM has the ability to create community among its fans, who find “families” of other fans of an artist.
A big part of the culture for many listeners is the ability to find community at shows, in groups online or even on the off-chance in other communities such as schools or workplaces.
“You can have 10,000 people in a few square miles of each other, and everyone completely coexists, to the point where you can walk anywhere and not only make friends, but you make families or lifetime friends,” Ralph said. “It's about sharing your person, sharing yourself with everything around you.”