Disco Donnie & The RAVE Act, 20 Years Later: Dance Promoters Targeted by Joe Biden & The DEA Tell Their Story Like NeverBefore

At the center of the early 2000s rave scene that came into the crosshairs of the DEA, Disco Donnie tells his story like never before.

Disco Donnie & The RAVE Act, 20 Years Later: Dance Promoters Targeted by Joe Biden & The DEA Tell Their Story Like NeverBefore

Clubbers at rave party in in 1997.PYMCA/Universal Images Group/GI

For promoters across the country, Donnie’s case – in which he was indicted under the infamous “Crackhouse Law” of the 1980s – and the RAVE Act that followed came as stark warnings.”We went from being promoters to being criminals overnight,” says Reza Gerami, a DJ and promoter behind some of the era’s biggest parties in Los Angeles, speaking to the mood of the era. (Gerami was never indicted under the “Crackhouse Law.”)

“I would be passing new ordinances relating to stiff criminal penalties for anyone who held a rave — the promoter, the guy who owned the building. I’d put the son of a gun in jail,” Biden promised in a March 2001 Congressional hearing.

Donnie, whose father DJ’ed under the moniker Disco Jim, grew up in New Orleans, and began throwing raves in his hometown with a handful of partners in 1994. As was common for such shows at that time, those early gigs took place in illegal warehouses. “It was always at risk of being shut down,” he remembers. “No permits, no insurance, no security, no age limit, selling alcohol — I mean, we did everything wrong.”

In 1995, Donnie landed his first legit gig at the State Palace, a Baroque-style movie theater that opened in 1927 on the edge of the French Quarter. The show wasn’t exactly a success: Only a few hundred people showed up, far fewer than the rock and grunge acts the venue typically booked. One of Donnie’s partners made off with the money. Still, Brunet — whose father, René, owned the theater, and whose brother, Brian, helped run it — saw the potential. “I’m like, ‘Y’all are onto something with this electronic music. But y’all don’t know dick about [doing] real production,'” Brunet remembers.

Though ecstasy was already a prevalent part of rave culture, Brunet didn’t see it being any worse than the drug and alcohol use that was rampant in rock circles. If anything, the scene’s PLUR ethos — “Peace, Love, Unity, Respect” — was a selling point. “The truth is, I would prefer some kid on drugs that’s wanting to hug everyone than some kid on drugs that wants to beat the shit out of everyone,” he says.

Under the banner of Disco Donnie Presents, Donnie’s State Palace parties became a local and regional institution. He booked shows from Texas to Georgia, and partnered with L.A. promoter Insomniac Events for parties on the West Coast. Business was so good that the State Palace itself grew to include a rooftop bar, a next door warehouse that raised capacity to 5,000, and ultimately an adjoining record store and clothing shop. “It was like something I could never have imagined,” says Donnie.

Then came Kirkland’s death. A 17-year-old from outside Mobile, Ala., Kirkland made the more than two-hour trek to New Orleans with friends for one of Donnie’s parties, where she was rushed to the hospital after ingesting ecstasy. She spent two weeks in a coma before passing away on Aug. 25, 1998. Donnie says he was unaware of the incident until receiving the news of her death.

“My initial reaction was that I don’t want to do this anymore,” he says. “I felt a lot of blame. I wanted to talk to the mother. And I was discouraged from doing all that.”

Donnie believed they were doing what they could to ensure safety at their events. “We had paramedics at the shows, which is a normal occurrence now, but at the time seemed like we were admitting to some type of thing,” he says. Security and off-duty police were also on hand, as was DanceSafe, a nonprofit founded in 1998 that provides literature about drug safety to concertgoers.

Fans nonetheless went to the hospital in alarming numbers — in an April 2002 report, the DEA cited 400 such hospitalizations from Donnie’s shows in a two-year span — often due to complications from dehydration while on ecstasy. That was due in part to the length of the parties, according to Brunet. “Most other events started at 7:00, 8:00 and ended at 1:00, 2:00 a.m.,” he says, “whereas these events started at 8:00, 9:00 p.m. and ended at sun up.”

Robbie Hardkiss lived in San Francisco in the era and played the State Palace several times as part of the hit-making electronic trio Hardkiss. “The rave scene, it just got so big,” he says. “Those Donnie parties would have thousands of kids and tons of drugs. Problems are gonna happen. Attention is gonna go in that direction.”

About a month after Kirkland’s death, federal agents dropped in on Donnie’s Bourbon Street apartment early one morning. “I looked out the window [from my balcony] and there was three guys down there with the mirrored sunglasses,” Donnie recalls. “It looked like something from the movies.”

They were from the DEA, and asked to be let in. When Donnie declined (“I had a girl in there,” he says, but “didn’t really have” any drugs), they began pressing him for information on who the dealers were at his parties. They asked how much money he made. “Whatever it is, we’ll double it,” they told him. Donnie insisted he didn’t know the people they were looking for. “Then they started coming after me with personal attacks. You know, ‘You’re killing people,’ and ‘What you’re doing is wrong,’ and ‘We’re gonna get you eventually.'”

Before they left, the agents handed him a business card — in case, they said, he had a change of heart. “So yeah, that was basically an eye opener,” he says.