POP MUSIC : It’s All the Rave : The British import has taken hold in L.A.’s underground party and dance circuit. But now big-time promoters are moving in and fans wonder whether the phenomenom will survive

The scene at the rodeo ring in Pico Rivera on this chilly night is an ungodly mix of a ‘60s acid test, a ‘70s disco and ‘90s stage technology.

Hundreds of wild-eyed kids in flashy fashions, generally involving Wonderland-ish hats and Day-Glo designs, dance frantically to loud, pulsating electronic music beneath an undulating ceiling of lasers and smoke.

Lights flash around them and odd images, reminiscent of the Psychedelic Age, race across a multitude of screens. Flamboyant post-modern versions of the old night-club cigarette girls mill through the crowd hawking candy treats.

Dozens more young people roam around outside the ring to check out a variety of amusements, from an inflated castle on which they can bounce, or the “Smart Bar” refreshment stand that serves a juice rich in minerals, amino acids and electrolytes.

Welcome to the world of rave, the hottest phenomenon on the Los Angeles underground party and dance circuit.

The idea was brought over from England, where tens of thousands of people regularly attend the parties and where such musical acts as the Happy Mondays and other “acid house” bands are the heroes.

In Southern California, the rave has been mated with the punk and disco tradition of warehouse parties. So you’re likely to find the events held anywhere from abandoned warehouses to outdoor playing fields.

Occasionally, the “underground” promoters get permits for the parties. More often they don’t and run the risk of being closed down by police or fire marshals because of safety code violations.

There is no permit problem at this Pico Rivera rave, however, and most of the 1,000 or so fans gather close to the stage shortly before midnight as two English musicians known as the Orb stand in shadows and manipulate various computers and tape machines. They unleash a rhythmic aural landscape that amounts to an update of classic Pink Floyd sonic walls.

Everybody seems caught up in a trance--but it may not just be from the Orb’s music. Like its acid test and disco antecedents, drugs play a part for some in the rave scene--and their drug-of-choice is the hallucinogen Ecstasy.

Rave has been evolving for years on the Southern California pop scene. But in recent months it has been escalating so rapidly that it may be at a crossroads. The reason: Avalon Attractions--the very same concert promotion firm that brings you Guns N’ Roses at the Forum and the Rolling Stones at the Coliseum--has gotten involved.

“The level it was at (as an underground phenomenon) was going no further,” said Les Borsai, one of the original Southern California rave promoters, and the one with which Avalon has formed a partnership.

Borsai, 23, dressed on this evening in a long black warm-up jacket with the L.A. Kings logo on the back, was reluctant at first to tie his fortunes to a big-business stronghold. It seemed at odds with his underground background. But he saw Avalon as a way out of what had turned into a cul-de-sac for the raves.

“Doing warehouse parties you ended up getting shut down and losing a lot of money and that scene was getting stifled,” he says. “If it had stayed underground it would have disappeared because of the legal situation. But with Avalon you get things done right.”

Avalon’s interest in Borsai is just as straightforward.

“The traditional concert setup scenario is dated and has grown stale,” said Avalon’s Moss Jacobs, who saw in the rave scene an alternative setting for presenting concerts. “For someone born in the ‘70s, going to a regular concert and sitting in a hard seat for three hours is like watching black-and-white TV.”

With the recession taking a big bite out of the concert business, Avalon had been looking for alternatives to the conventional shows.

“I went to some of the underground clubs and someone told us about this guy who was doing the best job locally,” Jacobs said of how he hooked up with Borsai. “We found him and had him in the office and just hit it off.”

Borsai is doing his best to keep the old rave mystique in the new era. The Pico Rivera event is the third he has done with Avalon; the first two were at Long Beach Convention Center.

This evening’s adventure began in rave tradition with fans instructed through handbills and telephone hot lines to go to the corner of 12th and Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, where they would be given maps to the “secret” location of the rave.

But the participation of Avalon--which has attempted to keep its role in the raves low profile--also means the trappings of conventional concerts. Most apparent on this night is the presence of high-profile security personnel and even city police patrolling the site.

Not all rave veterans are happy.

“How can you have a rave with cops?” asked the Orb member Thrash as he surveyed the scene.

But Borsai and Avalon are not the only ones looking for ways to take raves up from the underground.

Other formerly underground rave promoters have the same idea. Among them: two young men known as Daven the Mad Hatter and Tef, who run Aerial at the Hollywood Palladium on Saturdays, a rave-flavored party that they describe as “L.A.’s largest nightclub.”

To some rave regulars, the new profile is anathema to the very concept of raves, marked by a mystique and sense of adventure in being part of something illicit, even at the risk of the party being shut down by police.

Even promoter Borsai says something has been missing from the “legal” raves he’s held with Avalon. “When we did warehouse parties you never knew what would happen, if you were going to fall through a floor or something,” he says. “There’s nothing better than the feel of a dirty warehouse. It’s exciting.”

His hope is to bring that feeling to the new projects. “To put bands in that environment would be great. You can’t buy that atmosphere. Then it wouldn’t feel so clean. Avalon’s going to be curious to see what roads we take.”

Daven, too, has concerns about being able to pull off the rave at the circus-like Aerial.

“This is a party crowd, not a nightclub crowd,” he says of the regulars who have frequented his floating underground parties, best-known under the name of the Paw Paw Patch. “They don’t like to go to the same place every time. They like a new experience.”

Egil Aalvik, music director of MARS-FM, which plays a lot of rave music, agrees.

“The one thing that doesn’t seem to work too well is when the big concert organizers get involved,” says Aalvik, who known to MARS-FM listeners as the Swedish Eagle.

The music itself, he believes, will continue to grow, as it has in England and Europe, where many rave-oriented acts have had considerable chart success. “But it becomes too big, too much security. People like to move around and be surprised and not know where it’s going to be.”

Some regulars, however, are quite willing to make the trade-offs of going legit.

“This is not underground,” said Alexander Xenophon, a 22-year-old artist from Orange who has been going to raves for three years. “But it’s getting safer and a lot of people like it safe.”

At a rave held by Borsai and Avalon at the Long Beach Convention Center a few weeks before the rodeo-ring rave, Xenophon danced wildly in 3-D glasses and a funny hat beneath flashing lasers. While Xenophon--who doesn’t take drugs--regrets the loss of the underground aura, he’s not sorry to give up things “like busts and stuff.”

Capt. Gus Drulias, commanding officer of field enforcement of the Los Angeles Police Department’s narcotics group, said that in two years he has had only two complaints--out of the “tens of thousands total” his office receives--from people concerned about rave parties and Ecstasy. “We’ve had violence at shows because of consumption (of drugs and alcohol), but not at the raves,” said Avalon general manager Moss Jacobs.

The happy vibes of the rave are not entirely reflected behind the scenes, where Borsai’s move to Avalon has created a few rivalries within the rave community. What was once a competitive but tight-knit clique of young promoters now is tinged with resentment and jealousy, most directed at Borsai.

“He was out there schmoozing and cut a deal with Avalon,” says a rival promoter who wished to be anonymous. “We thought that was great, but now he’s got corporate involved with the rave scene that was built by young entrepreneurs. I’m concerned kids think they’re dealing with a rave promoter. If they printed on the tickets ‘presented by Avalon’ I wonder how many people would show up and what people would think.”

Avalon and Borsai are hoping upcoming raves--one Jan. 25 featuring the band the Shamen and one in February with Primal Scream, both at sites to be announced--will help demonstrate the viability of “legal” raves.

Meanwhile, Aerial hopes to also reach out to pop fans who would not think of going to one of the old underground raves. So far the club has been drawing well, though there have been a few hitches in booking planned acts, including recent appearances by Boy George and Grace Jones that both fell through. Aerial is now working up a new Jones date and has booked Crystal Waters for a February appearance.

Still, skepticism remains among those familiar with the original English rave scene.

“It’s like punk and how you packaged it into new wave in America,” says Alex Paterson of the Orb, admitting he was a bit put off by the formality of the rodeo- ring rave. “It’s being marketed and neatly pressed and packaged for kids now.”