INTERVIEW: HELLTEKK

NYC RENEGADE PARTY MASTERS

I’ll never forget the first time I raved in nature. It was Halloween 2005, at a farm somewhere outside of Milwaukee, at a party called Hellraver. By that point, the Midwest scene had seen better days. I knew I was witnessing a shell of what was once the best underground community in America, that I was in the interzone between a counterculture’s death and rebirth, a space where only the true believers and drug connoisseurs reside, but walking down a dark path lit only by glowsticks into a wooded clearing where a DJ was playing happy hardcore, I could still pick up on some lingering ‘90s rave residue.

For the past few years, the NYC native crew Helltekk has been throwing free, renegade parties at elusive outdoor locations in the outer boroughs of the city. When I attended one last fall, 18 years after Hellraver, the energy was like the inverse of my first experience. Hellraver was the final gasp of a dying scene; what I witnessed at Helltekk felt like the fresh beginnings of a revitalized rave community, with a frenzied, open-ended musical policy to match. What connected them both was nature and lasers, the open sky and banging kickdrums. 

Some months ago, I wrote a piece for the music platform Nina about a new neo-hardcore rave circuit that seems to be popping up around America. Though the article starts by describing a mosh-heavy Helltekk event, I wasn’t able to speak with the crew’s founders, Fortified Structures and Dakota Velasquez. So, I’m glad we were able to catch up before the start of their next season, which will kick off in May or maybe April, and will feature a new sound system. I met with the duo at Rudy’s Pastry Shop in Ridgewood, and we talked about everything from free tekno to the art of making a DVD in 2024. For those who want to rave under a roof, Helltekk is throwing an event this Saturday at Trans-Pecos in Queens.

So both of you grew up in New York, right?

Fortified Structures: Born and raised. I grew up in Ozone Park, it’s like the border between Queens and Brooklyn. 

Dakota Velasquez: And I grew up in East New York, by Brownsville, that whole area. 

So how did you find out about electronic music? What was your entryway into rave music? 

Dakota Velasquez: Honestly, my parents. Well, not really rave rave music, as we know it—just mainly house from the ‘90s and all that stuff. They used to play it around me and I got into it. And then, growing up, I was like, Yo, what else is there? So that's when I heard about gabber and from there it snowballed.

Did your parents go to clubs growing up? 

Dakota Velasquez: Yeah, definitely. Especially my dad. 

Stuff in Manhattan? 

Dakota Velasquez: No, no, no, in Honduras. They used to go to clubs over there and then my dad came over here, but he went to sound clashes, reggae stuff.

Fortified Structures: I found out about electronic music through Grand Theft Auto and some video games. Also, same thing with my parents. They listened to trance and big room stuff. And then when I was 15, there was this meme that came out. You’ve probably seen it—a little kid dancing in the club. That's from Thunderdome or some gabber event. The song in the video happened to be New Balance “Up & Down,” which is a seminal gabber song. I really liked that song, so I started looking into it. So at 15, I was really into the Thunderdome stuff. I just didn't go out to any events because I don't tend to look for community that much. And then we started dating and a little before the pandemic, Dakota's like, I think you would fuck with this music that's going on, because they would go to noise shows and stuff like that. 

Like, those Melting Point parties?

Dakota Velasquez: Yeah, I used to go to punk shows, raves, noise shows. But my main thing was definitely more raves and punk shows. 

There seemed to be a point when there was this intermixing of noise and rave and punk. But your parties have focused it more into a pure rave kind of energy. Would you say that's right?

Fortified Structures: Yeah. We do intend to push it more towards the DJs. We have had live performances before, and it works out fine, but we don't like to have live performances that aren't hardware acts, because it tends to mess up the vibe of the party for a five minute crossover period, and then no one comes back in for the next 30. 

Dakota Velasquez: We’d just rather stick to live hardware and vinyl or something. If it's not, the controller, CDJ, you know what I mean?

It can be really beautiful when you put something in the middle of a party that interrupts everything, when it works. But it often doesn't work. 

Dakota Velasquez: Yeah, exactly. It has to work.

The renegade party idea, was that something you came up with during the pandemic when you were all cooped up and doing research?

Fortified Structures: I decided that I wanted to be a DJ a little into the pandemic. I got the equipment and DJ’d for maybe a month or two by myself and then I was like, Oh, I'm gonna start to try to get bookings. It didn't work out and I'm very impatient because, I guess it's either the only child syndrome or middle child syndrome where it's like, I can do it myself. And Dakota was like, Yeah, you can do it. So then they put me onto this spot in Brooklyn where punks do stuff. I'm pretty sure we can host a rave. Then we ended up hosting our first free party by the K Bridge, which was fun. And then from there, things spiraled out. 

Yeah.

Fortified Structures: Originally it wasn't a super, like, “free party is not a crime” type of thing. But then after a month or two, me and Dakota started getting really into the culture of free party, free tekno. How do these guys run things? How do they operate? Because if they're able to do this for 10, 20, 30 years, we want to have the same longevity.

So when you say free party, you're talking about the Spiral Tribe, traveler rave thing, because I feel like that culture never fully existed in America. 

Fortified Structures: It doesn't exist as hard, but it does exist in America because there was this group called Renegade Virus back in the early 2000s and ‘90s. They were hosting free parties in the same spot because those dudes are from Queens. 

Dakota Velasquez: Yeah, same exact spot. 

Fortified Structures: Same everything. Because when we met him, he was just like, I used to host parties back in the day in the same exact spot. It's crazy that y'all guys are keeping this up. Also Oregon, not Portland, just Oregon in general, they have a crazy wook free party scene that is not advertised at all. 

For sure. Southern California, there's this history of these generator parties in the desert. But America is just so huge. I think in England, it's so compact that you can do a circuit. 

Fortified Structures: I have the Spiral Tribe book and it's just insane that these guys were able to travel basically to different parts of England in under an hour or two hours. 

Dakota Velasquez: They go in detail with what they go through at those parties. 

Fortified Structures: It’s just insane because we can't do that. Right now I'm saving up for a normal size van, but it'd be cool to get a huge van and travel cross country with our sound system. But in the United States, that's basically impossible. A cool thing with the guys from France and stuff is they can jump from country to country and then they're like, Okay, I'm back in my hometown in a week. And I'm like, Dog, if I was able to go to Connecticut, Los Angeles, Philly, Baltimore, and then be back at my hometown in a week, I would. It takes almost two days to get to LA and then to unpack and do the show. 

Have you thought about going to other cities around the East Coast and setting up your system? 

Fortified Structures: Right now, we have I think six subs, a set of tops and our own thing. But I think when we do the cross country trip, not cross country, but semi-local, we would only carry half the stack, just because the stack that we have covers almost 500 people. And I don't think that's necessary for that. 

Take me through some of the difficulties that go along with throwing a renegade party. 

Fortified Structures: I think our main difficulty is making sure everyone's okay. 

Dakota Velasquez: I mean, yeah, but the difficulties we went through was dealing with cops. 

Fortified Structures: Me and our old member, we would go and talk to the cops, because it was easier to just understand that there's a power dynamic there. I understand some people don't want to deal with that power dynamic, which we get, but we would rather play small and be like, We'll get out of here if you don't bother us, rather than us spazzing out, because we have money to lose. We can't afford that. A lot of the time we would just go to the cops and be like, You give us 15 minutes, we'll get out of here. Like, I promise you, you could time us and they're like, Okay, you got 15 minutes. 

That’s going to be harder with a bigger sound system. 

Fortified Structures: Yeah, but I also don't think the cops are that bored to go there. 

Dakota Velasquez: And take a 15 minute walk into where we're at. 

Fortified Structures: I don't think they're going to do that. If they do, I'm going to try to sweet talk them to the best of my ability and then see what happens. Most likely they're going to boot us, but if it works, it works. 

How are you scouting these locations? 

Fortified Structures: I live in the area. I live like five minutes away from there driving. That spot is somewhere I've played manhunt as a kid and gone and climbed the trees and the radio towers. So, I knew the spot already. The others that we used were mainly Dakota showing me a few places where punks would go, and then we would drive around to see if we could find backup spots. But yeah, that's that's really it. 

Dakota Velasquez: We mainly got caught in those old spots because there were things happening nearby. There used to be, what? There would be car meets and everything. So that kind of blew up our spot. 

Fortified Structures: Yeah, it wasn't as isolated as what we got now. 

So, what's your musical policy? I was trying to process it in comparison to ‘90s rave. Although you're very reverent, it's not the same. I'm curious as to what the contours are at your parties—like, how far is too far in terms of pushing it outside of that rave revivalism zone. 

Fortified Structures: We will allow people to play whatever they want. A lot of people go super hard on the ‘90s hardcore and stuff because they're playing a party for us. And that's what people tend to expect from us. But we've had to start saying, like, Hey, we booked you to play what we like, I know you play drum and bass and trance—play that. You don't have to come to our party and drop a 190 BPM gabber set. 

Once you get to Europe, there are all these specific ideas about hardcore techno, but in America, the scene is so young that everything is just kind of blended together in a way that traditionalists might not understand, but I think that's what makes it cool. Do you see that happening at your parties? 

Fortified Structures: Yeah, because a lot of the DJs will smack a hardcore track against a jungle one or against a different flip of a different song, so it's mixing all these subgenres together to make one good, mixed mash of a set, which I think is cool. I know Europe is super like, if you’re going to play a hardcore set, play a hardcore set, but that's an hour of head-busting kicks, which we don't mind.

Dakota Velasquez: No, I love it. 

Fortified Structures: But at some point it becomes too abrasive—you're like, Alright I think my ears are kind of cooked for right now. 

Do the kids that are coming out to the show care about breaking with rave tradition?

Dakota Velasquez: I'll say it's a 50-50. Some people care about sticking to the tradition, sticking to the true, you know, ’90s rave thing or ‘90s hardcore feel, but others, they come to dance. They just don't care—it’s really fresh to them.

Fortified Structures: There's some people that really do it. It's really fresh to them. Yeah, they come there to be back in that era of candy kids and stuff, which is fine. And there's other people who just came off a shift from McDonald’s, and they're just there to hear their shit. 

How are they finding out about you? 

Fortified Structures: Through other people. We have Instagram and people find us on Instagram, but a lot the time when we talk to people, they’re like, My friend came to one of your parties and they loved it and they felt safe, so then they tell their friends and then their friends come and then their friends come and that's just kind of how it works. It’s very much a word of mouth thing. And we enjoy that, because if it was just straight Instagram interactions, I don't think we would have such an organically made community of people that come to our stuff. 

I think it’s the word-of-mouth, community component that makes your parties extra special. 

Dakota Velasquez: We’d rather have that than just a bunch of internet kids, I don’t know. 

Fortified Structures: On top of that, I'll say with confidence that we do have the most native New Yorkers coming to our stuff. At least when we speak to all the kids, they're like, Oh we come to your stuff because like y'all are like us, y'all are from here. They're just like, Yeah, we want to keep coming because we're supporting people who are from here and are still acting like New Yorkers—I will say some native New Yorkers get a little bit too caught up in the internet game, and then suddenly they're not a New Yorker no more. 

Dakota Velasquez: Yeah.

Fortified Structures: They're very much giving transplant or giving California kid, and I think that's a little odd, but that's just me.

Dakota Velasquez: So it’s refreshing to meet people that say, Oh, yeah, I'm born and raised here. I'm like, Oh really? So it's really cool. 

Fortified Structures: Like, finally.

This is crazy, but at the party I went to, were there people chanting and making fun of college kids? Did I imagine that?

Dakota Velasquez: No. It happened. College kids are annoying because they're mainly not from here and they also like to take up space and be disrespectful. Trying to move the table while the DJs play is really rude—I’m mainly talking about are the bros.

Fortified Structures: Yeah, they were moshing too much and knocking stuff over and I had to stop two or three times—like, yo guys, y'all are bugging out. 

Dakota Velasquez: But that's the thing though, we don't mind if you're moshing, just not by the DJ area, you know what I mean? 

It’s kids that probably have never been to an underground music event and don’t know how to act.

Dakota Velasquez: That's what I'm saying. But it kind of puts the people that actually want to dance near the DJ area in a tough spot, because they're getting pushed and they just look at them like, dude, relax.  

In New York, there's these dynamics that play out that wouldn't play out in any other city.

Dakota Velasquez: We don't really mind it, just try to be mindful of your space.

Fortified Structures: Be normal in the sense that you're aware of how close you are to the DJ, and the dancefloor is right by you.

Dakota Velasquez: That's why it kind of spiraled into us yelling at them because you're knocking down the system that we've rented out, you're knocking down the whole DJ setup and the tables, and it's everything that we can't really replace. It's a lot of money. At the end of the day, CDJs aren't cheap, the mixer isn't cheap, the whole system isn't cheap.

Some people might see your parties and just assume that there’s no rules—the music's wild, people are going crazy, but they don't understand that within the scene there are codes. 

Dakota Velasquez: It just turns into a whole Chad circle. Aside from being mostly native New Yorkers, it's a lot of girls like me, a lot of queer people. So, it's like—chill out. 

How often do you reach out to an earlier generation of New York hardcore DJs? What's your relationship like with that era of ‘90s rave? 

Fortified Structures: Oh, for a second I thought you meant earlier as in younger. I'm like, Oh damn, I thought we were the younger generation of hardcore!

Yeah, you don't know about these 12-year-old gabber DJs I'm up on?

Fortified Structures: I was like damn. I'm cooked. I'm old. What's going on? 

Dakota Velasquez: 12-year-olds about to take over, you gotta watch out for them.

Fortified Structures: We do reach out to them. Some of them are a little hesitant to play with us, just because they're like, Oh, you guys are kids. Which is fine, I respect it. That guy we were talking about, from Renegade Virus, he's really supportive of our stuff. He's like, I want to play for y'all. I have friends from this era that want to play. Actually, we want to get Lenny Dee on one, but that's definitely a flip of a coin. But yeah, we went to a speedcore event a few months ago, we met a bunch of those older ‘90s guys that were pretty supportive and cool with our stuff, but I don't know if they'd play for us. 

It has to be sort of a labor of love.

Fortified Structures: Some of them are in their 40s, they're like, I just want to go to an event that's like, nine to eleven or eleven to one, and then I can go home, and that's fair. 

When’s the first renegade party of the next season?

Fortified Structures: I would like to be ambitious and say April, because I have friends coming at the beginning of the month to help me wire up the system.

Dakota Velasquez: Most likely May.

Fortified Structures: Being ambitious, I want it to be in April. Even if it's half the stack, I still want people to see that me and Dakota made this system and we made this for y'all.

It’s kind of fun if it's a little cold, too. Maybe that's just because I'm from the fucking Midwest.

Dakota Velasquez: We used to do renegades in the winter, but only like five people showed up. 

Fortified Structures: It was just 30 degrees that day. 

I think your following is getting big enough that you might be able to pull some shit off now. 

Fortified Structures: That was like two years ago. 

Dakota Velasquez: We should try and go for it. 

Get some hot cocoa in the mix, you know, make it cozy. 

Fortified Structures: Yeah, doing that instead of doing water. We just have a hot cocoa machine, coffee, and hand warmers. 

Dakota Velasquez: Especially when the fast music comes in, they'll start sweating from there. 

When I met you, you said that Helltekk was making a DVD.

Fortified Structures: Yeah, it's all this stuff that I have on the camera, and then we have a bunch of rave footage from when we first started, until last year. I was like, Oh maybe release it in a year. Dakota was like, No, we got to push that by two or three. We need to get the full collective works and then compile.

Dakota Velasquez: I wanted it to be special. Get more video, more photos, because I'm not gonna lie, we're not really good at taking good videos of our parties.

You used to be able to do cool stuff on DVDs—crazy menus with all these bonus features. Are you going to fuck with that?

Fortified Structures: Dakota said the same thing, they were like we need to have a DVD menu to play behind the scenes and pictures and I was like, I'm cool with that.

Dakota Velasquez: It may be something playing before you get to that main menu, maybe a little Helltekk commercial. Who the fuck wants a DVD now, you know what I mean? So we might as well go out with it, because it'll be special for sure. 

You played at Webster Hall with Machine Girl. What was that experience like compared to the parties you throw?

Dakota Velasquez: That was sick. It was nerve-wracking at first of course, but once I got on stage? I don't know, for some reason I just calmed down, I was like, I got this. It's fine. I think it was pretty cool. 

Fortified Structures: I almost lost my mind up there. I was just head down into the laptop and then when I was done, I went behind the speaker. But it was really cool to play, because the people were fucking with the music, surprisingly. I was kind of like damn, they not gonna be fucking with the beats, but they surprisingly were. 

People seem to be really into really abrasive electronic music right now.

Fortified Structures: It's a sign of the times. Life is rough and people want to have that release of really rough bass bumping music. They just need it. 

You think even more so in New York?

Dakota Velasquez: Oh, definitely. 

Fortified Structures: We're some of those people that, like, we got to worry about where our next dollars are coming from to cover our rent. If I didn't have rave music, I feel like I would be a lot worse, because stuff is pretty bad. But if I didn't have the music to listen to or to see, shit would be a lot worse.

Helltekk on Instagram and Soundcloud. Fortified Structures on Instagram and Soundcloud. Dakota Velasquez on Instagram and Soundcloud.