I used to listen to a lot of GOA back in the day.
One thing has recently puzzled me though. A lot of the big names in Goa or PsyTrance originated in Israel. In fact for awhile the sound was synonymous with Israeli "trance".
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa_trance
[quote author=wikipedia]
Today, Goa Trance has a significant following in Israel, brought to that country by former soldiers returning from recreational "post-army trips" to Goa in the early 1990s. A great deal of Goa Trance (or now, more accurately, psytrance) is now produced in Israel, but its production and consumption is a global phenomenon. New "hot-spots" today include Belgium, Brazil, Japan, Serbia and South Africa.
[/quote]
Goa or PsyTrance was a large part of the rave and club scene in many parts of the world including the US. The interesting thing about this is that Israel also seems to be at the center of distrubuting and smuggling the club drug Ecstasy to clubs and raves all across the world.
_http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=280827&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
[quote author=Haaretz]Israel is at the center of international trade in the drug ecstasy, according to a document published last week by the U.S. State Department.
In recent years, organized crime in Israel, some with links to criminal organizations in Russia, have come to control the distribution of the drug in Europe, according to a Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs document.
The same document also points out that Israeli criminal groups have a hand in the distribution of ecstasy in North America.
During 2000, 80 percent of the ecstasy seized in North America originated in the Netherlands, which is the largest production center, along with Belgium and Poland. The State Department is certain that Israeli organizations are linked to the laboratories in the Netherlands and are responsible for the worldwide distribution.
"Israeli drug distribution organizations are currently the main source for distribution of the drug to groups inside the U.S., to smuggling through express mail services, through couriers on commercial flights and, recently, through air cargo," states the report. In the past two years, the U.S. has dealt more severely with ecstasy. Federal judges deal with smugglers in the ecstasy trade with the same severity as heroin and cocaine dealers [/quote]
Drugs + music... just what sort of "program" are they trying to run here? Just another distraction for the youth of the world or something more insidious?
Don't get me wrong, Goa is interesting music, very deep and eastern sounding in many instances. I've enjoyed listening to it in many instances. I've just always wondered if there was an Israeli connection here between the music they produce and the drugs they distribute. Maybe, maybe not...
Ryan
