Techno

The biggest beneficiary of Friday's Halloween downpour? Possibly London techno DJ Billy Nasty, who had the good fortune of being on the main stage during the sixth annual Monster Massive dance-music gathering when the rain started coming down hard around 10 p.m. With organizers scrambling to reconfigure the setup at the Sports Arena and move the outdoor stages into sheltered areas, Nasty found himself spinning before an Oakenfold-sized crowd that turned the floor of the Sports Arena into L.A.'

A Viking in a G-string ran past a nearly naked woman adorned with angel wings as a man shimmying in black boots and a sequined miniskirt was sprayed with champagne Saturday in a thunderous din of techno music and rainbow-haired humanity known as the Love Parade. More than 500,000 revelers -- stepping over broken beer bottles and drunken comrades -- danced, gyrated and skipped through this German city in a summer fling that has become one of the world's most raucous and hedonistic parties.

Walking into the new Gallery C in Hermosa Beach may give some people the sensation of caroming back and forth in time. From the outside, the building is a period piece from 1923, resembling a wedding cake with its ornate white trim. Inside the front door, however, visitors rocket to the present. The entrance hall is lined with a row of glass panels, 9 feet high, that seem to form a second set of walls within the hallway.

Thousands of music fans flocked to Saturday's opening of an electronic music festival that organizers expect will draw more than 1 million fans over Memorial Day weekend. Movement 2003, a renamed, muscled-up version of the Detroit Electronic Music Festival started three years ago, will feature more than 80 performances by about 70 artists, including techno pioneer Kevin Saunderson.

If day one of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival was a huge house party for dance fans, day two was an event. The highly anticipated Coachella debut of Deep Dish, the return of Underworld and Thievery Corporation (both veterans of year one of the festival), and multiple other live performances created a heavier sense of anticipation among the fans. As Underworld's 8:30 p.m.

Record cases, turntables, headphones and vinyl. The stuff of a DJ's trade is on display at the Detroit Historical Museum, in the city where techno music got its start. The exhibition, "Techno: Detroit's Gift to the World," details how the dance music grew over the last two decades from sounds heard at local clubs and parties to a global sensation. And it gives recognition to local artists who played key roles in helping to make it happen.

In Russia's post-Soviet thaw, the red of the Communist era is being replaced by the prospects of green. At least that's what's caught the eye of the U.S. record industry as the onetime Siberia of world pop culture starts to turn out its first generation of international pop-music contenders. "All the Things She Said" by t.A.T.u., a pair of saucy, dance-pop Lolitas from Moscow, is the fastest-rising single in the United States, ranking No. 5 on the most recent Billboard sales chart.

In pop music, as in life, there's always a place for the simple things. That may explain the return of Soft Cell, the British techno-pop duo that sold millions of records two decades back with simple beats, simple melodies and stories of simple decadence. The best thing that's happened for singer Marc Almond and keyboardist David Ball in the 20 years since their heyday is the improvement in synthesizers.

KUTA, Indonesia -- Last month's deadly bombing on the island of Bali was carried out by a computer-savvy group of Indonesian Muslims with links to previous anti-Christian terror attacks, police said Sunday. Providing the most comprehensive picture to date of the group believed responsible for the Oct. 12 attack that killed 191 people, police said the operational leader was a university-trained engineer known as Imam Samudra, who probably learned to make bombs in Afghanistan. Police Brig. Gen.

Since his first hit, "Thee Dawn," 10 years ago, Felix Da Housecat has run an influential label, Radikal Fear Records, and remixed the likes of Diana Ross. But until recently, nine out of 10 U.S. music fans probably had no clue who Felix is. In the last month, though, Felix, who came out of the legendary Chicago house music scene, was named one of Rolling Stone magazine's 10 artists to watch in 2002, and his "Kittenz and Thee Glitz" was named the best album of 2001 by Muzik magazine.