allow me to break it down - Raves - those being true illegal ware house parties started at some point in the 80's and in the US they grew out of Detroit. They eventually wound up quite prevalent on the Westcoast in the late 80's and had kinda died out by oh say 1993. Meanwhile on the Eastcoast they were growing, NYC had big time clubs that offered a rave like experience everyweekend at the Limelight, but really 1992, 1993, 1994 it was blowing up on the Eastcoast NYC to Jersey to Philly, to Baltimore to DC. The 'It" parties come to mind as a philly thing.
- where I come in circa 1993 when Jungle was just taking roots in Philly, Drum N Bass was a new thing imported from England from guys like DJ Trace, imbraced by Diesel Boy, Karl K and many others in the years to follow
E, as it was introduced to me was always different back then, consistency was hard to come by and given size of some the massive pills I used to ingest they MOST Definitely has fillers....
back then the only way you could say for sure you had MDMA was to know the chemist. And even back then chemists in the know knew how to put a designer spin on the product.
Raves were more fun when they were dirty warehouse throwdowns for some of us...... when the corporate world stepped in and saw an opportunity for vendor placement and product placement - RAVES kinda died, and EDM events were born