In just a few weeks, EroticBPM is going to be having a rave in Arizona and lots of girls who have stripped down sexily for EBPM will be there. We’ve got a little free EroticBPM photo gallery featuring some of the confirmed guests, including Eyecandy, Jamie, Money, River, Lucky, Stevie Neko, Uzi, and Ziggy. The best stuff is in the members area of EroticBPM and there is a party bonus for members. Details below in my exclusive interview with EroticBPM’s Scott Owens about the Lingerieve party.

Amelia G: What festivities are planned for the party?

Scott Owens: It is EroticBPM’s 10 year anniversary and we are having a Lingerie-themed rave in Phoenix, AZ. August 22nd. We just confirmed DJ Swamp for the lineup (Beck’s old DJ)

Amelia G: What was the reason for this event’s choice of locale and venue? Who is involved with putting it together?

Scott Owens: The reason we chose Phoenix is because Ebpm photographer Clix is also a rave promoter in the area. We have a lot of models from Phoenix and he has all the resources to make it happen . . . Clix from clixbagoftricks.com is doing most of the real work.. Ebpm is of course making sure lots of models will be attending and providing any additional support . . . We *might* also do a dvd of the event combined with behind the scenes footage of photoshoots that will be done with girls at the venue beforehand.

Amelia G: What special deal do you have for EroticBPM members?

Scott Owens: All EroticBPM members from out of state get into the event for free. Lots of members are already arranging caravans or booking flights to make sure they come come be part of the fun.

Amelia G: Last words?

Scott Owens: We are working on setting up a live broadcast of the event online for those who can not make it in person . . . We should have some contests and giveaways, but the details of that have not been confirmed yet.

I have had a lot of fun in Portland before and I’ve shot a bunch in Portland before. So I was down for a trip, a few weeks ago, when long-time Blue Blood hottie Rachel Face called me up and said that she’d been designing disposable clothing made out of trash and she was having a fashion show she’d love me and Forrest Black to come up and do some press coverage on. She had messaged me online about shooting some new sets for BlueBlood.com and I often enjoy shooting trips more if there is an event to shoot. Rachel invited me and Forrest Black to stay at her place, but we figured she would be crazed getting ready for her fashion show, so we stayed at EroticBPM HQ instead.

It’s not that Rachel didn’t tell me excitedly about how there would be all these strippers there. Hot girls who dance in Los Angeles usually prefer to be called dancers, but Portland cuties throw the word strippers around all the time. Yet I hadn’t quite grasped the nature of the venue. The Trash Factory fashion show was at a club called Devil’s Point. Portland peeps are probably starting to smirk now, as it occurs to them what I did not know. Never having been to Devil’s Point, I had assumed the Trash Factory fashion show venue would be a nightclub with maybe some go-go dancers or maybe a place full nude dancers went to get a beer . . . when not actually, ya know, nude.

Humorously, I had not realized it was an actual strip club. Doh! Nonetheless, the Devil’s Point people were helpful and nice and the photography did turn out awesome, if I do say so myself. Check the photos out here and check the club out when in Portland.

I did this interview with the wonderful Scott Owens from EroticBPM a while back for the esteemed Thomas S. Roche back when he was editing Eros Zine. Eros Zine was unfortunately not able to post it permanently before they lamentably stopped updating. As yesterday was EroticBPM’s nine year anniversary, I felt like now would be a good time to post it here.

Scott Owens is the founder of and mastermind behind EroticBPM. BPM stands for Beats Per Minute and is an electronica term for how fast the musical percussion is thumping to get your booty shaking. The site initially grew out of the rave culture which Scott was active in. Hence the moniker “Erotic Beats Per Minute.”

Partiers who have had a blast at raves will enjoy the site, but it also appeals to a more general taste in unique young women — and occasionally men. Those who like partying teens will find EroticBPM has a lot of hot stuff to fit that taste as well. And there is a special forum for photos of models and members showing off their elbows. MistyB, one of the star models on EroticBPM, posts, “Elbow fetish is the only fetish.” She might be joking. Then again, the site features a plethora of fine examples of elbow photography.

Scott Owens is creative and always pushing the envelope in terms of how erotic content can be presented online. Although blogging is less of a focus now, EroticBPM was one of the very first multigirl erotic membership sites to feature model journals and structured profiles and the very first in his niche. The site features a thriving community where members and models and Scott and company interact in a friendly and positive way. Scott and his trusty coder Anti are always thinking of new features. Members can post party pictures and such in the members area and you can just feel the fun looking at them.

One of the most striking things about Scott is that, even in the face of trials and tribulations, he manages to remain warm and friendly. He is a genuinely nice guy, enjoyed by those around him.

Fun fact to know and share: The famous, down-to-earth, and very beautiful Bella Star got her start modeling for EroticBPM and still stops by from time-to-time to say hello to members and everyone else. Beauties featured in our exclusive free EroticBPM preview photo gallery include Bella Starr, Seattle, Sky, Genesis LaVey, Charissa, MistyB, Krystal, Zia, Bailey, Tanya, Gwen, Cadence, MerriCat, Jamie, Haley, Faye, Wish, Nails, Bonnie, Hel Inferna, Bubbles aka Bella Vendetta, the always enjoyable Athena Hollow, and birthday celebration girl Money.

Amelia G: How would you describe the theme or themes of EroticBPM?

Scott Owens: EroticBPM started off primarily as an adult site focused on the rave subculture and community. But it has since evolved to include other subcultures as well.

Amelia G: What motivated you to start an erotic membership site? What motivated you to pick the themes you did?

Scott Owens: Well back in 1999 I thought that doing an adult site would be a fun summer project to teach myself photography and web design all at once. Only most of the websites out there at the time did not appeal to me. I decided to start a site with a community focus and use raver models since that was the subculture I was involved in and familiar with at the time.

Amelia G: Was a membership site your first web site?

Scott Owens: Yep, I had never tried to make a website before this.

Amelia G: EroticBPM was originally called RaverPorn. What prompted the name change?

Scott Owens: Several reasons. Many people felt the name was misleading, although we have a variety of content many people described the photos as erotica more than porn.

Also, the rave scene was in decline and so I wanted to keep an electronic music focus while still leaving it open for other subcultures.

Amelia G: What do you look for in models?

Scott Owens: What I look for the most is the right attitude and interesting personality.

As far as looks go, I don’t have anything specific that I look for, but models who have a unique look definitely get noticed more.

Amelia G: How would someone go about getting to appear on your site?

Scott Owens: There is a link on the site for the model application. Just attach a couple photos and tell us a bit about yourself and we will get back to you if we are interested.

Amelia G: You had a lot of buzz early on. What magazines, newspapers, TV, and other press outlets have covered your projects and how did you hook up with them?

Scott Owens: Spin magazine, Wired, BBC, Sex television, CMJ New Music, Mixmag, BPM, to name some. All of them got in touch with me after hearing about the website and checking it out, they thought it was fresh and interesting enough to talk about.

Amelia G: Is it easier or harder to get press coverage now?

Scott Owens: I would say it is harder. My site and others have been covered pretty extensively, so it is harder to attract attention just based on site novelty.

Amelia G: I understand you have done fairly extensive club promotion. What sorts of events have you created? Did you do event promo before the web sites or did that come later? Do the two things go together for you?

Scott Owens: I had done some event promotion previously, and once I started the site it made sense to promote at clubs and raves since that is what I was familiar with. I’ve done several site sponsored events with fun themes, great music, and always involve some of our pretty models. One event in particular involved a lot of chocolate and photos can be seen on the site.

Amelia G: You’ve lived a number of places while publishing to the web. Where do you think are the best places to do what you do? Do you like to move?

Scott Owens: I started in Wisconsin and then moved to Hawaii where I have been the last five years. And now I am getting ready to relocate to Portland. Hawaii has been a difficult place to do what I do because so much has to be done remotely through other people I work with on the mainland.

I think that Portland will be much better for business, they have a good music scene, and a lot of alternative culture allowing me to have much more of a hands-on approach with things, including being able to start doing events again.

Amelia G: Do you consider EroticBPM to be alt-porn?

Scott Owens: Yes, for lack of a better term.

Amelia G: Do you consider EroticBPM to be feminist?

Scott Owens: I prefer to say it is feminist-friendly.

Many women who consider themselves feminist approve of and participate in my website, but people have different ideas on how to define “feminist”. So I would rather let people decide if they think it is feminist rather than try to convince people it is.

Amelia G: Do you think it is easier or harder to do what you do now than it was when you started?

Scott Owens: It is definitely more challenging, there is a lot more competition now. I think it is much harder for people starting out now than it was when I did.

Amelia G: What are your favorite party accessories? Glowsticks, kegs, a certain kind of music?

Scott Owens: My party mood changes constantly, sometimes I feel like a keg party in someone’s house with a local band or DJ, and sometimes I feel like dressing up and drinking martinis at a big club.

Amelia G: Who are some of your favorite DJs?

Scott Owens: One of my current favorites is DJ P, check him out at Studio 54 in Vegas I also like Z-trip, Richie Hawtin, Yoda, Woody McBride, Sasha, John Digweed, Tiesto, Chris Liberator. I could go on, but I will stop

Amelia G: What do you think your members enjoy most about EroticBPM?

Scott Owens: Definitely the community. Everyone is very friendly and interesting to interact with.

Amelia G: Anything I didn’t ask you about which you are dying to tell the world?

Scott Owens: Not that I can think of.

Amelia G: To recap: interactive community of rave and other music fans, unique girls, tattoos, feminist-friendly, altporn. Join the party at Scott Owens’ place at EroticBPM.

So, after knowing each other for nearly a decade, and working together on multiple projects, over many years, I finally finally got to meet Scott Owens of EroticBPM fame in person! We once almost met in the flesh when he got stuck at LAX on a layover, but I’d just finished being somewhere one good friend of mine was attempting to sleep with the husband of another good friend of mine and having to give a police report on some psycho who was incoherently threatening me outside a nightclub for firing a girl she just met and barely knew but had a crush on or something. So anyway, I didn’t think I’d be at my charming best when I got to LAX, which also happens to be my least favorite California airport.

Anyway, Forrest Black, who is in charge of the look and feel of all Blue Blood sites, and I visited Portland and stayed with Scott and his charmingly negative head coder Antisocial and his beautiful bride (who, in a flash of small world, turned out to be a model from some of the earliest naughty sets I published from photographer Tom Hunscher.) We had an amazingly good time just hanging out in their gargantuan Pacific NW headquarters with them and their three very cute and almost disturbingly friendly and well-adjusted cats.

We also got to see old friends from our DC stomping grounds. We shot new stuff of the always fun Voltaire and of Rachel Face. Rachel has a new clothing line and we shot that, as well as a whole passel of new hotties. Parts of the trip were really bizarrely and gratuitously stressful, but most of it was really super nice. Portland is so beautiful and the air is so clean and we got to go up on the volcano which is the largest within city limits in the USA.

But the point I really must make here is that, when I wanted to connect to the internet from EroticBPM HQ, one of the networks was named Quark. I asked Anti if this was after the software, the TV show, or the actual thing. Having a background in particle physics, he didn’t mean the software or the show, but I told him I was going to pull his Dork Card for being unfamiliar with the show. Rather than having to resort to such extreme measures, modern technology allows me to share the show with you all.

I first saw Quark on the US Military television stations while living in Germany, on either ACTA I or ACTA II I believe. Basically, the Department of Defense at least used to provide American television channels to US servicemen and diplomats abroad. I wasn’t really allowed to watch TV, so I didn’t see much, but I did catch some re-runs of a sort of Star Trek spoof called Quark which struck me as absolutely hilarious at the time. I admit it doesn’t really stand the test of time and might seem a little, err, dumb now. Anyway, without further ado, I present Quark for your viewing pleasure and personal edification:

To a current sensibility, the BBC’s Hyperdrive is really probably a better bet.