#19 __ raves to remember
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Tis the season for best-of lists and recap posts.
I went to 122 parties in 2018. Here are six parties that permanently changed my understanding of music and dancing, with the essays I wrote immediately after those parties, before I started this newsletter.
The Lot Radio Two Year Anniversary
First up, getting in felt good. I didn’t find out about this thing until the night before — it was seemingly intentionally buried on RA with no tickets being sold, and the eventbrite page was sold out. I put myself on some sketchy-looking waitlist but figured I’d have a decent chance if I got there early. The bouncer asked for my ticket and I was like, nope don’t have that, and he said they were sold out, but then asked if I was on the guest list and I said “i think so??” and he waved me through. The ticket girl obviously couldn’t find my name and she was like “we’re sold out … … … give me your card”. And I was in. Whew.
The first thing as you’re coming in is the funk/disco room. Not my jam; I did meet 2 guys from Chicago who loved funk saying it was the weakest of the rooms, which I could believe. But I liked its presence, it gives the party a respectable veneer, makes it feel classier and more approachable for the less hardcore.
Once you get through that, you’re at the restaurant / lounge / arcade with a poppier playlist. Not really a dance room, but that’s totally fair. It pairs nicely next to the disco room. Pretty much every room has couches and chairs, plenty of relaxation and social space wherever you are in the venue.
The top floor is the biggest of the rooms, it could probably fit a few hundred. When I first showed up, it was this very solid bass-heavy house — then this dude just whips out a trumpet and starts improvising for a minute on top of this great bass line. I was completely into it. When I checked back later, it was kinda tropical bass — lots of brass sounds, not my jam but the crowd was loving it. The next time I came back it was more modern house, which at that point in the night couldn’t hold a fucking candle to what was going on in the basement.
The biggest surprise of the night for me was this jungle/gabber room. The lighting in here was simple but incredible; they put a bunch of track lights on the ceiling, and these were insanely potent because all the walls in this room are covered in mirrors (back, front, and sides), so 5 of these things looked like 30. The crowd in this room was small but extremely social with some fantastic dancers, lots of big smiles going around and people just going apeshit.
But the music. This was sublime. The people behind the decks in these 2 basement rooms are too talented to be confined by any genre. They’ll spin whatever the fuck they want and make it work. My favorite DJ I encountered in the jungle room (I hesitate to even give these rooms genre labels because it does so little justice!) had a mic that he would talk into and do some crazy vocoder shit, basically making his own electro-growly vocals and he pulled it off flawlessly. He was having so much fun, it oozed from every slider he flicked and button he pressed.
The techno room was, appropriately, the darkest and foggiest. They pumped this place with max fog at a couple points, like “literally can’t see anyone next to you” kind of density, which is always fun, but particularly highlights how great strobes are in that kind of situation. The crowd in this room was less social, but I still had some great moments with a few other folks. I’ve become better at spotting when people are open to a bit of engagement and there was this fabulous couple that I danced with, we controlled the center of the floor together for a solid 15 minutes. I caught them as they were leaving and told them I loved their energy and they gave me the biggest grins and we hugged and GOD IT FEELS SO GOOD.
But here, the music still spanned so many categories, switching up from 120bpm minimal techno into 160bpm cardiac arrest garage-style dnb and then back into a bit of synthy big beat house. These were not a dance floors for genre elitists or purists; this was a party for people who love and appreciate electronic music in all its shapes and sizes, that could only be fully experienced if you were willing to dance exactly to what the music is at each given moment. It just makes sense that this would be the kind of party thrown by a radio station.
This meant being okay with more frequent switchups than I tend to prefer, but once I realized these DJs knew exactly what the fuck they were doing, I loved it. The other benefit of having multiple rooms is that if when I genuinely was not a fan of what had come on, that usually meant it was time to go for another browse around the venue to see what the other rooms were feeling like. And that’s a delight all its own.
Yet another joy is the experience of re-introducing myself onto the dance floor. I love that feeling of walking into a room, zeroing in on a great spot on the dance floor and immediately breaking it down like I own the place. I felt so comfortable bouncing from room to room, weaving in and out. I so very much love having access to all these genres in different rooms. I don’t think I’d want to go a party that was just jungle or primarily breakbeats and dnb, but having that as an option available within the night is perfect.
The crowd was nothing but diverse, balanced, respectful, engaged, energetic, friendly, and beautiful. My only complaint was that there were two people toting cameras around, using flash (and not just camera phone flash, like real camera flash) on the dance floor. At least one of someone’s photos has my face looking straight at the camera, pissed off like a motherfucker and flipping them off. So damn rude.
The night ended on a glorious high note. I was the last of 2 people remaining in the techno room at the end, and I went up and thanked the DJ and he looked me dead serious and square in the eye and said “thank YOU for dancing” and I shook his hand and augh this is everything that is good in life. Even the conversation with the coat check girl was just a delight. I told her this was the greatest party I’ve ever been to and we high fived and she said something about me being a cute party boy, it was just immaculate.
Unter Spinoff
This one goes straight to the top with the most critical parties I’ve ever been to. Something completely unique was created in that space, different from anything I’ve yet experienced.
The scene here is a warehouse used for circus performers and other performance artists. It’s almost like a gymnasium — there’s hoops and ropes and pulleys hanging around. Lots of trashyard shic artwork going on. Most everywhere was padded comfily and there were lots of pillows. They set up staggered platforms throughout the middle to maximize the amount of space people could lay out, and it created a sort of rolling landscape of sprawled out people.
When I first arrived (4pm, about when it started), they were still setting up, so I pulled out my sketchbook and doodled while things ramped up. I picked a lovely spot right near the center where the sound was perfect, took my shoes off, and quietly observed the trickle of people coming in.
It really got good once the sun went down, when they turned the lights on.
Whenever the lights were bright, there was this deliciously rich tapestry of silhouettes. Everyone was there with friends — smiling, laughing, chatting away. I overheard so many wonderful happy yammerings. The crowd was everything you might hope the Unter crowd would look like — diverse, weird, and above all, so goddamn interesting. These are all people I want to strike up a conversation with. I chatted with a few people when I went outside to smoke and got nothing but good vibes, except for one girl who clearly came expecting to dance.
The quality of the sound was immaculate. It was the perfect volume — exactly as loud as it could be without needing earplugs. Huge bass that could vibrate your entire body, especially when lying down. The whole frequency range was so rich and full, which was crucial for the soundscapes they were crafting. This covered the full spectrum of what I could conceive of abstract and experimental electronica. Sometimes it sounded like industrial that had been slowed down to 10 BPM, all stretched and warped out. There were electric wind chimes and analog thunderstorms, weird-ass movie quotes punctuated with thunderous waves of synth that filled the space into its every nook and cranny, tribal drums that echoed inside your lungs. It all morphed in and out seamlessly.
My dude Kip Davis was on lighting again, and this man can do no wrong. He fully understands when to step back and let the music take focus, when to turn the lights off entirely, to stay monochrome and just slowly pan around, or to infuse color. There were so many ways to experience this component. You could stare at the ceiling or walls, where the spotlights sometimes pointed, which might have their own patterns overlaid on top of the wood and rust of the ceiling, the cement and pipes on the walls. Standing from the entrance, you could often see that the lights from all sides were pointed towards the center above the crowd, forming shifting, wafting three-dimensional pyramids of glowing smoke. From below, this looked like a loom of light, with individual threads of color flickering in and out.
But what really made this unforgettable was spending it with new friends. It was the perfect place to chill, talk about life and relationships and everything else, occasionally pausing to lie back and let the sound and light wash over us. I couldn’t imagine a better place to just be.
This was a whole new kind of a party, a new way to bring this community together and bond in a more social environment that’s still fully powered by the same basic elements we all adore — overwhelming sounds in beautiful environments with fascinating people.
SEQUENCE.039: The Gods Planet
Holy fuck. Crowd/venue/staff were all fab, but for this one, it’s the music. It’s the music. I don’t tend to write about this in as much detail because it’s so much a matter of taste and writing about music is kinda like dancing about architecture, but I have no choice in this case.
Early on in the night something in my body connected deeply with what was being played. This was a night where all of the DJs were building into a specific vibe that the headliner was bringing, so the first few hours were pretty much all warmup and anticipation for The Gods Planet, who played this deeply layered atmospheric techno. So many layers, constantly added and removed. Very approachable, didn’t use many eccentric or harsh sounds, just kept this one perfect vibe going the whole time.
Something about the attitude of this music makes it effortless to form your own unique relationship with the sound in each moment. It felt appropriate to use all the styles and movements I know, they all seemed to fit. Which meant I used everything I had and found a whole host of new stuff I’ve never tried before. I felt no distance between my movements and the music. Total fusion. It was so easy to experiment and explore without losing the rhythm.
I danced harder than I have ever danced. I danced until I was completely out of breath, then I would move to a new spot on the dance floor and tell myself, okay, I’m just gonna shuffle here and catch my breath. And within 30 seconds I’d be going apeshit again. This happened over and over and over. This music had an incredible ability to suck me into the flow because of its layering, it was just endlessly building up, driving forward, rolling through.
I easily could have stayed through til 8am on this, but I honest to god sweat too much. Most of you know how sweaty I get, it’s pretty bad. But this was different. My clothes were completely fucking done. I reached a point at 5am where I just felt too physically uncomfortable dancing in those clothes and saw no option forward. It was fucking disgusting. I’ve never had it like this before. Probably because I’ve never thrown my body around like that for so long.
I am going to be haunted by how good this was all week.
One small crowd anecdote: the crowd was definitely more dubious in the beginning. I saw these 2 bros on the prowl early on, flittering from woman to woman trying various bullshit, and I saw one of them start to approach this chick from behind and I gave that fucker the dirtiest stare. I stopped dancing and turned at him and glared and he backed off. The crowd was way better in general by 3 or 4am.
Bring Down the Walls: Soul Summit
When I first walked in, I saw a small dance circle around an old guy, must have been in his 60s or 70s with a cane. He was moving well and people were clapping and cheering for him. Then the music picked up so he tossed his cane to the side and started doing some crazy contortionist shit. Then another older guy joined him in the circle, did some cautious breaking on the floor and they danced back and forth, grinning at each other the whole time. They looked like old friends; once they finished, they hugged and the circle dissipated. This was at 1030 — this party, Soul Summit, was just getting started.
There were dance circles forming constantly throughout the night, lead by people that looked like old hands, decade-long regulars at these sorts of parties. I’ve never seen so many incredible dancers in one place. I felt completely, utterly outclassed — I often just stood back and watched and tried to absorb as much as I could. At the peak of the party around 3am, I found myself struggling to navigate the dance floor because there were so many people breaking, flipping, doing handstands. There were probably 3 dozen people there that would command the center of a dance floor multiple times through the night.
The crowd was much older and more experienced than any I’ve seen before. I felt like I was entering into an established cultural tradition more than any other party I’ve been to. Of particular note was that there were these stoops all along the sides, and most of the older folks and professional dancers stood or sat on the steps near the front, watching the crowd and occasionally stepping in to throw down their moves. There was a sense of hierarchy not present in techno or burner parties. But I didn’t mind it. It didn’t feel uncomfortable or threatening. I just felt honored to share the dance floor with such fantastic dancers.
This was the first party where I could truly get behind classic house music. It still doesn’t drive my mind and body the way great techno does — but I had no trouble finding my groove here. It was partly the DJ — his mixing was stellar, loaded with creativity and spontaneity. But mostly it was the crowd. So many smiling faces. Bright colors everywhere. Total respect and love. This is how house music was meant to be experienced.
Oh, and the cherry on top? It was all free. No charge. Even coat check was free.
Spinoff Gabber
After a certain point I start to feel hyperbolic in my descriptions of some of these parties. I’m running out of superlatives. I don’t even know where to start with this one. Maybe it’s best to explain gabber a bit.
Gabber is such a bizarre genre — it’s obscenely fast paced, loaded with unpredictable shifts in tempo and tone, and the way it was mixed this night was downright hilarious at times. To go from 190 beat per minute heart attack drum patterns to some oldies song with an old guy crooning about love right back into some furious bass lines — it’s something that only makes sense in its context, where the punchline of the joke is literally tripping up your body as you strive to stay with the beat, where your expectations are constantly shattered and subverted with bizarre samples and cuts from all manner of audio sources. Taken out of its warehouse setting, it is nothing but an assault to the ears.
There’s a specific kind of dancing that comes with gabber. Because it’s so fast, you have to get on top of your feet, jumping, hopping, skipping, whatever you can do to keep up. There’s something so goddamn amazing about seeing a whole crowd desperately doing whatever they can to stay on the beat no matter how fast it gets. A few hours into the night you can see people fighting fatigue, half-timing their movements for a while, and then some incredible breakdown smashes through and suddenly they’re alive again.
The vibe that this intensity creates is gorgeous. The music is probably self-selecting to some extent — there’s no reason to come to a party like this and grab a drink so you can shuffle on the dance floor. Everyone comes to give it their all. You look around and every person around you is going wild in their own way. There were so many people I wanted to stop and compliment and tell them how much I loved their energy, but this would have ended up being half of the crowd by the end.
I thought I would get bored of this music halfway through the night, but if anything I loved it more and more as the night went on. I stayed through til the end, and I could have kept going longer. I fucking loved every moment of this party.
I’ll be daydreaming about this party for weeks. What bliss.
The School of Hard Trax: Akua @ Bossa
On paper, Bossa Nova should suck. It’s tiny. The flow is shitty because the bathroom is on the opposite side of the dance floor from the bar (which gets worse in the winter since coat check is also over there), so people are constantly walking through the middle of the dance floor. It can get stupidly packed on weekends. They don’t have anyone dedicated to running the lights or fog — typically one of the bussers or even one the club’s regulars will just reach over the DJ booth and twist some knobs every few minutes just to put the timing back on track or freshen things up a bit.
But this is is all forgiven, because it reliably hosts the best techno in the city on any given night. I’ve shown up here several times on a Tuesday or Wednesday without checking who’s playing (if they even posted it) and it’s been straight fucking fire. Every. Single. Time.
Last night was no exception, but this might be the best night I’ve ever had at Bossa. I love this club. I love it with my whole damn heart.
When I showed up at 1030, the dance floor was empty but the music was already bitchin’ so I got to work. I danced by myself for 20 minutes, experimenting with some weird moves and patterns before people started joining in. I had the lovely delight of watching individual people get into it with me. Normally there aren’t really many movers or shakers in the crowd at Bossa, but when you can get some momentum going and you have a few people hopping around, clapping, spinning, then anyone who wants to step in either has to stand still while a dozen people prance around them, or they get into it. Everyone was getting into it. It was a glorious way to start the night. I went around and told everyone I loved their vibe and thanked them for being a part of the dance floor. I was in a fucking great mood.
After a while the packs of friends start to invade and the totality of the vibe can’t be maintained across the room, but by then I had my own dance circle in front of the DJ booth with a wonderful little group for most of the remainder of the night.
The second part of the story here is the goddamn music. Jesus christ.
Something that’s hard to communicate about techno is how varied it is. At this point I believe that there’s a genre of techno that will please almost anyone. There’s so much diversity in tempo, soundscapes, just the raw emotion that it brings to the dance floor. There is techno that will make you feel like you’re in the deepest, darkest dungeon, techno that puts you in floating in outer space, and techno that feels like being in a sci-fi kung-fu movie. It’s an abstract medium with the full range of audible sound at its disposal.
This means that for me, even after going to 80 techno parties this last year, I still regularly encounter new flavors and genres I’ve never heard before. Last night was such an example.
This was fast-paced (probably 140, maybe up to 150bpm at points), spontaneous and upbeat with tons of amazing cuts between tracks — the mixing was just so damn good here from all the DJs. Most fast techno tends to feel aggressive, but this felt very positive without being…sickly sweet like, say, trance tends to be. The pacing was also perfect; it started eclectic, solidified into some classic clubby grooves, then gradually ramped up until Akua’s set, whose speciality is these high-BPM tracks. I was in a continual state of losing my shit from beginning to end.
God I love Bossa.
Thank you so much for reading.
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