A Brooklyn Culture Mafia

[shakahislop]

Why would they not be real people? I do hope that Aurora Halal has a naughty sister called Aurora Haram though.

i've actually seen her, she was ok, the beautiful soundsystem at nowadays helped a lot. would like to see an aurora haram set.

nowadays is an interesting one for me. there's probably been three clubs that have had a bit of a buzz around them in the last five years or so in nyc. not that i'm an expert, i just go every now and then. about five years ago House of Yes in bushwick seemed to be a big deal. i've never been but my mate said she went to a more sex-focused party there, one of those ones i've never been to where there's dark rooms and places to have sex etc. there's a lot of emphasis on elaborate costumes even on normal nights, they have acrobats and circus stuff. apparently, i've only read about it. but the place seems to have got pretty well known and attracted a more standard nyc manhattan club crowd. the management has actually been posting recently on a relevant subreddit saying that they think this is a problem but that they don't know what to do about it. too many geezers treating it as a meat market. apparently.

the other two are basement and nowadays. basement is the one that resident advisor did a story on about its door policy. its pretty good, basically an underground bunker full of smoke and pillars, nice soundsystem, but they exclusively book techno and its a massive pain in the arse to get to. nowadays doesn't seem to have picked up much press. but there's something going on there i think, it has a particular ethos, in terms of how they want people to act and in terms of who they book. there is something pretty interesting about that and it can't last forever. i think i've said before that it's a particularly brooklyn thing (nu-brooklyn rather than trad brooklyn). always have the impression that it's grown out of that particular milieu. the dancefloor is decorated with plants. musically as well its reflective of how little there is going on as well, no ascendent genre, i mean it's not attached to a rising tide. but there is a common sound somehow. they steer clear of overpowering aggro but also steer clear of things that are (too) boring and formulaic.

 

[shakahislop]

it is ludicrously far from manhattan, you basically have to live in brooklyn or in particular parts of queens to bother going, i live in a more convenient part of manhattan so i can get there more easily but it's still like 45 minutes to get there

 

[shakahislop]

so anyway what i'm getting at is that this is a strand of the BCM. different to the spendo literary BCM.

 

[Clinamenic]

what's the joke here, is Greenpoint full of fey hipsters who can't mug anyone?

I think @sus would know better than I, but greenpoint strikes me as a fairly safe, hipsterfied (speaking as a hipster) polish district of Brooklyn.

 

[WashYourHands]

Shaka got an av!

 

[sus]

i've actually seen her, she was ok, the beautiful soundsystem at nowadays helped a lot. would like to see an aurora haram set.

nowadays is an interesting one for me. there's probably been three clubs that have had a bit of a buzz around them in the last five years or so in nyc. not that i'm an expert, i just go every now and then. about five years ago House of Yes in bushwick seemed to be a big deal. i've never been but my mate said she went to a more sex-focused party there, one of those ones i've never been to where there's dark rooms and places to have sex etc. there's a lot of emphasis on elaborate costumes even on normal nights, they have acrobats and circus stuff. apparently, i've only read about it. but the place seems to have got pretty well known and attracted a more standard nyc manhattan club crowd. the management has actually been posting recently on a relevant subreddit saying that they think this is a problem but that they don't know what to do about it. too many geezers treating it as a meat market. apparently.

the other two are basement and nowadays. basement is the one that resident advisor did a story on about its door policy. its pretty good, basically an underground bunker full of smoke and pillars, nice soundsystem, but they exclusively book techno and its a massive pain in the arse to get to. nowadays doesn't seem to have picked up much press. but there's something going on there i think, it has a particular ethos, in terms of how they want people to act and in terms of who they book. there is something pretty interesting about that and it can't last forever. i think i've said before that it's a particularly brooklyn thing (nu-brooklyn rather than trad brooklyn). always have the impression that it's grown out of that particular milieu. the dancefloor is decorated with plants. musically as well its reflective of how little there is going on as well, no ascendent genre, i mean it's not attached to a rising tide. but there is a common sound somehow. they steer clear of overpowering aggro but also steer clear of things that are (too) boring and formulaic.

Bossa Nova is a fourth

Link to the subreddit stuff for HoY?

 

[shakahislop]

Bossa Nova is a fourth

Link to the subreddit stuff for HoY?

 

[yyaldrin]

have you been there shak?

 

[shakahislop]

have you been there shak?

house of yes? no i never went. didn't sound like my thing

 

[IdleRich]

nowadays is an interesting one for me. there's probably been three clubs that have had a bit of a buzz around them in the last five years or so in nyc. not that i'm an expert, i just go every now and then

For the first time since I've been in Lisbon there is a new club with a buzz to it. It's strange cos it's been opened by this guy we know - French guy called Kevin who used to be the booker for Le Baron. For aaaasges he's been saying he was gonna open a place, a club with two rooms. And he'd been saying it for so long we started to wonder if it would ever happen. But in September he announced it was really happening and an opening date was specified. But apart from messages to people he knew there was no marketing, no publicity drive or anything and so on the day a load of us turned up at this warehouse assuming that a small part of it would be a couple of rooms with some decks.

Well it turned out we seriously underestimated how rich the guy is I guess cos when we entered - up these stairs, past someone covering camera phones with stickers and finally it opened out into the central space which is basically a huge smoking area - our jaws just dropped. It's an insane space, the smoking area which is a sort of central atrium built around a really dangerous hole (which I understand one fuck head has already fallen into) can hold, I dunno, a thousand people. This rich kid has opened a superclub without anyone noticing.

Even now it seems to have no promo and you can't find photos online (well I can't). It's got this kinda cool minimal cyberpunk thing going on, but so low-key as to not be cheesy. It's just a black space with a few lasers and then these two long thin dancefloors running down each side plus a bar.

The dancefloors are relatively small for the central bit, each about fifteen feet wide but very deep but it works cos you only need a few people and they are clustered at the front and you got a vibe. Weirdly after spending hundred of thousands at least on the space he's mainly booking cheap local djs and now a few off rinse. It always seems to be busy with no marketing and we're getting people coming saying we heard about it in NY or whatever. It's cool and it's for me the only place in Lisbon where you can be sure of a good vibe and dancing all night.

I always thought Kevin was a joke. He did sets when he would say "I'm playing eighty percent vinyl" or whatever as some mark of quality so Liza made it her mission to always ask him what percentage vinyl he was gonna play every time he dj-d. But fair play to him this is working and it's got all this stuff about respect and this absolute cunt who is trans on the door etc I hope it succeeds cos Lisbon needs it.

Also Higher Ground where we played on Sat is new so things are looking up.

 

[luka]

being a dj has somehow become the most uncool loserish thing a person could do

 

[yyaldrin]

yeh i'd say even going to clubs is, it became such a ritual, full with all these obligatory elements like having an absolute trans cunt as a bouncer and everybody wearing "kinky" outfits.

 

[yyaldrin]

the sticker on the phone thing another one

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah a big misstep I think... well, that was what I instantly said cos I thought the point was so you could safely get stuck into a Mongolian clusterfuck in the middle of the dancefloor and there wouldn't be pictures of you all over the internet next day for your mum, boss, wife etc to see. But doing that where there is no clusterfucking - in fact there's noone even getting a chaste handshandy in the bogs - is pretentious false advertising or wishful thinking or something. But then everyone jumped down my throat and said that actually the reason was so that you don't get that thing where everyone is filming instead of getting stuck into dancing to the music - and it does consistently have a better vibe than pretty much any other place I've been to for ages but who knows if it's anything to do with that.

Others have also told me that it's to do with preserving the mystique of the place and that has been done for better or worse. The place seems to have a tiny internet presence for such a big place and you can't see what is inside without going there... though why you build a big fucking thing and charge people to get inside and then sort of half hide it is resaonable question.

Gara in Porto which apparently used to be legndary "back in the day" but is now one of the most boring techno clubs I've been to (how do you make a dark room filled with nutters on drugs at 10am boring?) also puts stuckers on phones. As does Higher Ground in Lisbon but they forgot to put one on mine last time hence I took all those videos. I thought people were joking when they told me to stop.

Though Liza points out to me that when she was dj-ing in Planetamanos today one of her friends tried to recapture his high of earlier in the evening for her set and so he took another pill and then he was so high he had to go and quickly fuck a stranger before he could get back to dancing. So I guess that random sex with total strangers does in fact happenin Lisbon clubs just, er, not to me.

 

[shakahislop]

being a dj has somehow become the most uncool loserish thing a person could do

well what are the contours you're using. what is the map. the nowadays culture mafia is square bang on Brooklyn cool I would say. the mixture of queer, female and all ethnicities for one. in America its richer people who decide the parameters. it's not like England where that's a working class responsibility. or at least has a veto

 

[luka]

that's the exact oppoisste of cool

 

[shakahislop]

that's the exact oppoisste of cool

yeah it is but that's the territory we are talking about

 

[shakahislop]

America (I think, I mean I'm not from here) never had a being poor is cool moment. there's no room for it. coz black is cool crowds out any possibility. whereas in England poor is cool was an essential strand of the 90s at least

 

[yyaldrin]

Yeah a big misstep I think... well, that was what I instantly said cos I thought the point was so you could safely get stuck into a Mongolian clusterfuck in the middle of the dancefloor and there wouldn't be pictures of you all over the internet next day for your mum, boss, wife etc to see. But doing that where there is no clusterfucking - in fact there's noone even getting a chaste handshandy in the bogs - is pretentious false advertising or wishful thinking or something. But then everyone jumped down my throat and said that actually the reason was so that you don't get that thing where everyone is filming instead of getting stuck into dancing to the music - and it does consistently have a better vibe than pretty much any other place I've been to for ages but who knows if it's anything to do with that.

Others have also told me that it's to do with preserving the mystique of the place and that has been done for better or worse. The place seems to have a tiny internet presence for such a big place and you can't see what is inside without going there... though why you build a big fucking thing and charge people to get inside and then sort of half hide it is resaonable question.

Gara in Porto which apparently used to be legndary "back in the day" but is now one of the most boring techno clubs I've been to (how do you make a dark room filled with nutters on drugs at 10am boring?) also puts stuckers on phones. As does Higher Ground in Lisbon but they forgot to put one on mine last time hence I took all those videos. I thought people were joking when they told me to stop.

Though Liza points out to me that when she was dj-ing in Planetamanos today one of her friends tried to recapture his high of earlier in the evening for her set and so he took another pill and then he was so high he had to go and quickly fuck a stranger before he could get back to dancing. So I guess that random sex with total strangers does in fact happenin Lisbon clubs just, er, not to me.

i don't even think it's necessarily bad that they prevent you from taking photos but it's one of these things that became a template and that they apply everywhere now and doesn't feel sincere. the angry trans bouncer, the stickers on the phone, a ridiculious (superficial) queue outside, an awareness team saying you can't be sexist or racist, everybody wearing black clothes, etc etc. it feels theatrical and fake.

 

[luka]

I've never experienced that but it sounds hilarious