clubbing? dancing? late nights?

[alistarr*]

clubbing is as much fun as any other music-related activity, so it seems a shame not to have a thread for it.

tell me where you go dancing, what you listen to, what you drink; tell me stories of glorious revelations amidst the spotlights and dry ice; basically talk to one another about what happened last night and why it was awesome. if you don't go out dancing often enough, use your newfound desire to post in this thread as motivation to enjoy a good time in the company of others this weekend.

[alistarr*]

when wandering the streets in search of dancing i'm looking for any style of music i haven't listened to much lately, which means i often go to clubs offering some form of what we in the UK call "dance music". i drink no more than six drinks over the course of the night (this, i will admit, can sometimes take a little effort) and i really, really like to jump off the night bus at 3am in the hope of getting a cheeseburger and chips. we walk the rest of the way home.

last week i went to a new club in manchester that's in a building which previously housed a guitar shop. they've kept the shop's name and have a guitar hanging behind the bar. other than that the layout is pretty different, with the main dancefloor space being upstairs, but a big ol' bar with couches etc on the ground floor. it being new, it's hard to say how nice it'll stay. as for the night itself, it was billed as "dubstep/futurebass/electro" or something like that and, like both other such-labelled nights i've attended, it started slow and loud and tricky to dance to (but good to dance to if you follow the bass rather than the drums) and moved closer to dizzee rascal territory as the night wore on. i half-decided to spend a bunch of money on records the next day and then decided it wouldn't sound as good at home-listening volumes and i'd be better off just coming here again next month if i wanted to listen to this music. mostly young folks in attendance despite the door policy of asking everyone for ID, plenty of teens playing to what you might call stereotypes (spliff-weilding black kids in nice hoodies, white girls in small dresses and lipstick) and alongside all those pretty people plenty of slightly older, less interesting folk as well (me, various after-work drinkers). some guys on stage MCing somewhere in the middle of things. good times.

this week i think we're going to what used to be my favourite club night - it's a belle and sebastian-themed "disco" in this massive old house way out behind the train station that's been turned into a grimy pub with a dancefloor. it only happens maybe twice a year and it's good to go down early (like 9ish), get a couple of pints in a very pleasant and old-fashioned pub opposite the public-facing side of the station and then move on round to the main event at about 10 for some pool, a couple more drinks and then dancing once the mood takes you. it's mostly university students and used-to-be-university-students at this one, with lots of nice patterned dressed, sixties hair and boys with tight trousers and cigarettes. they probably get through about four or five belle and sebastian songs per hour, and fill in the gaps with indiepop, some of the more friendly classic punk (ramones, modern lovers) and whatever new indie is popular on 6music or wherever. hopefully it will be a grand old time, though the last time we went we ended up going home sleepy at about 11 (i'm not good at staying up late on a friday).

[elpollodiablo]

Huh! I never woulda figured, ali.


*Although I'm guessing maybe "clubbing" in your experience doesn't have the sleazy unpleasant connotation that it does for me and other like-minded American yoofs.

[coldforge]

My secondhand experience is that clubbing culture is much more porous in Britain, to say nothing of popular.

[Good Intentions]

It's also what we used to do as kids in high school back where I grew up, in the English-tinted bits of SA.

[alistarr*]

is this a translation issue, and the word i'm using means something else in your country, or is going to a late-night venue containing dancing space, loud music and a bar genuinely not something that classy people do in america?

[elpollodiablo]

It's definitely not something I (nor any of my friends, to my knowledge) ever do. American clubs are a good place to get overcharged for drinks, looked down upon for you appearance, and maybe dragged unwillingly into a fight with a dude in a polo shirt and DG sunglasses.

The lady and I love to dance, but typically only go to dance nights at bars that we know are cool.

[alex]

I don't see anything in al's definition above that precludes that the dancing would occur in a bar you already know is cool.

[Greg Nog]

Yeah, it's just one of those weird things that seems way less -- as coldforge astutely puts it -- "porous" in America.  Which is a shame, as I think most young Americans generally like to get their shimmy on.

[davy]

Yeah, despite there being a great, great many options in this city, it's not something townies in Athens do as a rule. The dance clubs here are for the frat crowds and the ex-frat crowds.

And they're the places that smell like vomit when you walk by on the sidewalk Monday afternoon.

Then again, no dance club here would ever even DREAM of putting on something like Belle & Sebastian so it's obvious we've got some apples and oranges rolling around in here.

[edison]

I think it's mainly that the word "club" has fairly different connotations from "bar"? I do agree that in practice, there's probably not much difference between a club and a bar who happens to have a dance night.

edit: that was a response to alex, x-post with greg and davy

[coldforge]

Yeah, in most places in America, clubs are only for pretty well-delineated populations: ravers and actual dance music enthusiasts, of course, but then also what most of us in this space would politely call 'mainstream' youth. In reality there's usually a pretty big class element. Your stereotypical club-goer often looks like someone from the Jersey Shore, with lots of hair products, overpriced clothing, and AXE body spray. There's definitely also a lot of folks who like to go to clubs who we might simply call Normals—the people we work with but basically have no cultural overlap with whatsoever. Americans like to pick up girls at bars and go to baseball games; I know they exist but I have very little actual contact with them.

xpost: 'frat crowds' is another good name for them.

xpost: At least in New York, clubs and bars might form a spectrum, but if so then the two ends are very easy to differentiate. No bar I frequent could even possibly have a club night, if only for space reasons. There are club/bars where people are generally much more likely to go there alone and look to pick someone up (or to be seen, I suppose), but I've never met anybody who liked to hang out at them.

[coldforge]

I just asked one of my coworkers if he ever went to clubs and he dismissed it immediately. No, never. But you go to bars to dance? Oh yeah, all the time. In his mind there's a difference between a bar that might have a bar area, and then a dance floor with a DJ; and a club, which is a big space that's exclusively dance floor, or several different dance floors. The former are apparently legion in New York but I can think of very few that I've been to.

[davy]

Interestingly, in Athens, you can identify at least three more place-types in this category: the pub, the lounge, and the "other" (your "theatres," your "clubs," and your unspecifieds, i.e. "The Manhattan" or "The Melting Point").

Each has its own loose set of rules.

[coldforge]

I kind of want to go clubbing/dance-barring now. I feel bad that my only real experience of these places is through beer and personal hygiene commercials.

[Greg Nog]

You and I should team up, Ed Hardy Boys style

[coldforge]

What a good fucking idea.

[elpollodiablo]

I'd also be down for something like that, but alas, I'm a fattie and probably wouldn't make it in. Because clubs are horrible.

Everything cf said upthread is true, though; the only people I know who frequent clubs are dance kids and terrible people like our young Vassar grad, who has told me in as many words that she enjoys going clubbing for, among other reasons, the potential for violence.

[coldforge]

I couldn't let you come along, pollo, because your hatred and loathing would be so palpable that you'd probably disrupt the experiment.

[elpollodiablo]

I've actually had a decent time at each of the two NYC clubs I've visited, but they were for specific events, not the usual crowd.

I would like to go dancing, though! They had these Dance or Die events at my favorite indie/metal bar back home where such as B&S and New Order, &c. might be played.

[coldforge]

Turn off that pussy shit, man. LET'S GET SOME BASS IN THIS BITCH

[narlus]

I kind of want to go clubbing/dance-barring now. I feel bad that my only real experience of these places is through beer and personal hygiene commercials.

that's about the extent of my experience too, and i'm ok w/ it staying that way.

no interest in dancing, not interested in dealing w/ the likes of people who've been described above, and the whole concept of waiting in line for the pleasure of seeing if you're 'cool' enough to get in (and pay $ for the privilege) isn't something that excites me.

[elpollodiablo]

Also this, all morning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_qQjQLBD2A

[dumbfish]

Supporting the notion that it's different here, and it's not just definitions. Club to me = bar composed mainly of dance floor, often with a cover charge for dudes. They exist here, and lots of people go to them, but (generalizing here) not the folks you'll see at an indie show.
Whenever I go to a house party and some folks from other countries show up, they're always shocked by how little dancing goes on. It's a shame, too, because on the rare occasions it gets going, it's happy good times. Something our too-cool self-consciousness seems to have killed, for the most part.

[elpollodiablo]

For a long time I was too pent up to dance, but my self-consciousness definitely did not stem from thinking of myself as too cool.