It’s Sunday morning, I’ve hardly slept. I have Sacred Skin’s song “Call It Off” running through my head and Depresion Post Mortem’s cover of “Yo Voy” fighting to overtake it. Still, I’m going to try to explain last night’s gig at Klub Nocturno in a way that people who normally don’t know what I’m rambling about will understand. It might not work, but we’ll try. (Scroll down if you just want to see the set list.)
Last night, Klub Nocturno took over Catch One, which is this massive, multi-room disco that has an amazing history going back to actual disco L.A. There were five dance floors of varying sizes going all night: Rock en Español vs. Cumbia, Indie vs. 80s, Deftones Night, Corrido Night and Sad Bunny Night. I played Indie vs. 80s in the Jewel’s Room, where the dance floor is on the ground level of the building and a staircase in the corner leads up to a mezzanine, where the DJ booth is located, before heading towards the second level of the club.
I have a view from the booth that overlooks the dance floor and stage. Usually, it’s not until right around 10 p.m. that I see the room begin to fill with people. Last night, I started playing at 9:30 on the dot and began to see signs of life on the dance floor three or four songs into the set. By the time I mixed “Rippin Kittin” into “Something to Remember Me By,” the dance floor was alive and growing.
The first time I heard people scream for a song that night was during “Love My Way,” the Psychedelic Furs classic, which was maybe at around 10:30 p.m. The energy was incredible. I’d look down and see this big mass of people under the purple and red glow of the lights. I could hear them singing along to The Strokes song “Reptilia” and Le Tigre’s big ’00s club hit “Deceptacon.”
When the intro of “Smalltown Boy,” the Bronski Beat’s jam, faded in at midnight, the screams were wild. TBH, that’s really the song of summer 2024, even though it’s literally 40 years old. I hear it everywhere from clubs to the A Line.
The room hit its peak at midnight. People chanted through “Living on Video” and sang along with “Two of Hearts.” There were dancers in the mezzanine lounge area too, so during the stretch from “Smalltown Boy” through “Goodbye Horses,” I felt like I was DJing in the middle of the dance floor.
It was one of those nights that passed all too quickly. I looked at my laptop, noticed it was after 1 a.m. and realized that I had to start dropping the big sing-a-long numbers— “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” “There Is a Light,” “Just Like Heaven”— immediately and try to squeeze in as many requests as I could. (I had more than four hours of requests, which came in before the party started, loaded into Rekordbox.) Anyhow, it was an awesome night and you can see my set list below.
Continue reading Here’s What I Played in the Indie vs. 80s Room at Klub Nocturno on August 31, 2024