My very professional reviews of Smashed! Blocked! and Rebel Night
This article originally appeared on GaragePunkNYC.com, which certainly explains the next sentence.
Here are GaragePunkNYC.com we would like to think that we're more than just an event calendar. For the most part, we're not. However a couple of times a year one of the writers sobers up and then has something intelligent to say. Obviously that rules out Charles on both counts, but it does happen.
Today that would be me, and what I have to say is this: I actually go to some of those things on our event calendar and I have an opinion about them. Last night I went to Smashed! Blocked! for the third or fourth time, and to ABC Rebel Night for the first time. If you don't care, then stop reading now and go do something else... oh wait, it's freezing cold outside and you're broke anyway? Well now, I guess you're going to read this after all, aren't you?
A Note On Drink Prices
Sometimes I will use terms such as "standard Brooklyn prices" or "standard Manhattan Prices" to describe how much drinks cost at a particular venue. I am referring to the price of a mixed drink, usually a gin and tonic, made with the house liquor. Here is the key to cracking my code:
Price Name
$4-5 "Standard Brooklyn prices"
$5-6 "Standard Manhattan prices"
$7-8 "High-end Manhattan prices"
$9-10 "Fuck This"
$10.35 "Santos Party House" (aka "Double Fuck This")
$11 "I cannot count this high without getting
arrested so I'll just have a beer, thanks"
(Note: not actually true under normal
circumstances, but anyone charging me that
much for a gin and tonic deserves to get fed
a line like that.)
And now, on to the reviews:
Rebel Night
Rebel Night is also called "ABC Rebel Night" so that it will be listed before all of the other dance parties except of course for "AAAAA Party Night", which pretty much has a lock on first. It is bi-monthly at Otto's Shunken Head (third Friday) and The Warsaw (first Friday). The latter is also known as the Polish National Home in Greenpoint. One of these venues makes way, way more sense than the other, but this is a review of Rebel Night at The Warsaw anyway.
The fun begins at 10pm. DJs Sei, Kick, June and Hiromu spin 50s and 60s rock-n-roll dance music, and that is all. Do not request "Hey Ya" or you will learn how DJ Kick got his name (and you don't even want to know what "Hiromu" means). The space has two rooms, a smaller front room where the DJs spin and a more spacious back room connected by a short passageway on the side, like the handset of a payphone. The bar runs along the handle. You can dance in front or in back, but it seems to me that the best dancers like to hang near the DJs table, which doubles as a pool table.
The sound system is a bit unusual. The speakers look like the sort of thing you'd hook up to a computer, but there are lots of them mounted high on the walls. The back room must have a dozen or so speakers in it arranged around the edges. This gives a pretty even sound throughout the back room. The arrangement in front is a little less regular, but it's good enough.
Even in his Vegas years, Elvis would have felt underdressed at some of these rockabilly crowd events. I am happy to say that while you will find some of fancy duds and pompadours here, jeans and t-shirts are acceptable, at least on the fellows. Ladies get to wear a dress, or at least a skirt. Here's a tip for the ladies: if you wear a loose skirt and don't know how to keep it under control when you twirl then you will get asked to dance a lot.
Along those lines here's a tip for the fellows: if you see a woman standing at the edge of the dance floor looking restless, yes she does want you to dance with her. And yes you'd better know how because she is a fucking master. Solo dancing is also an option, but it's better to bring a partner and learn by watching and trying.
Of course you could just hang out at the bar as well. It's 30 feet long and staffed by one bartender. Drinks prices are the standard Brooklyn prices. The beer selection is limited but they have plenty of liquor. Unfortunately the mixed drinks are served in plastic cups which are only slightly larger than shot glasses. Perhaps they're medicine cups? I recommend sticking to the beer.
Smashed! Blocked!
A branch of the New York Night Train party pine, Smashed! Blocked! takes place at in the back room of Beauty Bar Manhattan on the first Friday of the month, even if it does start so late that it's practically the first Saturday of the month when it gets going (that's 11pm folks). DJ Josh Styles and monthly guest DJs spin mostly 60s sounds including garage rock, regular-old rock (I'm sure I've heard a Stones song there), soul, psych, and lots of good dance music.
At 11pm absolutely everyone is still in the front room of Beauty Bar Manhattan enjoying the intoxicating aroma of nail polish remover. It is rather similar to sniffing markers. Anyhow, the flow into the back room is gradual, with 11:30 being prime dancing time. Enough people are there to make it fun, but not so many that you're knocking people's drinks over or being spanked by someone's purse. That would be 12 midnight when that happens.
Around 12:30 the dance floor starts to resemble the average game of Tetris. Completely full except for just enough gaps to screw up your gameplan. People come through the entrance but never seem to make it further down onto the dance floor, they just stack higher and higher. Fortunately you don't have to go to the front room to get a drink (which wouldn't help anyway because the front room is still packed). The bar in back is well stocked, and drinks are standard Manhattan prices. Also there are some bathrooms in back, thank god. Fortunately, the crowd thins out as the night goes on.
There are definitely more guys than gals at the average Smashed! Blocked! There are many possible explanations for this, and the correct one is Anna Copa Cabanna and her "fellow" go-go dancers (who are of course actually female, I hope). These ladies take full advantage of the luxury of having enough room to dance while the rest of us don't. Then they go into the bathroom together and laugh at all the amateurs.
The sound system in the back room is REALLY FUCKING LOUD. I assume it has to be to drown out the other DJ in the front room, since the sound system in there is also REALLY FUCKING LOUD. I recommend bringing earplugs or, in cold weather, leaving your earmuffs on. With the wide variety and quality of fashion senses on display, nobody will care. Seriously, there was a fellow wearing a coonskin cap (with tail) at the last one, so don't worry about it.
In The Interest Of Fairness
Now, as some of our regular readers may be aware, certain members of our editorial staff (Charles Gaskins, DJ Shimmy) are affiliated with certain of the events which we pitch on this blog (Hullabaloo!, Hot Dog!) I am not, so I can rip into those guys all I want. And so, in the interest of being fair and balanced, here is my review of Hot Dog!
Hot Dog!
Every Tuesday night, Bar Matchless in Greenpoint becomes the swiss army knife of nights out. You can go there for 2-for-1 drinks, surprisingly good food, watch sports, play chess or foosball, try to get laid (the 2-for-1 drinks help here), and/or listen to music.
Hot Dog! features half as many explanation points as Smashed! Blocked! and an early start time: 8pm. The Hot Dog! DJs include regular 8-9pm guy DJ Jumpy and a rotating cast which includes just about everyone in Brooklyn who knows how to use a fader. The music they play includes Rhythm 'n Blues, Soul, Funk, 60's Garage Rock, 70's Punk, 60's Psych/Pop, 60's Teen Crazes, Rockabilly, Gospel and Doowop. Basically, exactly the sort of music the average twentysomething Greenpoint/Williamsburg bar-goer has never heard in their life except in the form of commercial jingles (Shout! It Out!).
Some people think dancing in clubs is just an excuse for people to go out and hook up. At Matchless they cut out the middleman: you don't have to dance to hook up, so nobody does (nobody dances that is – lots of people hook up). Actually, you may notice a few people in the back dancing and enjoying the music. That's how you can tell who this week's DJs are.
The crowd is generally about 60% female, with the remainder being 30% male and 10% skinny jeans wearers I was unable and unwilling to categorize, for a female:male ratio of 2:1. Most of them are members of the local artistic community who probably wouldn't have realized that 60:30 = 2:1 if I hadn't just spelled it out for them.
So in summary, if you're looking for a chance to kiss up to a bunch of promoters and other local music insiders so that maybe they'll book your band, go to Bar Matchless on Tuesday night and pretend that you're enjoying the music. It's called "Hot Dog!" Check out their MySpace page and you will double the number of hits it has had this year.
