Deidre Schoo for The New York Times
Mackswell Sherman, in green tank top, with Whitney Mallett after midnight at Bossa Nova Civic Club in Brooklyn.
Looking like engine parts from an alien spacecraft, the looming speakers
thundered with enough bass to make one’s esophagus flutter. Red LCDs
pulsed above. On the dance floor, a sea of guys in dress shirts nodded
under the rhythmic necromancy of DVS1, a D.J. from Minneapolis.
Away from the fray, clubgoers could be overheard invoking Berghain,
the German nightclub. Three models from the Netherlands, Italy and
Brazil clustered on a black banquette. “We had dinner with Tiesto,” the
Dutch model said, name-dropping a famous D.J. from her homeland.
One might expect such postprandial pastimes in Berlin, Ibiza or St-Tropez. But this was Brooklyn — or more precisely Output, a dance club that opened last January and is perhaps the brashest example of the city’s resurgent club scene.
A dozen years after Limelight, Tunnel and Twilo were shuttered by the
city, underground clubs are mounting a comeback, one elevated D.J. booth
at a time.
Brooklyn has been the crucible for the revival. In addition to Output,
two other clubs have opened there in recent months: TBA, a Eurocentric
lounge that occupies a former auto shop near the Williamsburg Bridge,
and Bossa Nova Civic Club, a spirited bar favored by avant-garde types.
In Manhattan, Verboten, a long-running deep house and techno party, has been hosting Friday-night sessions at the High Line
Ballroom in Chelsea. And Marquee, the former models-and-bottles
paradigm, has reopened with a high-tech dance floor and headlining
D.J.s.
The invasion has only begun. Sankeys, a beloved club from Manchester,
England, is being resurrected in New York’s garment district. Space NYC
is slated to hit Midtown, joining Pacha as another large-scale Balearic
import. And Verboten is expected to open a permanent home in
Williamsburg this summer.
“People are dancing again, and to good music,” said Luca Venezia, the founder of Trouble & Bass, a Brooklyn dance music label. “Night life has come back to life and seen the light.”
Clubgoers spent much of the last decade in the shadows. With a few
exceptions, dance clubs were relegated to one-off raves, party boats and
illegal spaces. “You’d go to some dingy loft or warehouse in Brooklyn
or Queens,” said Jordan Rothlein of Resident Advisor,
a popular Web site devoted to the scene. “Clubs were places to be seen
and to spend money, not places to experience music.”
In Manhattan, night life shifted to bottle service, Potemkin speakeasies
and suspender-bound mixologists. “The city has changed a great deal,
and I caught the last part of it,” said Peter Gatien, who ran a
nightclub empire in the ’90s that withered during the Giuliani
administration. “The powers that be wouldn’t allow any large-scale
decadence.”
The clubland revival is largely tied to the soaring popularity of
electronic dance music, or E.D.M., and music acts like David Guetta and
Swedish House Mafia. “A high tide raises all boats,” said Jen Schiffer, a
founder of Verboten.
But the new club owners are quick to point out differences. Unlike
maximalist E.D.M. or dubstep destined for Doritos commercials, the dance
music played at these new clubs (genres like techno, deep house and
trance) are darker and stripped of vocals. Listeners often bob in place,
facing the D.J., as opposed to clambering on tabletops with jeroboams
of rosé.
“It doesn’t have the same dramatic peaks and over-the-top feeling,” said
Mike Gwertzman of Sleepy and Boo, which books D.J.s for Marquee. “It’s
more about grooves and the sound system, the whole vibe that’s created.
It’s hypnotizing.”
The crowd is also more self-selective and democratic, although it can
feel less diverse at times, reflecting a city that has changed
dramatically over 20 years. Largely devoid of celebrities, velvet ropes
or the pretense of downtown cool, these clubs open their doors to anyone
willing to pay the cover charge.
“A lot of people were surprised Marquee went in this direction, but it’s
the future,” said Noah Tepperberg, an owner of Marquee, as well as Lavo
and Avenue. “The club business is cyclical. We’re seeing it come full
circle from the ’90s to now.”
Credit : NY Times
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