The oldest black and Chinese communities in the UK are located in Liverpool. The area where those communities settled, Liverpool 8, played host to scores of small, black-owned nightclubs. L8: A Timepiece takes a look at the significance of those clubs to that community and the bands that worked those clubs. Last year, Tate Liverpool hosted From Freetown to Motown, an erudite discussion of the history of Liverpool's black music scene between legendary electro-funk DJ Greg Wilson (previously), and one of the legendary DJs to come out of the L8 club scene, Les Spaine
posted by PeterMcDermott on Jan 24, 2011 - 9 comments

Dommune is a fairly new nightclub in Tokyo. It's only open Sunday through Thursday night and they close at midnight. The room only holds 50 people. Nevertheless, the place attracts top-flight talent; Jeff Mills, Derrick May, Claude Young, Prosumer, and Shed have all performed. What's the gimmick? Every party is streamed live. (from mnml ssgs) [more inside]
posted by mkb on Aug 11, 2010 - 20 comments

Homophobia is still alive and well in... San Francisco?! The DNA Lounge, the high-tech nightclub of former Mozilla/Netscape wunderkind Jamie Zawinski, has apparently run afoul of the local Alcohol Beverage Control board. In 2008, during a period of time when the DNA Lounge -- with SFPD and neighborhood approval -- successfully appealed an ABC decision blocking the club from offering all-ages live music, the ABC sent agents into the club during their GLBT nights, and are now trying to shut the club down for "lewdness", "discrimination", and "running a disorderly house injurious to the public welfare and morals".(NSFW!) The DNA is determined not to go quietly into this goodnight.
posted by markkraft on Mar 1, 2009 - 36 comments

Mixed With Love: The Musical World Of Walter Gibbons: "This tale begins with a skinny white DJ mixing between the breaks of obscure Motown records with the ambidextrous intensity of an octopus on speed. It closes with the same man, sick with Aids and all but blind, fumbling for gospel records as he spins up eternal hope in a fading dusk. In between, Walter Gibbons transformed the art of DJing and marked out the future co-ordinates of remixology." [more inside]
posted by Len on Feb 7, 2008 - 6 comments

Moscow's decadent post-Communism nightclub scene. Stalin's yacht pushes up the Moscow River at eight a.m., and nobody cares if you missed it. The world's longest-running after-party just keeps going. In a shipboard ballroom, Russia's lucky few tend to their good time. Music like a lot of loud nothing pounds through the girls lathered in Valentino, Gaultier, and Bulgari. Defying you with their eyes, they throw off a kind of heat that has never burned you before. The men with money and new style hang around the edges with satisfied smiles, their low-vibrating calm punching through thousand-dollar sunglasses. They'll kiss you, they'll kill you, you'll know where you stand.
posted by fet on Jul 25, 2006 - 50 comments

Remember Hanging Out And The World Out There? This invigorating article by Jay Walljasper in the current Utne Reader, lists 60 favourite gathering places in the U.S. I half-expected MetaFilter to figure prominently. But then, all of a sudden, it hit me. And I felt guilty about forgetting the real outdoor, face-to-face meaning of the lost art of hanging out . Well, I plan to make amends this weekend. I'll be hanging out at my favourite café in Lisbon - the beautiful eighteenth-century Nicola - where table-to-table political discussions, flirting, studying, hot buttered toast and almost illegally caffeinated espressos are de rigueur. So what's your favourite hang-out? If and when you can tear yourself away from your computer, that is...
posted by MiguelCardoso on Mar 5, 2002 - 62 comments

"This is the toughest atmosphere for nightclubs in New York since Prohibition"
posted by palegirl on Aug 4, 2001 - 14 comments