8Sided Blog

a zine about sound, culture, and the punk rock dream

On the Guest List: VIP Clubbing Goes Virtual

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We hear a lot about virtual concerts, with artists and bands performing using various tools (Twitch, Instagram, YouTube, and so on). These tools were (at least) tangentially created for these uses. Twitch is perhaps the most appropriated, initially intended as a video gaming platform, and now hosting all manner of live experiences.

Zoom is now being led far astray from its original purpose. It’s a business conferencing platform transformed into an engine for the likes of happy hour meet-ups, birthday celebrations, and family check-ins. Despite its immediate growing pains and merited controversies, Zoom is leading the isolation zeitgeist, inspiring memes, and brilliant #stayathome music videos:

Bands are successfully adapting their performances and experiences to the livestreaming space, but what about the nightclubs? That leads to another unexpected role for the Zoom platform: the virtual VIP club. As this article in Bloomberg reveals, “Just as a choose-your-own-adventure book hacks the static nature of a novel, these parties are hacking corporate technology for new purposes.” Here’s more:

In some senses, if you’ve been to one Zoom club, you’ve been to them all. The platform’s layout is always the same: A featured musician performs a set underneath a carousel of small windows with voyeuristic views into people dancing or lounging in their homes. Channeling the true spirit of nightlife, it’s up to the crowd to create the party’s vibe via active participation—turning down the lights, throwing on a costume, talking to each other in the group chat. These social interactions can feel new and awkward, but we’re hungry for it.

These ‘clubs’ are more elaborate than you might think. Zoom’s technology allows for multiple rooms, including ‘secret’ rooms that require a password. Each room can have a theme, or a DJ, or a dress code. There are sponsors — according to the article, Red Bull and Paper Magazine are in on the act — as well as bouncers and mingling celebrities. And ideas for monetization are materializing.

The biggest Zoom nightclubs — and some of them are quite big — were dreamed up by desperate promoters no longer able to throw parties in the meatspace. And, as happens with these things, finding ways around one set of limitations reveals new possibilities. As one promoter says in the piece, “We now have access to people who can’t attend clubs because they have children, social anxiety, disabilities, or live in places that don’t have clubs.”

The requirement is that we all agree a space — virtual or otherwise — is a nightclub. This idea reminds me of the time I was invited to an exclusive day time event on the beach in Miami. When I arrived, I found an impromptu nightclub, created by a large circle of folding chairs connected with rope. Inside the circle, there were about 50 people, a bunch of coolers serving as the bar, and a DJ priming the sandy dance floor. There was a cover charge — though you could hear the music just as well outside of the ring of chairs, you weren’t inside the circle (literally and metaphorically), so, incredibly, people were paying for the privilege. I knew the promoter and he motioned me in, like lifting some invisible velvet rope. I followed him into the ‘club’ and discovered there was an additional half-circle at the far end of the circle of chairs — a lip in the larger ring that served as the VIP room. Remember — this was all happening on an open public beach, an exclusive nightclub invented by some rope, a lot of folding chairs, and the participants agreeing on the idea.

It seems these spaces for creating community alongside a sense of exclusivity can exist anywhere. I admit, my first thought was a dismissive one upon hearing about the Zoom nightclubs, which is why I thought about Miami Beach. But now I see these virtual clubs as an inventive way for some promoters to adapt to the Strange Times and for stuck-at-home party people to recapture the clubbing experience. As with a lot of the recently concocted ad hoc solutions for maintaining a hint of normalcy, the concept will likely outlast COVID-19 and spawn new platforms. I’ll see you on the dance floor.

Update: I expanded on this post in the latest issue of my weekly newsletter. Check it out here.

Groove On: How DJs Created the 12″ Single

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The other day I wrote about music delivery and formats (CD, LP, streaming) and how these often influence music creation. This latest installment of Vox’s always excellent Earworm series flips this around. The video documents how the 12” single filled the need of ‘70s club DJs requiring songs with more time to groove and at higher fidelity than a 7” or LP track could deliver.

Here are a few quick thoughts on the video:

  • People tend to forget how long disco — and club culture — was an active underground movement before its mainstream overload. Some of the early dates in the video may surprise some. And though not strictly ‘disco,’ David Mancuso’s first Loft party was in 1970, as an early benchmark.
  • Can we note how cool it is that some contemporary DJs like Questlove and Orlando’s DJ BMF often go back to playing 7” vinyl sets, just as Nicky Siano once did? Not only is this throwback an homage and a connector to the past, but I think one becomes a better DJ — learning techniques to apply to modern digital methods — by stripping the practice down to its roots.
  • Paul Morley, appearing in the video, has a place in 12” history not mentioned in the piece. He was a co-founder — alongside Trevor Horn — of ZTT Records and an original Art Of Noise member. Morley’s input was mainly in the label’s image, branding, and writing the grandiose label copy and manifestos that accompanied each release, but he certainly had a say in the label’s groundbreaking music direction. One element of that direction: ZTT 12” mixes weren’t merely extended versions. These were complete reworks of the original songs, with new instrumentation, drum tracks, and even extra vocals. This type of remixing is normal in dance music now — a simple extended version is a rarity — but, in ZTT’s time, it was a radical technique. I’m not sure if any label was doing these types of remixes before ZTT. My favorite ZTT rework/remix? This one for Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Rage Hard” which takes the listener on a tour of the “strange world of the 12”.”
  • I would have loved to have heard “I Feel Love” for the first time with fresh, unprepared 1977 ears. Brian Eno’s initial reaction was probably shared by many.