Clubbing with James Tran

Blacktown RSL - We were at the station. 30 minutes until the next train. So we went to Blacktown RSL to dance. There was a band playing tribute songs and we danced for 5 minutes before we had to leave. The crowd was 30s and older.

Me and the band - Blacktown RSL (we were here for 4 minutes)

Albion Hotel,  Parramatta
Me and C outside of Albion Hotel. It’s currently the best place to be in Parramatta on Saturday nights. Good euro crowd, and music is mixing between RNB and House. We ask some other punters who just left – they said it was packed and pretty good. Cover charge is $15. C hears the house music inside and doesn’t want to go in. So we leave. We ask a local and she says there isn’t much else. So we try to get back in but the bouncer says its a 1am lockout. The time was 1.01am.

Collectors Hotel, Parramatta
The music was ok, but the venue looked small. Didn’t look like a nightclub. The line was long, and full of Islanders. Not my or C’s kinda crowd. We left

Roxy hotel, Parramatta
Closed! What on earth? We had wondered why there were no Saturday night pictures on the Roxy website.

So we left Parramatta at 1.30am to go home.

Coda / Recommendation
Saturday night Parramatta area recommendation is Albion Hotel. There isn’t much else out west, except The Mean Fiddler. Also get to these places a bit earlier. 1am lockouts suck.

Related:

• Sundayze @ The Albion Hotel Parramatta: Sunday 20th December 2009
• RNB-NuSoul @ The Albion Hotel (Gasworks Nightclub) – Thursday 17th Sept 2009
• Funky (Buddha) @ Sanctuary Hotel: Saturday 26th June 2010
• Funky (Buddha) @ Sanctuary Hotel: 19th June 2010
• Quickie: Saturdays @ The Argyle: 8th May 2010

Leadup: Night at the Roxy
After a casual dinner with friends, me and Martin decided to go to Roxy Hotel’s “suburban” rnb Friday night for clubbing. He hadn’t been for ages. The line was massive but progressed quickly. They were making sardines out of us.

“I’m sorry. I cannot allow you to get in tonight. You’re dressed too casually”

What?

I looked at Martin and I looked at myself. Martin was dressed in a slick outfit – black pants, collared shirt, nice black jacket, and a modified waist belt as a neck choke. I, on the other hand, was dressed in a cotton t shirt, and a pair of faded light grey jeans (they used to be black) with rips all down along with a massive hole at the base, to compliment my dirty sports shoes. I was still groggy from last night. My hair was a mess. Frankly, I looked like shit, and Roxy wanted none of it.

Leadup: Cabramatta love
Feeling very dejected I felt like going home. Martin was still open. We took a trip to find the recently opened club 888 at Cabramatta Leagues club, which I heard about in a radio ad. It was a 30 minute drive. We were going clubbing tonight no matter how shitty the location.

Leadup: Finding Cabrabrandi
The only problem was that we didn’t know where the leagues club was. We first got to a club where I thought it was, but it was the Cabramatta Bowling Club. We went to the other side and saw the CabraVale RSL. They pointed us to the right spot. It was on the end of railway st, smack in the middle of nowhere. Cars were everywhere. Packed. Here we go…

About Club 888 @ Cabramatta Leagues Club:
Location: At the southern end of Railway Street, Cabramatta
Cover Charge: $10
Music: Trance. Not that happy hardcore crap, just normal trance that you have a chance to dance to.
Crowd: Dominated by Vietnamese people who are probably living locally. The majority are mature. Mature as in their late 20′s and 30′s. Dare to say 40 something year olds were there too. Nothing too much to get excited about. Atmosphere: Dark inside, smoke machine, and light strobes add to the loud trance experience. Crowd is somewhat friendly. Hard to tell in Cabramatta.
The venue: on entry, you are facing the square dance floor with the DJ out front. Hard tables and chairs on both carpeted sides provide a resting spot. The bar is on the left within an enclosure to minimise the music. Smoking area is outside but being Cabramatta, everyone smokes inside. There is a medium sized floor with enough to hold everyone.

Tonight’s timeline:
I got in the club with my daggy outfit. So did a whole heap of other guys. Most were crammed on the floor. Most were also late 20 to 30 something year olds.

Cha cha cha
These guys only knew the solo cha cha, and they were solo cha cha-ing to the trance music like zombies. There were no circles, just rows of people who look like they’re going to line dance. At least they were trying to dance, which is better than shark bar any night. There was one guy going well, but only in the back carpeted area. There was nobody out on the floor to inspire and lead. Martin and I waltzed right up front and swazzled the crowd with some moves. Martin was exceptionaly enthusiastic considering he hadn’t been clubbing this year at all (a downer of having a girlfriend). Definitely better than I was!

The only hottie
I bumped into cassie who I met from VSA. She didn’t know my name. She and her friend were probably the youngest there. Cassie said there were other VSA people here earlier but had left. Kevin ‘the gay guy’ was the best ever dancer I had ever seen from VSA.. Anyway I digress. Cassie’s friend was hot. Problem was that she was dating Martin’s brother. Talk about torturing a brother while not being there.

Man vs smoke machine
Everytime the smoke machine blew smoke, Martin and I would run towards it and dance in it like little kids. Anyway, a guy was leaning over the stage taking a breather. Suddenly the machine spits out a huge plume of smoke – right in the unsuspecting face of our recovering victim. Hahaha !

Anyway, the guy didn’t flinch! He was either because pretending it wasn’t there, or he was just so tired he didn’t move. After a few seconds the smoke cleared and I could see him again. Then.. the machine roared up and blew another fogworthy cloud of white in his face again! HAHAHA! He moved away this time – good work.

Man vs sleep
We moved to the back carpeted area where some space was. We did some crazy moves. Martin saw a guy standing up not doing much. We went up to him. Martin stood face to face and danced land waved in front of his eyes. No reaction. I had a look. This guy had his eyes shut. He was sleepdancing! It wasn’t really dancing. It was more swaying left and right. I thought he had taken some drugs or alcohol, or both. In any case, everyone around thought it was funny.

Wet floor
The floor always was wet at the front. Surely nobody sweats that much! It wasn’t sticky like someone had dropped their drinks. I later found out people were putting water on the floor so that they could dance easier! Who and what the hell? Must be a trance or cabramatta thing. It worked though, I nearly slipped a few times.

An abrupt end
One of the guys who has been drinking all night is ejected for being too drunk. Security stops the music and kicks everyone out. It was 2:50am.

Outside there was a shirtless guy with tattoos all over. He wanted to fight another drunk guy, for reasons unknown. He was yelling in Vietnamese, and I tell you, it sounded scary.h is friends were holding him back from fighting the other guy, and likewise for guy 2. We left in case they brought out their knives and decide to give everyone haircuts.

Coda + Post Mortem
I’d only go here if i was trapped in the west cabramatta with no trance place to go.

(Got some pork rolls at the 24 hour pork roll place at Cabramatta. Yeah you heard me. 24 hour pork rolls!! )

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Pre-dance warm up
It was Saturday. 11pm. I had just left a Muslim wedding, thinking it was going to be a Hindi one with song and dance. Well, it was Muslim, and apparently Muslims don’t dance at weddings.

So I was somewhere between campbelltown and liverpool, grass and cows in between. I needed to dance. There was apparently a place in liverpool (nox?) but I couldn’t find it. The closest good venue was Roxy at Parramatta. Here I go.

About Roxy Saturday tonight
I’ve covered Roxy before so here are the essentials:
Cover charge: $10
Crowd: euro white
Atmosphere: cool. Empty though.

Timeline:
Easy come easy go: Got there in 30 mins by car. Parking outside was a breeze. I was 3 cars from the entrance. No line. No hassle. Got inside. It was just before midnight where the crowd is at it’s peak. I find that half the floor was closed. There were no more than 40 people! Small but the small space made it cosy. I must have missed a big week again. I wondered why I didn’t go to cabravale RSL instead and dance with the over 40 year olds there.

Well. I was here. So I danced. There was another enthusiastic dancer. He approached me and we got along and hung out until they left. He was with a friend and his girl. I should really learn to be more friendly towards a fellow good dancer if I’m alone.

Clubbing experience: Yes, it was a bit lonely. However the music was banging, the place was crowded for a small area, and everyone seemed to be here to dance and enjoy. The music played was commerical house. Loved it, cause everybody got to sing along and all that whiz whaz.
A security guy to remember: Near closing time (2am!) I was walking around. One of the security guards steps in my way. He stops me in the middle of my way. He’s all excited and chatting to his fellow guard. He’s pointing at me. I get closer.

“Hey! Remember me!?”

I’m looking at him. I had a feeling he was the bouncer who saw me at Pontoon bar back in May. That night it was a bit of a bore, so I stepped into the sparse area and went nuts. The crowd loved it and I got joined by fellow crazy people who were too afraid to go on the floor earlier.

“From Pontoon?”

“Yes!!”

Wow. This was totally trippy. It’s been like 4 months. Maybe he doesn’t get to see many good dancers. His name was Jimmy. How can you forget a name like that.

Coda
Well that was my night. A quick two hours. If only the crowd were a little friendlier. Well actually.. if only there were more people. It’s still a good venue for a westie night out.

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After last night’s bad night at space, I was open to going to another club, but was feeling lazy and broke. Then suddenly An calls. He suggested we go to Roxy @ Parramatta. I jumped out of my seat and was raving to go.

I messaged everyone to come, but no. They did not share my enthusiasm and were all out doing their own Saturday night thing. I love last minute planning. So it was just me and An.

This should be fun..

About Roxy Saturdays

Where?
The Roxy Hotel,

Cover Charge:
Tonight was $10. Wow. So cheap!
Guestlist: Free entry before 11pm. You need to book an ‘official event’ through Roxy, such as a birthday, to get a guestlist running.

Music:
Commercial house.

Clubbing area:
The Roxy is a big place. Half of it is an outdoors / restaurant area. The other half is the dance area. You walk up the stairs to the main clubbing area, whereby you are presented with a huge room split in two areas by a bar. One half is the dance floor and the other half is the carpeted lounge.
The dance floor is split into two sections. The left side has the DJ playing and people dancing. The other side also has people dancing around, but no DJ. It’s got chairs and stuff for people to sit down. So in general, there isn’t much surface area on the dance floor, but the venue atmosphere is so slick and nice you feel it’s quite busy.

Crowd and Atmosphere
Aussies and Euros. Everyone dressed looked real good and were pretty friendly. I think I only bumped into one drunk person in the toilet. He was raving on about the Long Island Tea he had and recommended I got one for myself.
Tonight wasn’t as packed, so the venue did have some scattered spots. Not empty enough though to scare you off. I think it was because next Saturday the Bang Gang DJ’s are coming to Roxy, so I am assuming people were saving their $20 to go to that instead.

Tonight the crowd seemed more interested in chatting each other up, which was I guess half the reason why people go.

(continue reading…)

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