Clubbing with James Tran

My weekly spam last month came in – There was a secret warehouse party going on! A bus to take us to a secret warehouse for dancing all night. Sounded good, so bought my tickets and off we went – here we go!

Boarding the bus to the secret warehouse location!

Secret Warehouse Party @ Unknown Location

Assessment Time: 09:30PM – 03:00AM
Opening Hours: 09:00PM – Unknown, but probably 4 or 5AM
Lockout: None, but good luck trying to find this place in the first place.
Address: Unknown. Somewhere in Alexandria/Erskineville, Sydney. We met at the Alexandria Hotel and were shuttled by buses to the location of the warehouse.
Promoter Website: Tonight there were two promoters. I bought my tickets from http://www.funkdafied.com.au .. I can’t remember who the other promoters were.
Occurence: Appears to be a once off party. Promoters have promised similar ones in the future.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Anything goes. Everybody though is wearing casual or smart casual. Girls are in dresses, but not too glammed up.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Presold tickets only were $30 each.
Guestlist: All tickets are presold.
Inside: The venue appears to be a large hall for at least 1000 people with multiple studios attached. 2 of these studios were open as smaller dance rooms to hold 100 or so people each. The main hall floor space is about double the size length wise of Home Nightclub. Bar at each of the rooms. Smoking areas outside each of the rooms.
Cloak Room: Cloak room was available, and everybody was using it, except me. I never learn my lesson from past experiences. Not sure what the pricing was.
Bar: Coronas $8. Red/White (House) $8. Vodka + Red Bull $10. Bars were sponsored by Red Bull. There was also a BBQ outside
DJs: Simon Caldwell, Peter Glass, Frenzie, Thomas Crown, Klevakutz, JC (Funkdafied), Mickey Morphingaz, Digital Love DJs, Karl Prinzen, Terry A, Lee Spatcher, Monkey Tennis DJs, Paul Guy.
Music: Main room was Funky House and US House. The Funkdafied room was Funk, Soul, Rare-Groove, Latin, Boogie – think of all the Blaxpoitation kind of stuff you would hear.. yup Exactly. The third room I can’t even remember, but it was messed up – Latino, Classical, who knows. The point was that tonight there was basically nothing from the 80s onwards being played in the 2 smaller rooms. I did catch in the main room a commercial house song being played, but that was once.
Crowd: Mostly local Aussies. 95% of the people here are at least 25+, with the average age probably being 35 or 40. These are the guys from the last clubbing generation, who have been displaced by the younger crowd of rnb, commercial lady gaga top 40 tunes/house, and hard music. Speaking of teenagers, there were none of these around. Wow! A blessing. I felt like a baby here.
Entertainment: There were some peacocked ladies with large feather things on the front stage looking pretty. In the funkdafied room there were also some dancers teaching us some classic funk moves. More on that later.
Atmosphere: It was very friendly in here. Everyone was having a good time. People are dancing in a kind of relaxed manner – or they didn’t know how to dance. In either case there was little seating to be had, so everybody had to stand up and either mingle or dance. Also from a big warehouse you would be scared there would be some empty patches of space but it was not to be – tonights event was sold out a few weeks beforehand, so the population was just right.
Video: Walkthrough of the main room and the Funkdafied room (3rd room did not know about until later)

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Related:

• Pretty Young Thing (PYT) Fridays @ Sapphire Lounge
• Saturdays @ Candys Apartment: 4th September 2010
• Fridays @ Scary Canary: 27th August 2010
• Saturdays @ Chinese Laundry: 14th August 2010
• Saturdays @ Coogee Bay Hotel: 3rd July 2010

Sydney Habour Bridge - 'We on a Boat' Cruise

Friends invited me onto this cruise – A reggae/funk dance cruise – I’ve never been on a day cruise and I’ve never been to a reggae event – so I put on my Mexican outfit and off we went – here we go!

We on a Boat – The Lady Rose Catamaran
Website: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=318543987561
Cruise Times: 1pm to 6pm
Course sailed: Departing King St Wharf, Darling Harbour, the boat sailed north then East under the harbour Bridge, past the Opera house to hang about Jackson’s bay, circling around the entire course twice before coming back to King St Wharf.
Weather Conditions: Sunny throughout the entire cruise. Humidity low and it was warm enough to not be afraid of massive sunburn.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Anything goes. Most people wore casual shirts, shorts. I had worn a mexican sombrero complete with my homemade poncho
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Tickets were available from Moshtix for $35 plus booking fee. At the door they were $40 or $50 I believe.
On Board Inside: This was a 2 level boat with a 3rd roof top level. Today, as the event was not sold out, only the bottom and rooftop level were open.
Cloak Room: None available. There were not many people anyway so there wasnt too much risk in leaving stuff lying around.
Bar: Didn’t drink today.
DJs: Nick Toth, JC, Levins, Fasmwa, Naiki, Di Tha DJ, Mickey Morphingaz
Music: Reggae and Dancehall on the top level the whole time. On the bottom level was also the same, with some funk and old school rnb thrown in.
Crowd: About half the crowd were Africans, and the rest of the crowd were split between whites and a contigent of asian dancers who were here, I am guessing, for the modern rnb, but of course, did not get it. Various ages between young and old. Mostly late 20′s or 30s.
Entertainment: There were MCs on both the rooftop deck and the bottom level. Often the MC would call upon the ladies to jump in front of the DJ to participate in games such as booty shaking competitions, grinding competitions, and reggae dancing styles. It’s truly amazing to see girls out there willing to participate in these games sober. All the men love it.
Atmosphere: Top level was relaxed party. People are dancing about on the chairs and on the floor, but in a way that can only be achieved by playing reggae and dancehall. (It’s hard to explain, you probably have had to be there to know what I mean) Most of the people were here for a dancing good time, and only a handful of people were sitting down the whole time. On the bottom level was different, as it was totally dead for most of the cruise. There was on average about five to ten people at the same time on the floor. At peak, the asian dance contigent started to dance when the funk music came out, and they pretty much had half the boat attendees gaping in awe as they go about their dance moves.

Top Level - We on a Boat Reggae Cruise

Breakdancers Bottom Level

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Related:

• Sundays @ Candy’s Apartment: 27th December 2009
• Sundayze @ The Albion Hotel Parramatta: Sunday 20th December 2009
• Sin City Nightclub (Surfers Paradise) – Sunday 2nd Aug 2009
• Quick Review: Promiscuous Disco (Sundays) @ Dragonfly (19/07/2009)
• Sunday @ Mars Lounge (Queen’s Long Weekend 2009)