Clubbing with James Tran

House

Satisfaction @ Tao Nightclub (Grand Opening): Saturday 20th February 2010

by James on Feb.20, 2010, under House, RnB, Tao

 

Tao Nightclub Sydney - Grand opening night : 2:30am

Tao Nightclub Sydney - Grand opening night : 2:30am / Bar Area

Just left a house party and I still want my dancing fix. Melly is at the Grand Opening of a new nightclub where the old Mandarin Club once stood. So here we go!

 

Satisfaction Saturdays @ Tao Nightclub

Assessment Time: 2:30am – 4:00am
Website: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=288588253950
Address: 396 Pitt St, CNR Goulburn St (Old Mandarin Club)
Dress Code / Door Policy: Advertised as “dress to impress”, but seemingly more relaxed about it at the door. Every guy inside though had a collared shirt, and the girls were all in dresses.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free for ladies before 11, $10 on birthday guestlist before midnight. $20 for all others.
Guestlist:  See facebook page for details
Inside: Beneath the now Mr B’s Hotel, Tao Bar/Nightclub is a small area split into even smaller areas – A carpeted area where most dancing occurs. It holds 50-80 people. There are two lounge areas on either side of the dancefloor. A DJ is along the wall. The wooden floor area is the general ‘lets stand around and chat each other up’ area with bar and some tables and stools. This particular area has a green and red spotted light thing dotting the area. It’s trippy.
Cloak Room: $5 per item.
Bar: $19 for 2 carlton draughts and a pure blonde. $16 jugs of beer before midnight
DJs: Xcentrik, R*One, Normz, Edo, Day-Day
Music: RnB most of the night, with the occasional commercial house song thrown in. If you have never been to an RnB asian club.. usually the RNB songs each get about 30 to 60 seconds of airplay before being mixed to another song, so its an anthology of choruses.. its sad if you want to hear the whole song, but with this format, it keeps the crowd going.. and going.
Crowd: Asian, the clean classy types. Not many teeny boppers. If there were any, they were cleverly disguised.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment besdies the MC. There was air conditioning though
Atmosphere: Small atmosphere, but a classy crowd with a “clean” venue keeps it viable to stay inside. By clean, I mean they have air conditioning in the standing area. However on the dancefloor there isn’t much air con and it may get a little stuffy.. but only a little as its not too packed when we got inside.

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Good Vibrations Festival Sydney: 13th February 2010

by James on Feb.13, 2010, under Centennial Park, Festivals / Raves, Good Vibrations, Hip Hop, House, RnB

A rainy day at good vibes

Good Vibrations Sydney 2010

I won two tickets to Good vibrations 2010 in a 25 words or less competition. ( I wrote a very clever line which I shall keep secret ). Matty made me enter the competition, so I gave the second ticket to him as reward. It was pretty hot midday so we bought some sombreros and awesome hologram sunnies at Market City and suddenly we were ready – so here we go!

Good Vibrations Festival @ Centennial Park

Assessment Time: 16:00 – 22:00 (closing time)
Website: http://www.gvf.com.au
Address: Centennial Park Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Anything goes, no dress code.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Prepaid tickets were $145 each. I won tickets to the show today.
Inside: There were 5 official big areas for the acts to appear. There were also 2 smaller sponsored areas for dancing as well.
Cloak Room: $5 per item
Bar: $8 light beers, $10 smirnoffs. Thanks to the cool weather, there weren’t so many people lining up for a bar, and we had some booze in our hands within 3 minutes of lining up.
Bathroom Line: Appalling at about 20 minutes
Acts: Salt-N-Pepa, Armand Van Helden, DJ Crazee, Aston Shuffle were the main acts we visited today. Other acts included Busta Rhymes, Naughty by Nature. The Killers and Friendly Fires (I was dying to see Friendly Fires) had pulled out of the Sydney show.
Music: A mix of Indie Rock, Hip Hop, and House
Atmosphere: Despite the pullouts, the atmosphere was buzzing throughout the whole day. People are everywhere and its quite good. Later in the early evening it starts to rain but not too hard, but it rains enough for people to get out their ponchos. Instead of being a downer, people embrace the rain and keep dancing and singing along. The rain is also a huge welcome as earlier it was pretty stinking hot earlier in the afternoon.


Videos:

Salt-N-Pepa : Let’s talka bout Sex + Man Dancing on Tent

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Everyone is cheering for this guy more than Salt N Pepa – hilarious – The poor guy was most likely kicked out, but for immortal fame in the eyes of thousands? Sure, why not.

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Saturdays @ Helm Bar Sydney: 6th February 2010

by James on Feb.06, 2010, under Helm Bar, House

 

Me in front of the DJ at Helm Bar sydney

Helm Bar Sydney in Front of the DJ

 

I’m a third party invite to a birthday at Helm Bar – and this weekend I’ve been so sick and its been pissing down buckets of rain the past few days as well as tonight, so I can only manage to go to a bar tonight, and not a club for a review – but regardless there is a dancefloor… so here we go!

Saturdays @ Helm Bar
Assessment Time: 11pm – 12:30am
Address: Aquarium Whart, Wheat Road, Darling Harbour Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Smart dress code applies. I wore a collared shirt, vest, jeans.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free, its just a bar.
Guestlist: None
Inside: One bar for the entire area split into two outdoor regions and the indoor dance area. One outdoor area is corderned off for the birthday for 60 people with stools and tables. Same with the other area. The inside dancefloor can hold maybe 150 people or so. DJ area is to the left corner, placed outside. Outside there are views of darling harbour, but mostly boats.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: 1 bar
Music: House, rnb – all modern contemporary commercial music
Crowd: General crowd were all dressed nice but hard to tell – mostly caucasian early to mid 20s crowd.
Atmosphere: It’s raining heaps outside, so the atmosphere isn’t so good on the dancefloor. It’s not too busy and not too dead, but its ‘bustling’ near the bar area.
360 Video
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Saturdays @ The Mean Fiddler: 30th January 2009

by James on Jan.30, 2010, under House, Retro, Rock, The Mean Fiddler

 

I wanted to show Marty out to the best club I’ve been to out west – The Mean Fiddler. So we booked a hotel room (oh yeah, its that far), got 2 other friends on board and off we went – here we go!

Saturday Nights @ The Mean Fiddler

Assessment Time: 11:00pm – 2:30am
Website: http://www.meanfiddler.com.au
Address: Cnr Commercial and Windsor Road, Rouse Hill (aka woop woop)
Dress Code / Door Policy: Can anyone say tight! There is a sign to help people know what is allowed and not allowed inside after 9pm. No hats no rat tails – all in check to make everyong equal and the same. I’m surprised there wasn’t a no asian policy. Tonight I wore pants, dress shoes, collared shirt, white bow tie and vest purchased earlier that day.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free for the woolshed and back bar. Sub bar (where the main DJ act plays) had a $15 cover charge. After 2am, it was free for all.
Guestlist: None
Inside: Enter into the woolshed where it doubles as a dining hall during dinner time. 3 bars line the walls and the stage is out at front. Holds a good 1000 or so people.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: 5 or 6 bars throughout the place. Woolshed bar waiting times were pretty long but if you were bothered to walk to the back, the line was much shorter of only 2 or 3 people.
Music: The back bar had mostly classic retro rock. Main bar had a live band playing retro and some contemporary music. Sub bar had house music going on. Since the last time I came here, the RNB room seems to have closed. It might be just open on Fridays.
Crowd: Sub Bar was more of the younger crowd but tonight it seemed to be oldies night! The combination of the retro music and the placing of the bar in the middle of woop woop has attracted hordes of the older crowd. That said .. almost everyone here is white. There are some minority groups represented here as well.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment besides the music
Atmosphere: Woolsheed spacious and big and fun. Back bar also fun and cosy. sub bar didnt really get to check out until after 2am but it looked pretty busy down there. After 2am only the real energetic party dancers remained.

Walkthrough video:

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Timeline
Almost kicked out?
We were rejected at the door for having hats on. So we put them back in the car. We walked in OK but not even one minute inside, a security bouncer grabs both me and Marty’s shoulders and were about to kick us out. Another bouncer says ‘don’t worry its ok’ and we are set free. Was it because we were wearing bowties? Who knows.
too sexy
How can you NOT let us into The Mean Fiddler??
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Fridays @ Bungalow 8: 8th January 2010

by James on Jan.08, 2010, under Bungalow 8, House

Was here for a friend’s farewell.. so here we go!
Fridays @ Bungalow 8
Assessment Time: 10.30pm-12.15am
Address: 3 Lime St Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: You must look sharp, nice dress shoes, pants and collared shirt are a minimum and should be enough to get in. No large groups of men. Avoid jeans and casual shoes such as chucks. I barely got in with black runners tonight, only because the rest of my outfit was pretty snazzy, I was alone in line and I was sober.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free
Guestlist: None, so if you get ‘guestlisted’, you’re deemed not good enough for the club based on your appearance
Inside: One large bar, with small dance area and DJ inside. Outside courtyard area surrounds the perimeter of the bar. Pretty ’spacy’ outside.
Cloak Room: None
Music: Mix of old school house and modern house. It’s not too hard, and pretty casual but good to dance to. Oh a very esoteric description there, but it was pretty generic safe music to play for a crowd like this.
Crowd: Older (and better behaved) crowd – people in their 20’s, 30s.  Mostly white.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment besides the DJ
Atmosphere: Strict dress code makes the place look good. Atmosphere was pretty much lets drink and dance, and enjoy the water views of Darling Harbour.
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