Clubbing with James Tran

Retro

5 minutes at the Coogee Legion Club: Saturday 3rd July 2010

by James on Jul.03, 2010, under Coogee Legion Club, Retro

OK, before going into Coogee Bay Hotel, I saw a little dancefloor on the other side of the road. Let’s check it out while we are here!!

360 video:
YouTube Preview Image

Well this was the dancefloor. Everyone here is really old and I’m feeling very out of place. Two older women like our basic dancing. The other guys questioned what we were doing here.

The DJ looked about 40 or 50, and was playing a lot of retro songs.

Left out of boredom and shame.

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Saturdays @ The Harp of Erin Hotel, Wollongong NSW: 17th April 2010

by James on Apr.17, 2010, under House, Retro, Rock, The Harp of Erin, Wollongong

In front of a brave Karaokeist @ The Harp of Erin, Wollongong

In front of a brave Karaokeist @ The Harp of Erin, Wollongong

We have decided to spend a day in Wollongong to see the wildlife at night. We have been recommended by the locals to check out The Harp for pre-drinks, so here we go!

Saturdays @ The Harp of Erin Hotel, Wollongong NSW
Assessment Time: 22:15PM -23:30PM
Opening Hours: Unknown, but it is a bar, so typical bar hours, which would be 10am – 3am.
Website: http://www.harpoferin.com.au
Address: 124 Corrimal St, Wollongong NSW
Dress Code / Door Policy: Anything goes. it is a bar, so most casual clothes can get away with it. Hats are not allowed in here.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free entry for both the bar karaoke area as well as the dancefloor area.
Inside: Walking into the main entrance you are presented with the main room where there is a karaoke thing going on. Get up and sing! they say. The standing area holds 150 or so people, and there is a stage on the right, where you stand up to sing, or where a band can play. Bar is to the left. A wall divides this area from the second area – The second area has a central bar, surrounded by tables and stools. On one side is an enclosed area which is the dancefloor, and it is sligly elevated from the rest of the room. It holds about 60 or so people .
Cloak Room: None
Bar: Standard beer prices
Music: House music in the dance room. Typical bar karaoke music in the karaoke room. The types of music you will be subjected to range from rock to retro.
Crowd: Mostly locals, some sydneysiders – with most being caucasian.
Entertainment: Karaoke of course! But only in the karaoke room.
Atmosphere: Karaoke room – busy the whole time we were there. In the clubbing room, the general atmosphere in the bar was busy, but not packed. A good balance to allow us a bit of room to dance.
Video:360 view of the Karaoke Bar Side
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Video: Walkthrough on the younger side, with dancefloor entry:

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(continue reading…)

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Saturdays @ The Mean Fiddler: 30th January 2010

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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Saturdays @ The Retro Bristol Arms Hotel Sydney (Halloween 2009)

by James on Oct.31, 2009, under Retro, RnB, The Retro (Bristol Arms Hotel)

We were smashed, and just left a 21st Halloween party. Looking for a place to go.. Oh look what’s around the corner – the Retro! Here we go!

Outside line at The Retro Hotel Sydney

Outside line at The Retro Hotel Sydney

Saturdays @ The Retro Bristol Arms Hotel

Assessment Time: Midnight – 1am
Website: http://www.theretro.com.au
Address: 66 Sussex st Sydney ?
Dress Code: Anything goes. Every weekend is a theme night.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free if you are dressed in theme. Otherwise it’s $20 (or $25)
Guestlist: guestlist@theretro.com.au
Inside: 3 levels of dance. Contemporary at the bottom, Retro in the middle, and old school rnb at th etop. We were only on the rnb floor most of the night so there wasn’t much to review about.
Cloak Room: None
Music: Dance and rnb, Retro from the 90s, 80s and early 2000s
Crowd: 20′s and 30′s crowd
Atmosphere: Most saturdays they have themed nights where people come in dressed up, and it adds to the atmosphere. Atmosphere is pretty party vibe like, and the nostalgic music gets you going.
360 video: This is of the top level.
YouTube Preview Image (continue reading…)

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Homemade Saturdays @ Home Nightclub – 9th September 2009

by James on Sep.09, 2009, under Home, House, Pop, Retro, RnB

We finished a wedding out west. I am in my tuxedo and I feel awesome. I was also smashed. The city was 1 hour away. I didn’t care. I was in a tux – We were going clubbing!! Luckily I had some friends at Home Nightclub…

About Home Nightclub:
Location: Cockle Bay wharf, Darling Habour
Website: http://www.homesydney.com
Inside: All rooms except the mid-wall room was open. Main room on the floor, with upstairs balcony area and 2nd bar. Outdoor smoking area connected to this. A 2nd smaller room on the 2nd level. 3rd level are 2 extra rooms. This place is a maze of rooms.

About Homemade Saturdays:
Assessment Time: 1.30am-3.30am
Dress Code: Casual ok. I was wearing my tuxedo from the wedding. You also get fingerprinted and photo scanned on the way in.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25
Guestlist: See website
Cloakroom: Yes, at the bar near at the DJ eng.
Bar: $12 yaberbombs.
Music: House in the main room. Can’t complain, all the commercial house tunes were being played. Actually it was executed quite well here. There was also a saxophone player to add another dimension to the music – much like the Bongo players at Bungalow  and Cargo Bar.

Supporting saxaphone player used to great effect with the music

Supporting saxaphone player used to great effect with the music

RNB room – RNB of course – but I wasn’t there long enough.

Party tunes and retro at the top level. They seemed to have combined all the rooms into one major huge event.
Crowd: Mixed – Asians, Euros
Atmosphere: Party and vibing in the main room. However the other rooms seemed pretty dead. Especially the RNB room as nobody was there – it was the most dead room of them all. There were a hundred other places where you could have your proper rnb fix – and Home Nightclub doesn’t seem to be popular right now as the place to be for it.

360 from the main podium

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Timeline:
Kicked off the podium by the sexist DJ
There are girls up at the front dancing. Drunk old me wants a dance too! I went up and danced for a good 50 seconds. Then I hear a:

DJ: “OI!”
James: (turns around)
DJ: “GET OFF THE STAGE – NOW!!!”
James: (jumps off stage)

Man.. what a cold DJ. Given, he probably has a lot of drunk guys coming up onto his stage, but fuck you anyway Mr DJ, even if you played really good beats. A minute later I have my female friend go up and dance, and there was no objections. Total sexism!!! (continue reading…)

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Melbas Nightclub (Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast) – Sat 1st August 2009

by James on Aug.01, 2009, under House, Interstate Clubs, Melbas (Gold Coast), Retro, RnB

Ly and I are following girls outside The Bedroom nightclub, being the single men that we are.
Somehow with all the walking, we ended up outside Melbas.. we were still full of energy, so here we
go!
Melbas Nightclub
Assessment Time: 02:40am-04:30am
Website:
Address:
Door Policy / Dress Code: Casual OK
Cover Charge / Entry Fee: $10. Free if a guestlist was organised
Guestlist:
Inside: Two levels. Ground has lengthy bar in the middle. Stools / tables everywhere. An outdooe
seating area. Out the back is a dancefloor. Upstairs is more cosy. VIP area at back for private
functions?, 3 large podiums at the front dance area. 2 Poles to dance with. I can’t think of any
place in Sydney that has poles! (The retro might have some but I can’t recall). Long bar on the side
wall
Bar: Short to no lines, thanks to the huge bar. Pricing unknown as we scored free drinks all night.
Music: Downstairs is Retro / Classic music, while upstairs is primarily house but the occasional
rnb/pop mashup as well.
Crowd: Dominantly White Aussie. I think me and Ly were the only asians here. No problem, everone was
friendly here. People of all ages were about. It does remind me of The Retro Bristol Arms back in
Sydney, but in a cooler manner here.
Video Tour:
Right after we got inside
Timeline:
Bypassing the Entry Fee:
Girl: “$10″.
That was enough for me and Ly to not enter Melbas. It was almost 3am already.
We walked out and bumped into a man:
Man: “Hey, do you want free entry into Melbas?”
Us: “sure!”
Man: “Here, put these on”
He gave us a MELBAS wristband each, and an extra two just because he didn’t need them. Surely there
was a catch…
Man: “There’s no catch. Go upstairs and these wristbands will give you access to the bar tab all
night”
SOMETHING IS WRONG, but how could we refuse so many free things?
Walk up to the same girl, but this time we showed her our new wristbands
Girl: “Oh that’s strange…
Me: (gulps)
Girl: “… you haven’t got stamps! Let me stamp you”. Wow.
So we got stamped in for free!
Trying to get free drinks
We had our new wristbands, which gave us the power. So we marched upstairs to the bar and ordered
some drinks.
Girl: “That’ll be $20″
So we showed her our wristbands
Girl: “Ill have to check with the manager”
She walked to the manager. He looked at us, and we madly shook our wristbands. We’re just tourists!!
Girl: “Manager says ok”
Yes! We had access to the bar tab!! So we plied ourselves with free drinks all night, thanks to a
stranger on the street.
The VERY FIRST video of me dancing!
Dear Reader – you are about to witness the very first video of me dancing at a club. After 2 years
of blogging, I suppose it is about time a video was made. Watch as I pick up two girls through the
sheer power of DANCE:
YouTube Preview Image
Ok, ok…  so that was pretty embarassing. Though, dancing with me is an HONOUR, why don’t girls
understand this?

Ly and I are visitng the Gold Coast. We just left The Bedroom nightclub, and we are following girls, being the single men that we are. Somehow, we ended up outside Melbas..  so here we go!

Melbas Nightclub

Assessment Time: 02:40am-04:30am
Website
: http://www.melbas.com.au
Address
: 46 Cavill Avenue, Surfers Paradise QLD
Door Policy / Dress Cod
e: Casual OK
Cover Charge / Entry Fee
: $10. Free if a guestlist was organised
Guestlist
: Email info@melbas.com.au
Inside
: Two levels. Ground has lengthy bar in the middle. Stools / tables everywhere. An outdoor seating area. Out the back is a dancefloor. Upstairs is more cosy. VIP area at back for private functions (?), 3 large podiums at the front dance area. 2 Poles to dance with. I can’t think of any place in Sydney that has poles! (The retro might have some but I can’t recall). Long bar on the side wall
Bar
: Short to no lines, thanks to the huge bar. Pricing unknown as we scored free drinks all night.
Music
: Downstairs is Retro / Classic music, while upstairs is primarily house but the occasional rnb/pop mashup as well.
Crowd
: Dominantly White Aussie. I think me and Ly were the only asians here. No problem, as everyone was friendly here. People of all ages were about. It does remind me of The Retro Bristol Arms back in Sydney, but it seemed cooler here.

Melbas Nightclub - Upper Level

Melbas Nightclub - Upper Level

Video Tour:
Right after we got inside. Ground level and moving upstairs:

YouTube Preview Image

(continue reading…)

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Places to dance for the older generation??

by James on Jul.20, 2009, under Clubbing Thoughts, Retro

I met a lady and she laughed at me, when I told her I advised a reader to celebrate her 40th at The Retro Bristol Arms. I didn’t know any other place to recommend, without her feeling out of place while also playing retro music.

She said she could have listed at least 4 other places where the birthday girl could have celebrated her 40th. She refused to tell me though, but she hinted at one place where you have dinner and later a DJ comes out and plays some party tunes (somewhere in the Cross), but other than that, she didn’t give me any names.

WHERE ARE THESE OTHER PLACES???

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