We spill a lot of ink on these pages devoted to music, but with
bands coming and going through town it’s sometimes easy to forget the
resident nights of DJ-ed entertainment that actually get you through
the week time and time again. And while it used to be a joke that
“Portland doesn’t dance,” the scene has blossomed with booming dance
parties of every genre, from the populist (’80s) to the esoteric (yacht
rock). We popped down to parties representing seven major scenes
(queer, hiphop, metal, goth, ’80s, soul, techno) to report back on each
night’s flavor, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of all
the danceable action in town. We hope you’ll check these nights out,
but we also just hope you’ll be inspired to explore Clubland on your
own. There’s a DJ out there for everyone, after all.
HIPHOP NIGHT
THE FIX W/DJS KEZ, OHMEGA WATTS, REV. SHINES, DUNDIGGY
“We don’t ‘Superman that ho’ at the Fix”
—DJ Kez
The above quote is from an online video focusing on weekly hiphop
throwdown the Fix. DJ Kez, the man responsible for the line, makes it
seem all too easy. The draw of the Fix—and there is indeed a
substantial draw, as I witnessed while watching the Someday Lounge
swell with a mixed bag of backpackers, heads, and anyone else who is a
true connoisseur of hiphop—is that the night is for those who
love hiphop. Not those who just have a passing interest in
hiphop. This is a night for those who would die for beats.
The murderers’ row of local talent—Ohmega Watts, Rev. Shines,
Dundiggy, and the aforementioned DJ Kez—has been cooking up the
action every Thursday since 2006. And while the location has
shifted—from the Night Light Lounge to the more dance-friendly
Someday Lounge—their message of feel-good music has never
wavered.
The Fix’s promoter/booker (“everything but actual DJ”) Connie Wohn
explains their musical range: “The fellas play a lot of funk,
soul, rare groove, Latin, dancehall, and any other music that is just
good.”
And if you need a celebrity endorsement, how about Nasir Jones? Nas
rolled into the Fix last month after his Roseland show. Says Wohn, “Nas
coming by was monumental, a total surprise. Nas is welcome anytime.”
Sorry Soulja Boy, that offer doesn’t apply to you. EAC
Thursdays, Someday Lounge, 125 NW 5th, 9 pm, free
QUEER NIGHT
PLEASURE BOYS W/DEE JAY JACK, DANNY DAMAGE
When the Eagle disappeared from the rather formidable-looking
building it used to occupy on W Burnside (a ruse—despite the
rumors circulating about sinister torture-based sex acts going on in
the bar’s loft, actual entry revealed somewhat mellower goings on and
one of the most outgoing-ly friendly staffs on the West Coast), it
didn’t go away, but it did go underground. It now lives in the basement
of Casey’s in Old Town, in a much smaller space with no less amiable
personnel, and benefits from the word-of-mouth glamour that comes with
lack of signage.
Pleasure Boys is a recent addition to the bevy of options offered up
in the Old Town queer scene. Resident Dee Jay Jack imported it from
Seattle when he pulled up stakes and headed south to make P-town his
new home some months ago. Along with Danny Damage and guests (the first
installment, in May, featured Pony Boy visiting from the Emerald City,
and June’s will have DJ Girlfriends filling in for Danny Damage along
with special guest DJ Nightschool, AKA Nathan Howdeshell from the
Gossip, AKA Brace Paine), the mix is classic queer night material,
which is to say that it’s a big soup-to-nuts mix of everything and
anything that will keep people dancing. Jack specializes in esoteric
Italo disco (for more of that, check out Black Gold, at Branx every
third Friday), but it wouldn’t be unheard of to, say, hear a RuPaul
track come on.
The Eagle on a Pleasure Boys night is an ideal place to slip into
when you’re more interested in moving than talking, and in letting the
hours slip by without communicating using anything other than the
rhythms of your body and your chosen costume for the evening. MS
First Saturdays, Eagle Underground, 27 NW 6th, 9 pm, free
’80S NIGHT
SHUT UP & DANCE W/DJ GREGARIOUS
God, it was hot upstairs at the Fez. It was 80 degrees outside and
it was about 105 degrees on the third floor of the Moroccan-themed
club. It didn’t help that I was poncing about like Morrissey,
dramatically throwing my hand to my forehead (I’m such a good dancer)
to “There’s a Light that Never Goes Out.” It was Friday, after all, and
DJ Gregarious was in charge of the dance floor at his ever-popular
weekly dance night, Shut Up & Dance.
The crowd was well-appointed, if a bit bridge ‘n’ tunnel, full of a
varied mix of Depeche Mode girls, gay boys, and douchebags and their
hordes of ‘bagettes. It took a considerable amount of time before DJ
Gregarious and his crew took to the booth, and by this time the
clipboard of requests was already two pages deep, full of friendly
requests for Prince, Madonna, and Erasure. But, I suppose, after
four-and-half years of manning Shut Up & Dance, DJ Gregarious (AKA
Gregarious Tawdry Cline) can take as long as he damn well pleases.
The music was a great ’80s mix of the requisite (Soft Cell’s
“Tainted Love”) and some of my personal favorite floor burners
(Deee-Lite’s “Groove Is in the Heart”). Confusingly, Justin Timberlake
would make an anachronistic appearance over the sound system, but that
didn’t stop anyone from getting their sexy on, as the crowd surged on
and off the dance floor—intermittently getting drinks and getting
down. Meanwhile, my date and I would skip the line and drink in
relative seclusion downstairs at the lounge, where there’s a monthly
rotating cast of DJs and no line at the bar. CF
Fridays, Fez Ballroom, 316 SW 11th, 9 pm, $5
PLUS: Portland Fridays kick ass for ’80s dancing with Lola’s Room a
mere block away from the Fez, where VJ Kittyrox rocks new wave videos
and kickass ’80s tracks at the weekly Video Dance Attack!
Fridays, Lola’s Room, 1332 W Burnside, 9 pm, $5
SOUL NIGHT
HOLE IN MY SOUL W/DJ BEYONDA
DJ Beyonda’s Hole in My Soul is one dance night that sure doesn’t
need any press from us. The night has been gathering momentum for over
a year now, regularly selling out Rotture. On the night I attended the
dance floor was packed solid by 10:30 pm, and two hours later when this
25-year-old dragged her geriatric ass out the door, there was a line
down Rotture’s stairs and into the street. It was a young, fashionable
crowd—loads of kids who seemed deeply invested in how their neck
scarves were tied—but any vestiges of hipster posturing were
abandoned once boat shoes hit the dance floor.
Beyonda spins original R&B and soul pressings from the ’50s
through ’70s—as a casual soul fan, I recognized maybe two songs
all night, but this isn’t the type of music you have to know in order
to want to dance along. Maybe this is why this dance night is so much
fun—the music is so damn good that there’s just not a lot of room
for posturing. Like, you’d have to be a real fucking asshole to not
have fun at this, and having fun means dancing kinda goofy and not
giving a shit. No one in this town actually knows how to dance, and
it’s impossible to maintain any level of coolness while trying to fake
your way through the mashed potato. All told it was a friendly scene,
not too pervy or meat markety, and the packed dance floor is only gonna
get hotter as summer goes on. AH
Second Thursdays, Rotture, 315 SE 3rd, 9 pm, $3
TECHNO NIGHT
R9 W/DJ BRYAN ZENTZ
“It’s the closest thing to a club in Tokyo or New York,” says Bryan
Zentz of Pi-Rem. “Everything is built on the vertical, and you
literally have to go underground to get to the music.” Zentz hosts R9,
a monthly dance party held on the fourth Saturday of the month at the
basement club in Old Town. Pi-Rem is not just underground in the
literal sense—only open on weekend evenings, the club has an
obscure entry on NW Glisan, and has largely relied on word-of-mouth
advertising. Worth the effort to find, the space successfully combines
an elegant lounge/art gallery with a warehouse vibe, complete with
cement floors and a booming sound system.
The theme of R9, named after the 1984 record by Detroit legend
Cybotron, is predominantly techno, electro, and acid house. Zentz says,
“We’re always watching the new stuff and bringing that to the audience
while using the archives as a reference point to pay homage to Detroit
and Chicago, where all these sounds came from.”
If anybody is qualified to reference original techno, it is Bryan
Zentz, an international techno veteran who relocated to Portland a
couple of years ago. Originally attracted to the DIY/punk element of
the early dance music scene, Zentz was given his start in the early
1990s by none other than Richie Hawtin. He has toured around the world,
playing at renowned venues like Womb and Fabric with Carl Cox, Kevin
Saunderson, and Terry Mullan, to name a few, and released stacks of
original productions and remixes, most recently as Stare5 on the CMYK
record label.
Zentz came up in techno at a time when the whole scene was still
underground. The beauty of R9 is that it carries on that same spirit,
but also remains accessible, with no cover and diverse local guest DJs.
The almost-secret basement location of Pi-Rem could not be more
fitting. AVA
Fourth Saturdays, Pi-Rem, 440 NW Glisan, 9 pm, free
METAL NIGHT
THE SABBATH W/DJ NATE C
Former Mercury contributor Nathan Carson’s weekly event at
Rotture is neither a religious event nor a strictly metal-based one.
It’s the Sabbath, a weekly sanctuary of adventurous
music—stylistically diverse, but frequently hard-edged—that
guarantees you won’t be keeping still on the lord’s day of rest.
It started as Black Sunday at Ground Kontrol, but in March it moved
over to Rotture; there’s always live music, with Carson (DJ Nate C)
spinning slabs of vinyl in between sets. “Because Rotture is in
Southeast and doesn’t attract a lot of foot traffic, I’m only spinning
when there are bands,” he explains. “A lot of people love what I spin,
but they usually won’t travel to see me unless there’s another
attraction.”
Many of the Sabbaths thus far have been metal-based, but metal
itself encompasses so many sub-genres that the nights don’t always
resemble each other. The brontosaurus stomp-punk metal of Black Elk
actually sounds very different from the iceberg chill of black
metallists Wolves in the Throne Room, which both sound unlike the
motorik pulse of Nudity.
The old records that he spins are always
hard-nosed, but frequently sound warmer, more inviting, and more
expansive than you might expect. In fact, what all the music has in
common is that it often rubs shoulders with psychedelic and progressive
rock, not just the strict frenzied pummeling one might expect from a
night of metal. “I will venture far from metal whenever appropriate,”
says Carson. “I want to entertain folks and always mix in plenty of
hits. It’s gratifying to see dancing and head-banging.” NLSundays
(usually—check rotture.com before you go), Rotture, 315 SE 3rd, 9 pm, cover varies
GOTH NIGHT
HIVE W/BLACKOUT, DARKHYND, OWEN
Claiming to be the longest-running goth night (to generalize;
officially it’s a night of “gothic-industrial-darkwave” music) in
Portland, Hive has migrated into Plan B, the contraceptively renamed
Acme. The addition is symptomatic of the bar’s overhaul in general,
going from a bike-heavy hipster scene to a bit of a punkier one, as
witnessed by Emily the Strange-ish knickknacks adorning the bar’s upper
shelves.
I have never identified as a goth, but there are many “goth” things
that I enjoy (vampires, period costuming), including much of its music.
Nonetheless, I went to Hive after having spent the earlier part of the
day seeing Barack Obama give a speech, eating farmers market produce,
and playing with puppies. I was so not feeling goth. (I had a
sunburn, for crying out loud.) I clearly wasn’t the only one;
attendance was sparse, with most people taking advantage of the
fleeting heat by sitting on the patio, talking. The entire time I was
there, the population on the dance floor never exceeded four.
Nonetheless, the music was pretty good: a mix of the obscure and
familiar (I was made happy when My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult came
on, less so during spans of “unce-y” house music). And, truth be told,
the extra space on the dance floor came in handy for those who chose to
utilize it. The style that was being performed rather impressively was
what can only be described as expansive, with lots of intricate, often
balletic arm gestures, spinning.
Additionally those seeking the harder, darker and more
techno-industrial end of the goth spectrum will be pleased to note that
the back patio will feature a second DJ station catering to these
desires, with the front end retaining its diversity. MS
Sundays, Plan B, 1305 SE 8th, 10 pm, $3
