However, if like me and New York is not in your plans this year, scroll down to see a great San Francisco line up including Industry with Tony Moran or a special Bearracuda with San Francisco favorite Ejector.

Black Party New York

Friday, March 19, 2010

NY Eagle Warm Up
Time: 10:00pm to 2:00am
Where: 554 West 28th Street, New York, NY
A great place to warm up in your gear for the Black Party weekend.

by Ray Chalom

The problem with expectations is they are often hard to meet. Now imagine a room full of people with nothing but expectations and you are imagining a room full of a lot of disappointment. It took my high maintenance ass years to learn the best mindset to have is one of zero expectations, that way the only place to go is up!

I entered FRESH with the mindset that I was going to spend time with friends. Good music and a fun crowd would be an added bonus. Kimberley S spun hours of vocals that were fun & light with seamless transitions that kept me on the dance floor from 7 – 11:30 when I was responsible enough to drag myself home. She gave the crowd what they wanted with Ga-Ga and Britney songs as well as providing a pleasantly unexpected Whitney mash-up that focused on pre-Bobby Brown hits. The highlight though was the flawless executed performance of Bad Romance by Suzan Revah & Co. I generally dislike performances but this one didn’t interrupt the party and kept me watching and smiling the entire time.

The crowd was also surprisingly hot and friendly with a lot of conversations going on both on the dance floor and around the perimeter. I was surprised at how many friends I ran into at the party. Apparently there are many devotees among my San Francisco family I knew nothing about. Now I do. With that said there are some minor criticisms. $5 for water is just absurd regardless of where it comes from and the lighting is minimal.

Overall this party is just plain fun. Come with a smile and the right attitude and you are guaranteed a good time. I’m actually rather excited to go to my next Fresh.

Check out the full article on Tobygo.  Tobygo – where the boys are!

http://www.tobygo.com/whoiswhojuicyfruit.html

by Steve Kleine

It is hard to get every element right for a good party, but perhaps the most frustrating thing is when everything is set up for a good old school club night and the one thing that is missing is the crowd. I had not been back to Spin/Montage since its latest remodel, but was impressed with the changes. They moved the DJ booth down to the just above the dance floor and added a lighting rig that moved up and down with just the right amount of lasers and lights bouncing off the series of disco balls hanging over the dance floor. The sound system was pumping out clean sound, with some very rich bass. Phil B laid down the tracks we wanted to hear with his signature sampling, looping and even a few mash ups that really worked. He had a perfect balance between heavy beats, vocals and even a nice bouncy trance feel at times. While there were a couple musical drop outs that I felt were ill timed he did his best to get the crowd going. But the crowd never showed up. In a club with three levels and a dance floor that can hold a few hundred, there were at the most 60 people in the club. We all made the best of it. Smiles were everywhere as the friendly crowd grooved to the great music, but at 3AM they called it a night and stopped the music.

Apparently they have just revived gay Saturday nights there. Hopefully word will get out and the numbers will increase. The potential is certainly there.

by Suzan Revah

When you’re as much of a dance floor whore as I am, it’s fun to be able to report back on a virgin circuit experience. Not only had I never been to Winter Party before, I’d never been to Miami before. I went in with no expectations, and came away utterly satisfied. That being said, I experienced the Miami circuit more than I experienced Winter Party specifically. Given that I had just about 48 hours in which to do so, I went more wide than deep, which gave me a good feel for the Miami vibe, if not for Winter Party itself.

I didn’t make it into town in time for Rising Tide party with Rosabel, nor for the Winter Party pool party with the Perry Twins, which was unfortunate. Word on the dance floor a few nights later was that Rosabel rocked their set, and apparently the weather was perfect for the pool party. I’m sure the Perry Twins were perfect for the pool party, too, having seen them do their matchy-matchy disco choreography at the White Party Palm Springs pool party.

Instead, I arrived just in time for the Rough Waters “leather dance event” at Sea Monster in Fort Lauderdale, with leather-crowd favorite Ted Eiel at the decks. Turnout was good, and everyone was decked out in enough gear to make a San Franciscan feel right at home. Teddy was turning out the chunky beats and the vibe was friendly. Only the smokers on the dance floor weren’t.

From there I made an unexpected stop at the Atlantis Sail-Away party at Manor, featuring DJ Manny Lehman. Though the venue was odd, with an attached café and quite a crowd of people who seemed to have no idea there was a circuit party taking place on site, the scene was upbeat. The boys that were still there when I arrived didn’t quite seem like they were among the Atlantis set, but then again neither did Manny’s music, which had a distinctly Latin flavor to it. I enjoyed it, and felt I got a good taste of why Manny earned the nickname “Latin from Manhattan.”

The next day I had the pleasure of brunching at DJ Frank Wild’s Miami bungalow before heading into the weekend’s main event, the Beach Party. Getting orientation from a Miami dance floor veteran set a great tone for the day, and despite a complete (yet completely typical) cluster fuck at the ticketing gate trying to get my media pass, my feet hit the sand at about 1:30.

That left me plenty of time to enjoy the day, or so I thought. A few hours in, the weather was just a little too brisk and breezy, and the beats were more than a little too hard and disjointed for a beach party. I felt the event flew by too quickly and perhaps never really hit its stride. DJ Brett Henrichsen had the mood dialed up just right in his opening set, but Brazilian headliner Ana Paula took the crowd somewhere it never wanted to go, with a distinct lack of happy vocals and several noticeable drops that the crowd didn’t recover from well. Several times, she came out from behind the DJ booth and seemed to be doing some Offer Nissim-style crowd-conducting, but I found myself wishing she had stayed behind the decks to dig deeper into her collection for something more beach-appropriate. I kept wondering, how does a BRAZILIAN not know what people want to dance to on the beach during a sunny day? It makes no sense.

The other thing that made no sense was the controversy created by Peter Rauhofer and his event, which competed with Sunday night’s “official” Winter Party event. Lots of people at the beach party expressed a sense of shame about choosing Peter Rauhofer and Offer Nissim at Mansion over Orbit with Tracy Young opening for Boris, especially when planes kept flying by the beach party advertising the competing event (tacky!), but after the Ana Paula disaster it seemed appropriate to choose the double-headliner situation, even though I didn’t want to miss Tracy Young.

The party at Mansion was hot. The club reminded me of Alegria NYC and Cro-Bar more than anything, and it was packed from the time I got there, just past midnight, through to closing at 5am. But Offer Nissim was a no-show, and I have to wonder what behind-the-scenes drama led to that disappointment. Rauhofer, who took over the decks well after 2am, didn’t play the darkest set I’ve ever heard from him, so I didn’t feel as disappointed as I might have otherwise. There were anthems and some church music. They were stripped spare, but kept the crowd energized, even through several more unfortunate drops that seemed to rip a hole through an otherwise dynamic and fun dance floor.

In general, I didn’t experience the attitude I thought might come with Miami. I encountered way more cunty in New York City, and the “body fascism” I was warned about in Miami never felt oppressive. The boys were diverse and beautiful, and there was an interesting thug aesthetic, but there was also plenty of genuine smiles and dancing from the heart. I felt very welcome, and had a particularly great time with the Miami extension of the Brazilian pack I run with here at home. I also spent several hours bouncing to the beats with DJ Luke Johnstone, who had the night off for a change.

All in all, I’d recommend Winter Party Miami, to circuit newbies and veterans alike. Of course I heard many references to how “Miami ain’t like it used to be,” but there’s always someone longing for a bygone heyday, and I preferred to take Miami for what it’s worth right now. Winter Party production seemed a bit bloated, but professional, and in general the circuit scene seemed robust and lively. I’m ready to go back, and I’ve already got a date on the calendar, when I set sail on Atlantis’ Allure of the Seas in February 2011.