This is pretty much just a list of venues that are either near and dear to me or somehow “important” to the culture.

One thing: You may notice that a number of the below are part of the “Myrtle Strip” which is basically the 3 blocks on either side of DRTY SMMR on the same street. You may think this is bias due to them having been so close to me but I cannot actually overstate how I actually moved to like the cultural epicenter of NY for the mid 2010s just by chance. A lot of those are some of the most popular clubs in the city and they just all happen to be a 3 min walk or less from my old place.

Venues

DRTY SMMR

What can I even say.

Living at a place where the neighborhoods best party was right in my living room really jump-started my social skills and sense of self-worth. An incredible run of great memories and honestly I maybe should have moved out a lil earlier than I did haha. It was hardly uncommon for me to answer the doorbell at 6:14am on a weekday and some bozo would be standing there like "uhh, I heard this was a afterparty spot?".

Grey was a wild card (this was a roommate). I think he was a bit closer to 50 than 40 and was still hooking up with the lads at the YMCA sauna. One day he got the idea that he would live in an "RV" (Ford F350 with thin walls built in the bed) parked in the street and then would rent out his room to craigslist weirdos. The first was an Iraq war veteran who was on an incredibly long mental list I keep called "Men who flirt with me, then get chest-bumping BRO aggressive with me, then flirt with me again all in a single sentence". Eventually he wandered away, maybe trying to get killed by picking fights while purchasing crack, as he confessed he would do. He was replaced by Rezi who was this guy who never worked, always started blasting music or playing drums at 3am (despite many in building complaining) and smoking cigarettes indoors. He's also one of the few Genuinely Bad Person-type drug dealers I've met and would take trades of Nike shoes for adderall from this one couple (who are a whole story in themselves, they were aging roughly and would constantly name drop clubs and people I don't think had existed for decades).

Some guy in a MAGA hat came round demanding everyone at a party punch him in the face until Alex showed up and led him away cuz apparently they knew each other from the music review forums.

Tilly, a former apprentice of Alfredo's, would essentially take the formula and try to open their own multi-designer clothing store / venue just a few blocks away. That one folded but then Tilly opened a second location without any hesitation or financial concern which speaks to my long-standing theory that Tilly's family is absurdly rich. I know the parents through an annual Beatles covers music festival which I have to imagine is more of a vanity project than an actually profitable venture and Tilly's sister has like a few acting credits across a few decades that cannot explain paying the bills, so they always did seem notably carefree to me. But I digress...

We actually would get a fair number of complaints like the one below to 311 or some people yelling at us when shows were loud late but honestly Alfredo would just stonewall people and to be fair it was never like local families or anything, all recent yuppie transplants who seemed baffled at the concept of parties happening in the party district. Fuck um.

Every video or photo I could find related to my time at DRTY SMMR: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1yputHLd19pP6PTl2nepDqBQLaKBzf1-X

Amazura Hall, rave events

Example mix (I do not condone of this music, it was just a place I happened to be):

HA oh lord Amazura Hall.

I used to go to some grimy fucking hardstyle events with Ann wayyyyy back when at this pretty massive venue called Amazura Hall out in Jamaica Queens that for all I know is still there. To be clear, I didn’t go to these because I cared at all about the music, I had just ended up going to an similar event in Baltimore with my friend Nikki and a girl I met there put me on the mailing list for this one. I don’t think I was even aware of what different genres of electronic music were called at this time (like I knew the names but if you asked me the difference between House and Techno, I would shrug).

Amazura is for sure the most intense security I have ever ever dealt with at a venue, both in terms of thoroughness of inspection but also just for absurdly aggressive cop attitude. The common understanding amongst the ravers was that this is because Amazura security was mostly used to dealing with “rap shows” and that’s why they’re so amped up and that always struck me as a statement that’s both racially motivated and possibly somewhat true.

These events were kinda NASTY. Clearly a lot of drugs flowing around and CLEARLY largely of a low-quality (fear not, I would never accept anything in this environment). I remember one night I ended up spending like half an hour talking to some *very* drunk I-have-to-guess 15 year old who gave her name as “Tequila”, the whole time just wondering that for all the hub bub with security outside it doesn’t really seem like anything *doesn’t* get in.

And yet…there is something absolutely magical about these PLUR events. PLUR, for reference stands for Peace Love Unity Respect (ugh, cringe). It’s a catch-phrase/motto/marketing term to denote parties that insist on ~Good Vibes~ above all and perhaps have a bit of a hippyish philosophy but at the same time it’s been like 12 years and I’ve still never been to another New York event where a couple walks up to me and offers to collaboratively give me a massage and then they just disappear into the night.

I think these events really were formative for me that even if the music is nonsense and the aesthetics are garish and the lexicon is goofy, none of that takes away from the simple fact that “cringe” people are often having the most fun.

You can see like 4 frames of me in that red letterman jacket I used to always wear at the 0:14 mark of this video

Silent Barn

Silent Barn was originally in Ridgewood (I never made it to this location) but then moved out to Bushwick. It was probably the last real Brooklyn DIY venue (sure sure, there was The Glove and Chaos Computer and some others, but they all felt like the SB lifers lingering on in decreasingly vibrant scenes). It had the pretty odd feature of having an apartment attached where all the volunteers and you better believe it was pretty culty. This is where I met Deirdre lol, when she was living at SB.

As much as I like to be sarcastic about this place, I did get their all-access pass and would wander over from 960 Willoughby and later 25 Park (before I even lived at DRTY) and see whatever random crap was going on that night which ranged from fairly standard garage rock bands to an Italian guy dropping spoons on the ground for some 15 minutes.

Clubs

Happyfun Hideaway

Example mix:

Part of the Myrtle Strip, all on the same street and within 3 blocks of DRTY SMMR

Happyfun Hideaway is a tiki bar that somehow became a gay bar then just kind of became a party bar that on certain nights would still be quite gay. It was also just the bar across the street from DRTY SMMR, so I would pop by for one after work all the time. This is the only bar I’ve ever been a “regular” at, me and two other barflys would hang around for a bit of Macy’s shift after work (I don’t even remember their names now). It also turns into a dance spot on Friday/Saturday nights, even though there isn’t really a dancefloor.

I used to DJ here a fair bit when either Uriel or Macy were bartending and would invite me to. I also worked door for all of 5 seconds once before the intended bouncer finally arrived late.

One time when I was out at Spectrum, a guy threatened to shoot up Happyfun. I stalked him a little online for a little while but the judge just told him not to go back to the bar, his lawyer got the case sealed, and Justin Rice just kept working for ReMax realty. Argh.

Bossa Nova Civic Club

Example mix:

Part of the Myrtle Strip, all on the same street and within 3 blocks of DRTY SMMR

The GOAT (not my favorite by any measure tho). For sure the veteran of this list having opened in 2012 and won Best New Club by the next year. Pretty much every Myrtle Strip club is patterned on Bossa to some extent.

Side story: Club Mate is a German energy drink I used to see advertised in the back of hacker magazine 2600. It later moved out of Germany’s hacker scene and into it’s club scene as a less disgusting alternative to Red Bull and the like, Bossa Nova (patterning itself somewhat on Germany’s club scene) imported the practice of serving bottles of Mate with vodka poured in. It got so popular that Bossa now has there own house mate brand, White Label Mate.

Mood Ring

Example mix:

Part of the Myrtle Strip, all on the same street and within 3 blocks of DRTY SMMR

Don’t tell Alex I told you this story:

So one night Alex hits me up: Wanna go to the opening night of a new bar near you? Uhhhh, ok why not. We go, place is handing out Budweisers. It’s fine, cute decor, seems to be going for some kind of like semi-bougie Chinese Zodiac theme. So what’s the deal, why did we *have* to go check out this new bar? Turns out the owner is 1/3rd of the new throuple Katie in now in post dating Alex and I suppose we are here to see if the love rival’s bar fails. Bad news, the absurd popularity of this bar cannot be overstated and there will genuinely be a long line for this place on any given weekend night.

As stated, it originally seemed to be catering to like a second generation Asian crowd, then it became known as a queer bar, then really just a bar for 22 year olds. It’s still massively popular to this day. While I’ve certainly had great nights there, it’s never particularly meant anything to me.

Rash

Example mix:

(open for 5 months, then closed for 2 years after arson attack, open again now. All photos I can find of the dancefloor are post-fire)

Part of the Myrtle Strip, all on the same street and within 3 blocks of DRTY SMMR

Once upon a time the storefront directly across the street from where I used to live at DRTY SMMR was a coffee shop called Lil Skips. It was a perfectly nice coffee shop that, over time, would grow to be absurdly packed at all times so I stopped going. Eventually even that volume of business wasn’t enough to keep paying the bills, somehow, so the landlord forced them out only for covid to happen and the storefront sat empty for a long time. Eventually I would observe a small crew of 20-30 somethings renovating the place and went over to chat them and they were opening the club as a collective, doing all the manual labor themselves too. After months of work, the place opened, rapidly gained in popularity, and then 5 months later a random poured gasoline all over the club and ignited it. He was caught a week later when he punch a random women in the face. The club remained closed for two years and, as of writing, will be reopening soon in April.

While I don’t recall Rash ever particularly marketing itself as a queer club (at least not until they needed to fundraise after the arson lol) to be fair I did observe a high number of trans women at all kinds of events, so that’s not totally fake. I believe this was due to multiple members of the staff being trans and I imagine promoting the club to their networks.

It was a cute spot. They deffo had a “bar” sound system vs a proper club one, as pretty much everything on the Myrtle Strip suffers from, but eh.

Paragon

(There’s also a downstairs dancefloor I couldn’t find a photo of)

Part of the Myrtle Strip, all on the same street and within 3 blocks of DRTY SMMR

Paragon is a relatively recent addition to the Myrtle Strip. Like all Myrtle Strip locations, it’s sound system isn’t really up to snuff. Pretty cute dance floor with a second floor I’ve heard people refer to as the VIP area and I *think* that’s a joke but I’ve never tried going up there. Downstairs dancefloor too, all in all a cute spot but kind of like “What if a Myrtle Strip club was larger but not particularly better in quality?”.

Nowadays

Example mix: Nowadays prides itself on a really diverse rotation of DJs, so can’t pin to one sound. Here’s some of the stuff playing recently

My favorite.

Nowadays is a titanic outdoor backyard next to a Jewish graveyard way out in the middle of nowhere (but I live only a 15 minute walk from nowhere, so it’s great for me). I actually give them $100 / month for the all-access pass (since it includes a +1, you only have to show up twice for it to pay off) which is something I haven’t done since Silent Barn.

I first encountered Nowadays when the explicitly black trans party Body Hack moved out of the far smaller bar/club Mood Ring and to Nowadays. By this point Body Hack had hit such a critical mass that all kinds of people were coming and I still attend most of those monthly parties. But via this exposure, I started exploring the clubs events otherwise and quickly noted they had some of the most interesting bookings in New York. Not the biggest names per-se but like recently they booked Olof Dreijer, half of my favorite band The Knife who have been defunct for years and I think his first trip to the US in like 10 years. Just weird gets like that.

Also, they have a free water station with many spigots (I think this should be legally mandated), they give out free ear plugs/condoms/masks/etc, and make you listen to a speech about consent and no homophobia/racism/transphobia when you first enter the club, I dunno I like their ethos I guess.

They have a regular event called Nonstop that runs from like 10pm Saturday straight to 10pm Sunday but the idea is less that you are going to spend all 24 hours there and more that you just show up for the hours that suit you, which for me can often be lunchtime Sunday.

BASEMENT

Example mix:

Kind of a Disneyworld version of genuinely grimey eastern European club, everyone compares BASEMENT to Berlin’s Berghain, but the owners bristle at that as they modeled the place on Tbilisi’s clubs.

BASEMENT is composed of the main dancefloor, a second room called STUDIO that looks like a castle cistern but I couldn’t find any decent photos of. There’s also a pretty large backyard.

BASEMENT plays one thing and one thing only: Industrial Techno. Genuinely, each set is p similar to the next and you can hop to any point in a set

There aren’t many photos as BASEMENT strongly prohibits photography and puts a sticker on both of your phones cameras. This isn’t entirely just for show as there’s an area in the back corner colloquially referred to as “the catacombs” that you will catch people having sex and relatively openly snort drugs in, something I’ve not really seen too much at other legitimate venues. Parties with no permanent address? For sure, but never at a real venue.

Parties

Spectrum

(dead)

Example mix:

Spectrum was a queer party that initially took place on the second floor of some Mexican restaurant (I never made it over to these ones) but then later moved over to some disused quinceanera hall.

These were pretty lovely. Real who’s who of local queers, great vibes,

There’s actually a photo of me in Time Out magazine with now shirt and a collar on at this party. My asshole I hate him forever ex-roommate Rezi once showed up with a camera, generally a no-no at this kind of party esp for a straight man and was taking photos, he shoves camera in my face and I smile assuming it’s just for uhhhh I dunno the personal files or something. Next thing I know people at BBDO are telling me they saw my photo in the magazine. I wouldn’t even mind except it’s a terrible photo of me.

UNTER

(dead)

Example mix:

UNTER was a queer party that would pop up at various disused venues (but to be clear, the organizers clearly arranged these with the building owners, this wasn’t the B&E parties of old). You would get an email the night of with instructions like “Go to this address tonight and look for the silver hatchback, knock on the window and he will direct you further”

Sue, when I first took her to one of these, described it as the most disorienting party she’s ever been to and they do for sure keep the smoke machines, flashing lights, and volume at full crank.

One thing I’ll give UNTER is they put a lot of effort into their posters. When the parties stopped running (like Jordan, they retired then unretired these parties many times) I went through all their old ticket links, by hand, and collected all the posters here and started sharing that around: https://imgur.com/a/69S6uIn

I think they might have gotten word of this as they would later release their own official version: https://fuckunter.com/UNTER_ARCHIVE.html

Idapalooza

(closed to outsiders)

Some time in the 60s a bunch of gay men purchased some land out in Tennessee and called it Idyll Dandy Arts. Sometime in the 2010s the black residents actually split off into their own section of the land and their own leadership structure but the whole unit was still IDA. Once a year they would hold a “music festival” that was really more just lounging on the farm all day and then some bands in the barn at night.

This place had a kind of militant vibe. The black half of the camp did NOT tolerate any disrespect and had no trouble chucking you off the farm if they found you annoying. You did get the feeling that while Idapalooza the party was all fun, actually living at Ida seemed kinda tense, lots of simmering conflict. I don't just mean that in the conflict between the two halves of camp but also I think living in an enclosed area with like 50 people drives you a lil Jack Torrance. I also sometimes got the feeling that this place might have a weapons cache they don’t talk to outsiders about, there was this “this is where people will flee if things ever get that bad in the US” kind of vibe.

It really is hard to express what a unique experience it is to be trans and to bathe nude in a creek with a bunch of strangers and have no worries at all. Even at Riis beach, where people do go nude, there is the understanding that if you wander too far down the beach you will cross an invisible line onto Fort Tilden beach which are very trigger-happy with 911 calls for even just open cans that *could* be beer, let alone anything above that. On the other hand, “down in gay holler” it’s a long long long walk on backroads till anyone might see you.

Also I have never seen such grimey lesbians as the local farm girls who stop by, it’s great.

Camp Bisco

(presumed dead)

So this music festival used to take place at Indian Lookout Country Club a “wedding venue” in Mariaville Lake, NY which is owned by the Indian Lookout Motorcycle Club which I think was absolutely just a polite front for some Hell’s Angels-type guys and I am so not kidding about that. As your car rolled onto the camp site, it would be inspected by some absolute bruisers who seemed to have a very inconsistent confiscation policy. Some joked that if it wasn’t a gun, anything else was being taken to be resold and I think that may have been somewhat true.

The camping areas were an open air drug market in a way I have never experienced again. I remember walking behind a guy who seemed to be 6’5” and had a massive swastika covering his entire back. To be clear, he was the only swastika guy I saw but also that’s one more swastika than I normally see at music festivals. There were definitely some of the nations shadiest characters on site for this. A friend of my friend Nick (name lost to time) came with us and I understood that his full-time job was travelling up and down the east coast selling rather weighty amounts of drugs to local dealers AT festivals and I think this was essentially a convention for those guys. At one point I found a bag of meth on the ground.

Camp Bisco, I think both hated by the town around the ILCC and also probably worried about legal consequences for some on-site drug deaths would relocate the event off biker territory and to a water park in Vermont which completely killed my interest. To my understanding the water park grew sick of them rapidly but COVID made that irrelevant and the event never returned, though it never officially disbanded either.

Susanne Bartsch-type parties

Ok so I’m slightly cheating here as I only ever went to one of these but it was a pretty distinct experience, so why not.

These are a bunch of “parties” where everyone is dressed to the nines and drinks through a straw so as not to ruin their makeup. There will be a bottle of vodka on the table and you ask “can I have a drink” and everyone looks at each other nervously because that’s apparently a complex question not easily explained to an outsider. I couldn’t stand this scene.

A funny story is all this stuff is patterned on the old Michael Alig parties of Party Monster fame who famously went to prison for chopping up his drug dealer in the bathtub. Well he actually got out and after having spent all these long decades in prison decided to…immediately start throwing the exact same kinds of parties and taking copious drugs with kids now half his age. I think Alfredo went to one of the nu-Alig parties but I demurred. Alig would die of an overdose just a few months later to no one’s surprise.

Honorable Mentions

Vans Warped Tour

Ass music for angsty teens on a blisteringly hot day but in fairness to the Levy’s, I think this was like the first major music event I went to, so credit due.

The Glove

(dead)

DIY venue in Bushwick where some Silent Barn lifers rolled over too. There were some cute shows, I used to get my haircuts from Stonie at Silent Barn and I followed her studio over to The Glove and got my haircuts there. When The Glove closed, Stonie gave me haircuts in her kitchen. Now I think she’s like trying to repair and live on some sailboat. To my understanding, she has a child being raised by the grandmother while she’s supposed to be pursuing some degree she hasn’t worked on in years.

Anyway, The Glove.

Chaos Computer

(dead)

This was like a second floor on the border of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, about a block from the water. I was always surprised such a spot didn’t net more noise complaints, or that they were able to find a spot in that area to squat at all. Very illegitimate venue. Always seemed like maybe there was some kind of seedy shit going on, with like 40 year olds dating 22 year olds but I was never that close to any of it.

That One Chinatown Venue The Dilators Played In That One Time

One time The Dilators played on the second floor of some joint in Chinatown (I don’t think it was K.O. At The Shaolin Temple, the one underground venue in CTown I can name) but it was a cool giant floor, I was charmed.

House Of Yes

I want to be clear, I HATE House of Yes. Self-obsessed with it’s laborious aesthetic which is akin to a TGIFridays (in my opinion). When people say they like House of Yes I think of The Office Michael Scott saying his favorite spot for a New York Slice is “Sbarros”. For people that think a burlesque shows held in legitimate venues are the spear-point of "underground".

The Paper Mill

The only truly punk squat I’ve been too in NYC (I've been too other squats but this is like the only traditional "punk" one). Graffiti on absolutely every square inch, a letter taped to the front door trying to collect $83,000 in back rent and the most violent mosh pit I’ve ever been in (it was a blast).

Jupiter Disco

Cute, tiny lil club. Visually similar to Mood Ring but without the Asian references

Elsewhere

I mean, I’ve seen good shows here but it’s also a massive corporate venue like Terminal 5 so I can’t say I have any strong attachment to it.

TV Eye

Pretty nice bar and venue about a 7 minute walk from me, really geared more towards bands tho so I rarely get over there unless in a group.

Trans-Pecos

The closest any of the honorable mentions to get it’s own spot. Technically a legit venue, but really has the vibe and the booking sensibilities of a DIY venue. Tons of DJ nights that are just a few friends with a laptop and a plastic DJ controller, I’m genuinely tickled it exists to let lower legitimacy people get on a decent setup.

Market Hotel

Part of the Myrtle Strip, pretty normal venue. Not much to report.

The Red Pavillion

Some kind of Shanghai Jazz Club, a little too themed for me but cute for the one time.

Good Room

To me or any of my friends it's an overpriced Williamsburg venue that gets big names, so you only go every once and again. Strangely, to most of it's bridge-and-tunnel crowd it's just "a club" and they think nothing of paying $40+ to get into the venue with no idea what's actually happening tonight. This kind of person really seems to be the main texture of NYC these days.

Good Room itself is a fairly standard venue but it has a side room called Bad Room where they stick the B Tier DJ and I love the look of that DJ Booth

ALPHAVILLE

Bar with venue in back, saw many shows here back when I lived at DRTY. Also the cook was my weed dealer and he would just hand me weed through the order window and I was like “Dude! You should probably be more subtle for your own sake!” and then like 3 years later it was all legal, oops

Output

The only Williamsburg bridge-and-tunnel club I ever enjoyed. Massive sound system, good names, ok pretty damn bougie but hey just don’t drink.

Wonderville

A bar with a free arcade attached and the arcade has a venue in it. Most of the shows at Wonderville are a little geeky for me (I’m going to DJ video game music or I’m going to code a program that makes music live, that sort of thing) but still charming.

Babycastles

Old videogame venue that was kind of a precursor to Wonderville (a lot of the same video game cabinets even), they would have some weird-ass shows tho like

• Guy starts playing synth but also is hooked to an IV with nicotine flowing. Within minutes he has to be pulled off stage and looks sick as hell.
• Guy made a giant gummy bear & vodka mixture in a bowl, mixed in a ripped up dollar bill and ate this slurry until he puked and some of it got on Ann.

I'm not enamored with this kind of stuff.

Otion Front Studio

Technically this is the dance studio in the backyard of DRTY SMMR but it is run by different people. Seen a few cool things in here, a few socks-only dance parties that were cute.

3 Dollar Bill

Pretty expansive and cool music venue that appears to be owned by a team of lesbians and mostly hosts queer events. Sounds great, except that’s almost entirely drag stuff which I don’t care about what-so-ever. Oh well.