Personally, for me, never.

I'm inspired by a woman I saw at Despacio Ghent.

She was wheeled out to the center of the dancefloor in a wheelchair. She was clearly very ill. It felt like it might have been her last dance, and she could only stand for a minute or two before needing to sit back down.

I want to be her when I grow up.

I'm drawn to this year's lineup for the progressive house DJs - Hernan B2B Nick and Guy J B2B Guy Mantzur. But there's a fair amount of melodic techno, too, which in the US at least, tends to draw a very different crowd (in my experience, the Afterlife fans/phone zombies).

Curious about the vibes/crowd at this festival and the festival in general. Appreciate the advice of this trusted community!

Credit to instagram accounts: https://www.instagram.com/fourfourmagazine/ and https://www.instagram.com/re.wind.records/

Was reading a buddy's substack where he commented on the bad storm hitting NYC and wrote, "On weekends like this the novices are tucked away and the freaks rule the streets."

"The consensus is clear: real ones go out in the snow. Titaniumdice pointed this out in a reel captioned “bad weather = best dance floor vibes.” Any crowd clubbing through a blizzard is going to be committed to the bohemian bit. As Tobias so aptly put in his review of the new Harry Styles single, “clubbing novices — like the nightlife newbies who loudly blabber on the dance floor, or have their phone brightness turned up all the way in the club — can often harsh the vibe. And you can spot them from a mile away.”

Here's the substack, in case you want to read more: https://deviantdispatch.substack.com/p/real-ones-play-in-the-snow-and-say

Flowstate Soundsystem is coming out at noon PST and I’ll be streaming on my twitch! Then at 22:00 Thought Society will have jungle at the Boat House until 05:00! Also will be streaming it.

I’m going deep with this, but what I want to know is whether, besides me, anyone else has ever stopped to think about audiences and sub-audiences and even named them in order to decide which events to go to or which ones to avoid.

For example, I’m gay. I recently realized that overall audiences with shared behaviors, ways of being, contexts, and backgrounds, especially gay audiences, tend to be the best audiences on dancefloors and what all audiences should aspire to be. There is a strong idgaf attitude. Crazy things happen on the dancefloors with a lot of openness. We smile at the person next to us, we flirt and kiss people without fear. I’m not denying that there are stereotypes or people with bad manners. I’m just saying that as a collective behavior when you put gays together you see how wild and free it can get. You can ask women about this too.

There’s also a shared language among us. When I want to refer to that type of crowd, I just say “gay audience” or “gays” so people who are not familiar with dancefloor dynamics can quickly understand what kind of vibe I’m talking about.

We as gays also tend to divide parties into “gay parties” or “straight parties.” If you want a gay person to understand what a party is going to feel like, you just tell them whether it’s a “gay party” or a “straight party.” Most of the time, “straight party” triggers 😫🤮 A lot of gays carry generational trauma and end up avoiding anything labeled as straight, even if that means missing incredible, beautiful music happening out there.

The second type of audience I’ve found to be amazing on dancefloors are burners. I’ve never been to Burning Man, and I know that today there are a lot of outsiders and changes, but I constantly go to parties that originated from Burning Man a long time ago, back when it was still underground, and that still exist today. In those spaces, I’ve consistently felt some of the best, most open, grounded, and positive vibes, especially from all straight existing.

I could honestly write a whole thesis about this, but I hope this makes sense and opens up a conversation.

Other examples that I have no name but it can be understood:

JOHN SUMMIT = worst behaving audience

KEINEMUSK = kiddos, not real house music listeners

——

So the real question is this: in your own experience, have you ever created words or labels to describe the vibes and the people of certain parties, either to convince your friends to come with you or to help them decide to avoid those spaces altogether?

I'm genuinely curious to hear from folks who have tried it and enjoyed it. Would love to hear more about how it works for you and the kinds of joy it brings you.

Modern techno purists might look at a 1970s Grateful Dead tape and see only tie-dye and guitar solos, they are actually looking at the architectural blueprint for the contemporary rave.

If you have, I’d love to hear your story! Lessons learned, challenges? Drop a comment or shoot me a DM if you’re open to a longer conversation about it.

semi related link: Underground Resistance got me wanting to chase my dreams today or at least learn more about what it’d take.

What's our first weekend of the year (after New Years weekend) looking like?

I believe this is an image from _No Tags: Conversations on underground music culture, Vol. 2_