Event Review: Drunk and Horny v. Frisco Disco

This past Saturday the boyfriend, J, Kitty and I went out to wish Jeff and Gary good luck with the reconstitution of Drunk and Horny as a monthly, and then, on a whim, the boyfriend and I went over to The Transfer to check out the infamous Frisco Disco. It wasn’t quite what I expected, but was close enough in terms of vibe to Drunk and Horny that it did seem a bit familiar.

We arrived around midnight, and when we first came through the door Richie Panic was in the midst of a three track trip through the 80s that made me think we somehow had walked through a wormhole that had brought us back to Underground SF. I was in the bathroom, thinking that one drink’s worth of retro was about all I could take, when he switched up and made a run into the bloghouse/banger territory that I had expected. Over the course of the next hour we heard Feist’s “My Moon My Man (Boysnoize remix),” Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E. (Justice Remix),” and Kid Cudi’s “Day N’ Night (Crooker’s Remix)," which should give you a sense of the night's musical flavor (all trainspotting thanks to the boyfriend, btw).

Richie Panic is a laptop DJ and has a style that I have come to think of as typical for DJs who work in this medium, one that I characterize as brutalism. There are no long mixes; rather, he takes advantage of the ability to set cue points and have tracks start and stop on exact beats. The effect is of the tracks being spliced together in a continuous stream, rather than being mixed, where you hear perhaps two or three minutes of one track before another one starts, usually at a point that keeps the intensity and energy of the mix pretty high. The crowd was clearly into it, and in some ways it's appropriate to the banger genre; I refer to it as brutalism because it reminds me of the architectural style, which opted for the big, chunky and concrete over the subtle and organic, with an occasional gesture toward striking juxtapositions of form. I find this style of DJing to be a bit difficult to listen to over a long period of time, but there were plenty of happy dancers grooving along with Richie's set when we left around 1.30.

The crowd was pleasingly diverse, with lots of women and gay guys on the dancefloor, though it wasn’t quite as fabulous as the Myspace pictures would have led me to believe. Maybe this is because it was so damned dark in there, it was hard to tell what anyone what looked like, but it might also be because The Transfer, no matter how fab a party you bring to it, is still a dumpy dive of a bar, and it’s hard to not look like a dork standing there with a drink in your hand. Why the back room wasn’t open I have no idea, this certainly seemed to be a big enough crowd to warrent the opening of the second bar, and it would have made getting drinks a lot easier than dealing with bartenders who seemed more interested in doing shots with their friends than serving other patrons.

My overall impression is that Frisco Disco is sort of a straight version of Drunk and Horny, though with admittedly more contemporary music. It seemed like the kind of party where folks come because they want to drink some really poisonously strong potions, dance around to music that is pleasingly familiar, and feel a little naughty and edgy for a while. As for me, now that I’ve been there once, I don’t feel a real compelling need to go back (an opinion that might change should they ever move on from The Transfer), but you should definitely check it out for a glimpse into one of the reigning hipster dance scenes of the moment.

Drunk and Horny Update: The Party Continues

Saturday night Lord Kook and I headed over to a house party hosted by the Drunk and Horny crew, where the good Lord and Neco D spun some tunes while other folks got frisky in the hot tub and others just spun themselves. The full scoop is this: Drunk and Horny is going back to being a monthly at Underground SF, with the next one slated for July 12. The interesting bit, though, is that the club owner, Cip, wants to keep Saturdays gay, so there might be some new nights coming up soon. I'll keep you all posted as I find out more.

The End of Drunk and Horny at Underground SF?

I've heard rumors and have delayed posting about them until I could get some confirmation, but now, based on an email that was sent out to the Drunk and Horny mailing list today, it seems pretty definite that Drunk and Horny will no longer be happening at Underground SF. All I know for certain is that there will be a house party this Saturday instead of the regular party at Underground SF, and there is word of "the return of Drunk and Horny." More details as they become available.

UPDATE: DnH will be continuing as a monthly, with the next one happening on July 12.

Busted: Drunk and Horny New Year's Eve

By now many of you have probably heard that the Drunk and Horny New Year's Eve party was busted. I was standing on the main dance floor with a cocktail in my hand around 10.20, just a few minutes after the doors opened and the first attendees began to come in, when I saw four cops enter with their flashlights on. At first we thought that this might be the usual kind of walk-through, but then the music went off and the lights came up, and at 10.30 they were telling us to leave because the party was over. Jeff and Gary had all the folks who were there over to their apartment in the Haight for what turned out to be a gloriously fun New Year's party in spite of everything, but the boys got very thoroughly shafted out of some significant bucks because of this.

Later conversations brought several interesting things to light. For one, the owners of The Gingerbread House (also known as Danzhaus) seriously misrepresented what permits they held; according to them, money could be taken at the door and alcohol served. As it turns out, the first things the cops said when they came through the door was that they didn't have permits for either of these things. It also turned out that they had busted several other parties in that space recently, another fact that was not brought out to Jeff and Gary. And, worst of all, neither of the owners was on the premises for the event, so there was no one to run interference when the cops showed up. All in all, pretty poor form, and rather than refunding the rental fee to Jeff and Gary, they instead insisted that it was Jeff and Gary's fault that the party got shut down and only gave them a partial refund. Granted, I would not have publicized the address of the party myself, but it's pretty clear that the cops have their eyes on this place, and unless the owners get their act together and obtain the proper permits, The Gingerbread House is a very compromised space. I can't imagine that things will get any better when the condos being built behind it become occupied. If you are a promoter considering using this space, I would strongly recommend against it unless you can get hard guarantees from the owners about what they will do to keep you from getting shut down, and what they will do if that contingency comes up.

There are a couple lessons here for independent promoters; for one thing, when you rent out a space, make sure you understand what you can legally get away with and make sure you take steps to fall within those requirements. But, also make sure that the owners of the space will be there to run interference with the police should they show up. Also, don't publicize your location on any flyers, emails, or websites, but instead put it on a phone line or using a map point system to get people there; this may add a little hassle, but anything that makes it a little bit harder for the cops to find you helps. These things may wind up saving your some grief, and money, in the end.

Upcoming Event: Drunk and Horny New Year's Eve

The Drunk and Horny crew had a meeting last night to get ready for their New Year's Eve underground, and yours truly was there to pick up some scoop, to wit:

DJ Line-Up
Sparky and Big Red will be on from 10 - 2, at which point Lord Kook and Dee Jay Pee Play will take over. There, you get the best of both worlds, fun party standards for the "early" evening and bangin' four-on-the-floor for the hardcore party fun!

Location
I'm sworn to secrecy, but it will be in a very kickin' warehouse location in the city with a big main dancefloor, a bar area, and an upstairs lounge. I've partied in this space before, it will be roomy downstairs and cozy up.

Sound
Two super-professional sound guys (think Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and 70s rock star studio guys professional) are setting up an awesome sound system.

Booze
There will be a bar, serving beer, Redbull, water, and vodka punch, in exchange for drink tickets you can buy.

Tickets
$2o, available ONLY at Distractions in the Haight, Hot Cookie in the Castro, and direct from the guys at Drunk and Horny on Saturday night.

Event Review: Lucky Pierre at The Stud

After two extremely busy weekends, the boyfriend and I decided to take it easy this past weekend and do something different, like go to a movie on Saturday night (The Golden Compass, mainly because the boyfriend wanted to see the talking polar bears). After the movie we did stop into Drunk and Horny for a sociable drink with Big Red, Sparky, and Gary, but our real going-out experience for the weekend was Lucky Pierre on Friday night where we found a very fun dancefloor and the boyfriend got a little adventurous playing strip poker.

It's always satisfying to see a club night that you like grow and develop; we first checked into the Lucky Pierre scene back in August on the occasion of their six month anniversary, and in the past four months it feels like the scene has definitely grown. DJ6 and Donimo continue to spin crowd-pleasing electro and indietronica (including original remixes, something you almost never hear at other clubs), and this seems to be bringing in not only a diverse and pretty cute crowd of alternaboys, but also a fair number of sexually diverse clubbers who simply seem to be looking for a good time on a Friday night.

In addition to a fun dancefloor, Lucky Pierre also offers some of the "playful" hanky-panky for which SoMa bars in general, and The Stud in particular, have been infamous for over the years. This time the boyfriend got in on a round of Artemis Chase's strip poker, and while I won't say just how far the boys stripped - I think there are some laws about that, or something - I certainly got to see a loin-stirring variety of physical proportions and attributes. It's even better when you realize that most of these guys have never played a hand of five card stud in their lives, leaving it up to Artemis to determine the winners and losers of each hand. The boyfriend didn't last very long through the poker playing, but he was extremely popular afterwards.

Lucky Pierre shows signs of only getting better with age, and it's certainly your best bet for a $5 cover on a first Friday. Keep in mind that these are also the same guys who bring you Heat on third Fridays at The Stud, and that DJ6 and friends are behind Bender on second Fridays at The Transfer. There, something to do every Friday of the month leading up to Fuck Shit, Let's Dance at Deco.

The Long Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving is a hard holiday for all those San Francisco residents who are émigrés from elsewhere; it’s the one time of the year when you might reasonably be expected to make the expedition to see your family, however they may be defined, while, on the other hand, anybody who has experienced the long cattle drive of holiday travel might be more inclined to hunker down and wait out the whole weekend with a stock of food and booze. The pull between these two directions leaves the city seeming somewhat hollowed out over the long weekend, and the faces you see when you do go out are just as likely to belong to someone visiting their Uncle Bruce as they are to an actual resident.

I had five days off to look forward to over this holiday weekend, and I went into them thinking that I had a good idea of how they would pass; stock up on food, booze, and pot, hit a couple parties, maybe get a little crazy. Instead I found myself drawn more to the comforts of the hearth and wound up cooking a steak dinner, getting a Christmas wreath for the front door of the apartment, and, god help me, becoming a cat-owning gay resident of the Castro.

Wednesday evening the boyfriend and I were in total agreement for what we wanted: to go out anywhere. We started prowling the Castro around 9.00 PM and were drawn into The Bar by the sound of some decent club electro from DJ PB, who was warming up the crowd for Juanita More’s Booty Call party. It was a surprisingly lively crowd, though I suppose all of us who were there didn’t really have anything to do the next day. The boyfriend wound up talking to a guy from Sacramento who was visiting, and after two drinks we decided to hook up with our friend Matt and see what was happening at The Transfer. We were a bit surprised when we got there by both the sparseness of the crowd and the sound of dub step coming out of the sound system. We had a drink while we waited for Matt to arrive, but since we were feeling self-conscious about being the only guys there not wearing black hoodies, we decided to head back to The Bar. On the corner of Market and Fillmore we ran into Gary of Jeff and Gary fame, passed some time with him and other denizens of Drunk and Horny at an apartment across the street, then headed back to The Bar. After our experience at Juanita More’s Playboy I was somewhat hesitant about another of her parties, but this time the music was much better and the mixing somewhat improved; in fact, Juanita sounded tighter than both the DJ who preceded her and the one who followed, and was considerably better than when we last heard her at The End Up. We hung out for a few more drinks and then stumbled our way home. In retrospect this was the best evening of the entire weekend; the boyfriend and I had the pleasure of one another’s company, we set out looking for adventure and had spontaneous fun with our friends, and when we went home, it was with a feeling of satisfaction that we had found what we wanted for the night.

Thursday the plan had been to visit some friends in the Outer Richmond prior to dinner, come back, cook for ourselves, and head over to Gobble at Temple. Plans that require a lot of activity tend to go astray, however, after many bottles of champagne and a delayed, then sedating, dinner. At 4PM we thought we had better be going, but since “dinner is almost ready,” we decided to stick around to sample the delicacy of Tur-Duck-Hen. At 6.30 we finally sat down to eat, and after our trek at 8.00 PM to find a cab in the wilds of 45th and Geary, we decided we had had enough of socializing for the night, came home, watched an episode of Family Guy, and passed out. Lameness, thy name is mine.

Friday was the day of false anticipation; as some readers made me aware, the all night Disco Party at Mezzanine, for which we have tickets and were expecting this past Friday, is actually this coming Friday, so we went with the back-up plan of Honey Sound System at The Transfer. We arrived early and had a nice chat with Ken Vulsion about their inheritance of a record collection from one of the founders (along with Sylvester) of Magnetone records, which not only includes vinyl but actual session tapes. They will be debuting some of these finds at an upcoming part, but Friday Ken gave a little tour through disco to whet the appetite. I must admit that I still find it hard to listen to disco; hearing Rod Stewart’s “Passion” on Friday night brought back a number of unfortunate memories associated with high school and the Solid Gold TV show, but I will say that, of the various DJs in this city I’ve heard playing disco, Ken certainly is among the best for knowing how to put all those complicated, and often quite cruddily mastered, mixes together. We listened to part of Josh Cheon’s set, but nothing was really making us move, and the crowd was a little odd – I kept having the feeling that the kids there had come thinking that it was Frisco Disco, and several people we had expected to see never showed. We wound up calling the same guys we had hung out with on Wednesday night to see what they were up to – which, as it turned out, was a night of stimulated conversation. We hung out, had some drinks, got a little stimulated ourselves, but still turned it in by a respectable 1AM.

After three successive days of vacation, Saturday arrived and we didn’t really know what to do with ourselves, nor was there anything really compelling on the club schedule. The boyfriend had a cold, and after hanging out with some producer friends, eating a steak dinner, and soaking in the hot tub, he was ready to call it an evening at 10.30. I, on the other hand, had been offered some after-dinner digestive powder, and was feeling restless – I wasn’t exactly in a mood to go out and party, nor did I really have anyone to go out with, but I also didn’t feel like playing Xbox until I was ready for sleep. I compromised by taking a walk to return a video, thinking I would find something along the way. I checked into The Bar, but it was already more crowded than I was interested in dealing with; the same was true of Frisco Disco, and since my haircut didn’t match up with those of the other kids in line, I got the sense it wasn’t exactly my scene (which seems to have been proved true by a reader report of the evening). I stood on the corner of Filmore and Market for a few moments, contemplating my options, before finally turning and heading up to Drunk and Horny at Underground SF, thinking that I could at least hang out with a few people I might know there.

Unfortunately, Drunk and Horny proved to be more depressing than simply staying home. Though I am good friends with many of the folks involved with that party – Sparky had been one of the people eating dinner with us previously in the evening – I really cannot relate to that particular scene. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering why this is; it’s certainly lively, there are lots of guys who are having a good time, and on this occasion there was a go-go boy with a Mohawk, loincloth, and hot tribal tattoos that would normally make me drool – but every time I go there I feel this sense of distance between myself and everyone else. I think this may be because Drunk and Horny has been very good at crafting a high-school/collegiate vibe that, in the end, makes me feel kinda old and lame. This is largely because of the music; either it’s good-time party standards that make me remember my own high school dances, or it’s contemporary “urban flava” that is all the stuff that became popular after I left college. Thus, musically, I get caught in space that either make me feel old, or out of touch. If I had felt moved to dance, and perhaps flirt a bit, I probably could have passed a couple hours there and gone home feeling well-spent, but as it was it only added to the out-of-synch feeling that dogged me throughout the night – I was out of synch with the boyfriend, who was tired and out of sorts and wanted an early bedtime, I was out of synch with the crowd at Drunk and Horny, and I left feeling out of synch with the whole vibe of gay San Francisco on a Saturday night. I went home to the last resort of many gay men who find that their Saturday has not gone quite the way they would like; I checked out some online porn, took care of business, had a drink and a Vicodin, and passed out on the couch watching episodes of Futurama.

When Sunday dawned I was still feeling kinda geeked out from the night before, but this was the day of the kitty. On my way to feed a friend’s cat, I got a call from the boyfriend, who had gone to the gym, telling me that there was a cat rescue service with kittens down at Castro and 18th. Our plan had been to go check out the kittens at Macy’s, but after he called I knew exactly how the day would turn out. Sure enough, by 3PM we had obtained an Abyssinean kitten (now named Disco Biscuit, Disco to his friends, Mr. Biscuit to you), I had had my first experience in a Castro pet store (nothing will make you feel more bourgeois, I assure you), and our friend Kitty had come over to meet our newest family member. Up until that point I had been firmly determined to check out French Kiss at Pink that evening, but now, staying home and bonding with my new friend seemed more important, and more appealing, than another night out on my own.

I had Monday off, and it was a day of reflection. I had started the weekend with definite party agenda, but, in the end, had only really gone out to one event on it. Instead, it was the spontaneous moments of going exploring with the boyfriend, meeting up with friends to hang out in their or our apartment, and those moments of bonding around our new kitten that had seemed the most satisfying to me. When I thought about how unhappy I had been on Saturday night, I realized it wasn’t because I had gone out by myself – I’ve done that often enough, and the boyfriend even thinks that my spirit of adventure in doing so is an admirable quality – but because I had felt so sunk down within myself. I had wanted connection, and fun, and adventure, and instead I only wound up feeling alienated. It put the point to something that I’ve felt for a long time – that the only reason for going out is to have that sense of connection to others through the sharing of experience; when going out is just about “making the scene” it’s an ultimately shallow experience. You’re there, but that’s it, and in your “thereness” you realize just how alone you are (the being of being in being is awfully painful, as you Heideggerians know). If there’s good music and dancing I can feel myself in connection with something else, and with other people, but if all that I’m doing is standing around with a drink in my hand, then I might as well go home. As another long holiday approaches I hope I’ll have more opportunities for experiences that bring me closer to others, whether they’re in a club or just hanging out with the people I want to know.

New Year's News

Now that the turkey feast is done and we can hear the sweet sound of canned Christmas music in the cabs (I heard a great ditty called "Christmas in San Francisco" on Thursday), thoughts turn to our last big party day of the year, New Year's Eve. It's a tough night, since everbody wants to do something, but everybody wants to do something with their friends, meaning all bets are off about what will turn out to be the big parties of the night. However, little birds have told me to expect at least three big gay parties:

Afterglow - Comfort and Joy is currently planning on another New Year's Eve party in one of their traditional party locations.

Drunk and Horny - Jeff and Gary will be welcoming "500 of our most intimate friends" into an underground warehouse location (likely known to many readers of this blog) with a main dance area, a chill room, and a special "wet dream lounge." Lord Kook has also been invited to DJ the main room.

Fag Fridays New Year's Eve at Pink - with Juanita More, check out the Pink website for more info.

If you all hear of anything else that sounds like a fun way to ring in 2008 (yay, at last, a Democrat in the White House!) drop me a line and let me know about it.

Update:
Erik over at Metrowize sent me a link to their list of all the major club events that are happening. If you're looking for something a bit more "structured" (and pricey) there are some interesting options here.

Event Review: Drunk and Horny at Underground SF

If you’re a gay boy of a certain age, or from a certain place, high school, and maybe even college, probably wasn’t that much fun. Sure, we all went to the frat parties, or the keggers down by the river, but chances are that we often found ourselves having to hold back from the kind of debauchery that was central to those events – after all, there could be serious consequences for saying or doing the wrong thing after hitting that beer bong. Drunk and Horny, the weekly party hosted at Underground SF by the infamous duo of Jeff and Gary (Earth, The Love Haight Lounge, Wet Dream), is probably as close to those high school antics as is possible to achieve by people who are actually of legal drinking age. Beer bongs, vintage disco, AOR and alternative rock tracks, the occasional appearance of a whipped cream dispenser, references to “Spring Break” and “Finals” on the flyers, all evoke those hazy halcyon days of youth, or at least some imagined version of them.

I’ve seen this party evolve over the course of about two years, and it has undergone some changes in that time. When it started as a monthly it was usually so packed that you couldn’t even get a drink, though now as a weekly the crowd has thinned to more manageable levels (it's no longer necessary to sneak into the back alley for a pee, for example). At first the crowd was very alteraqueer, drawing from various faeries, Haight Street boys, and those who had come to other Jeff and Gary parties. Once the owner of the bar started taking out ads in Gloss, however, the crowd began to take on more of a classic Castro caste, though I have continued to meet interesting guys milling around in the back smoking area (my favorite place to hang out, since that's where the bad boys are). The music has changed somewhat as well, with a distinct trend toward classic disco and 70s tracks, with more contemporary alt-rock and pop thrown in. Lord Kook used to open with a harder electrohouse sound that I really enjoyed, but since he has moved on, with the opening slot taken up by Sparky, the sound is much more consistent, and perhaps more accessible to the larger masses who like their music funky and familiar enough to sing along with .

Drunk and Horny is a pretty reliable night out, and at only five dollars, with some of the absolute strongest drinks in town (three usually leave me completely plastered), it can be an easy-going way to pass some time with friends on a Saturday night, get totally shit-faced, and maybe strike up a chat with a cutie and get lucky (especially if there’s an afterparty). I don’t personally groove on the music that much, but, for me, the dancefloor isn’t really what this night is about. Drunk and Horny is well on its way to being a classic San Francisco event, so you owe it to yourself to check it out at least once, whether you want to feel like you're in college again, or you really are and are just tired of partying with all the straight kids. Maybe that will be enough for you, or maybe it will just whet your appetite for more.

Knocked Up at Drunk and Horny

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a swell cocktail party/photo shoot at the home of Mssrs. Jeff and Gary in the Haight. The photos will be for upcoming Drunk and Horny flyers, and all I can say is naked boiz + a basketball = Demi Moore. Cogitate on that for a while.

The whole Drunk and Horny crew was there, including Mauricio and Chris, the very cute coat check and front door boys (though Chris' date had an 11PM curfew, oh my!), Lord Kook (who had so much fun that he fell off an ottoman while sitting down), and many of the other associated swingers such as myself and Kitty. It was great fun to hang out with everyone in a space that wasn't so crowded and loud as Underground SF, and Jeff and Gary were immaculate hosts. Best moment of the evening: seeing a photo of Gary from the '93 March on Washington in which he was holding up a "Lesbian Rights NOW" sign. Yes Gary, you are my favorite lesbian.

Mix Download: DJ Mixes by Lord Kook

If you've been lucky enough to be at Drunk and Horny early in the evening before it gets all drunk and disco, you've probably had a chance to hear Lord Kook, who has one of the freshest sounds of all of San Francisco's gay DJs. He has some mixes up on his site, some recorded live at DnH, that may be of interest to his fans. Scattered throughout are some of his own remixes and original tracks (listen particularly to some of the fun toward the end of "The Way Back," including remixes of U2's "For the First Time" and "The Way Back" by Hot Chip).

Upcoming Event: Lord Kook at Drunk and Horny

Lord Kook will be at Drunk and Horny again this Saturday, and since DJ Big Red has another committment that will have him showing up late, you can expect an extended set of kooky goodness.

Overheard at Drunk and Horny

Kid handing a slip of paper with the afterparty address to another kid in the back smoking area:

"I'm only giving these out to the cute ones, if you know what I mean."

Those overhearing this were not recipients of said address, therefore, they must not have been cute.

Upcoming: Lord Kook at Drunk and Horny

It's the fourth Saturday of the month coming up, which means that Lord Kook will be on the decks early at Drunk and Horny. LK usually goes on around 9.30 and takes a break around 11.30 before coming back on later, but if you make it early in the evening there's always room to dance, it's easy to get drinks, and you won't have to go out into the alley to take a pee. Come out and show your support for gay club music that doesn't trade in the cliches of yesteryear.