This weekend’s music picks are dedicated to our favorite dance and club music around town. We’ve also provided some advice about clubbing properly, sourced from some classic songs about the experience.
Many rappers riff about partying hard and its consequences, and often they voice an essential caution: never fall in love at the club. Otherwise, you might end up like Obie Trice, waking up to the sight of his hook-up’s dentures soaking on the nightstand. As he consoles her:
You gotta have teeth baby /Â It just wouldn’t look right
Look — me, big lips /Â You — no teeth, it wouldn’t work
Some of you might remember going through a similar panic. To my ears, Container’s techno tracks best translate this panic into sound, with synthesizer beats winding through a maze with no clear escape. Container plays at Palisades’ one-year anniversary celebration, in a three-DJ lineup that starts at midnight.
Good news for Greenpointers: catching quality hip-hop does not have to involve livery car rides to underground Myrtle Avenue clubs, or standing in long lines to enter a Manhattan mega-club. One of my favorite Greenpoint transformations occurs at the ordinarily serene bar Enid’s on certain nights, when a DJ climbs into the crow’s nest behind the bartender, like a preacher ascending a corner pulpit. When that happens, you know that you are only moments away from finding yourself swallowed by a bumping, crunking riot of people.
Alison Toy spins there this Saturday, at an unspecified hour (DJ’s there usually start around midnight). I say, don’t be shy on the dance floor, just embrace your white boy overbite, as the British parodist 50 Pence recommends:
When the beats are pumping I get my Macarena on
My mates drag me to my chair before the end of the song
Output has its usual mint-quality DJ bullpen set for this weekend, and for pure danceability we like Mike Servito best, spinning Saturday in the middle of a five-DJ night that begins at 10PM. Advanced tickets ($15 to $30, depending on arrival time) are available here.
In case you have not frequented a music club for a few years, here is a Schmurda dance tutorial to update your boogie-down toolkit. And for the women, Angie Martinez provides an expert illustration on how to gracefully ward away any players in the club at the 2 minute 18 second mark of this song.
All mentioned locations are marked on this map.
Wherever you end up this weekend, we’ll meet up with you and all the other clubbers afterwards to catch the sunrise at Grand Ferry Park!