Saturday, May 19, 2:15 a.m.
Perhaps I just have a preconceived notion about what an audiovisual mash-up night at a club should be. Happy to take the blame for that, I’m sure, would be the duo of Steven Lockwood and VJ Roonie G, whose A/V party took our eyes and ears captive even back when it was going off at Ra nightclub in 2004. Since they brought A/V to Jet last Labor Day weekend, Roonie and his Pioneer DVJ deck have been spinning us in circles once or twice every month. Over at Tao this very weekend, Heineken’s Thirst Studios will be giving away two of those Pioneer decks, outfitting a whole new generation of DJs to add some VJ street cred to their resume.
But spinning actual music videos on a Pioneer system is not the only way to add visual interest to a nightclub’s musical menu. Back in 2002, Club Rio was called a video dance club and alternated between music videos and ambient clips on its 12 giant screens while you danced to the hits. Rumjungle’s new Visual Eyes Fridays seems to hit a little closer to this home than the type of stuff Roonie G is doing. But clubs can run into trouble with this style of A/V enhancement if the videos don’t match the music. And if the ambient clips of spinning pineapples and surfing daisies are on autopilot, watch out! Because this could only be interesting to those on psychotropic drugs.
I arrive at Rumjungle just as DJ/VJ (or DVJ for short) Kris P. is wrapping up his set. There’s a plasma TV in every VIP section (“VIP pod”—you may as well learn the lingo!), and three huge screens hang in the entrance and on either side of the dance floor. Kris P. is flickering back and forth between live footage of the drummers, prerecorded clips of go-go dancers and Rumjungle’s famous aerial acts and those darn ambient stock videos, the drummers rat-a-tat-tatting along to Lil’ Kim and 50 Cent’s “Magic Stick.”
I always get a kick out of the fact that just hours ago they were slinging meat on swords here during dinner time, but you’d never know it from the looks on the wholesome, plastered tourists’ faces as they fish among the crowd for dates with a hearty, “Care for a drink from my bottle?” No, I prefer to watch the cougars-in-training—the bored, young, well-to-do married girls—who are scoping out some fresh meat of their own. Grrrrowl!
Around 2:30 a.m. Kris P. retires to the bar and hands the ship over to DJ Revise, who keeps the music going but throws the video on automatic; the same six clips of aerialists, go-gos and Beyoncé will loop the rest of the night. Soon, I don’t even see Revise in the booth anymore. Come to think of it, I didn’t have much better timing when I arrived at Mist earlier tonight to check out Fusion Fridays, the Light Group’s second use of the Pioneer DVJ technology in their portfolio of venues.
That time I arrived at 1:30 a.m., ironically for DJ Prime Time. DJ Phaness was already done with his video mash-up for the night, but the effect of his set could still be felt as the room exploded in a flurry of white cocktail napkins with each chorus of Kelly Clarkson’s inescapable “Since U Been Gone.” Whoosh, like a snow globe! “I’m pretty much taking everyone back to their college days,” says Mist GM Ramon Mata of his “napkin songs,” beer bongs, shot bottles and other bar toys. “There’s no rules here.” This new night being a success, he’s already tinkering with his next project, a five-piece band that will play live mash-ups along with DJ Que on Thursdays from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Guess I’ll have to get there earlier next time if I want to catch it.
Xania Woodman thinks globally and parties locally. And frequently. E-mail her at [email protected] and visit thecircuitlv.com to sign up for Xania’s free weekly newsletter.