Nightlife

Nights on the Circuit

THEIR HOUSE IS YOUR HOME: 3400 new reasons to look forward to Monday

Xania Woodman

Tuesday, August 7, 1:21 a.m.

I’d imagine that in any other city, the word Monday is interchangeable with mundane: A nasty drive to work, the start of the work week, maybe a workout, then home to get ahead on some more work. Work, work, work. In any other city, that is. But for many a Sin City citizen, Monday is actually Funday; nightlife- and entertainment-industry employees often have Sunday/Monday or Monday/Tuesday as their weekend. Also, those industry people, well, they love their house music, don’t they? Jet doesn’t just know this to be a fact, they live it and breath it every week on Industry Mondays. But locals aren’t the only ones who take Jet up on their Monday night offering; tourists and business travelers on long weekends enjoy the party, too. So when I heard that Jet gave their former rock room a complete house-music overhaul just for Mondays, I couldn’t wait to see what they came up with.

“Every day I’m hustling/Every day I’m hustling.” Yeah, Rick Ross? Well, you’re not the only one. I’m being squeezed through Jet’s main-room throng like a tube of very little toothpaste. Sunglasses guy, Barbie girl, frat boy and thug all squish by, our bodies smearing together. This isn’t what I want. “Party Like a Rock Star” gets an all-too-reverent moment of silence, and I use the pause before the beat drops to duck back into 3400 for the new party Destination: House.

I had arrived early, at 11:30, to check out the renovation. Hot! The sign for 3400, the new Monday night house party-within-a-party, is projected over the doorway. Bespectacled and with a cigarette balanced on his lip, resident DJ Eddie McDonald opens for the headliner, London’s Paolo Mojo; fellow resident Faarsheed jumps in both before and after, and Chris Garcia will round out the night somewhere just before dawn.

Ladies dance on the bass bins, just beneath two of the eight dangling gauze lanterns that remind me of Godskitchen and Ice. I assumed they were there to strategically improve the sound quality, but Faarsheed tells me they’re ornamental. Either way, the sound is impeccable. Production consultant Johnny Caron of the Funky Tekno Tribe is the reputed master of tiny details that affect the overall product: “It’s tuned just right,” declares Faarsheed. I observe that the closer you are to the DJ, the cooler you are. Or perhaps it’s that the cooler you are, the closer you can get to the DJ. The new raised-corner DJ booth creates a cul-de-sac of such coolness at the end of the bar, where Mike Hanley is passing out the Patron. “I’m the house man!” he says, dancing a little but stopping just short of flair.

Very little other than the bar has been left alone. The long, bistro-level standing bar is gone, opening up the floor to dancers. “House-music people roll deep!” says marketing and promotions coordinator Steven Lockwood of the decision to exchange the once-shallow VIP tables for roomy, square booths with high backs just begging for amateur go-go dancers. The bass is deep, too, vibrating my spine, my earrings and the very clothes I wear. But it’s not overwhelming, and I can still hear McDonald say, “I love it! [Mojo’s] possibly one of the five biggest names in dance music right now.” On tour with Deep Dish and looking all of 17 years old, he is tearing it up, drink in one hand, the outcome of our night in the other. “I’m impressed,” says Jet’s talent liaison, Josh D., “and I’m never impressed.” The headliners will change weekly in 3400.

At the official grand opening on August 13, all three residents will spin, accompanied by Cayce Andrew on percussion, and Faarsheed—now dancing on the bar—also mentions a naughty balloon-animal guy. I leave to the sound of Mojo leaning heavy on the buttons and knobs, drawing out a note for what seems like an eternity. Cutting through the main room, I find the female bartenders also dancing on the bar waiting for the beat to drop on Body Rockers’ “I Like the Way.” I exit Jet in a shower of napkins, the screams of delight sneaking with me out the door.

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.

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