TL;DR
Welcome newcomers, thanks for the support.
We’re Pete and Serena, together we’re CLUBSTACK®. Thanks to a few kind souls (Charlotte, cheers) and some dumb luck, we now have a reasonably sized audience.
Thus far, this platform has been: a) a creative outlet b) a community space c) a useful service. Our goal is to provide information, insight and opportunities for connection, centered around New York’s myriad dancefloors.
What We Are: a platform to promote sweaty, inclusive dancefloors that champion connection and community. More specifically we are…
A Substack: musings about the club, the New York scene and our internal world while dancing.
An Instagram: trying to amplify the reach of events that align with our values and further the sustainable growth of our community, trying new modes of creative promotion.
A Hotline: +1 (332) 699-6960; this is our most theoretically useful arm. We want to provide an opportunity for folks to find new dancefloors without having to enter the vast wasteland that is social media. Give us a call!
What We’re Working On
Events: Not much to say here as of yet, but, given our love for dancing, you can be damned sure we’ll throw a good party when it’s time.
Fostering Collaboration: We hope to find intellectual kin. We want to establish tangible spaces and opportunities for conversation and analysis.
Merch and Flea Market: Coming soon, stay tuned.
Expanding Phone Service: Our goal is to expand the usefulness of the hotline to encompass SMS notifications. We’d provide a few weekly texts highlighting parties we’re excited about. Ideally, we can become a true utility. Nerd’s Note: If anyone has successfully implemented text notifications on Twilio and registered a hobbyist account under A2P 10DLC restrictions, please hit our line.
(theclubstack@gmail.com)
The Longer Version
“I’m just gonna take a wittle nap, OK?”
“mmmmm”, I reply, barely audible over the frothing A/C. I glance at the car thermometer: 97ºF. I look back at Andrés through the rearview; his eyes are shut, mouth barely open to the sky.
A few days earlier, we had agreed to haul speakers and decks up to the Williamsburg Bridge and DJ for a few hours under the sun. A saturated crop of DJs, competitive club bookings and a lack of connections to those spaces found us re-enacting rituals that crystallized a now bygone ‘underground’ culture.
Substacker’s Note: I highly recommend reading Shawn Reynaldo’s First Floor for a much more nuanced take on dance music’s mid-life crisis and what to do about it.
The beginning of June found the same crew raving in a freshly power-washed WWII test-bunker on Fisher’s Island (yes, that Fisher’s Island) (thanks Eliza) and organizing stoop parties at our place on Washington Avenue. In one sense, breathing life into DIY rave efforts feels like an important contribution to a culture now lorded over by promoters like TekSupport: a New York-based outfit that charges prohibitively high prices to perform some sort of GPT’ed Loveparade. In another sense, DIY efforts may well be missing the point, or at least represent a misuse of collective energy.
In his essay, Raving as Folk Art, Sean locates dance music as a now “established spoke of the broader culture”. That concept alone is enough to ruffle plenty of feathers.
The Old Heads: time to bow out, the kids ruined the party.
Gen-Z: It’s 100ºF, I spend 3/4 of my paycheck on rent, so fuck your mnml, it’s gonna be a 160bpm Missy Elliot flip in the club, please and thank you.
Your Niece: Posting her new Calliou-hardstyle mix to millions of adoring TikTok Live participants.
None of these are correct. All are demonstrative of unique relations to subcultural capital (read: the value of being cool). When subcultural capital morphs into cultural capital, there’s bound to be some infighting. It’s a bit like your currency being devalued overnight; you might be pissed that your Newports now cost $17.99 + tax and you might further be goaded into blaming the pixie-cut, JNCO revival character ahead of you in the bodega.
For both parties, though, the jig is up. It’s time to articulate a real ideology and set of customs around dance music. To quote Neil Postman (and Sean again):
“What is happening in America is not the design of an articulated ideology. No Mein Kampf or Communist Manifesto announced its coming. It comes as the unintended consequence of a dramatic change in our modes of public conversation.”
Under traumatic global circumstances, dance has the power to transform trauma into collective movement. The only way forward is to articulate our collective ideology through shared spaces and nuanced conversation (and good dance parties, damnit!). Much more to come here. Ok, we’re on a bridge, remember…
I’m now halfway up the pedestrian path, death-gripping a 75 lb. generator. Sweat carries sunscreen into my contacts. All of the idealism of a few days prior leaves my body with one big: “FUCK!”
After some typical, dopey technical difficulties, the support of friends and friendly commuters draws a small crowd. The breeze picks up and sun lowers. Little feels oppressive now under the sway of 130 bpm. I notice a newcomer: she’s casually dressed but sporting a J.W. Anderson bag. I lean over to Will: “I think that’s Charlotte de Witte”. He shrugs. I walk up and introduce myself, “I’m Charlotte”, she says. “Yes, I know, you’re quite famous”, I reply, not knowing what else to say. We chat about our weekend plans.
Her: Primetime show at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Me: A house party in Crown Heights.
We drift out of conversation and into dancing. Dudash is on the decks. Dub siren wails across the bridge; Interplanetary Criminal’s remix of Sidewindah overwhelms the sub. I jump up and down. “YEAH DUDASH!” I shout. It’s nearing 8PM and I’m momentarily blind. The last remaining light refracts intensely against an incoming safety vest. My stomach drops under the presence of potential authority. It rises again as the the safety orange bounces in rhythm. A yellow hard hat and ruddy smile complete the safety vest: Mike, the union captain, yells unintelligibly as he bounces across the bridge. Joy.
It’s my turn to play again. I queue up Stef Adasi’s Spirit Trancemission and bob my head rhythmically. The tune builds slowly. Charlotte walks over. She gives me a hug, kindly thanks me (no really, thank you) and descends the bridge with her crew. An hour later, the sun no longer visible above lower Manhattan, we follow suit, slowly, hoisting the subwoofer over each crack in the path.
Afront the frothing A/C once more, I’m lulled into a stupor as I turn onto Washington Ave. (Hello generator exhaust!)
I haphazardly unload the equipment into my apartment, grab a pack of cigarettes and amble off to Georgie’s party…
24 HOURS LATER
I’m FaceTiming Serena about our 5, now 7K, followers on Instagram. For us, that feels monumental. Just last week, this platform held the rapt (annoyed) attention of 200 friends and friends-of-friends. Over the past few months, we’ve thrown just about everything at the wall. We started a hotline (still going, give us a call), a Substack; we made some merch (more coming), planned adult summer camp, and more.
Serena and I started this platform to empower people to go out dancing. To make them feel safe to dance alone, to understand the dancefloor as a place for meaningful connection, to see fun as something to be taken seriously and with intention. Some of the happiest moments our our yet brief lives have been spent on a dancefloor in the wide, weird and wonderful place we’re privileged and grateful to call home, New York City. CLUBSTACK ® is first and foremost by and for our community. Thanks for the support, many updates to come, much love.
Now go shake that ass.
CLUBSTACK ®