In which (BUMP+GRIND)/TIME = 1
When you've been single as long as I have, either changing that situation or occasionally drowning it in a brain-rattling backbeat becomes less of an interest or a desire and more of a Prime Directive*. Fitness regimen? Sexy alt-paper side job? Charmingly self-effacing opening to this post**? Peacock feathers, one and all, stapled squarely to my ass in a half-hearted attempt to come out of my mid-twenties at least looking more presentable.
I finally managed to make it to VooDoo at The Valarium this Saturday determined to satisfy at least one of the aforementioned lofty goals. As the successor to Blue Cats' Fiction dance nights and the only thing around these parts remotely resembling the kind of offering which attracts the kind of people which interest me, VooDoo since its recent inception has had a gnawing, obligatory allure for me, a dull ache of interest not unlike the ambivalent dread experienced when your grandmother invites you over for Christmas. You know you're going to go, you know the people there probably at least won't actively make you want to die, and you know you might walk out with something interesting, but the mere fact of its inevitability still makes you grimace at the thought.
In a global sense, there's nothing really new about VooDoo. Tables, VIP, couches, drink, dancers, lighting, beats which rattle glasses like the T-Rex from Jurassic Park. Functional if formulaic, but rightfully so - Knoxvillians are nothing if not skittish about their social events, and the college crowd typically operates on a ruleset unknowable by the minds of man, so building a base with a well-tested and popular format makes sense.
The professionalism of the presentation does impress, though. I've seen many of the house staff in other venues under other circumstances, and they're by and large people who know how to do their job and seem to have no interest in taking half-measures, but what I see reflected in the attitudes of the staff at VooDoo represents a concerted effort on all parts to both run a tight ship and create a high-class atmosphere which welcomes patrons without invoking a ubiquitous Bouncer Presence. Less "come in if you wanna, but if you screw around you're toast," more "you have been invited, and we know you'll behave because that's the kind of person we invite." Refreshing, really.
Or maybe that's just me. I'm cursed with a mindset disproportionately formatted for business - I'm the kind of guy who walks in the door fully intent upon spending the next "morning" at an IHOP after-party but ends up instead attempting to calculate the cost/benefit ratio between the standard-issue incandescent lighting rig and the newfangled LED system installed at The Valarium. While other people are engrossed in the latest version of the color-changing appletini, I'm engrossed in trying to figure out the maximum resolution on the projector, trying to catch a glimpse of the backend OS between video cuts, and wondering how difficult it would be to rig up a procedurally-generated beat-sensitive visual system that would look better at that size (and sync better to the music) than a knockoff of Windows Media Player's visualizations.
And while everyone else's attention gradually drifts downward to the ever-shifting throng of clumsily undulating flesh on the dance floor, my eye, moved no doubt by my against-all-odds indomitable ego as much as by my attraction to the stars of any show over the audience, is constantly drawn to one or more of the house dancers, a troupe cutely named the VooDoo Dolls. I've always been more interested in the kind of self-assured, stage-dwelling grace which is definitely way out of my league than in the mere mortals in the trenches with me which only might be out of reach. Perhaps it's my muse; more likely, my Achilles' heel.
God forbid I see anyone I know, I always find myself muttering at some point. I spent so many years of my life being the guy who decries all forms of non-concert nightlife that being spotted at a dance club is tantamount to suicide by hypocrisy for me. It takes me long enough to work up the nerve to actually move my body in some sort of rhythmic fashion without that voice in the back of my head wondering how some random person who I haven't seen in the better part of a decade would react to the unprecedented idea that I actually changed my mind about something.
DJ Slink's VooDoo mixes, thankfully updated from the Fiction staples which to this day I think I have memorized, help rattle those thoughts from my head. I want to call them trip-hop mashups with a hint of house for taste, but my mind detests the unnecessary subcategorization of music, so I just call it Pop Oontz and for once in my life refuse to dwell on it. Inspiring movement without inspiring aggression (or perhaps worse, apathy) in your audience is one of those thin red lines in live music of all forms, and Slink has his thing down to a science.
Well, mostly. Whose idea was the whole "classic rock with a synthed-up backbeat" thing, anyway? Slink's turntables have set the local standard for at least the better part of the last decade, and his VooDoo mixes largely do nothing to reverse that trend, but if I wanted to hear someone butcher "I'll be Watching You" or "Smells Like Teen Spirit", plenty of middle-aged West Knoxville Wing Joint Cover Bands are happy to oblige. It burns us, Master!
But hey, that's more or less how I've described Knoxville as a whole since time immemorial. Continually in the process of building up toward its more distinguished contemporaries, with only the occasional total interruption of flow to completely throw you off your game and make you temporarily wish you were at a strip club instead.
...Unfortunately, I still don't know what an Orgasmatron is.
----
* Don't worry, the nonproductive nature of using Star Trek terminology to describe the situation is not lost on me.
** Attempt to sound clever through meta-conversation?
I finally managed to make it to VooDoo at The Valarium this Saturday determined to satisfy at least one of the aforementioned lofty goals. As the successor to Blue Cats' Fiction dance nights and the only thing around these parts remotely resembling the kind of offering which attracts the kind of people which interest me, VooDoo since its recent inception has had a gnawing, obligatory allure for me, a dull ache of interest not unlike the ambivalent dread experienced when your grandmother invites you over for Christmas. You know you're going to go, you know the people there probably at least won't actively make you want to die, and you know you might walk out with something interesting, but the mere fact of its inevitability still makes you grimace at the thought.
In a global sense, there's nothing really new about VooDoo. Tables, VIP, couches, drink, dancers, lighting, beats which rattle glasses like the T-Rex from Jurassic Park. Functional if formulaic, but rightfully so - Knoxvillians are nothing if not skittish about their social events, and the college crowd typically operates on a ruleset unknowable by the minds of man, so building a base with a well-tested and popular format makes sense.
The professionalism of the presentation does impress, though. I've seen many of the house staff in other venues under other circumstances, and they're by and large people who know how to do their job and seem to have no interest in taking half-measures, but what I see reflected in the attitudes of the staff at VooDoo represents a concerted effort on all parts to both run a tight ship and create a high-class atmosphere which welcomes patrons without invoking a ubiquitous Bouncer Presence. Less "come in if you wanna, but if you screw around you're toast," more "you have been invited, and we know you'll behave because that's the kind of person we invite." Refreshing, really.
Or maybe that's just me. I'm cursed with a mindset disproportionately formatted for business - I'm the kind of guy who walks in the door fully intent upon spending the next "morning" at an IHOP after-party but ends up instead attempting to calculate the cost/benefit ratio between the standard-issue incandescent lighting rig and the newfangled LED system installed at The Valarium. While other people are engrossed in the latest version of the color-changing appletini, I'm engrossed in trying to figure out the maximum resolution on the projector, trying to catch a glimpse of the backend OS between video cuts, and wondering how difficult it would be to rig up a procedurally-generated beat-sensitive visual system that would look better at that size (and sync better to the music) than a knockoff of Windows Media Player's visualizations.
And while everyone else's attention gradually drifts downward to the ever-shifting throng of clumsily undulating flesh on the dance floor, my eye, moved no doubt by my against-all-odds indomitable ego as much as by my attraction to the stars of any show over the audience, is constantly drawn to one or more of the house dancers, a troupe cutely named the VooDoo Dolls. I've always been more interested in the kind of self-assured, stage-dwelling grace which is definitely way out of my league than in the mere mortals in the trenches with me which only might be out of reach. Perhaps it's my muse; more likely, my Achilles' heel.
God forbid I see anyone I know, I always find myself muttering at some point. I spent so many years of my life being the guy who decries all forms of non-concert nightlife that being spotted at a dance club is tantamount to suicide by hypocrisy for me. It takes me long enough to work up the nerve to actually move my body in some sort of rhythmic fashion without that voice in the back of my head wondering how some random person who I haven't seen in the better part of a decade would react to the unprecedented idea that I actually changed my mind about something.
DJ Slink's VooDoo mixes, thankfully updated from the Fiction staples which to this day I think I have memorized, help rattle those thoughts from my head. I want to call them trip-hop mashups with a hint of house for taste, but my mind detests the unnecessary subcategorization of music, so I just call it Pop Oontz and for once in my life refuse to dwell on it. Inspiring movement without inspiring aggression (or perhaps worse, apathy) in your audience is one of those thin red lines in live music of all forms, and Slink has his thing down to a science.
Well, mostly. Whose idea was the whole "classic rock with a synthed-up backbeat" thing, anyway? Slink's turntables have set the local standard for at least the better part of the last decade, and his VooDoo mixes largely do nothing to reverse that trend, but if I wanted to hear someone butcher "I'll be Watching You" or "Smells Like Teen Spirit", plenty of middle-aged West Knoxville Wing Joint Cover Bands are happy to oblige. It burns us, Master!
But hey, that's more or less how I've described Knoxville as a whole since time immemorial. Continually in the process of building up toward its more distinguished contemporaries, with only the occasional total interruption of flow to completely throw you off your game and make you temporarily wish you were at a strip club instead.
...Unfortunately, I still don't know what an Orgasmatron is.
----
* Don't worry, the nonproductive nature of using Star Trek terminology to describe the situation is not lost on me.
** Attempt to sound clever through meta-conversation?
I love that you were, "trying to catch a glimpse of the backend OS between video cuts." which is what I would have been doing.