Rating: NNNNN
Glasgow over Heller
While Fluid is known as a mainstream club, over the summer the people behind Most Wanted Entertainment have been running a Saturday-night underground dance music event called Discotek . The dwindling number of underground venues and the increasingly saturated commercial scene have made this kind of arrangement more appealing to both the club and the promoters.
Headlining last week was Pete Heller , a UK-based DJ and producer who’s had a hand in many big-room dance hits over the years. It’s a bit surprising, considering that it’s been a while since he visited Toronto, that the club wasn’t more rammed for his gig. Not that it was dead – the dance floor in the main room was full all night, but the lounge area was mainly empty, and the place was nowhere near capacity.
Heller specializes in a dark and trippy sound somewhere between tech-house and progressive, with a bit of electro and acid influence here and there. It kept the crowd moving but lacked much of a sense of dynamics, which means there were few moments that stood out.
Kenny Glasgow‘s opening set had more variety and drama, which is probably why he’s so well loved locally.
House gets new meaning
Late Saturday night, the guys behind the Mixed Signals label threw an intimate deep house party – literally, meaning in someone’s home. House veterans Dino and Terry were the special guests, and had the dancers in the pitch-black living room getting down to their soulful sounds. This was the third party in someone’s home that I stumbled into over the weekend, and all of them were much more entertaining than any of the club events.
While club owners are putting all their energy and money into building shiny yuppy lounges, actual partiers are happily attending improvised events in unlikely spaces, cheerfully waiting in line for the one bathroom and patiently waiting when rented sound systems overheat and short out.
Who cares about bottle service when you can bring your own?
Not-so-full Decks
Started out Friday night at Revival for the second annual Decks In The City party, an event focusing on up-and-coming female DJs. The promise of free promotional booze got a decent number of heads out pretty early, although putting Kitoko on the decks before 10 pm was a little too optimistic, even with the incentive. She spun a mixture of house and electro, with a bit of new wave influence here and there.
Up next was Leelee Mishi , whom some might know as one of the organizers of the OM festival. Her set was more rooted in house, in particular the deep and funky sides of the spectrum. By this point the party was starting to fill up.
