You gotta hand it to Liquid Lifestyle. After keeping Luxy's Wednesday ladies' nights blazing all summer, they've gotten back in the action for the winter break with Winter Fresh and are packing the place to the rafters for easily the best ladies' night in town, along with Ministry of Sound's (MoS) midweek offering.
Make no mistake about it, the focus isn't on the music (top-40 hip hop and rhythm 'n' blues expertly dropped by Luxy's residents) but is all about the bevvy of luscious Fresh dancers, the bottle twirling routines, beer bongs at the bar and the completely unhinged party atmosphere.
PHOTO: JULES QUARTLY, TAIPEI TIMES
Next week will be the last of the season's parties, so expect it to be a raucous send-off before spring semester back in the US. Take a moment, perhaps when Fatman Scoop comes on for the third time in the main room, to check out Sugar in the Lotus Room, where some of Taipei's better house DJ's have been laying down some great sets.
In other news, Room 18 closed its doors this week and is set to renovate again. It will also possibly start a new club somewhere else.
After seeing some great shows there over the years, including DJ Krush, Dom T, MC Jin and many others, we'll be expecting a few more in the future. The place's design and music programming had needed a breath of fresh air for quite a while. Here's their chance.
There's two obvious big nights out this weekend to clear away the cobwebs following the New Year bashes. First up tomorrow at AXD is Peace Division, an influential tribal house act that has defined the genre over the years.
Clive Henry and Justin Drake sound like two nice boys and they are. Inspired by 1980s pop tunes and contemporary hip hop, they have quietly helped shape the house music movement.
Their debut album, Junkyard Funk proved to be a springboard to a lucrative DJing and production career, with a hand in records such as Touch Me by Rui Da Silva, Natural Blues by Moby and X-Press 2's Lazy.
Get to AXD before 12pm or after 4am and it's just NT$500. Between these hours you will be asked for NT$700 on the door.
There seem to be a lot of godfathers to the house music scene, but UK Radio 1 DJ Pete Tong has a stronger claim than most, having started in the days when ravers motored around London's Orbital road in search of illegal parties that were so big the police couldn't shut them down. From rebel to establishment, Tong joined BBC radio and has been setting the tone for the country's party people most Saturday and Sunday nights since then on his hugely popular show.
"He's definitely the godfather of the dance scene," according to MoS DJ Damian Saint, who will be celebrating his birthday tonight at the club's bar. After that Saint's off to Thailand for a break, having set the musical pace at Neihu since the club opened up in March.
contact: vinylword@taipeitimes.com
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