Ass2K
Assimilate 2000 (aka Ass2k to the locals) is located on the western edge of SoMA close to the decrepitude of The Mission and Portrero Hill, and it's billed as -the- place to go to for industrial and synthpop, so I have high expectations.
I come in to Praga Khan's "Breakfast in Vegas" a Latest New Thing in Boston, and I'm not surprised to hear it here. I spend a couple of minutes walking around the club, getting the lay of the land. It's a gorgeous venue, with walls of exposed brick, twenty foot high ceilings and massive mirrors suspended above an impressive bar that spans the length of one side of the club. The dancefloor's about the size of a parking spot ... for a Miata, but that's the only obvious flaw of the place. I find John as the DJ transitions to Covenant's "Dead Stars" (another big Boston hit), we're ordering drinks to Rob Zombie and by the time Portishead comes on, I start feeling like I've never left Boston. Talk about your cross-pollination.
John explains that the regular industrial/synthpop DJ is taking a break for the night. He usually spins in the club's back room, but currently there's a band playing there. We go back and check it out, and flee immediately after finding out that the band is essentially a maligned Christian Death clone. Bad bad bad.
We kill time and ignore the progressive decline of the front room DJ (that can't be Metallica that I'm hearing in the background ...) and we start perusing the Unspun Records table.
Unspun is a local business run by Georgia, sister of a friend of a friend, or some multi-degree relationship like that, and it's pure brilliance. They sell CDs and t-shirts at SF goth clubs and on the web. And they have a good catalog of goth/industrial stuff. And they take credit cards. Yeah, so get your clientele drunk and happy and let them just wander by a table of CDs that's right next to the dancefloor. Evil evil evil.
I wind up dropping close to $100 on CDs and t-shirts at their table. augh.
Finally, the back room band takes off and we get DJ Fernando. Fernando's style is similar to mine, tony's and punketta doilie's(ebm with traces of synthpop) though he's more likely to drop an old classic like 'Mindphaser' or 'Tear or Beat' rather than stick to more recent stuff. And he beatmaches really well.
I left the night reasonably happy, grooving along to the Negative Format CD I picked up from Unspun. All in all, it's not a bad club, just limited by tiny dancefloors. But then, it's sort of been a hidden fact that Boston's blessed with reasonable club real estate. The current theory is that Boston's goth/industrial population doesn't tend to dress up as much as their other counterparts, but we dominate the dancefloor because we're so accustomed to having space and the courtesy that comes along with that. When you aren't packed like sardines into a space, you can practice more than simple pogo'ing to Front 242.
Still, overall a good night. I'm sleeping happy.
I come in to Praga Khan's "Breakfast in Vegas" a Latest New Thing in Boston, and I'm not surprised to hear it here. I spend a couple of minutes walking around the club, getting the lay of the land. It's a gorgeous venue, with walls of exposed brick, twenty foot high ceilings and massive mirrors suspended above an impressive bar that spans the length of one side of the club. The dancefloor's about the size of a parking spot ... for a Miata, but that's the only obvious flaw of the place. I find John as the DJ transitions to Covenant's "Dead Stars" (another big Boston hit), we're ordering drinks to Rob Zombie and by the time Portishead comes on, I start feeling like I've never left Boston. Talk about your cross-pollination.
John explains that the regular industrial/synthpop DJ is taking a break for the night. He usually spins in the club's back room, but currently there's a band playing there. We go back and check it out, and flee immediately after finding out that the band is essentially a maligned Christian Death clone. Bad bad bad.
We kill time and ignore the progressive decline of the front room DJ (that can't be Metallica that I'm hearing in the background ...) and we start perusing the Unspun Records table.
Unspun is a local business run by Georgia, sister of a friend of a friend, or some multi-degree relationship like that, and it's pure brilliance. They sell CDs and t-shirts at SF goth clubs and on the web. And they have a good catalog of goth/industrial stuff. And they take credit cards. Yeah, so get your clientele drunk and happy and let them just wander by a table of CDs that's right next to the dancefloor. Evil evil evil.
I wind up dropping close to $100 on CDs and t-shirts at their table. augh.
Finally, the back room band takes off and we get DJ Fernando. Fernando's style is similar to mine, tony's and punketta doilie's(ebm with traces of synthpop) though he's more likely to drop an old classic like 'Mindphaser' or 'Tear or Beat' rather than stick to more recent stuff. And he beatmaches really well.
I left the night reasonably happy, grooving along to the Negative Format CD I picked up from Unspun. All in all, it's not a bad club, just limited by tiny dancefloors. But then, it's sort of been a hidden fact that Boston's blessed with reasonable club real estate. The current theory is that Boston's goth/industrial population doesn't tend to dress up as much as their other counterparts, but we dominate the dancefloor because we're so accustomed to having space and the courtesy that comes along with that. When you aren't packed like sardines into a space, you can practice more than simple pogo'ing to Front 242.
Still, overall a good night. I'm sleeping happy.