Beers for Siers 3 - Part One

This is the first posting in a three part series from the 3rd Annual Beers for Siers pub crawl in NYC.

On Friday, July 25th, I jumped on a Bolt bus with my friend Dervon to head up to NYC for my good friend Adam Siers' annual birthday weekend pub-crawl. I've been back on the east coast for close to two years now and figured it was time I head up to visit Siers.

So when we got into town, we figured we'd take Friday night as a chance to hit up some NYC clubs and get our groove on. Naturally, I went online and found a few places that fit our interest and a few with some well-known DJs spinning. So we showered up and grabbed a cab from mid-town down to SoHo for our first stop, Sullivan Room.



Here's the cool thing about Sullivan Room. It was hidden off Bleeker Street on a side road in the neighborhood. To find it, you had to know where it was. There was no sign or anything else to let you know it was there, aside from the two very large men standing at a door. We walked up and they said we were in the right place. Ruben T was spinning on the decks, so I was excited to get into one of the cities true underground house music rooms. And let me tell you, it was underground. It was in the basement of a non-descript building. The room was dark, red and had one of the sweetest sound systems you could ever imagine. When Ruben T blended into his hard pulsing house beats, you felt it through every bone in your body. We were quite literally at the center of the NYC house music world.

Here's the strange thing about Sullivan Room...it reminded me of the Jam Cellar. Now let me explain. Most of you know of my passion for dancing. Well the Jam Cellar is regarded as one of the greatest swing dance venues in the world. It's small, intimate, and most people know each other. And it's full of some of the best dancers in the world, which makes it a tad bit intimidating for newbie’s. Well Sullivan Room clearly was the spot for house music dancers. People walked in around 12:30, dressed purely to dance and nothing else. They stretched, hugged others they knew and began practicing their craft on the dance floor. I swear it was no different than anything we see at a swing dance, except it was house music. And oh my, these people could dance. They moved their bodies unlike any club dancer I have ever seen. Sure, there were a few rave-kid types doing their glow-stick impersonations...but this was venue and the music was for hardcore house-heads. It was one of the more unique things I've ever seen.

So we finished our drinks there and decided it was time to open things up a bit. We wanted big. We wanted flashy. We wanted glitz and glamour. We wanted to experience a true mega-club in the greatest city on earth. So we got into a cab and set out to find Mansion, a club with a sister venue in Miami known for it's over-the-top club experiences. We got into the neighborhood where Mansion was, but we never made it there. We got sidetracked by a venue called Marquee.



Now there is no saying that Marquee was better than Mansion. We'll never know at this point. But the line to get into Marquee definitely had us curious at what all the fuss was about. So leave it to Dervon to work her magic. Two minutes talking with the bouncer and here we are being escorted past the line into the venue. I'm thinking her 2 inch shorts and 4 inch heals probably had something to do with it, but who's complaining.

So Marquee was exactly what we wanted. It was multiple rooms with house, trance, and hip-hop. Dervon got to do her booty dancing to hip hop, I got my trance fix and everyone was happy with quality beverages to go around. Night one in NYC was perfect except for one little flaw. Poor Dervon lost her little wallet at Marquee, where we assume it fell out of her pocket and was quickly swept up by the cleaning staff at the club. She tried over the next few days to get it back, but to no avail.

Aside from that little blemish, Friday in NYC was perfect! Even the tater tots at F.A.T.S. were amazing. Day two brings more...

Labels: Clubs, DJ, Nightlife, NYC, Urban, Vacation

posted by DVS @ 1:35 PM