Technology Lost and Found
by Tricia Romano
Losing your luggage is bad enough, but losing your records is even worse. Especially if you are DERRICK MAY and you’re spinning the final P.S.1 summer Warm Up party. Not that anyone noticed that May was only working with one bag, no thanks to his airline. From the DJ booth, all proclamations of dance music being at the morgue were silenced at the sight of the gargantuan crowd, which went positively berserk. It was like a nightlife reunion, with Halcyon’s SHAWN SCHWARTZ handing out flyers for the store’s reopening this week, and DJs DINESH, KIMYON, MAX PASK, JAMES FUCKING FRIEDMAN, SWINGSETT, and JOHN HOWARD watching the Detroiter sweat it out with FRANÇOIS K as part of their new COSMIC TWINS tag team. Against the backdrop of sand and sunlight, it was the perfect end to a lovely summer, but it only made you wish that summer never ended and could go on for infinity squared.
Fashion Week parties were the other indication that summer was over. At the Tuesday-night Mao Mag event, the only bona fide celebrity was the guest of honor, the newly trimmed ANNA NICOLE SMITH, who—with the WORLD FAMOUS *BOB* encased in a champagne glass nearby—performed a faux burlesque strut down the catwalk and disappeared faster than her fat did. Oh, the irony.
While there were rumors the OLSEN TWINS would come, it looked like we were going to have to make do with our own LYNN YAEGER, but then THEODORA RICHARDS turned up, and LADY BUNNY nearly knocked everyone over with her humongous pigtail wig. MURRAY HILL arrived with his date, DIRTY MARTINI, in color-coordinated red outfits. (Later, when traipsing around town with the devilish duo, I discovered that nothing gets you into a club faster than a drag king and a burlesque bombshell. The velvet rope parted like the red sea at PM, the site of the after-party for When Will I Be Loved, directed by JAMES TOBACK and starring NEVE CAMPBELL, both of whom were sitting two feet away from us.)
Thursday was an epic clubbing marathon. INTERPOL unveiled their gallery on 199 Lafayette Street, called InterpolAntics. Alas, the band itself was in Europe, so we had to make do with two-dimensional images in works by SHEPARD FAIREY. Uptown, Fader magazine hosted the prettiest, most mixed crowd, but the event was in a space with the worst acoustics possible, so we didn’t stick around to hear British rapper M.I.A.
Outside another loft space on Gansevoort Street, tall statuesque girls in expensive clothes stood in line to get into the EARNEST SEWN shindig. A couple who were not tall, statuesque, or wearing expensive clothes griped when they didn’t get in. “It’s because we don’t look like models.” Unfortunately, probably, definitely, yes, so we have no idea how we were allowed entry. Inside, the YEAH YEAHS YEAHS‘ NICK ZINNER—the humblest, nicest guy on New York’s rock scene—relayed that he had just gone to Maxim‘s party at Crobar, not because he wanted to cruise hot babes but because PUBLIC ENEMY were playing. He tried to blag his way in using his rock-star credentials, but he was turned down even though the paparazzi were shouting his name. I told Zinner not to take it personally: They probably didn’t let him in ’cause his hair isn’t blond enough and he doesn’t have triple-D tits.
We shouted over the music provided by THE DONNAS, who were “DJ’ing.” Clarification: The four Donnas were dancing to songs they picked from their iPods, which were set on the unused turntables as two guys in matching shirts who looked like they worked for a professional DJ service (but were not ANDREW ANDREW) stood behind the booth and programmed their iPods for them. Friendly advice: When it does not involve a skill like beat matching, DJ’ing is not hard, and is even fun.
Maybe lessons from FRANZ FERDINAND‘s drummer, PAUL THOMPSON, are in order. He DJ’d at Rothko for the post-Roseland party during the night’s last stop. As JAMES IHA and Zinner (who got in just fine, thank you) hobnobbed with RADIO 4‘s GERARD GARONE, Thompson—who DJs frequently in London—moved effortlessly from dancehall to BOWIE. And while the Donnas had a couple of fun iTunes, at least Paul had physical records to lose.