Bklyn Sounds 11/22/2023 - 11/28/2023 + Twas the Night Before Th*nksg*v*ng

How dancing on the "Wednesday before" is different + Shows: "Soul in Horn" / "Heavy Florals" / Jason Moran & the Bandwagon / DJ Spinna / "Bollywood Disco" / "Soul Connection Friendsgiving" / and more

I no longer go out musicking on New Year’s Eve. But I do on the night before the eating holiday. A couple of recent conversations with people who equate both with “amateur hour” partying, clarified why I still enjoy staying out extra late and dancing extra hard on the Wednesday before. A lot of it has to do with the holiday that follows, and what it commonly stands for in American society: tradition and giving thanks. 

I am an immigrant. I was eight years-old when I experienced my first Th*nksg*v*ng, at the upstate house of our family “sponsor,” a kindly woman who a couple of years later ended up becoming my godmother. (I was baptized late, as the practice was banned in the USSR.) This woman and Charles Schulz’s Peanuts essentially taught me what the holiday was about. Though of course American History and Social Studies classes filled in some of the propaganda details. But the tradition bit stuck, as did the annual engagement with a feast, and of food being a kind of shared national memory. As a kid who tried to assimilate to his new surroundings, I was eager to gain access to this memory; but because I was also taught pretty early (back in the old country) to be distrustful of propaganda, my access came with the baggage of historical questions, the type America has been struggling with for a few years now. (My mother, it must be said, never took to the holiday, and continues to avoid it.) 

So, how does one do tradition and acknowledge the thanks that you have for [insert whatever it is you have thankful for], without drowning in mis-information and family drama and advertising and shitty customs (the Blue and Gray football game FFS?) and ever-expanding Black Friday conversations? My answer, unsurprisingly, has almost always been: music. Or as my most trusted poet/lyrical guide once wrote, “if you get confused, just listen to the music play.”

New York used to have great Th*nksg*v*ng night club nights — I went to see P-Funk All-Stars, Basement Jaxx and even a Dr. Alex Paterson (The Orb) set after leaving the table. But there was also a string of ‘90s night-before raves and blow-outs that made a deep impression on my 20s. A Chemical Bros night at The Roxy in 1996 with my sister stands out as especially epic. My dancing headspace on these nights was more complicated than the unfiltered hedonism that many such good times invoke. Yes, there was a need to approach the unconscious on the dancefloor, but the nights around tradition, built on (and plugging into) memory, asked a different question, called for a different kind of camaraderie.

Which is why this first Bklyn Sounds publishing on the “night before” is filled with all the dancefloor options I could find, and/or were trustfully recommended to me. Two of the parties below claim a variation on Friendsgiving, another invokes family, and the one non-dance-club event continues a tradition that has been going on…a while (I have to find out how long).

If partying on New Year’s Eve is the desire to wash the year and its vibes off you for good, then dancing on the “night before,” is at least partially an opportunity to engage with the energy we’re stuck with thru generations. It’s a night to celebrate being among our community, our cherished rhythms, to figure out how to improvise “a way out of no way,” as one of my favorite young lyrical guides succinctly put it. Plus it’s a midweek night-out with no curfew.

Thank you for reading. Have a safe eating holiday. Enjoy the dance.   

This Week’s Shows:

I’d love to know how many years it’s been that pianist Jason Moran and his Bandwagon, bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheen Waits, have been coming into the Village Vanguard on Th*nkg*v*ng week, but it’s been at least a decade. Moran is one of our living hall-of-famers, pushing himself musically and curatorially, across mediums; the Bandwagon is his reliable go-anywhere comfort zone, and the Vanguard on holiday week, his home-field. If the jazz tradition and all the places it goes is your thing… File under: Highest Recommendation. (Wed 11/22 - Sun 11/26, 8p & 10p @ Village Vanguard, Manhattan - $40)

DJ Rekha’s incomparable Bollywood Disco is holding a “Choose Ur Fam Thxgiving Edition” in the bright, colorful confines of Bklyn’s best-looking club interior. Assisting Rekha on the 1s and 2s with the filmi classics and disco grooves, will be the DJs Rubot (Occupy the Disco) and Offering Rain (Disco Auntie), plus a live performance by Malai. Certainly set to be the best-dressed and musically eclectic bash of the batch listed here. File under: glam option. (Wed 11/22, 9p @ The Sultan Room, Bushwick - $30)

One of our local legends, Louie Vega is beginning to look backwards  more and more. He’s still making hella-new music — as last year’s often-dope Expansions in the NYC can attest — but on a night of dancing traditions, he’s debuting (I think?) a party called Flashback. The IG announcement featured a photo of him and David Mancuso, and the subhed says the selections will be “90s House Classics, Disco, Boogie & MAW.” File under: comfort food. (Wed 11/22, 10p @ 260 Meserole, East Williamsburg - $30 and up)

Soul Connection is a crew of excellent Bklyn-based house-centric femme DJs, a few of whom have individually graced Bklyn Sounds on previous occasions. Their Friendsgiving Good Room takeover will feature mainstays Honey Bun and Lovie, plus beewack, Niyah West and Sabine Blaizin. File under: community squad goals. (Wed 11/22, 10p @ Good Room, Greenpoint - $15)

UPTOWN ALERT: A relatively recent Dada Strain subscriber I run into at shows a lot, has become my grassroots uptown correspondent. And he tells me that Crema’s annual The Friends Givin at Chelas, a Peruvian spot on Broadway/159th is, to quote his DM, “Best party in NYC the night before Thanksgiving.” On the decks is Newark’s DJ Loko, who is a resident on Half-Moon Radio. File under: trust your friends. (Wed 11/22, 10p @ Chelas, Washington Heights - $10-$20) 

Soul in the Horn on the “Wednesday before” is a pretty great shout. Now that it seems to be settling into its new Bklyn location on Nostrand Avenue, it makes it even better, easier for friends to get to (and from - some of us are cooking). To top it off, Natasha Diggs and DProsper have two of Detroit’s finest along for the universal-party-night ride: LADYMONIX and Waajeed are the best! Motor City rhythms on the night before Th*nksg*v*ng? Yes, MFing please. File under: where’s Dada Strain? (Wed 11/22, 10p @ Crown Hill Theater, Crown Heights - $40)

But what if you wanna go hard in the club? Well, that’s inevitably some of what the dark Nowadays corners are for. The Ridgewood mecca is seceding its “Wednesday before” social scene to other spots this year, letting Kush Jones b2b DJ SWISHA b2b AceMoMA b2b MoMA Ready, four of the techno-house producer/DJs who define the NYC sound for RAs throngs, do their thing. Which is always a proper rinse. File under: sweaty option. (Wed 11/22, 11p @ Nowadays, Ridgewood - $25)