A Disco

A Disco is not what you’re going to expect it to be. In our heads we picture the lit-up floor, and the disco ball, and the model’s doing cocaine in the corner, and we say, ‘now, that’s a disco’. And don’t get me wrong. Those places exist. All over the place. Often times right under your nose. You just don’t see them. Or maybe you just don’t want to.

The same goes for all dancefloors, though. You don’t find them until it’s time to find them, and I suppose that is the point in my writing about our night out at this disco in Albuquerque, NM. We just wanted to go to the fuckin disco.

This disco wasn’t like the one in our heads, though. This disco was at Still Spirits, and it was on a cold night in February just far enough from downtown to convince my love and I to finally go out again. We had gone out the weekend before, but that was different. We went to see a headliner at a club, and that was fun, but it didn’t quite scratch the itch we needed it to. Or is it itch the scratch? I don’t know.

Anyways, this story isn’t about that. I’ll talk about that after I talk about our night at A Disco. One we desperately desperately needed. Going out and dancing to House Music is like medicine, and we needed it bad. Life, work, family, the dramas of the world, they all start to get to you, and if you don’t have that release you may very well go insane. In fact, you’re probably gonna go insane either way so you might as well have fun and enjoy it for a bit.

We have always had a bit of a love/hate affair with New Mexico, and for a while we believed we’d never go out in town again, but that’s the thing about love and hate. If you have the ability to still feel one, you also have the ability to feel the other as well. The Yin and the Yang. The House and the Techno. If you hate me now, it means you may have loved me once, and also that you may love me again. That’s my constant struggle with this city. Eternally I am yours. Even if I fight it so horribly.

Which is why, there I was, sitting in our car, taking shots from the bottle, smoking weed, and giggling with my Albuquerque girl, just like we’ve done so many times. Just like we did when we were still sixteen. Although, everything was illegal then. And now it’s the opposite. Isn’t it crazy how life works like that?

I feel, I should also admit something about this night that Is embarrassing, but also a comical part to the rest of the story and whatever happens next. Although, I hope the organizers don’t take it so personal.

We snuck in. And it’s not because we didn’t wanna pay, or even that we didn’t have the money but simply that we knew it was probably the only way we were gonna get in. So, we made a decision and we acted on it. I don’t think you’d blame us if given the context, but I’ll explain it anyways.

So, we get there, and Still spirts is a very cool place, but also a little small, so there was a line to start. No big deal. But then they were saying they were at capacity and they weren’t letting anybody in. At first, we said, okay, we’ll wait. And we stood out in the cold and danced a little to the funky disco house we could hear inside, to keep us warm, and we said, we’ll get in, eventually.

But then came more people and more people. And then we were out there half an hour, and then forty-five minutes. And still they said the same. Nobody can come in. On top of that, we kept seeing people leave, and the general idea was they weren’t letting people in just cause of capacity, although we still stayed optimistic that we’d eventually be let in.

Then an hour came, and we were out there in the cold, and our buzz was wearing off, and so was our high a little bit, and still they weren’t letting us in. It was then they also opened the back up a little. Not a door, but a little bit bigger. So people can sit at the bar and look outside, but right now all they’d see is us freezing our butts off waiting to be let in. We were starting to wonder if we’d ever get in at that point.

It was nearly midnight now and this disco closed at 2am. It even got to the point where there were more people waiting outside than there were inside, and man, it looked wonderful inside. The lights, the music, the people having so much fun. It felt like I was the kid outside the birthday party who wasn’t invited. Not cool, right?

Well, that’s when it pays to have a partner. As I was upset about not getting in, she was slowly creeping towards that opening by the bar. And when she got there, I looked over just in time to see her give me the look. You know the look. The eyebrows raised, the twinkle in that eye. The biting of the lip a bit. She want’s me to get into trouble with her. She’s done waiting. She’s ready to sneak in.

Without a word she motioned over to me, and I suppose I listened, because in an instant we ducked under together, and now found ourselves clearly inside, and feeling the vibrations of the music immediately.

We laughed a bit and agreed to stay away from the front door for the night, but success. We were in. Now, all that was left was to enjoy the music and each other. So, we did.

She ordered us this amazing drink that was citrus and maybe like a margarita, that they served in a mason jar, and it got me so drunk so fast, because I’m such a lightweight, and she just kept feeding me drinks, and before you knew it, we were in the middle of A disco again. It just happens like that sometimes.

This disco was special. Adobe Disco was playing for the night, and what makes them unique is they are four DJ’s who sort of do a carousel on the mixer. One will go, then another, and so on. And they’ll just keep going around until it just doesn’t matter who’s playing but rather what, and what they make is a sound you can only find here. Tonight, they were also including the Rev into that mix, so what we had was a night of house music completely unique to this moment and this place.

I have been all around, at least enough to know that what we heard that night we could not have heard anywhere else in the world. It was a level of house and disco that it takes years to gain the knowledge of, and I know this because I am still on that same path as well. It’s a journey that never ends. House has no beginning and no end.

For example, there was a moment during the night, when the booze had given us that feeling again, and we just let go, which is why we found ourselves on the dancefloor. It was a small one, and packed, of course, but a solid dancefloor, no doubt. And deep in that dancefloor I began to hear the sounds of a song I had heard before. And now I was hearing it again. But not like this.

The song was “The Devil in Me” by Purple Disco Machine, and although this was the first time I heard this version of this song, it wasn’t the first time I heard it at all.

There’s this thing about house music where with each generation there will be a new remix of a song that has been around for a while. And it’s not even that they’re doing it over, it’s simply that every generation is gonna have their own version and style that they want to show, and that was what was happening right there.

The first time I heard the version of that song from my generation was maybe around 5 or 6 years ago, give or take. It was the first time I went to Meow Wolf in Santa Fe. It had just opened a few months before and we had finally gotten tickets for a show there. We were going to see Mark Farina. An amazing way to have my first moment at such a place, and the night delivered.

My love and I wandered that place, and danced to house music, and did some molly in one of the hidden rooms, and went outside and smoked some weed, and we just had one of the best nights of our life. Mark Farina will always be one of our favorite DJ’s and on that night he played a version of Devil in Me, although it didn’t have the guy singing. I used to remember what that song was called, but I forgot and now I just can’t find it again.

I actually had not thought of that song at all for a long time, until I heard it playing again on that dancefloor that night at the disco. It was coming back to me, and with it all the memories that went along with that song. The memories for me, at least. And it was then I had the thought I feel I was meant to have.

We, as the children of house, are a part of a world that has been destroyed so many times, that home just doesn’t exist anymore. We’re just wandering through this world, looking for a place to call our own again. That’s what house music is for us. It’s our place to go. It’s our story. It’s our history.

When I hear this song, I don’t just hear this song. I hear the song before it, and the one before that, and the one before that. We have come to a point in our culture where our history has layers and generations to it. Which can be heard in every song. We are a living representation of the history of house because we know how far it’s come, and how far it has to go.

We are all a remix of a remix.

We danced for maybe two to three hours that night, but it could have been forever. It mattered not who played, but rather what they played, and most of all, where they played it. They didn’t play it at a festival, or a warehouse, or even a nightclub. On this night, they played it at A disco, and I never want to let this feeling go ever again. Don’t you feel the same?

Thanks to the DJ’s for the music, the bartenders for the strong drinks, the pretty woman for being mine, and to House Music, for being the soundtrack to our history. See you on the dancefloor.