Skylight

There was once this place on San Francisco Street, named the Skylight, that is still possibly one of the best clubs I’ve ever been to.

Right place, right time, right music, right DJ’s, the right chance to see them the way I wanted. Just felt right.

We were a bit towards the beginning of our traveling years where we’d spend the majority of a decade seeing everything and everywhere we could.

I’ve seen some amazing things. But still, even with saying that, I know the trip I always seem to enjoy the most, is the one I always take up north. To Santa Fe. Which is where Skylight was located.

The Club was on the Plaza, and very much like the Plaza, it had layers to it. Like a story. The more you visited it, the more you walked around it, the more you studied it, the more you found its secrets, and the more you loved the place just a little bit. . . more.

It was two stories and it had a high roof that would allow the Moon to shine down on the dancefloor at the bottom, with the second floor wrapping around with tables and chairs allowing for a perfect view of both the DJ, and everything around them.

The layout and design of it were outstanding, which allowed for amazing sound that carried all throughout the expanding club.

My favorite detail was always the fact that when you went outside to get fresh air they’d have a speaker set up so you could still hear the music, allowing everybody everywhere to be following the same groove all night long.

I think realistically I may have personally only been to the Skylight four times, and they were all in a one year stretch that included four of the best DJ’s in the world, in a setting I always dreamt of seeing them in.

Intimate, aware, powerful, deep.

That’s probably how I’d describe that stretch. I was in my second prime, and I could feel the DJ’s catching the same rhythm as well. They knew the road just like I did. In fact, these four DJ’s were a huge reason why I started out on the highway in the first place.

The first time I went was for Dave Seaman, who I had been a fan of for nearly a decade and a half by the time I finally got to see him live for the first time. Something I couldn’t believe had taken so long.

I had tried to see him in multiple cities at different stages of my life, and still never got the chance until he finally came to us, with this one night still being the one and only time I’ve seen him to this day.

Dave Seaman belongs to what I like to call, the Global Underground generation.

If you don’t know what Global Underground is, it’s a CD mix series that follows DJ’s around the world, and gives the person at home a chance not just to hear how those outrageous nights went, but also to see them.

The CD booklet would be filled with pictures and stories from the road of how crazy things really got, and the CDs were filled with music you couldn’t hear anywhere else.

The words I read in those pages inspired me to go have some Global Underground moments of my own, and still to this day, Dave Seaman has among the most releases of any DJ.

Seeing him that night felt like I was completing a journey that didn’t just start with getting in the car.

It felt like a journey I started the minute I heard his first track from his first global underground years ago as a lonely teenager who was just discovering the rave and the culture it belonged to.

It was his Melbourne mix I heard first, I think.

The night itself, was a bit of a blur. The lights, the sound system, and the dancefloor, were all exactly how you’d want them to be for DJ’s like these.

Dark enough to get lost, but lit enough to know this isn’t a dream. That first night, I can remember so clearly, Dave playing as one of his final tracks, a song many of us know so well from those desert nights we spent during our rebellious days of adolescence, lost amongst the stars.

‘Little Fluffy Clouds’ by the Orb echoed out into the night and just like that, he captured what it meant to be one with both the DJ and the dancefloor.

Deep in the heart of a plaza that stood for hundreds of years a DJ from the other side of the world played a song he heard so long ago about Our side of the world, and he played It for us.

The connection was deep, the emotion was high, and we were left only to wander the night with stars in our eyes and a subtle reminder that this life is absolutely worth it.

Skylight felt like a dream.

After that we returned a few months later to see a DJ that I never thought would come to New Mexico, and still looking back, it’s kind of crazy they pulled it off. If only just once.

Another part of the Global Underground generation, and still a world traveling master DJ, the next to play Skylight was the one and only Nick Warren, who has been perhaps one of my personal favorites for nearly twenty years.

Nick, like Dave Seaman, released multiple Global Underground compilations, and he is still known as a true master of his craft.

I have traveled all around this country just to see Nick Warren, and still, it never felt quite like it did that night at the Skylight.

I liked that it was dark and moody, but intimate, with the mood of the night starting with Nick just hanging out in the back, having a drink, enjoying the moment.

I try to tell my friends in other cities that DJ’s like New Mexico because they’re just a part of it here. They’re not superstars, they’re just lovers of music again, and we want them to know that. We want them to know they can come get lost too. But only if they want to.

From there he went on and just like with Dave it was kind of just a blur you will always remember, but can never explain. It was beautiful, and groovy, and amazingly subtle.

He wasn’t just dropping a beat or playing a song; he was painting a picture, and using the movements of the crowd as much as he was using the music. Again, we were all one.

By the end of the night I can still remember the head of security dancing along next to Nick as he smiled back at her with joy. I’d later find her name was Taz, and she was such a wonderful part of those nights. Making us all feel safe but welcomed.

Even making a world famous Dj feel connected to the Skylight.

The night ended with him playing a sample from Bladerunner, one of my favorite movies, and a huge reason why electronic music became such a huge part of my life.

The words rang true as we exited the club, and out onto the street, where on that night, as the clock struck two, and the bell from the church rang twice, a thick fog carried down from the mountains and out into the street.

A fog so thick you could only see the person by your side. San Francisco had come to Santa Fe, and all we could do was remember the words.

“I’ve seen things. . .”

After that was something special. A secret date with a DJ we love so much, Danny Howells, who also released a few Global Undergrounds of his own.

For Danny it was different, though. It was in the back, I forget what they called that little room. Maybe the Skylab? I’m not sure.

It was small and only lit by neon lights behind him and out onto the middle of the dancefloor. I suppose you could fit maybe 50 people if you had to.

He was playing a secret show just to try some stuff out and to play for a bit without the madness of the bigger crowds or the flashing lights. Just him, us, and the music.

As I’ve said many times before, Will we ever need anything more?

The first time I discovered Danny Howells was not in Global Underground, but rather as part of a common thing that used to happen back when I was a teenager.

The magazines we’d buy would also come with mix Cd’s from DJ’s they’d hire for the month. A sort of resident for the magazine that you’d get as a way of continuing the connection between words and music.

It was such a strange time and yet one where you’d pay $8 to be introduced to someone playing crazy music on the other side of the world that you’d spend your entire life trying to find, only to one day discover, that the music would come to you.

That was Danny Howells to me.

Still to this day, I have no idea how I ended up being cool enough to get into that little room listening to this DJ I loved so much in such a unique way. In a way the world would never know happened.

A moment just for us.

The final time I went to Skylight and the DJ I saw that night, are actually the reason I’m writing this today.

Jody Wisternoff, the second half of the amazing group Way Out West, that he started with the previously mentioned Nick Warren, would be the last DJ I’d ever see at that exact club because just a while after that last night, the club closed its doors for good.

Causing that final moment on the dancefloor to matter just a little bit more than I originally believed it to be when it happened. But what a moment it was.

After playing for around three hours Jody himself came down from the decks to dance with the people in the crowd, celebrating and enjoying the night in a way only Santa Fe knows how.

What was it about that place that brought such emotion and joy out of these four world traveling DJ’s? Why are we the only ones who know it happened? Will we ever have that feeling again? Do we even want to?

I suppose that’s the beauty of the most amazing moments in our lives. They sometimes leave us with more questions than answers and yet all we can do is smile and be grateful they happened.

I’m sad I’ll never get to take that drive again, and I’m sad I’ll never get back to that dancefloor, but then again, I don’t have to.

The beat carries on. The DJ’s keep going so we should too. On December 3rd, 2022 Jody Wisternoff makes his return to New Mexico, but this time to the Electric Playhouse here in Albuquerque.

I’m not saying it’s going to be like the Skylight, but that’s because it doesn’t have to be. That was my moment. My story. My prime. Now it’s time for others to have theirs.

You’ve got to be willing to go get your story before it ever happens. But I promise you, when you finally do get to it, you’ll be glad you’re the one allowed to tell it.

So go, dance, be happy, and enjoy this music that carries us everywhere. Acknowledge the DJ’s who inspired you, and remember the moments you’ll never have back.

Thanks to those four DJ’s, and to Santa Fe, but most of all, thanks to the Skylight. Thanks for being real, and better than a dream, but most of all, always worth that drive. And as I say often about the city up north.

It’s all downhill from there.

Come find me on the dancefloor sometime.

Maybe the Skylight again, but only in my dreams.