EDITORIAL
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&55&3 '30. 5)& &%*503 Andy Warhol once said, “I have social disease. I have to go out every night.” It seems to be something that has spread and that a lot of people have these days! After all, socialising and nightclubs and bars – this is the stuff that youth culture is made of; it’s what we ‘do’ when we go ‘out’. The era of the nightclub started in earnest in the 80s with New York clubs like Studio 54 and although times have changed it’s still an era we are living in today. We all still love going to discos, they have just got rather more high-tech (or low-fi, depending on what you are into) and now they are a multi-billion worldwide industry. The pursuit of pleasure has become big business and there will always be one bigger and better than the next - where this road ends is another question. Although moral condemnation of ‘what goes on’ in nightclubs will always be around, there is no mistaking that all-out, wild, abandoned, luxurious, irresponsible hedonism is something you’ll catch many people doing at least once a weekend all the world over, to ‘release’. Seeing as in the summer people often feel the itch to party that little bit more and the excitement of getting dressed up in your new clothes to hit that hot new club and meet interesting sexy new people is stronger than ever, we felt the time was right for a ‘Hedonist’ issue. We start, aptly enough, with a look at Studio 54 which opened its doors exactly 30 years ago this year. Of course, they didn’t stay open that long, and that’s what the article looks into – there are negative effects of such hedonism and the 54 crowd certainly felt them. These days however, the focus of the world’s young and hip is no longer on New York, but on Berlin. Berlin is where the modern hedonists of today are coming to live and there is a thriving electronic music scene here that ensures a never-ending supply of new music, club nights and indeed clubs keeps people entertained. We spoke to a mixture of Berliners who work in the so-called hedonistic industries and discovered some interesting truths (clue: its not all fun and games if you want to actually succeed and have longevity in the party scene.)
That is surely one of the best lessons to be learnt from Studio 54, and it seems one all the Berliners we spoke to were very aware of: you can’t burn so brightly all the time or the party will consume you. It’s important to release but also to live well after and in-between your big nights out – witness the popularity in Berlin of alternative holistic therapies and of course yoga, buying bio foods and going to the gym, and you realise people are involved in a complex balancing act which may seem a little extreme, but also seems to be working. So yes, you can have your cake and eat it, but only if you work hard enough on getting the balance right. Enjoy everything that’s in this issue – I hand you over now to Grace Jones and her immortal ode to the nightclub, as I have, ahem, a Yoga class to go to. Liz McGrath NIGHTCLUBBING – GRACE JONES “Nightclubbing we‘re nightclubbing We‘re what‘s happening Nightclubbing we‘re nightclubbing We‘re an ice machine We see people brand new people They‘re something to see When we‘re nightclubbing Bright-white clubbing Oh isn‘t it wild? Nightclubbing we‘re nightclubbing We‘re walking through town Nightclubbing we‘re nightclubbing We walk like a ghost We learn dances brand new dances Like the nuclear bomb When we‘re nightclubbing Bright white clubbing Oh isn‘t it wild...”
HEAR THIS
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.: .64*$ .0.&/5 Ricardo Villalobos
SLAVE TO THE RHYTHM A chance encounter with a samba school in Rio when DJ and producer wizard Ricardo Villalobos was just 15 years old led to a marathon samba session – now we know where the inspiration for those epic DJ sets comes from! I have an incredible music story from 1984. I was in Rio with my parents and I was 15 years old. I was getting super into percussion music and the day after New Years Eve, my dad and I went walking around and we went to see a samba school. It’s tradition in Brazil for everyone to go and watch the samba schools rehearse at this time, as they are preparing for the Carnival, and seeing them rehearse is an event and a party in itself – loads of people are always coming to see this. So me and my dad enter the school, and we can see there are 300 people there and they have just started playing. My dad went back out to park the car and so I went in alone and I was given a little bell and was invited to play with them. So I enter the group but then I could see that my dad couldn’t get back in. Basically they thought he was a cop so they wouldn’t let him back in! He was trying for hours, but I was so happy playing
there that I just kind of forgot about him. I stayed with them for the whole duration of this rehearsal come concert, which went on for 18 hours! It was so pure, the repetitive percussion elements had me almost hypnotised, and then in the end it culminated in this huge percussion orgasm! Nowadays you can transform these repetitive percussion beats into electronic tones and you have endless possibilities to mould them how you please, but that was where it started for me. It was one of the biggest inspirations in my life. To explore what it is that makes people dance and what is the truth behind the dancefloor, I mean this is something you are searching for your whole life. This question is the motor that brings me to music and keeps me there, I never find it boring because I am always searching and exploring, it’s always a discovery. And in Brazil, how the people dance and how they react to music and how the live, it’s very immediate, it’s very physical, something happens to them and they react immediately – I love that. Their attitudes to music are very individual and impulsive, and that is what makes it so real.