View of the Bar from the Dancefloor - Scubar Sydney

Dropping by: Fridays @ Scubar
Assessment Time: 1:05AM – 2:30AM
Opening Hours: Open through the daytime – 2:30AM
Lockout: None
Address: 4/11-23 Rawson Place, Sydney (near YHA Central)
Venue Website: http://www.scubar.com.au
Promoter Website: Self promoted
Occurrence: This place is pretty much open everyday until late. Most popular nights are Mondays and Tuesdays (apparently)
Outside Line: There isn’t anyone outside lining up upon entry.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual is okay to wear in here, and is normal. Some are even wearing hoodies.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free entry all night
Guestlist: None.
Inside: Walk underground to face the dancefloor to hold around around 60 people. Bar is on the far left, and around the walls and in between are dotted tables and chairs. There are the occasional sofas in dark hidden crevices of the bar. Some disco balls hang down from the ceiling. Standard lightfare is around the place.
Cloak Room: None
Bar Prices / Line: $7 cowboys. There was only really one or two orders in front at a time, and it wasn’t very packed at the bar. You were going to get timely service at the bar.
Eviction Count: None seen, not many are sloshed tonight
Music Style: A Mix of Commercial RnB, Top 40 and past hits from different genres. Typical stuff you would hear at backpacker places – songs played in most of their entirety with minimal transitioning. Regardless we had a good time dancing to the tunes tonight.
Crowd & Ratio: The crowd is almost entirely made up of backpackers, so you have nationalities from all over the place. Ages vary as well. Mostly Caucasian / European backpacking crowd though. Ratio was more men than women, especially at the front. There was about 50 or so altogether including patrons at the bar side. Not many of the girls chose to dance here tonight.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment
Atmosphere: It’s quite dark on the dancefloor side of the venue, while at the bar it is much more lighted up. But back to the floor – at this point in time people are in the mood for love, with various people around making out with strangers that they met that night. Considering past experiences with backpacker nightclubs such as Scary Canary and side Bar, you would expect the floor to be pretty dirty, but suprisingly it’s clean!! I am truly amazed.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Arrivederci
Left at closing time, 2:30AM. Surprised the closing time wasn’t 3:00AM.

Verdict
Things are pretty cheap here, crowd could do with a few more girls, but we did rock up at 1:00AM++. Though most people like Side Bar better for a dance, as it is bigger and closes later at 3:00AM. I would try this place on the famed Monday/Tuesday nights instead of a Friday, where I’ve seen lines out go pretty far.

Crowd shot Underground - 1AM

Fridays @ The Marlborough Hotel (aka The Marly) , Newtown Sydney

Assessment Time:12:50AM – 02:30AM
Opening Hours: 10:00AM throughout the day with the underground dancefloor closing at 2:30AM. I think the general ground floor closes at 3:00AM
Lockout: None
Address: 145 King St, Newtown
Venue Website: http://www.marlboroughhotel.com.au
Promoter Website: Appears to be a self promoted evening.
Occurrence: Every Friday and Saturday night
Outside Line: No line upon entry, just a few people catching up on their cigarette break.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Pretty much anything within reason was okay. Considering it was winter most people, both men and women, wore casual. T-shirts galore, while some girls wore singlets and jeans – some people even kept their warm casual jackets on tonight. I wore a t-shirt and jeans and casual jacket straight from university – very lazy of me ( there’s a picture of me later )
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free all night for both ground and underground.
Guestlist: N/A
Inside:  Walk in to enter the ground level where there is a small raised platform in the corner. This is where the band usually plays. This is actually a 3 level venue but tonight only the ground level and underground levels were open. I’ve been told on other nights, that upstairs would be open too. Under ground, walk into a small-ish dancefloor room – Bar on the right, and dancefloor the left with a central column which has been covered in mirrors. Some flashing lights on the ceiling in combination add to the effect of the room tonight. Down at the back are lounges and mirrors that line the walls, to give it a bigger impression of space. 
Cloak Room: None
Bar Prices / Line: Didn’t drink tonight
Eviction Count: None spotted
DJs: Unknown
Band: Wilcatz
Music Style: Ground level: The Wildcatz were playing, whom are known for covering an assortment of well-known rock songs. Underground level: This appeared to be a mix of top 40 both contemporary and over in the past. I don’t even know if there was a DJ here mixing things up as there was minimal mixing/transitioning. It sufficed for the crowd.
Crowd & Ratio: Ground Level: A mix of old and young who appreciated their rock music. Mostly Caucasians here with a handful of Asians in here too. Appeared that most were locals.
Underground Level: A mix of everything tonight. Australians and International Students from Indians, Caucasians, Europeans, Asians in the underground club room. The ratio was pretty much mostly guys at around 70% at best, but as the night wore on it became more like 80% guys. People of all ages are here. Generally younger than the crowd upstairs.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment.
Atmosphere: Ground Level: Pretty small crowd here but most people are up and jiving about and singing along to the music, so it was a nice cosy atmosphere to say the least.
Underground Level: Being a mixture of everything and being underground it was a bit dirtier and considering the small size also a little warm. Well lit areas removed any potential dark nightclub factor here. It was pretty normal atmosphere for a club. Though it is full of people, I will give you that, so it did have something going for it. 
Video: 

Click here to view the embedded video.

 Timeline
In General
I probably spent an equal amount of time upstairs as well as downstairs. Some songs that were being played downstairs were ones I weren’t familiar or probably didn’t like as much, so I would head upstairs with another friend who was definitely into his rock. When the upstairs band finished at 2:00AM we headed downstairs to finish up what was happening.

Which came first?
A friend had inspired me with this video of an Indian party – with a trance track overlaid on top of the audio. (I highly recommend watching it here ) The main protagnoist of this short clip has an assortment of amazing dance moves and I borrowed one of them,  the one where he is flapping is arms akin to a chicken. I was ready and now I was about to test to see if I get some chicks to turn into chickens. Oh yeah, I said it.

So I’ve started flapping like a chicken and slowly approached the girls
James: <flap>, <flap>, <flap>, <flap>, <flap>, <flap>
Girls: ….
James: <flap>, <flap>, <flap>, <flap>, <flap>, <flap>, <flap>, <flap>, <flap>, <flap>
Girls: hahahahahhahahaa

They may have laughed at me – BUT This has not deterred me.. I must fight!!
<flap>, <flap>, <flap>…
…. Slowly… but surely…….
… as sure as the day follows night,
… as sure as honey is sweet and gold is precious,
… and as sure as as sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
… they slowly they started to flap their arms as well… Hahhahahaa… Success!!

My friends are pretty much laughing at this point at this ridiculous sight, and they join me for a big chicken / dance session. I think I’m going to use this move more often.

Practicing the chicken wing flap dance

Arrivederci
And thus after lots of dancing the night was ended at 2:30 when everyone is evicted.

Recommendation
A good local night for a dance at a place where there is an actual dancefloor. It is a shame that upstairs wasn’t open, as that would be also a great spot to get your dancing shoes on.

I wouldn’t go out of my way to go here, but if you are in the area and a bit lazy to head to the city (or a bit lazy to dress up in proper dress attire for that matter) just want a free dance without much fuss of music choice with a friendly crowd, definitely come on by here. Otherwise for classier places  try someplace else.

Click here to view the embedded video.

With a fan of the ears before they were stolen

Arrivederci

Bartender has advised us there is actually a local proper nightclub spot down the road, so we leave. It has unfortunately not picked up much patronage, and as it was midnight, the lockout was in place and nobody else was going to come in anyway.

Recommendation
This looks like another simple watering hole for the older crowd who don’t want to deal with the youngins at Northies, with a dancefloor to boot. Come for a drink, it’s a good atmosphere for that – but for the dance atmosphere – I wouldn’t come here for a dance.

Sting Bar, Cronulla Sydney
- Bar aspect – 6.5/10
- Club aspect – 2.5/10 The potential is there… but the music needs more work to keep the crowd going and in place. 12AM cut-off doesn’t help the cause either, but I am guessing it is what is enforced upon this venue for now.

I was out tonight, and I didn’t have a job to go to tomorrow… I needed my dance fix – everything in the south CBD was pretty dead.. except for one place …. dirty old Side Bar.. here we go!

Mondays @ Side Bar
Assessment Time: 12:30AM – 01:45AM 
Opening Hours: Early in the day – 03:00AM 
Lockout: None 
Address: Right next to Central station on the corner of Pitt and George St. 
Venue Website: http://www.wakeup.com.au
Promoter Website: Self Promoted
Occurrence: Every night.
Outside Line: Upon arrival there were about 3 people in front of me, we were all let in very quickly. 
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual ok, any costumes were “probably” ok (there are themed nights here) but tonight everybody was just wearing their casual clothing, or smart casual. 
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free all night.
Guestlist: None
Inside: The Bar/Club is situated beneath ground level. Enter and walk down the stairs to enter the square floor area with large bar in the middle. On the right are probably around 12 lounges along the wall. Along the back are arcade games and a pool table. To the left is the cleared out dancefloor area, Small overhead room due to the underground nature, with the DJ in the far left corner. The dancefloor side can hold approximately 100 people.  
Cloak Room: None. I was forced to leave my laptop bag on a sofa. I came back to it half an hour later and found that someone had opened my bag had been left the zips open. Oh fuck!! I looked inside my bag, but nothing was stolen… this shit happens all the time to me.
Bar Prices / Line: The line was 1 or 2 people deep, but prices unknown as I didn’t drink tonight.
DJs: Unknown
Music Style: Indie, House, Pop, Rnb – whatever the crowd is into
Crowd & Ratio: Pretty much almost everyone here is a backpacker, while the local population are less than a handful. Most are Anglo-Saxon but there are also Asians, and Africans. Age range from 18 to low 30′s. Pretty friendly vibe here.
Entertainment: Nil
Atmosphere: The first thing I noticed was that it was as packed or more than Friday nights here, which is pretty amazing. People are everywhere, drinking, dancing, making out, etc. This is where everybody in the city went. It can get crowded and overheated near the DJ corner. The floor also has a thin layer of liquid comprised of the spilled drinks that patrons have clumsily held. As mentioned, its a pretty much party vibe here throughout the night, whether or whether not the people know half the songs being played.

Timeline

Can I borrow your hat?
The age old question for the hat wearers in the club which is complimentary yet annoying- For the non-hatters, you need to understand  - when someone asks you to borrow your hat, some things can happen to the person asking to borrow your hat (the “Enemy”):
- You end up chasing the Enemy around after they swipe it off your hat without your permission
- Enemy breaking your hat,
- Enemy walking outside of the club with your hat on, either on purpose or not on purpose
- Enemy giving it to someone else random, who ends up stealing it
- Enemy accidentally drops it on the ground and ruining it with dirt, or whatever gunk is on the floor. 
Well, dearest reader, did you know all the above has happened to me? So when this one guy asked me if they could borrow my hat, the answer was pretty simple:

Me: “No, its my hat”
Enemy: “Cmon, just for two seconds? I promise I won’t steal it”
Me: “Nahhhhh”
Enemy: “C’mon!!! Just two seconds”
Me: Nahhhhh
Enemy: Please??
Me: Fine.
He puts on his hat and is invigorated and dances around in a circle. I’ve got my eye on him. After 2 seconds he asks me:
Enemy: Can I keep the hat?
Me: No. 
Enemy: C’mon!!!
Me: Nahhh
(I take my hat back and put it back on myself)
Enemy: If you don’t give me the hat, I am going to punch you in the face. I promise by the end of the night your hat will be mine. 
(James exits)

OK, did he really want my had that badly to fight for it? Seriously? It’s just one of those hats that Bruno Mars wears. Buy one yourself if you want one. You wouldn’t punch a guy out if you liked his car, nor would a girl cat fight another girl for her shoes. what kind of world would that be? A sad one. People who directly threaten violence upon others for a hat have no lives.

Dance off
There were some professional dancers here as well and they showed off their moves which was cool. I should take up dance lessons again.

Arrivederci
I pretty much just left the place after the hat incident. 

Recommendation
There really isn’t any other Monday night choice that I can think of when it comes to clubbing on Monday nights in Sydney. It’s free entry, so why not give it a try for a dance or to meet new people I say. Be prepared for a dirty experience, so wear not-your-best-clothes.

Scary Canary (another backpacker joint) could be a contender but I haven’t been. Do comment if there are other events on.

In front of a brave Karaokeist @ The Harp of Erin, Wollongong

We have decided to spend a day in Wollongong to see the wildlife at night. We have been recommended by the locals to check out The Harp for pre-drinks, so here we go!

Saturdays @ The Harp of Erin Hotel, Wollongong NSW
Assessment Time: 22:15PM -23:30PM
Opening Hours: Unknown, but it is a bar, so typical bar hours, which would be 10am – 3am.
Website: http://www.harpoferin.com.au
Address: 124 Corrimal St, Wollongong NSW
Dress Code / Door Policy: anything goes. it is a bar, so most casual clothes can get away with it. Hats are not allowed in here.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free entry for both the bar karaoke area as well as the dancefloor area.
Inside: Walking into the main entrance you are presented with the main room where there is a karaoke thing going on. Get up and sing! they say. The standing area holds 150 or so people, and there is a stage on the right, where you stand up to sing, or where a band can play. Bar is to the left. A wall divides this area from the second area – The second area has a central bar, surrounded by tables and stools. On one side is an enclosed area which is the dancefloor, and it is sligly elevated from the rest of the room. It holds about 60 or so people .
Cloak Room: None
Bar: Standard beer prices
Music: House music in the dance room. Typical bar karaoke music in the karaoke room. The types of music you will be subjected to range from rock to retro.
Crowd: Mostly locals, some sydneysiders – with most being caucasian.
Entertainment: Karaoke of course! But only in the karaoke room.
Atmosphere: Karaoke room – busy the whole time we were there. In the clubbing room, the general atmosphere in the bar was busy, but not packed. A good balance to allow us a bit of room to dance.
Video:360 view of the Karaoke Bar Side

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

To top it off, he even bought us drinks, though I didn’t really want to drink. I had to accept his gracious offer. Too friendly they are here.

With the friendly local giant

Taking over the floor quite quickly
We move to the other side ot the Harp, where the dancefloor is. The crowd on the floor are young white people – people who, are safe to assume, cannot dance. We stepped up and pretty much took over in a matter of moments. Taking over meaning a small area is reserved for us to dance and we have some people staring at us dance. Cheers from the crowd, we dance but we have other clubs to visit, so we have to leave.

Karaoke!
I must confess I have never done bar karaoke in front of a crowd. Well, we were in Wollongong – its just us boys, so who is going to care, right? I submitted a song of choice – “Pretty Fly (for a white guy)” by The Offspring. Well, after a good one hour, our song has not been put up yet, and we have to go. Booo! Maybe next time.

Arrivederci
Left because we had other clubs to hit, and this was just a bar for predrinks. Next destination is The Ivory.

Recommendation
If you are just here for the dancing floor component, it is not the best out there, but it isn’t crap. However it is surprisingly busy for a venue at this time before 11pm, so The Harp gets a 8.0 for the Karaoke side (purely in terms of atmosphere and not dancing – nobody was dancing here but everybody was singing), and a 5.5/10 for the Dancefloor side – if only the dancefloor area was bigger. It’s free entry so there isn’t harm in coming here first for pre-drinks

Homebake: Standing outside the Main Arena

Homebake Sydney 2009 @ The Domain

Assessment Time: 15:30pm – 11:00pm
Opening Times: 12:00pm – 11:00pm
Website: http://www.homebake.com.au
Address: Royal Botanic Gardens, Mrs Macquaries Road, Sydney.
Dress Code: anything goes. I wore an orange jumpsuit. Everybody else was pretty casual, and being summer, it was lots of shirts, hats and skirts.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Tickets were $99
Inside: Four or five areas. Most of the big acts were in the two main areas – the Main Stage and the Big Top, which is just a huge tent kind of thing. Food stalls inside, and a merry go round swinging thing. In the middle is a huge grass area to sit down. Plenty of toilets.
Cloak Room: $5
Bar: $10 smirnoffs. Lines were extremely long today.
Food: Rip off. $5 bottles of water. $7 hot chips, $5 Hot Dogs, $12 Salt and Pepper Squid
Acts: Powderfinger, Jet, Hilltop Hoods, Eskimo Brojo, Sia, Daniel Merriweather, Midnight Juggernauts, Sarah Blasko, A Special Best Of Performance By Tim Finn, Closure In Moscow, Short Stack, Phrase, Decoder Ring, Bumblebeez, Tumbleweed (Original Line-Up), Eddy Current Suppression Ring,  The Funkoars, The Middle East, The Aston Shuffle, Sugar Army, Record Producer, Shockone
Music: It’s all Australian music today.
Entertainment: The merry go round provided entertainment, as well as some of the small stores for tattoos or typical carnival like things. In between acts on the main stage, the TV screens would play some funny clips of people rendering their versions of popular songs.
Crowd: Dominantly White Australian. I probably spotted a total of 7 or 8 other asians the whole day.
Atmosphere: Throughout the day the good weather provided a very good atmosphere. This was a sold out event so there were just people everywhere, walking around, doing their thing. There was enough room to find your own spot in the grass and relax as well. The atmosphere at the two main stages was always pretty packed. I would say it was more intense in the Big Top than the main arena – it could have been because the Big Top had more acts which were ‘dance’ or crowd oriented. People in the Big Top were likely to dance and jump up and down. The Main Stage.. people just stood around singing along.

Acts seen:

Hilltop Hoods
Probably the best act we went to today. They got the crowd going, and the crowd of course, went with it. Lots of chanting, and played a lot of stuff from their new album. Luckily I have a copy of their album. Also the screens behind them had pretty awesome animations. Here’s a video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

During the act there was also a random balloon floating around. On closer inspection, it was actually a blown up condom. But we could see that there was sperm along the inside of the walls. Someone had blown up a used condom. This was disgusting.

condom crowd surfing

Phrase
I didn’t know many of his songs, but it was a very good vibe inside the big top as well. At the end of it he event went crowd surfing, lol:

Phrase crowd surfing video

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jet
We sat on the grass – the lead singer sounded like he was yelling throughout. Even though we sat at the back, it could be felt that it was a pretty powerful and rocking set.

Powderfinger
All day we were waiting for this act, but it ended up being only average. Some of the new songs played I did not know yet. They played a song and wanted the crowd to sing along. They put the words on the screen, but the words were only published one word at a time. Not only that, each word was up for half a second, and it was 1 second out of sync of the band. It was a total fail and nobody ended up singing along to the song. Other than that, the more famous songs got the crowd going well. I heard they were breaking up after their current set of shows were completed, but they seemed to be ok.

Powderfinger “Got you on my mind / Summertime” video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Other things
I get a Hottie tattoo

The first thing we did was end up at the fake tattoo place. Place is a rip off at $20 but we got one anyway. I get ‘Hottie’, while my male friend gets Love Hearts on his neck, lol.

Homebake hottie!

Went on the ride of spinning fun
I haven’t been on one of these in about 10 years, so for the cheap price of $8, I could sit on this thing. I was pretty scared on this thing!! It didn’t help that my friend tells me about how a girl once had the chains on her chair broken off , and she fell to her death.

The outfit
It’s an orange jumpsuit with the words “Easy Jail” on the back. We sticky tape extra words on it .. see pics below.

Nobody wants photos with me
This was probably the least successful outfit i’ve had. Probably only 2 or 3 people wanted to take photos with me

Guys slap my ass, and I am called out to be put into jail
This was probably the most successful outfit i’ve had to pick up guys. On the back I had my Name, and my phone number. After 9 guys took down my number, I decided to remove the mobile phone bit.I also had many, many random guys slap my ass or proposition me.

Also, I would get people occasionally yelling out “Get him!! Put him back in Jail!”

I walked around like this for half of the day

Also had one very affectionate fan jump on me and dry hump me… terrible.

My biggest fan..

Nutbush!

They started playing Nutbush City Limits during intermission. I admit to a friend i don’t know how to dance the Nutbush, so she gladly teaches me:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Turns out the reason why they played Nutbush City Limits was that there was actually a Flashmob doing the Nutbush dance on one of the other areas! Here’s the video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Arrivederci
We left after the last act of Powderfinger.

Homebake 2009 – 8.5/10 . Strong line up and good weather provided for a good day out. Wallet still hurting from exuberant food prices.

Entertainment: Cowgirls dancing on tables and a wet t-shirt contest – Thumbs up.

Nightclub Level @ The Gaff Sydney - Full of backpackers. Yes, it's a Tuesday night!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline
You could dance, anywhere
anywhere except on top of the bar. That was reserved for the dancers. There were people dancing on their tables and chairs, and security had no issue with it. I suppose this relaxed way to go about things made people come back. I met some people who were regulars here, because they loved it.

‘Coyote’ cowboy night:
Cheap cowboy shots, bartenders in their cowboy and cowgirl outfits – it was a pretty good atmosphere. The dancers even dressed in leopard print bikinis and cowgirl pants for their dance. People on the dance floor were mesmerised by these girls dancing away.

Don’t use this pickup line I made up:
I was literally bored of these cowgirls dancing and not showing any more skin. So I thought of an ingenious pick up line to try:
James: “If I get bored of watching cowgirls in their bikinis dance on the podium, does that make me gay?”
2 Girls: “um…. ok” (they look away)
BARRED! Well, that worked well.

Wet T-shirt contest
Further to glamourize the way women should be, the men were asked to leave the dance floor. The remaining girls were then asked to participate in a wet t-shirt contest for a $200 prize! Woot! I’m starting to really like this place.

Coda

Xav wanted to leave for another venue. Pussy. Why? It was so good here. anyway if you ever find yourself with nothing to do on a Tuesday night – The Gaff is a high recommendation!

Me, Storm with some backpacker friends

Venue 2: Scruffy Murphys
We lasted 10 minutes here before leaving. Xav wasn’t feeling it here either. The music was loud and the venue was pretty busy here as well, with the band upstairs and the DJ downstairs at the vault. Probably the second busiest place in Sydney after the Gaff.

Venue 3: 3 Wise Monkeys
Asessment time: 12:45-1:30am
Music: Mix – Top 40, rnb, and even a reggae song.
Crowd: Mixed nationalities.
Atmosphere: Dead. About 5 people on the dancefloor as we got in, and about 20 people onlooking. A very stark contrast to Scruffy’s and The Gaff.
Cover Charge / Entry Fee: None
Dress Code: Casual OK

Timeline
Bouncer toys with us asians:
So we got in but he asks us to stand around. He asks management on his earpiece ‘Are these the 3 shooters that were here earlier?’ Like wtf! He seemed half serious but it was probably a joke. I laughed, and Xav and Storm had no idea what he was talking about. By this time, Xav had gone deaf from the loud music from the previous venues, and I had to repeat the joke twice.

Operation: Take over dancefloor
We got upstairs to the dance area. So dead its not funny. That is until James came along.

1. Say hello to everyone
There were two couples dancing and an Indian guy. I jumped right into the dance floor with a bit of a boogie. People see me. I like it. I run and hi-5 Indian guy. He seems really happy to see me. I hi 5 the asian couple. She gives me the sloppiest hi-5, its like a floppy-stroke-5. I run to the other couple. Hi give guy and the girl.

2. Dance with the hottest girl
She ditches the guy and does a bum dance with me – for quite some time. I look over and he’s off the dance floor. So they weren’t a couple after all, and I had cut his grass within the space of a minute, simply because I can do a superior bum dance. I look around and there’s a group of about 6 guys staring at her and me. I think they are her friends. Oh I feel bad now, so I dragged Xav up to the bathroom and left the girl to go back to her friends.

Back down, the girl is still dancing with her friend. She gravitates towards us. She likes me, and I really think about taking her somewhere else, but GOD why did this floor have to be so dead – there is nowhere to hide with this girl! So I just play dumb innocent dancer. Eventually her man-friends take her away and out of the club, since they were so bored.

3. Claim Kingship
By this time I am King of the dance floor. Population 4.

Being stared at:
The asian couple were here with 3 other girls. Storm thinks they’re of Hmong descent. I have no idea what nationality they are but they look Asian. They have been staring at me dancing the whole time since I entered. Being a King of the dance floor is not easy. There was another group of asians were staring at me as well as some African dudes, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to them.  The Hmong girls are still staring at me, just begging me to approach them…

Converting starers into dancers
Storm and I managed to get all of the girls out dancing to the floor. The crazy indian guy then joins us. He is just a random guy hitting on one of the girls. She doesn’t fend him off, and she doesn’t like him but her friends don’t save her, and her friends basically let her get mentally raped by this guy. He’s even gone for a kiss but she waved him off, while she still sitting there. Even she isn’t standing up for herself. So me and Storm had to save her. Storm went up to her and simply dragged her away. She complied quite easily, and we kept dancing.

Coda
The girls at this time were finally warming up, but Xav and Storm, and I were tired, so we left. I scored the phone number of the guy. Great move James, great move. 3 Wise Monkeys is not recommended for Tuesday night unless you like desolate dancefloors, and you want to be a King.

Me, Hmongs and Storm. 4th girl not in this photo was being harassed by creepy Indian guy at this point in time

Fridays @ Side Bar
(Assessment time: 10:30-2:30am)

Address: Corner of George and Pitt St, Sydney
Dress Code: Casual allowed. Hats allowed.
Entry Fee/Cover Charge: Free all night
Crowd: Backpackers from mixed backgrounds
Music: Top 40, Pop, Rock, Rnb, House – general party tunes. So some tunes you’ll like, and some you wouldn’t.
Atmosphere: It was pretty cold outside, so the place hadn’t reached capacity yet.  it was probably 40% capacity. The important bit was that there were people always dancing in the floor area.

Timeline
Feeling bloated
I just felt bloated for the first two hours so I was drinking cups of water non-stop. My dancing wasn’t on par at all. Suddenly, the nauseating feeling that comes from drinking too much earlier, had disappeared! That’s when I started to bust out the moves.

Busting out moves
I was just killing it! Someone I met tonight asked if I was part of a dance crew – no way – i wasn’t good enough. However at the bar, I was definitely the best =) A scottish girl even came up and asked for a dance with me. Later a group of girls see me and readily dance with me as well. That was fun!

Me at side bar, with my scarf

People farting
We hung out at the back, and let me tell you, its a bit annoying when you have open room but then someone lets off a fart. yuck. that’s all I have to say about this smelly matter.

Michael Jackon tributes
In the beginning, it was pretty dead in terms of people dancing. Then the DJ starts playing some Michael Jackson. He had died the previous week. People got up to dance. another MJ song, and another, and pretty soon the floor had everybody dancing. We all love this guy.

Coda
We just left due to exhaustion at 2.30am, and there was a slight risk of the place becoming a sausage fest. I would  probably only go here with friends tonight, as it was a little dead compared to other nights.

Moulin Rouge fail
It was all set out – a 21st birthday at Moulin Rouge. I waited in line for 30 minutes (it was massively long, and the bouncer cut off half the line because it was intruding on other premises). It was $15 on a guestlist she didn’t double check. It was pretty busy, but I wasn’t feeling it – I couldn’t find the girl. My phone rings… She’s changed venues!! NO WAY. The promoters had failed to submit her guestlist, and she didn’t want people lining up. A big fail, as the guestlist only served as a discount entry and not for a faster entry into the club. I was in Moulin Rouge for a grand total of .. 3 minutes @ $5 / minute. I could have called a phone sex line at that rate! One of the attendees offered to try to get us into Bungalow 8 as he had a guestlist going on as a backup. Good choice, since it was all the way on the other side of the city.

Bungalow 8/Cargo Bar fail
Big fail getting in. Two of the girls were dressed up goth like (without the make up), and one of the guys was just wearing a t-shirt. Bungalow 8 refused us entry, and so did Cargo, based on this.

Decision
The two girls were keen to go to Trash, their regular haunt. By this point, nobody cared anymore where we went, we were sick of walking around bring rejected, so off we went to the Agincourt Hotel…

I knew I was in for something different overhearing a girl give directions on the phone:

“Look for huge ‘TRASH’ banner. It’s got a picture of a skull, with burning flames underneath it”…

Agincourt Hotel
Address: Corner of Harris Street and Broadway
Website: http://www.agincourthotel.com.au
Inside: 3 Levels I was told, but only the bottom two levels were open tonight. On entering is a bar area, its quite small this total area – the music from upstairs eminates towards down here. Walk up the stairs and there is another bar, and a medium sized dancefloor eating up about 60% of space.

Click here to view the embedded video.

About Trash Saturdays (assessment time midnight)
Occurence: Every Saturday
Website: http://www.trashsaturdays.com, http://www.clubblink.net
Entry Fee/Cover Charge: $12 . $10 if you’re a member.
Door Policy / Dress Code: anybody was welcome. Hallowed. anything allowed, except chains and spikes.
Crowd: Mixed. Mostly aussies, euros and a handful of asians. Ages varied from 18 to late 20s.
Music:
I walk in to expect heavy metal playing, when I instead, hear RNB!! Like WTF! Tonight only the first two floors were open, and there was only one DJ, playing tracks from all different genres. It was mostly alternative rock, but the songs that you know. Songs like “chop suey” by SOAD, or “Rollin’” by Limp Bizkit. Just some good heavy rock. I was awaiting the heavy metal but it never came up. Later on the website I find out that the heavy metal nights were only on Fridays. Officially the types of music being played are “Punk, Rock, Indie, Emo, Heavy, Hardcore, Party Tunes”.
Song Requests: You could sms to request a song here! A big electronic banner above the DJ set scrolls the number. My friend requests the song “I’m On A Boat” by The Lonely Island. It never gets played. What a waste of an SMS! A complete list of types of songs can be found on the website.
Atmosphere - Pretty good, vibrant. Despite first appearances, people were all pretty friendly.

Timeline
The heavy metal girls don’t get what they want.
These two were really keen on blink tonight. They said ‘heavy metal’ would be on tonight. Unluckily for them (and lucky for the rest of us) metal was only on Fridays. They must have been caught surprised when the RNB started to play. After about 30 minutes of this mix of rnb, pop, and occasional heavy rock (no metal) they left to go hom
e. Can’t blame them for turning up on the wrong night. They were very friendly thoughout the night – which totally destroyed my perceived view of people who dressed up as such- they’re normal people like you and me, but covered in tattoos and wrapped in dark clothing. No emo-ness at all (I think any set of people would be offended to be compared to being an emo.) Perhaps these were the type that liked to party too.

Friends leave soon after as well:
Despite the rnb and pop”Party Tunes”, there were still the heavy rock songs which didn’t go down well with the birthday girl and company. One of the guys wanted to go home asap. They left at 1.30am, and I had to make a decision to join them back at the hotel or keep dancing. I decide to stay. ‘Ohhhh James’ you think ‘.. why not go back to the hotel?? are you crazy?? a possible free shag!’. True, but I was enjoying being a dance-whore in here.

Dancing Headbanging Style:
It helps if you have an afro. Helps if you know the words. Heres a short video. I think they’re playing one of the Rage Against the Machine songs “Killing in the name of”:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The gay dancer:
He wasn’t gay, but he danced very gay, with a masculine force to it. A fairy on steroids. I.e an awesome version of me. So here are tips from the gay dancer to me that I share with you:
- “I wish I was really gay so I could pick up more chicks”
- “Dance gay. It’s magic”
- “The girls love it”
- etc

The girls did love it. He showed me by going up to two girls and pulling off some whack fairy-gay movies, chest out in the air and all. They loved it and can’t stop laughing. Then he picks the hotter one up with some close intense salsa moves. (NOTE TO SELF: LEARN SALSA) while her friends laughs hysterically. I tell her that ‘we could do better than them!’ and grab her hand, but she literally SCREAMS out in fear in reaction after. Then she took 4 or 5 steps back and consoles in a fellow dancer about how some guy tried to ask her to dance with him. It looked like she could have cried. Now tell me, what on earth did I do? haha, just a grabbed her arm, that’s all. It probably came off real creepy. anyway, I have never ever seriously scared a girl so much before. It was quite funny but sad at the same time.

The other asian guy.. where did I see him before?
There was another asian dude who looked familiar but I had no idea. We occasionally had a little dance when we bumped into each other on the floor but we didn’t really talk.

blues brothers - familiar asian on the left

Then today I look through some old photos, and I spotted this one… and THERE HE WAS!!  ON THE LEFT WITH THE CORONA! HE NINJA-ED MY PHOTO!

Me in my borat outfit at Havana last year for Halloween. The more important person is on the left - I saw him !! I think.

I was in yet another wig tonight, so I dont think he recognized me.. or did he? Well whoever you are, you and your white buddy looked pretty cool with the suit and Ray-bans. Or I could be completely wrong, and have gotten you confused with an asian who looks exactly like you. lol

More people
Met a girl celebrating her 19th. A good dancer. Met lots of crazy guys. Talked to a guy with his dreadlocks. It’s funny taking off the wig and seeing people getting a shocked reaction!

I made the cloak room girl wait to go home
It was almost 4am. I walked by the cloak room. The girl in there yells at me to grab my bag. I have the last bag in there and she had closed 15 minutes earlier. So nice of her to wait. I got my bag, and she hurriedly went home. I feel bad about making her wait, but how was I to know the room was closed?

People make out here too
Lots of them. I don’t think a girl would leave unless without a number or a kiss. Because of this there was still a good ratio of men to women at closing time. Or perhaps the atmosphere was just that good.  [edit june 24th - saw the gallery - half of them are of people pashing each other]

Coda
Left at closing time 4.15am. The final song they played was Tupac Shakur’s “changes” – I still couldn’t believe the songs they were playing here. The regulars must be hating saturdays here. I liked the music choice – I don’t often get to hear rock. However I would guess this would not a place to go for the person who doesn’t like rock. Worth checking out once – you’ll either love it or hate it.

Old Dance Warrior James

Pavillion – Two girls in the front, 4 on the side, and indian guys for the rest of the people on here. DJ was playing west coast rap. My favourite anthems were being played (Dr Dre,  Snoop Dogg, etc). A crazy indian was dance-cracking onto the two girls in the front. He was out there, just shaking his body loose. I wondered where my energy was tonight. I think I get intimidated by other good dancers in a desolate setting.

Shark Bar/Hotel – I walked in and there was nobody on the floor. I was about to leave, but they started to play “Push it” by Salt N Pepa. I love this song so I *had* to get up there. So I jumped up and did a little boogie to the song, to the amusement of everybody staring at the elevated dancefloor in the middle. Everyone who looked at me I looked back, and they would stare away. A group of people at the very back took a photo of me and waved hi. The song ended and I ran off.

Spectrum – My usual friends had gone home, so I met up with the French backpackers for some dance. We checked out Spectrum first. Free entry. House. We went upstairs and it was *dead* as. A handful of people dancing, a handful of people sitting down, a small room, and that was it. I don’t think this was meant to be a place for clubbing. Reminded me like an oxford st version of Manning Bar at USYD. I can’t imagine that place being a place for clubbing. We left quite quickly.

We then stumbled upon Oxford Art Factory and settled in..

After Work Art Fridays @ The Oxford Art Factory (Art After Dark) (29th May 2009)

Note: This review is primarily for the ‘Art After Dark’ Room’, and not the ‘Live Art Space’ where a cover charge applied.

About Oxford Art Factory (assessment time 1.30am)
Address: 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst
The Bar: Jugs of beers and cocktails offered for a reasonable price.
Website: http://www.oxfordartfactory.com
Inside: Walking downstairs, there are two rooms:

Live Art Space: Carpeted area with central wooden dancefloor, with DJ up on stage. At the back is an elevated area where more lounges exist. It was mostly dancefloor space.

Live Art Space - Oxford Art Factory (image oxfordartfactory.com)

Art After Dark: (where we were) A further flight of stairs down takes you to this room. It’s pretty small, holding about 100 people max. A bar as well here. The room has a high ceiling length, and a big TV on one end of the wall. It’s been painted white, which is different. Tonight there were only lounges along the wall, and not sticking out as in the picture.

Art After Dark Bar - Oxford Art Factory - This is where we hung out (image oxfordartfactory.com)

About After Work Art Fridays: (assessment time 1.30am)
Entry Fee/Cover Charge: Free for the Art After Dark Bar, $15 for the DJ in the Live Art Space Room tonight. After 3am it was free for all.
Crowd / Dress Code: Artsy types. People in their 20′s and 30′s. Lots of hats around. anything goes.
Atmosphere: I was expecting not many people to be here, so guess how surprised I was when I saw the whole room packed! Well, it was 1.30am, and it was a small area, but usually at an average to bad venue, 1.30am is when people start going home. So overall it was a good sign.
Music: Art After Dark Bar – Earlier in the evening there were live bands playing, but we missed that. So when we arrived, the band area was cleared and there was a DJ playing a mix of music across pop, rnb, retro and rock. Basically a bit of everything, and each upcoming song would be of a different genre. Somehow though the crowd was fully right into every song being played.

Live Art Space – DJ Sega (USA) was the main act playing tonight, (Indie). I didn’t get to check him out. Later another DJ was playing around 3am, with some dubstep beats, and another artist came up for some raps where I could practise some krumpin on the very open dance floor. The crowd here were all the hardcore types left, so everybody was into it.

Timeline

Not much dance room
Because of the TINY amount of room and the way in which the room was designed, our group of 8 people basically took up the middle section of the floor area. This meant every person walking in and out to the toilets or the bar had to go through our circle or around us. So basically the entire time our circle would be interrupted and I was, at least, constantly shuffling back and forth, with people hitting into us and spilling some beer onto each of us. Also because of the room, there weren’t many other large circles.. usually a max of 4 people would be per circle. Also I couldn’t pull off any crazy antic dance moves!! It was really cramped, but not shoulder to shoulder, I had about 20cm of room around me.

Boobs! (So your loyalty to this blog has paid off)
The screen in this room was playing some movie from the 80′s (You could tell by the hairstyles – it could have been the 70s). When we got in, there was a zoom in of a woman’s boobs, and someone was fondling them, just to test out to see how bouncy they were. A minute later, a couple are having a cigarette on the sofa, while the woman, still topless,  starts dancing behind them!!  It was the most bizarre film clip, but she was a pretty good dancer with her arm movements. Her boobs stayed bouncy throughout the dance routine.

I look up a few moments later and I see a naked man lying on bed, his bum crack towards the camera. gross. Back to dancing. Look up again after another few minutes, and there’s a young man and her partner – and guess what she’s doing – SHE’S TYING A CLOTH AROUND HIS DICK LIKE A BOWTIE!! What the hell! What kinda stuff is this??? He then stands up , with this cloth dangling from his dick, and he stands behind the bedpost. That was all. So bizarre!

It wasn’t surprising that there were couples making out everywhere in the room.

I wore casual. I am rewarded with solo dancing.
We mostly stayed within our circle through the night. A friend dances around with his bald head and basically gets all the attention! Damn. I had nothing. No wig, no hat, just my shirt, jeans and dodgy sneakers – I was very casual and  quite content just dancing it out on my own. Everyone else was dressed their own style. Crazy hairdos, different fashion styles.. half the crowd wearing hats – it would have been quite difficult to attract attention. Only later in the night near closing time, the music became..  I don’t know.. I wasn’t too into it anymore and wanted to just dance it out in the other room.

Coda
We all get kicked out of the Live Art room around 4am. Music was still going in the Art After Dark Bar but nobody was dancing. We were all buggered and left, quite happy with this  place. I liked this place and would recommend it if you like all sorts of music, don’t mind crowded packed small  bars, and mingling it up with the artsy types. You know who you are.

The Mean Fiddler

Address: Corner Commercial Road and Old Windsor Road, Rouse Hill.
About: 1 main room playing house. Go to the back and there is a lower level dance area where the special DJs play. This area is cut off from the general public, and requires payment to enter. Payment tonight was $15, but after 1.30am or so, it was a free for all for anyone to come and go. There is a further rnb room, which was quite small, (and hot).. and further out back another room for rock. So, in total, 4 rooms and 8 bars. This place was massive.

Cover Charge: General Areas Free , Cordened off area $15
Attire: Casual allowed. Hats allowed, but I was told off once by a bouncer to remove my hat in one of the main rooms.
Crowd: Mostly australian/ white.
Atmosphere: Friendly (for me anyway)

Timeline
Arrived 11pm, after a 2 hour bus trip ordeal (bus driver told me off, and a guy on the bus spewed all over himself)

My first impression was ‘wow this place is freaking huge’, and then ‘i can’t believe its in the middle of nowhere.’ A big place like this in the middle of nowhere.. you would think there wouldn’t be many people, but it was packed, believe me. You could go to any of the dance areas and have a good time, or if you wanted you could go outside and just have a chill.

I avoided her friends
Birthday girl arrived. I didn’t t really get along with her aussie friends. I don’t know why.. they were an established group of friends and i was this outsider. They never really had the interest to get to know me, and I didn’t reciprocate. They didn’t even buy her birthday drinks. I was the only one who did. They all left her at 1am, and so she hung out with me for 2 hours of dance. Dancing is always fun with James

Other than that, met some random girls from Campbelltown who liked my trusty white hat. It was their first time too at the Fiddler. Seemed like many of the people I would bump into tonight would be their first or second time here. We had our own little group which eventually tripled in size and we were all dancing, and sweating like pigs in the rnb room. Horrible stuff, sweating.

Some guy didnt like me:
Downstairs in the outdoor house area, I was dancing with birthday girl and this huge tall guy dances up to me and dances. I dance back and smile. He’s not smiling at all. He then forms a fist in his hand and pretends to hit me in the head as part of his dance move,  like a boxer. So not funny. I give him the best ‘wtf you weirdo’ look i could muster up, and jesus christ, I have no idea why, he went away, but comes back 2 minutes later and tries to fake punch me again. Don’t know what was up his ass. just LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE.

Some guy repeats his hat trick – with my hat
It’s me and birthday girl. She’s wearing my hat. Some guy comes up and asks for hat. She says no, as its my hat. He takes the hat and does a one handed lay-up with the hat onto his head.  Nice. Then he does it again, and finds some group of girls and repeats it. Boring. He gives the hat back.

2 or 3 songs later he comes up again to us and says ‘let me show u a trick’, and he performs the exact same thing. omg hello did you not just show us that!!! Got anything new????

But no. We leave and come back after 30 minutes, and he says ‘LET ME SHOW U A TRICK’. omfg HE DOES THE SAME TRICK AGAIN. WTF!!!!!!!!!  OK WE CAN SEE U CAN PUT UR HAT ON . GO AWAY NOW.

Freaking out girls
I had a wig on. One that looked real. All I remember is a girl telling me the hat didnt fit on me. So I said, it probabably looks better if “I took this off”, and proceeded to rip off my wig. My god she yelled so loudly and jumped back it wasn’t funny. Then it was funny. You should try it one day.

Coda

Nearing the end of the night, the bouncers closed off each area one by one – first it was the rock area, then the outdoor area , then the rnb room, then eventually they kicked everybody out by 2.45am. Efficient. The line for the taxi was 100-200 people deep.

Highly recommended with friends. It’s up there for the top 5 venues in Sydney.  Definitely the best outside of the CBD/Kings Cross that I’ve been to so far.

We arrive, and the register clearly has a $20 sign. However they just stamp us and let us in. Strange…

Manhattan Lounge (Fridays)
Website: http://www.themanhattan.com.au/
Music: RNB
Crowd: Asian
Entry: $20 stated. $10 was also reported, but we got in for free
Location: 50 Elizabeth St, Martin Place (Right next door to Hotel Chambers, Across the road from Verandah Bar)
Space: Walk downstairs and its about the same dance area as Bamboo/Hotel Chambers, without the outside bits. It’s long, pretty narrow small, and provides a cosy atmosphere somewhat. Again, no photos, I’m sorry.

NB: This was the last of the in-house Fridays. A new organised event is now in place for Friday’s at Manhattan, called FunkInk. www.funkinkonline.com

Timeline
Bumping into people
1/ Bumped into my uncle’s best friend. He’s almost 30 but still looks early 20′s. We have a bit of a chat. I ask if he cleanses, tones an moisturises. He confirmed it, and even had the time to exfoliate every week. I can’t wait to be 30.

2/ Bumped into a girl I met at Crystal Bar last year. We had kept in contact, but she has a very stuck up attitude. She demands I give her attention. Her view on things make me laugh and I brush her off. Later as we dance, she comes right into our circle and grinds with me. It’s hard to ignore someone when they throw themselves at you. Her friends were normal, and I actually wanted to go for them instead.

Atmosphere / Music
Given the small area, people were all cosied up near each other. So whenever you were in the dance area, it was always seemingly ‘not dead’, when it probably was. However the place and vibe wasn’t too bad at all. Music was typical RNB to keep people happy.

Family Run Bar = slow.
Took about 15 minutes to get served glasses of water. Even then, we only got half a cup full, as they were so busy. The bar looked to be run by a family, as they all looked very similar.

Coda
Friends left 1.30. I left to go onto Side Bar

Side Bar Timeline (2am-3am)

I had a bit of a boogie at Pavillion but it was dead. Went to Side Bar, and it was going off!
Entry is free
Music was a DJ playing rock, pop, rnb, house, anything for that matter.
Crowd was just full of euro backpackers.
Theme was black. All the bar staff and some people were wearing black garbage bags. Hilarious. How did I not find out about this event?

I truly danced my heart out until closing. I like this place.