Prelude: We’re lining up at Civic Hotel for the “Taboo” event for a friends’ birthday. Marty is caught wearing a t-shirt, which is deemed too casual and he is rejected – AFTER he paid for cloak room services for his blazer while lining up. Paying for cloak room and then being rejected is pretty shit, when I was allowed in with a collared blazer with a t-shirt underneath.  A group of about 20 guys for a bucks night were also not going inside, because one of them didn’t have a collared shirt. This event was actually enforcing their dress policies! They are being picky on finding reasons to cut the high numbers of men attending the Taboo events (as my sources say anyway).

We can’t leave Marty behind in the cold so .. this provided the opportunity to visit the Jamrock! event, so here we go!

Dance corner (12:30AM)

Jamrock! @ 202 Broadway , Sydney

Assessment Time: 11:40PM – 02:30AM
Opening Hours: 9:00PM – ~3:00AM
Lockout: No lockout
Address: 202 Broadway (Corner of City Road and Parramatta Road, Broadway, Sydney)
Venue Website: http://www.202broadway.com.au/
Promoter Website: Event Group on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/jamrock.australia ; Website – http://www.beatelement.com/
Occurrence: Every Saturday since January 2010
Outside Line: No line, we got in right away.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Hats allowed. There was no dress code encouraged by the promoters, so it was a mix of everything tonight from very casual to smart casual. Being close to winter, most people were rugged up in jumpers/jackets if they weren’t in their t-shirts or one piece dresses. You would definitely stand out if you put on a LBD in here.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $15 during peak hours while it turns to $10 after 2AM. Entry also includes a mix CD of the current month’s latest compilation of contemporary Reggae / Dancehall music. Pretty cool.
Guestlist: jamrockcluboz@gmail.com or see Facebook page.

Inside: Walk inside to face the right side of the club. It’s a large room with bar in the middle occupying most of the space. On the right corner is the dancing corner where there’s an elevated podium for the DJ as well as some room for brave people to come up and dance. On your left is a pool table corner, while scattered around the other walls are stools to sit. Around the perimeter of the bar there was only about 3-4 metres of standing room. The door out the left wall of the club is the smoking area. Previous times the downstairs was open with a second floor but this does not appear to be so tonight.
Cloak Room: None
Bar Prices / Line: You would have one or two orders in front. With only 2 or 3 staffing the bar, the wait could be about 10 minutes.
Eviction Count: None spotted. Everyone is well behaved.
Music Style: My brother constantly plays reggae / dancehall at home, so there were definitely some popular songs being played that I recognized, though I had no idea what they were called – my brother would be ashamed of me. The songs were all being played in their entirety, with pretty much not much mixing effort at all. This reflects on the mood of the crowd who are pretty much ambient, if such a word can be described about a group of people. Don’t expect it to be like a proper RnB or House club where tunes are mixed and played to keep people dancing on the floor. There was also overzealous use of the Air Horn (Multi shot ) and Laser Gun sound effect throughout the night. The laser was also heavily used on the mixtape CD – It gets quite annoying once you pick up on it but I suppose it is what makes contemporary Reggae/ Dancehall music what it is. Later in the night (after 2ish am) the tempo slows down music wise.
Crowd & Ratio: About 70% of people here are of African descent. The rest is a mix of Caucasian, Aboriginal, and even other Asians were here besides us. I was expecting a totally dominant crowd of Africans but I was genuinely surprised how many people were into this kind of music. Ages ranged from young 20′s to pretty much people in their 30′s and 40′s – skewering to the older ages. Nobody was being judged here and people of all shapes and sizes were here too. Ratio wise was about 60:40 Guys/Girls.
Entertainment: DJ/MC commenting between songs. Also a booty / dancing competition which provided some later in the night entertainment.
Atmosphere: As mentioned earlier, it’s quite a relaxed vibe here. When we walked in, it wasn’t a blaring-music-pumping-out-of-the-speakers affair – it was cut down so you could still hold a conversation somewhat. You still have to raise your voice but not to yelling point. Also it was unusually well lit for a dance event – you can see people all over the room, as well as the good and bad features of the venue. So when you dance, you’re dancing for everyone to see – but nobody really minds so there isn’t anything to be embarrassed about.
Initially it was way too relaxed – only a handful of people were dancing, while the rest of the entire club was just standing around chatting or doing not much at all. It was kind of strange. It was only until about 12:30AM when people were more into the dancing mood and where the dancing area got much more busy. People are pretty friendly here in general as well if you’re looking for a chat or a regular non-creepy dance.
Video: Music Sample

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline
Dedicated to the ladies
MC announced that “This song is dedicated to da ladies!”. Cool. The song after that was also “dedicated to the mammas!”. Two songs after that was also “dedicated to the ladies!” ad nauseam. Kind of funny.

Relaxed is everyone
Have I mentioned that it’s so chilled out here. If this was a RnB club you would think the place was dead, but when you remember it’s a Reggae club, then it’s quite normal. After the competition the club is pretty much gotten everybody dancing around. A drunk older man came up to dance with me. Then he said “Look at those ladies. Lets go!”, and drags me to dance with two larger ladies. They are easily not amused and walk away. He moves on and cracks onto any woman in sight.. it was entertaining.

The never ending story
Outside in the smoking area I’ve somehow struck up a conversation with a woman easily in her 40′s. She’s had a few but is good enough to hold a conversation. She starts talking about her daughter and her friends, and how bad Kings Cross is for clubbing. It was interesting but after about 10 minutes of monologue I honestly got a bit bored, as it was the same topic, and I wanted to go back inside to dance. The drunk guy from earlier comes up to her and tries to chat her up, but she tells him to pretty much “f*ck off!”. It didn’t phase him, and he relentlessly continues chatting up. I think after the 4th “f*ck off” he eventually moves on. All my friends meanwhile managed to sneak away and get back inside, leaving me out in the cold with the lady resuming her role as Canterbury in Henry V . I eventually had to cut the conversation off and wished her goodbye and good luck with her daughter who lived life on the edge at Kings Cross.

Arrivederci
We were a bit tired at 2:00AM but stuck around to see if the tempo bounce up again but it didn’t – we left at 2:30AM.

Recommendation
Don’t be afraid to come here if you’re of a non-African background, its quite okay here, but do come after midnight as before that time it would not have picked up yet. Cheap entry and friendly atmosphere makes for a safe night out.

For the first time punter -They got a taste of what a purpose built club was. 5.0/10
Personal experience – Disappointment pulled this one down. 4.0/10

Epilogue
I saw a guy passed out on the steps nearby, and someone pulled his pants down as he lay there. We pulled his pants back up and called police to take care of him. The police came and pretty much woke him up demanding if he took any drugs. He honestly looked like he was just passed out from alcohol and was incomprehensible. He was treated pretty roughly too. Kind of sad, entertaining, and yet got me wondering why I called the police. At least he is safe and alive now.. ?

Robin Hood with M's Russian Commisar hat

Fridays @ Ladylux Nightclub, Kings Cross Sydney
Assessment Time: 12:10PM – 01:45AM
Opening Hours: 9:00PM or earlier ~ 03:00AM (facebook page states 06:00AM, but Dj set list lasted until 2AM.. so I wouldn’t know to be sure)
Lockout: No lockout.
Address: 2 Roslyn St, Potts Point (Kings Cross), Sydney.
Venue Website: http://www.ladylux.com.au
Promoter Website: Appears to be self promoted
Occurrence: Every Friday and Saturday is open. Saturday are the more heavily promoted nights while Fridays rarely get a mention.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual ok. Half the guys wore casual t-shirts while the other half wore collared shirts. Girls were mostly in dresses. Hats were allowed. I was dressed up as Robin Hood with feather hat.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $10 is the full cover charge. We were given promoter cards on the street to get free entry all night. A very fair deal here.
Guestlist: Submitted via the website. The existing link at time of writing is at http://www.myguestlist.com.au/mgl/ccp/ladylux/index.html
Inside: There’s not much of a giveaway that the entrance is of Ladylux. It’s just a doorway in the side of a building with 2 security guards outside. As you walk inside, there is a private VIP room to the immediate right. I didn’t go in there, but I would be making an educated guess based from the outside walls that it would only hold about 10 people. Continue walking past a small lounge area on the left – as you look around note the wallpapers – white with fuschia-coloured flowering patters on the walls. Continue to the next small area which is the bar. Once you reach the bar you are now at the edge of the dancefloor, which takes up probably two fifths of the entire floor area of the venue. DJ corner in the far right. The dancefloor area is about 5-6 people width by 15-20 people long. There are sofas along both sides of the dancefloor as well. At the far end wall are a set of lights that flash around looking pretty. The video below will walk you through the setup.
Cloak Room: No cloak room. Well I didn’t ask, but I didn’t see any signs indicating presence of a cloak room.
Bar Prices / Line: I didn’t drink tonight, but lining up would set you behind 2 or 3 other orders.
Music Style: Primarily Commercial House and Electro. The occasional RnB mashup song thrown in as well. I quite liked it as I knew the songs and people were singing along to it. Songs were mixed well without complaints.
Crowd: Almost entirely Caucasians, all young 20′s or teens. From the people we spoke with, backgrounds were a mix of locals and backpackers who mysteriously ended up in here. The ratio was about 35% women 65% guys. By the time we left at 2:00AM, it was almost all guys.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment.
Atmosphere: It’s pretty dark in here. The entire first half of the place (lounge areas) have been decorated with various Halloween things hanging from the ceiling and what not. Pretty cool. However, even before you notice the decorations, the first thing that hits you is the pungent smell of the whole place. It kind of smells like a mix of dried up alcohol spilled on the floor combined with the results of a very poor urinal flushing system, or someone peeing all over the entire place. It wasn’t powerful enough to scare you out of the club, but at various points throughout the night your nose would be wondering… ‘What on earth is that smell?’. Kind of like when I was in India – the yucky smell was always there in the main cities, but you tolerated it. People wise, the dancefloor itself always had people on it, so there was no need to feel lonely. Most kept to their own, there were also a few drunk guys as well.

Video: Walkthrough: Starting at the cash register – walk through the lounge area, bar area and dancefloor. (12:11AM)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline
Smelly
We hung around the front, which was as far away from the bathroom as possible. I pretty much believed at this point in time someone had managed to puke all over the bathroom floor and also passed out, while in the process pissing all over themselves and the bathroom floor, hence the smell. Well, that was my belief anyway – I did not enter the male bathroom at all tonight, I just couldn’t risk it.

Smack my ass for me
We are chatting to some friendly folk, and someone slaps my ass. TURN AROUND. It’s a random drunk girl with 4 of her guy friends. Oh, ok. Back to chatting to friendly folk. Another slap on my ass. TURN AROUND. Its drunk girl again. She wants me but no, I am in the middle of a D&M in the club. After ignoring the 3rd, 4th and 5th slaps, she stopped.

A sister is found
So this is a smelly club playing House music frequented by Caucasians, so fat chance you would find another asian in here, but LO AND BEHOLD. There is another Asian! I mean, if I were white in the middle of a chinese club, I would easily spot my white brother and be overjoyed that I am not the only odd one out in here. Anyway, she’s Asian.. look at her a few more seconds… Oh my god, it’s my friend! Out of all the Asians in Sydney to be in the same white club as myself, its someone I know. She’s recognises me as well and so we dance it off for the rest of the night. What a small world.

Arrivederci

People started leaving after 1AM, and when we left at 02:00AM, the dancefloor was still kind of busy, but the lounges were not.

Recommendation
Hard to recommend. The music is great if you like House, the venue itself is small but not cramped, but the smell that permeated the back area was just a bit too overpowering at times and detracted from the rest of the place. So it’s a little dirty – don’t come here with your tuxedo on I say. I’d only come back here if it were free entry again. If you can get your hands on the VIP area then why not have a birthday here as well, if your friends are into this kind of housey atmosphere.

Fridays @ Ladylux – 5/10

Dancefloor under UV light - O2 Nightclub Sydney

Oxygen Saturdays @ O2 Nightclub Sydney
Assessment Time: 11:15PM – 04:00AM
Opening Hours: 9:00PM – 5:00AM
Lockout: None. I had a friend enter freely at 3:00AM
Address: 247 Pitt St, Sydney. There are no clear visible signs to get to the door. Enter the mall via the “Coolabar” sign – there might be a red carpet and standing poster to point users to the O2 nightclub. Head up two sets of escalators to reach level two, where O2 nightclub resides, opposite Coolabar itself. It is also where the Monorail station is located. Bear in mind that O2 and Coolabar are two separate venues on the same level.
Venue Website: http://www.o2nightclub.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.meentertainment.com.au
Occurrence: Every Saturday night.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual is ok. hats are ok. On the door it was stated that “absolutely no Sports Gear allowed”, because this is the place where NRL players head to go clubbing after a big match, right? Right? (the answer is no). Tonight’s theme is a White Party. Most girls wore casual dresses. A lot of the guys here were dressed in urban street gear, complete with hats and sometimes even sunglasses. I saw a T-Pain lookalike in here, you get a glimpse of him on the dancefloor walkthrough video. I really should have research before coming here tonight – Gandalf the white would have made an easy return, but I guess not tonight.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Guestlist pricing unknown. $25 full cover charge. $20 if you were wearing white.  My friend got in at 3AM for free after waiting a few moments for the door girl to pack up to go home. That’s an asian for you.
Guestlist: info@meentertainment.com.au
Inside: Walk inside to the main room on the right and the bar/lounge on the left. Bar on the left spans half the length of the venue. Around the corner near the bar are lounges / bathroom / cloak room / chill out area for 40 or so people. Back to the dancefloor, the DJ takes one corner of the wooden floor to hold about 100-140 people. There is also an upper area with a second bar – this can be reserved for special functions, and has a dancing pole and dancefloor for 20-30 people. The dance area is bathed in UV light.
Cloak Room: Cloak room services offered but it was full tonight. FULL AT 11.15PM. Ridiculous. People are putting their belongings on tables and stools nearby and hope for the best. We left our jackets behind one of the speakers on the dancefloor. At the end of the night, my jacket was covered in someone’s spilled drink. Sigh.
Bar Prices / Line: $4 for an Orange Juice. (yes, I was not drinking tonight) . Fishbowl size drinks are offered at the bar and many people are buying them.
DJs: No idea.
Music Style: Most of the songs tonight were of RnB, but this place was heavily guilty of playing Rihanna’s “Rude Boy” at least 3 times during the night. Utterly sick of that song to death now. Otherwise there were some hip hop/rap songs thrown into the mix later in the night after 1AM. There was also some house songs thrown in for mashup.
Crowd: From 11-1.30ish, it was a mixed crowd. The two main groups were Euros and Africans. There were a handful of Asians, but we were the main Asian group in here. After 1.30am, most of the white crowd had left and more of the Africans came in. Hard to tell the age of the crowd, but there was a Hen’s night here, and some older looking folk, so the crowd would be ranging from their early 20′s to early 30′s.
Entertainment: an MC to keep things going. Tonight was a white theme, so there were white balloons dotted around the place.
Atmosphere: On the dancefloor and upper level, it was pretty busy throughout the night. Not packed, but busy enough to not be able to dance freely. On the other side though, the lounge was never really full at all – you could usually find a lounge seat to rest on. When we left, the main dancefloor was still going at about 70 per cent capacity, which is very good for any place. Throughout the whole night it was pretty cool temperature wise – only one or two moments where I felt a little warm after some vigorous dancing – you could however escape to another area of the club to cool down. People mostly kept to themselves except if you knew other people here.
Video: 360 of the dancefloor

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

People are actually in white
The last ‘White’ party I went to was at Bamboo, and in terms of people dressed in white, it pretty much failed. Here tonight though, almost everyone was in white. Agh! I feel so left out. Don’t trust Asians to dress up in theme.

.. but there is such thing as a free cake!
So after about 2AM there was no more guy guarding VIP area, and we walked in. Actually the guy guarding it came back right after we got in. So we technically snuck in. Hmm. But anyways, there was a plate of about 100 chocolate chip cupcakes sitting on the table uneaten all night. I, as an Asian, had to do my duty. So I ate these things all night. Pretty delicious. I forgot to ask for a doggy bag. The VIP area in itself was nice – we could actually dance here freely while still being able to oversee the main dancefloor. There was also an easy access lounge and dancing pole if need be.

Free choc chip cupcakes!! Friend thought it was disgusting. Do you think I care?

Arrivederci
Left at 4AM, just to being tired. I can’t believe people were still in here when we left.

Recommendation
If you don’t mind hanging out with Africans and want a cooler change of atmosphere, with the same rnb music you expect from the other clubs, then do check it out. I was a little apprehensive at first but its not as bad as I thought. Cloak room needs more space as well. A wet jacket didn’t bode well for me. Do come with friends, as people tend to keep to their own in here, I think.

Oxygen O2 Saturdays @ O2 Nightclub Sydney - 7/10

11 Quick Club reviews as seen from outside the club aka Window Shopping – 19th December 2009. (Northern Sydney CBD)

Saturdays @ Star Bar on George St
- Packed. However we had overdosed lately on Star Bar and its amusing crowd of non-english speaking tourists. It was a no go tonight, no matter how tempting it was to go inside there.

PS. I no longer write reviews when I visit star bar, as I visit this place too much.

Saturdays @ Arthouse on Pitt St (1am)
- Tonight was not an ‘Asian’ night (Fame), but it was a white-crowd event. House music was playing outside, and there was no line outside – it looked pretty shit inside from the outside. There was a cover charge.

Saturdays @ The Vault on Pitt St
- We walked by this bar and heard RNB music playing! Whoa, we have to try it out. We walk up to the entrance and there is a smallish dance floor with about 15 people dancing on it – it was almost dead, but better than Pavillion. However the bouncer refused us entry on the excuse of ‘a private function’. We were 4 guys so it was understandable, but the private function excuse didn’t seem congruent, as there was no second person to confirm a guestlist. Whatever, it was dead.

Saturdays @ Coolabar
- Music is pumping out, tape and escalators are in operation to the bar upstairs. There are two people outside. It was on! We know Coolabar is a shithole, but we want to wow the crowd inside, if there was one.

We run up but the two people inside tell us we can’t go inside, as the place is closed. What!?! You wonder why some places are even open at all if they are closing at 1.30am on a Saturday night.

Bamboo @ Martin Place Bar
- The line is shorter than usual, but there *is* a line, which is better than the other places so far. Entirely asian, and RNB playing outside, it is tempting to go inside, but all four of us were not big fans of paying $25 to go inside. People inside had santa hats on. We could see Jason the resident Korean bum dancer hogging the podium from the outside.

Security came up and spoke with us. We had a short fun chat and perved on some girls walking by, you know, typical man stuff. Security was called to kick out a drunk person. Moments later he is walking out with a drunk girl and 3 of her girlfriends supporting her. haha, it is not classy at all to see a drunk girl, let me tell you that. Security tells the girls it is all ok, and wraps his arms around the two girls beside him. LOL omg he is hitting on drunk girls outside of thd club – I want to be a bouncer now!!! haha, what a sneaky sleaze.

Funky Buddha @ Verandah Bar on Castlereagh St (Martin Place)
Here they recently opened the trance room again (after a 3 or 4 year absence). Cover is $20, crowd is asian, music is RNB and trance.

We ask some girls who left Funky Buddah if it was any good.
“Average” was the reply. It was in other words, shit. There was, though, a line outside, so it must be somewhat ok.

I do want to check it out as it’s been a while, and I have to see how the Trance room looks now.

Saturdays @ Red Room Hotel Chambers on Castlereagh St (Martin Place)
We were able to peek inside from the entrance – and even though it looked crowded, it didn’t seem like a fun atmosphere. Music was old school RNB, with a cover charge of $20 and an asian crowd.

Tank Nightclub (Bridge lane)
OneLove moved to the Bourbon about a month ago, and we did not know if there was any event, so we took a punt and walked here. It was, unfortunately, closed. (At the time writing, Onelove @ the Bourbon has also shut its doors)… I think I might start a new event here! ha.

20/20 @ Brooklyn Hotel (George St Circular Quay)
Ever since Privilege closed for renovations a few weeks ago, promoters Hypnotize moved their Saturday event to Brooklyn and joined with Urban Agent to help out. The result is that my favourite place to go for free drunk girls and $17 Vodka Red Bulls has turned into a cover charged event full of not so drunk people. I yearn for the former glory days of seediness.

I peek inside the main rnb room and it is pretty packed. I go around the back and look down in the outdoor courtyard area where they are playing house/trance. Back in the no-cover charge days, the place usually had 5-10 people dancing max, while the others sit and watch. Now with the help of the promoters, the entire back area as PACKED. Jesus fucking christ I could not believe what I was seeing – Brooklyn Hotel actually packed out! I could not see any concrete, it was just a sea of people standing up, dancing and cheering. It looked pretty awesome. The bartenders must be having a hard time adjusting to actually having to work non-stop.

However my friends, still don’t want to go inside. They are pretty adamant about not going inside here, considering the crappy times they had the last few times. haha.

Also, regular patrons here (i.e. the islanders) were lining up to get in, not knowing that they need to pay entry. There were some outside, thinking of other places to go. So the crowd inside was a mix of islanders, asians and aussies. Cover charge I am guessing is $20. Based on what I saw, it looks good.

Sienna @ Establishment on George St
We are just walking by. They’re playing house music, though I had thought Sienna was an RNB event. The crowd is dominantly Euro, and cover charge is $20. I do need to check this place out too. It looked pretty busy from what we could see

Saturdays @ Ivy on George St
Loud, and looking quite busy. We can’t see inside from the street but we can hear people cheering from the inside. Sounds like fun. Am definitely going to spend a night here one day next year.

Saturdays @ Bar 333 on George St (2am)
Bottom level was closed and upstairs looked pretty dead.

Arrivederci
By this time we have given up, and we have managed to end up back where we started – standing outside Star Bar. I was dying to do any form of dance, but friends were puffed out from walking up and down the CBD for 2 hours. Fair enough, but I wish they were keen for a dance!! So we called it a night.

Recommendation
If I had to pick a club tonight, it would be 20/20 @ Brooklyn Hotel.

RnB superclub @ Tank
Assessment Time: 11:30-2:30am
Website: http://www.rnbsuperclub.com
Address: 3 Bridge Lane, Sydney CBD, Sydney
Dress Code:
(Men) You must waer collared shirts, no dirty shoes, no sneakers (unless they are classy e.g. Lacoste), and no chucks. No bucks parties, no chucks, no large groups, no high proportion of men to women in the small groups. That’s from what I can remember from the guestlist terms of entry.
(women) Just turn up.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 on guestlist, $25 on the door otherwise
Guestlist: Send an email to info@platinum1.com.au. You are then rewarded with a FORM to sign. Yeah, a form! The form lists the complete guestlist rules above. You need to sign it and send it back. After that, there is still no guarantee that you will be allowed entry. But geez, what a hassle! This must be the only club that I’ve ever sent a guestlist to that has forced me to sign a waiver.
Inside: The RnB superclub nights have apparently died down!! So much so the upstairs room was closed. So tonight, only the main room and the back room den was open. I was a bit disappointed that its died down. The tight dress code is turning away many to go to other places
Cloak Room: $3 i think. Good value.
Bar: One bar for each room. Main room the wait can be upto 10 minutes. the back room you only have to wait up to 5 minutes.
Music: RnB obviously. Modern banging  tracks. There may have been an lectro mashup.. Back room was old school rnb. Less loud as well in here.
Crowd: Mix of asians, indians, aussies, euros
Entertainment: No podium dancers. I think there was an MC
Atmosphere: Pretty pumping in the main room. Back room was more laid back, pretty quiet in comparison to the main room.

Timeline
Party of 20 girls
I have invited a friend to meet up. She has managed to get her friend’s birthday crowd over. When she walks in she literally has about 20 girls with her and ZERO guys. I could have died right then and there. She was selfish enough to not introduce me to her friends so we had our own little dance session, lol. Oh well, one dance is better than none.

Nobody booked the special booth!
There’s a special booth in the back den, which has a queen sized bed and looks really ‘classical’, and it is a perfect place to do some photo whoring. So we jumped in, but of course, being me, I forget to bring my camera. So we just dance around the whole place. It’s quite a small reserved area but it’s probably not worth reserving if there was a cost attached to it. There was enough space to find an empty room to score for yourselves here. Yes, that’s right, its that dead in the back room tonight.

Hanging out with ……..  Asian International Students (aka FOBs)
I dance with a girl. The problem was that it was only her third time clubbing in 12 months and she’s a FOB.  I should have seen the signs when she was uber scared to go up on the podium. I spent the rest of the night (a good 2 or 3 hours) dancing with this girl, but she wouldn’t even grind. UGH. Furthermore she doesn’t drink, and it took me a good half hour to get her to stand up on the podium. At the end of this almighty effort, she did not even have a facebook to add her on. Disgusting.

Arrivederci
Designated Driver wants to leave, so we all go.

Recommendation:
A good venue to visit once in a while. Somehow it wasn’t as packed as it used to be, which is a shame, especially now that the top level room is closed, leaving 2 areas left. I would still say yes to checking out RNB superclub @ Tank, especially if you haven’t been before. I wouldn’t be sure if I would come here every Friday. however – there isn’t much else to go to in terms of RnB on a Friday.

RnB Superclub @ Tank Nightclub - 6.0/10

Satsuma (Grand Opening Night) @ Mandarin Club
Assessent Time: 10:30pm – 11:15pm
Website: http://www.satsumanight.com;
Address: Mandarin Club, 1 Dixon Street, Sydney. TECHNICALLY, it is not Mandarin club, but at Satsuma’s Restaurant, which is above Mandarin club, but it is part of the same complex.
Dress Code: Casual ok. I had a t-shirt, jeans, blazer and black dress shoes.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free
Guestlist: Nil
Inside: During the day this place is a Japanese restaurant called “Satsuma”. A small room to hold about 100 people.. DJ area in the corner, and a single bar. Small smoking area on the balcony to hold about 7 people. There are still people finishing dinner in the other room.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: $12 yagerbombs
Music: RnB, House. DJ had premixed some songs and at one point in the night left the booth to let his premixed songs play.
Crowd: It was us and some friends of the DJ. Mixed thus far, but promoters were asian.
Atmosphere: Dead
Entertainment: N/A

On the dancefloor at Mandarin Club Sydney - Satsuma Nights

Timeline
Promotions -
I don’t think there was ANY promotion here tonight. We just walked in by chance for a drink. The other 4 people sitting in the room seemed to be friends of the DJ. The security guard was probably questioning why he was even here. Oh, that’s right, he gets PAID to go to shitty places to hang out. I don’t get paid, but it turns me on to go to a really shithouse place. Plus, I do these reviews for you, my dear reader, so you don’t have to have a bad night.

The poor guy who promoted this night needs to take some cues from the other promotion agencies out there.  The sad thing is that right now this blog post is probably the only promotion the event is receiving right now. Well, you gotta start somewhere.

It’s so bad even the DJ leaves his magical self mixing booth
This was probably the highlight of the 45 minutes we spent here. The DJ at one point left his booth for an unknown reason, and left the songs to play. Magically the song “mixed” into the next one! Mr DJ has been cheating!

So what do you do with an empty DJ booth, and the security guard stepping out of view? Sneak behind the booth and pretend to be a DJ of course!

DJ Hero James Tran rockin' it. Just put in my premixed CD and press play.

Cartwheels
There was so much room I tried to do a few cartwheels, but I’m hopeless at it

Coda
Left to head to our proper destination Home Nightclub

Recommendation

Avoid for now if you were thinking of dancing here.  Still a good place for a drink downstairs though.

Satsuma  Saturday@ Mandarin Club 3rd October 2009 – 0.5 out of 5 –

Closely avoiding a zero score for having free entry.  At this rate do not expect this event to last long.

A great idea – but it was already 1:30am and I was seriously drunk. Funnily enough the last time I went to Tank was also at 1.30am – I think some kind of pattern is forming. anyway, inebriation overrode any form of logic, and so we took a taxi to Tank Nightclub – so here we go!

About Tank Nightclub
Location: Tank, 3 Bridge Lane, Sydney CBD, Sydney
Website: http://www.tankclub.com.au
Inside: Two levels of clubbing. Top level includes lounge / club area and toilets. Bottom has the main room and a smaller rear ‘VIP’ classy like room. At this time only the main room was open.

RNB superclub
Assessment Time: 1:30am – 2am
Website: http://www.rnbsuperclub.com/
Music: At this time only the main room was open. It was RNB. Dj mixed his songs well.
Crowd: Mixed. Asians, Indians, Caucasians – the whole lot. Good.
Dress Code: Smart Casual. Nice shoes (no chucks, sneakers) and collared shirts for the guys. Girls can get away with casual. I forge what I wore that night.
Cover Charge / Entry Fee: $20 or $25 when I got in at 1:30am (I was too smashed to remember)
Occurrence: Every Friday

Timeline:
Getting in and negotiating a discount entry:
Me and 3 girls arrive at the entry – Not surprisingly we had no problems getting in. Life is good right now. I also had to focus real hard to act sober.. (ie being quiet) but we did it. We even negotiated with the bouncer for a $5 discount, but the cashier girl wouldn’t acknowledge the discount – Booo!!

When you’re tipsy, you will dance to anything
We took a seat at the back and danced on the white marble table thing for a few minutes. We tried to get another group of girls to dance but they wantes to sit down and watch me dance awesomely. Which I did of course.

We then moved up to the front right next to the DJ and did some silly stuff..

I kick everyone off the podium in under 5 seconds.
There is a podium near the DJ area. I want to get up but there is a problem – 3 very hot girls are dancing and there is barely enough room. So I thought of a great idea. I went up and grinded with them right away! haha. As expected, one girl went off in disgust. That left two girls left. I went up to each of the girls, crotch out, pulling the sleaziest dance moves I could think off.. and within about 5 seconds I had turned the podium from an awesome 3 girl dancing troupe to a one man drunk show! My friends applaud me on my efforts.

Sleazing on a girl – it worked.
We were bored, so drunk James decided to entertain himself in front of friends, by sleaze dancing in front of any girl nearby.

I went right up to this cute little number in a read dress, and I held my hand on her shoulder and bounced up and down slowly.. in the sleaziest way possible. As expected, she turns, but she turns to me, and dances back with me!! NO! This was not supposed to happen! haha, how funny. I suppose it is a numbers game to find that girl who wants to really dance. anyway I was drunk so I kept sleaze dancing until it was awkward and she left. lol. James wins. It’s drunk guys like me that make clubbing such a fun experience for girls.

Coda:
Girls wanted to leave to drive home. So we leave at 2am – we were only inside for 30 minutes.  Damn girls.. great idea coming here. an expensive 30 minutes it was!

Recommendation:
Still a good place to go for RNB fans. Send in a guestlist if you can beforehand.

Fridays @ Privilege Bar

I was walking by, when some friends outside saw me. Then they dragged me in.

Assessment Time: 8-9pm
Crowd: Asian
Music: RNB
Atmosphere: Average. It was pretty packed, mostly from the crowd who was here drinking earlier, including myself. I even spotted the organiser from the Bar Europa Fresh Fridays over here! Hmm..

Well here’s a video of Privilege at around 9pm, when the music starts to turn up:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I don’t think much happened with me here. Just some dancing with Gumboots – she’s a great dancer but in the promiscuous kinda way. Sucks she has a boyfriend.

I would only come here before 9pm when entry is free – it probably is not worth paying the entry fee after 9pm.

Cargo Bar

Walkthrough:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Trying to break into the asian circle. No joy, so I just do a kick ass dance on my own.
I am at cargo, and the crowd is mostly caucasian. I don’t know about you, but when I see a fellow asian at a white club, I can’t help but keep glancing over to see how they’re going. It would even be ideal if we could hang out. It could be something programmed within me, but that’s what I feel. So anyway, I see a bunch of asian girls. Alright! Me and my friend go in for a dance, but oh no, they’re not up for it. The girl I’m trying to dance with keeps passing me on to her friends, and vice versa.

So, I went to another area nearby and danced solo. and I kicked ass. I kicked so much ass the girls could not help but look and stare at me with awe. Oh I am so good. My kick ass dancing gets a birthday girl to randomly dance with me. That was fun, but then the DJ played a song I didn’t like, so we stopped dancing.

Trying to get fat girls to dance
I see so many of the larger girls not enjoy themselves at the club. Standing there like wallflowers. So what can I do? I can dance with them!! So, as my charity deed I actively go out to try and dance with the girls. Well, I tried to. They did NOT want to dance at all with me – why?  It’s not like I’m asking for marriage. Just a dance. Most of the time they would say “I can’t dance”, but it’s bizarre. Self confidence issues? I finally managed to have a girl dance with me. But then as I wrap my arm around her back, I felt the flab, and my hand couldn’t get a grip, mostly because my fingers kept slipping in between the cracks. It was sad, but I suppose that’s why the girls wear black. It works at hiding that stuff.

Coda: an early close at 2.30am

losing my laptop – where’s lost property?

I left my laptop bag somewhere on a sofa. When it came to leave – it was no longer there. OMG someone stolen it!! My awesome photos, videos.. gone like that. I stayed behind and had to actually call management down. They had it! Thank god, I kissed my laptop and promised to never leave it again.

About Tank Nightclub
Location: Tank, 3 Bridge Lane, Sydney CBD, Sydney
Website: http://www.tankclub.com.au
Inside: Two levels of clubbing. Top level includes lounge / club area and toilets. Bottom has the main room and a smaller rear ‘VIP’ classy like room.

rnb superclub

Website: http://www.rnbsuperclub.com/
Music: rnb, old school rnb upstairs. Fairly good choices of songs.
Crowd: Mixed. Asians, Indians, Caucasians – the whole lot. Good.
Dress Code: Smart Casual. Nice shoes (no chucks, sneakers) and collared shirts for the guys. Girls can get away with casual.
Cover Charge / Entry Fee: $20 when I got in at 1:30am (no guestlist)
Occurrence: Every Friday

Timeline
Entering Tank Nightlclub walkthrough video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The dungeon -like room on the bottom level was closed when I entered, and is not included in this walkthrough.

I get challenged for a dance-off with a random girl.

A girl sees me dance. She then comes up after a few minutes and says to me: “I bet you can’t dance better than me with that girl over there on the wall”. There’s a girl standing her back against the wall, and she was about to be dance-assaulted by two random people – it was on!! So I went up first, and did a little jig, and a little bum grind with the co-operating victim.  I really couldn’t think of much on top of my head, and I probably looked the fool, but the boys loved it. The girl goes up and pulls all these stripper moves on her!! Godamn, was I competing with a stripper? I had no chance! I pretty much conceded defeat and we all had a little more dance.

Girl in blue kicked my ass in a dance off. The girl in green was the unknowing subject.

another girl takes my hat but refuses to dance with me
This was a bizarre one. I was sitting down, and she comes  up and takes my hat. Usually, they are ok with a photo/dance. Photo was done, but no dance. Upstairs had closed and we went down. She still had my hat on. I followed her to dance and take my hat back. She then stood behind this massive pole. I walked around and she walked around the other way. She didn’t want to hang out with me at all. I thought it was funny, but after a minute of this b.s. , I just ran right up to her and grabbed the hat. She wails in protest and I walk away, going “nya nya!” right back at her. She continues her dance with her friends.

Coda
Left around 3.30am – a total of 2 hours inside. It was good for an rnb place at this time of hour. A good mixed crowd as well.

Bungalow 8 – thumbs up
Was only here for about an hour. Basically danced around a bit in the small but very fun dance area. Everyone was in the mood, and the music was pretty good too. I can’t remember, I think it was house-like and upbeat.

People(mostly caucasian) were so friendly here. If the dance floor were a bit bigger it could rival Cargo.

Privilege – thumbs down
So one of the friends wanted to meet a friend at Privilege, so against our inner instincts we went. Josh made a smart choice and didn’t go in.

We paid $20 and when we got in, we were greeted with a scene, and dispersement of crowd reserved only for Pavillion Hotel at 2am. It was basically, an utter crap venue.

People weren’t as friendly. Nobody reciprocated to my barging into their circles and dancing like a lunatic. Music was blaring loud. DJ Isreal was playing. Unlucky he got a bad crowd.

Lesson: Always listen to your gut. Or just dont visit Privilege at midnight on a Friday night.

The end.

To my surprise, we are stopped before we even reach the line – “Are you on the guestlist?” Of course not.. “sorry, can’t let you in”. At least they didn’t wait until we lined up to get rejected for wearing too much Asian. Meanwhile, a bunch of other men just walk up past us and line up uninterrupted, then get in.

So Plan B:

Moulin Rouge!
Location: 39 Darlinghurst Rd, Kings Cross, New South Wales 2011
Website: http://www.moulinrougesydney.com.au/
Inside: Entry takes you down a set of stairs to a well decorated set of rooms. It is exactly as it is.. a moulin rouge like lounge, down under beneath the street. A nice venue, but a little small dancefloor size wise.

About Moulin Nights
Music: House
Crowd: Mixed. Asians, Euros, Aussies, Backpackers
Dress Code: Casual
Cover Charge / Entry Fee:  $20, but me and Henry got asked for $15. Weird as we didnt claim a guestlist.
Occurrence: Every Saturday
Atmosphere: Packed. Loud.

Timeline + Early Coda

1. the birthday girl left to go to another club and didn’t join us at Moulin!?
2. everyone paid $20 to get in, except Henry and I.
3. These guys weren’t much into House music, especially this non-commercial/non vocal house.
4. A very small dance pit area.

This pretty much meant that we left after 30 minutes. Disappointed.

We ended up going to Shark hotel (There was literally ONE drunk guy dancing. I danced with him for a bit much to the amusement of the entire audience of 50 men and 4 women), then Cheers afterwards (Smelly as usual)

NB: This was my second time here. First time was during xmas 2007, but was not blogged about.. I had a general good time and pretty much stayed the entire night.

Coolabar:
We got in and there were 3 mature ladies dancing on their own. Besides their 4 friends on the side not dancing, there were no other girls in the club. We bought a drink each and sat down then skulked about the start of a crap night… we see an old couple walk by outside, look inside and immediately walk out again. I didnt even jiggle my butt in there.

Cheers
Got here about 11.30. and it was fairly busy, but only one or two people dancing on the floor. I do a bit of a dance, and people were looking. The scary thing about Cheers is that there are people literally bordering the dancefloor staring at you drinks in their hand – you have no breathing room, and its really intimidating. I still have yet to brave dancing here alone. Eventually it got really packed.

Stripper man dance move
We’re dancing and we hear screams. A random guy behind us is grinding against a random girl. She’s screaming but keeps going, as she secretly likes it. Everyone just stares at him. You can actually hear him say “yeah thats right, that’s all i want, a little dance”, like a pedophile – I couldnt stop laughing.. it was crazy awesome. He then pulls up his shirt to show off his flat tummy.. poor girl nearly fainted and her friends pulled her away. Everyone gave him props.

After this the pizza was getting to us.. we left for…

Shark Bar / Hotel
Two shit clubs so far, it would be fun to make it 3 in a row. We got in, and there was already a group of guys taking all the girls. They had already established a circle and were doing crazy shit. Needless to say, we ran out of energy after about 5 or 6 songs. There was nobody in here worth even looking at.

We left and called it a night at 1.30am. Pathetic, and easily the worst night out clubbing this year. Should have gone to Side bar to finish it off.

Lining up – Funky Buddha @ Arthouse
This was probably the most heavily promoted event I had seen in a long time. I sent in a guestlist, and the poster started free entry before 11pm. We lined up… it was 10pm.

10pm – 11:45pm:
We managed to arrive ‘late’ in the line. The guestlist line at Arthouse stretched around the corner about 20 -30 metres back into TGV. Doors didn’t open until 10:45. After at least an hour and a half, we had progressed around the corner and could see the entrance, but there were so many people who had pushed in front of us by then. The lack of ribbon tape to control the line was a disadvantageous move… This was officially worse than lining up at UN / DCM Nightclub. After some delibration we knew we were not going to get in before midnight, so we left the line to walk around..

Coda:
Don’t go to opening events unless you have straight-in access or if you love lining up.

Coolabar
We walked down Pitt St and saw Coolabar, we went up for the RNB event, but saw the ‘Honey’ RNB night posters were for Saturday nights. They were playing some jazz/brazilian kind of music I think. The dancefloor looked dead from the outside. I would have to check this place out some other time. It was free entry.

Pure @ Roof Bar / Skygardens
Tonight there was no line. Our expectations dropped. We were let right in without our ID being photographed even though there was a guy sitting there with a camera waiting to take Photo ID photos. We didn’t even get scanned / frisked, even though there was a guy with the scanner, ready to scan away. Were they desperate? Our expectations dropped again.

A group of people stepped off the elevator as we got on. I asked if it was ‘good upstairs?’. They laughed. Our expectations went to an all new low.

We got off on Level 4, and had a look.. there were people! I was impressed. There were about 50 people all up in in this place.

About Pure
Occurence: Every Friday and Saturday Nights
Music: “Rnb, hip hop, slow jamz”
Crowd: Mostly Asian
Dress Code: Casual
Cover Charge / Entry Fee: Free
Atmosphere: Just enough people to make the place not empty.

Grinding someone is better than no-one
The star of tonight was Clare.. she seemed to get the attention of all the guys and girls. In particular a group of girls danced with her and I danced with her friends. The one in the red dress was really loose. She would grind right up to me, and no objections when I returned the favour. Fun times. Later in the night she had some other guy trapped on the wall, grinding him, while his friends pointed and laughed at him. Clare’s main attractor was this chick, who had somewhat some manly features. an was convinced it was a guy, but it was just a Amelie Mauresomo type of girl.

Slippery floors
Someone spilled water. The main group were some guys and girls having a ball of a time, and some had mingled with us. One of the guys stepped into the wet floor and fell flat on his face. Literally. Later in the night another guy slipped on his ass.

Atmosphere
Even though there weren’t many people.. the main group were having so much fun and going around it was slightly infectious. an and Brojo K looked disappointed, as they were keen on going to Funky Buddha.

Seriously, please dont stop the music
Last time we went to Pure, the music stopped for a few minutes due to a malfunction. Tonight the DJ played a song to the end and didn’t mix to the next song. It was either a mistake or they were switching DJ’s in a bad manner. In any way, when the song finished. It was 1.30am, and we all thought the club had closed. We started to regain our composure and started to leave when the music started again !! Amazing…

Coda
Me Brojo T and Clare kept on dancing but an was tired so we left. It wasn’t as good, but it’s better than Pavillion for a free night out. On the way back, we walked by Arthouse, and it looked like only the main room was open, which was weird.

Event details
Entry: $5 presale, $15 on the door (event was sold out)
Music: RNB
Dress code: Dualities/Doubles. Eg doctor and nurse
Crowd: Uni students, asian.

Timeline
About 9pm people stared coming in. Woolie spoke to Pearl and Jan. I was introduced along with Ben and Brojo, and an. Nobody was dancing yet and music just started so I went down to the floor with Ben, Brojo and the girls. Soon enough the crowd warmed up and as more people filed in everyone was dancing away.

I bumped into the girls I met on the cruise a few weeks ago – Amanda, Christine, and a hello to Elizabeth. I really should meet more guys. anyway,  both seemed to be off their faces!

anyway not much really happened.. Me, Brojo and Ben danced with Pearl and Jan most of the night. Most of the night we would see everyone saying hi to each other and dancing with each other.. lots of fun. It’s much different than to a club venue where nobody knows each other. I wore Jan’s angel wings which was pretty cool..

Coda
We left at 11pm so we could catch the train home, ha!