changes...

That whole Bermuda Triangle area has definitely changed over the years. Even three years ago, you could go to Dragon Fly wearing sneakers, dance, eat some sushi at a table without reservations. You could go to ESL on any given nite and not worry about getting in cause of what you're wearing or the number of girls you were with. Red actually had space to dance and you didn't have the Mean-Titans at the door to give you shit for trying to get in, god forbid. Back then, maybe i'm being nostalgic, but it seemed that crowd actaully knew what music was playing.

Then came 1223.

That was the beginning of all of these complaints about that area. You got all these show-off jackasses and the plastic girls trying to dig these guys roaming around around there. The spillover effect sucks for all of us who are into the music alone, us 'idealists'. They go to Dragonfly to meet up, to Red for afterhours, etc. etc. Word has spread that these places are not only great as an alternative to 1223, but they are cool places overall. Unfortunately, the clubs/bars that we frequent are small, and as any business owner would do, they want to have people in there who are buying drinks - the more expensive the better. On one hand you got Christian and me, rolling up with a couple of dudes - not dressed in Prada shoes and Armani slacks. On the other, you got Guy Richie with three floozies, if you owned the place, who would you let in?

I don't mean to diss any of the DJ's, musicians, music lovers who do frequent these places, in my mind - they are the only reason why these places got as huge as they did in the first place - giving authenticity and musical integirty to a nice bar gives these places a competitive edge over a nice space with some idiot on cd-mixers. It also keeps people like us going to these places despite the bullshit b/c we wanna hear good tunes.

My two cents.

JOhn