Credit: Curt Doughty

The Final Seattle
Sing Sing

Last Friday at the War Room marked the final installment of Sing
Sing, the “hipster” dance night hosted and DJ’d by Clayton Vomero (aka
DJ Pretty Titty, CEO of Death of the Party, curator of DJ mix series We
Make It Good). After three years in Seattle—first at Havana, then
at Chop Suey, and finally at the War Room—Vomero and his night
are moving to New York. And while that city isn’t exactly desperate for
dance nights, if Vomero’s hustle and ambition in Seattle is any
indication, he should do just fine there. As if to ease the transition,
the final edition of Sing Sing hosted NYC’s Drop the Lime, a deservedly
frequent guest in Seattle. The night’s core crowd of Capitol Hill club
kids and weekenders from who knows where was out as always, but,
approaching midnight, it was still a relatively staid Sing Sing, a
casual send-off rather than one big last bang. Which begs the
questions: What’s going to replace Sing Sing? Will Seattle really hurt
for one less bloghouse-y club night, even one with this night’s caliber
of guests? Is the city sufficiently saturated already?

Emerald City Soul Club’s Rare Soul Weekender,
Skinheads

Who knows? But one night that’s absolutely not hurting for a crowd
is Emerald City Soul Club at the Lo-Fi. On Saturday, the third night of
their Rare Soul Weekender, there was a line out the door and down the
block for hours at the Lo-Fi, while inside, the action on the dual
dance floors was just slightly more sharp-dressed and soulful than
usual (one DJ even played a $15,000 45). Speaking of SHARP, this Soul
Club had an unfortunate brawl between some skinheads (presumably of the
antiracist stripe) and some dude in a Sgt. Pepper outfit. If there’s
one thing more annoying than the Anglophilia involved in soul nights or
scooter clubs or dressing up like Sgt. Pepper, it’s the violent,
thuggish Anglophilia of styling yourself a British-style skinhead. I’m
sorry, but the mere virtue of not being a white supremacist (and,
again, I’m presuming here) doesn’t make it any less lame to go to dance
nights to start fights (same goes for you, Sgt. Pepper). I thought I
ditched that tough-guy shit when I stopped going to straight-edge
hardcore shows.

Past Lives’ Record
Release Party

Now I only go to post-hardcore shows of the decidedly
non-straight-edge variety, such as that same night’s show at a
warehouse space nearby, where Past Lives were celebrating the release
of their new Strange Symmetry EP on Suicide Squeeze. Talbot
Tagora opened, and this column has covered both these bands plenty.
Suffice it to say, though, that both played stronger and more confident
sets than before (Talbot Tagora’s vocals were even a little more
forceful and up-front), and both seem to have grown into themselves
significantly in the past several months. Expect to hear even more and
better from them in the near future. recommended

58 replies on “Fucking in the Streets”

  1. If that’s what the punk scene hs become, I’m glad I haven’t been to a show in a while. I did see a lot of hipster looking kids, fixed gear bike, gay mustaches etc. pouring out of next door. If that’s punk, punk is fucking dead.

  2. where in “sorry they didn’t have mohawks” am I making it sound taboo and juvenile? I just said it to piss off people like you, douche. if you want to dress like a caricature from 30 years ago and call yourself punk, more power to you. I don’t ride a bike and am not overwhelming PC, but I do know how to call bullshit when I see it and you sir seem to revel in it. “pride”? fuck your pride. I know where I came from and are secure enough not to have it threatened by a bunch of hippies or whatever you want to call them.

  3. people should not talk about what they do not know. You may think you saw it, however you may have failed to see the whole incident, or view it within its proper context. Callie, your bombastic reply is pure bullshit. What FSU girl? Point out one girl in Seattle that is FSU.

    Truth: this would not have even made the stranger if it was just normal dudes or hipsters fighting, way to sensationalize a subculture and play into a biased media stereotype, you just give skins more to complain about. It is funny how this made the paper but a show the next week with nearly two hundred skinheads did not, why? No fights…

    ECSC was in fact started by a group that included skinheads, the first dances were supported disporportionently by skins, this was/is born out of the local skin community. Slag on them all you want, but if it was not for them and their culture you would not have a soul night

  4. later Sing Sing hipster slimes – you going to New York is like a turd crawling back up into it’s own butthole. Can you take Grandy as well? We can all pitch in for a 1 way ticket, I know times are tough but that would be an exception.

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