While Almack’s was in Vegas getting their bizarre-on with Christian Siriano, Brad Walsh, and Co, Brother Lawrence headed out to NYC DJ Alex English’s Birthday party at Le Royale. He was treated to something special:
There is nothing worse than a Friday night in New York City, except maybe a Saturday night in New York City. For the past couple of years, weekend nightlife on the isle of Manhattan has become about as much fun as food shopping in Haiti, though getting clubbed to death over a loaf of bread in Port-Au-Prince is at least a more dignified way to die than being elbowed to death by spikey-haired frat boys in a club on the Lower East Side.
In fact, the Good L-rd loved my ancestors the ancient Hebrews so much that even back during the Iron Age, He insisted they enforce the rule that one is not permitted to go out on a Friday night or risk punishment of death. I believe it’s in Leviticus where the L-rd our G-d said:
“Hey, Moses and all you Israelites, I took you out of Egypt but, like, you can thank Me by doing Me a huge favor: Do NOT go out on Friday nights. Seriously. It’s really bad mojo and, like, only douchebags go out on Friday nights. They flood West 27th Street and I’d flood all of New York if I didn’t already promise Noah I wouldn’t do that again. And Ludlow and Orchard Streets aren’t any great shakes either. I would so send a lightning bolt to hit the front of Pianos or Libation were it not for the fact that it would cause all sorts of insurance paperwork that I’m not about to deal with. So, if YOU see anyone going out on a Friday night, I’m going to encourage you to throw rocks at them until they die because, no kidding, they’re probably major douchebags and having them around really kills the scene.”
That was all well and good and practiced for about 1,200 years. However, there arose a preacher from Nazareth and he had a different message:
“Hey, guys. I know G-d said stuff a while ago about not going out on Fridays. Well, I’m here to say that I’m changing the rules. From now on, since I’m reserving Sundays for football, not only can you go out on Fridays, but you can also eat shellfish and pork as well. Oh, and when you go out on Fridays, you’re totally permitted to drive in from Jersey and Staten Island and, when you do, pump up the bass so that windows shake up and down the block. If you don’t live in Jersey or Staten Island but live in Murray Hill, you can wear white baseball caps backwards with an opened button-down shirt and a Dave Matthews Band tee-shirt beneath it. Alpha Omega forever!!!”
We all know what happened after that. Lots of bad bling, too. Thus, Friday nights turned to crap. It wasn’t before long that Saturday nights turned to Hell, too.
And the L-rd saw it and it was no good.
Fast forward to this past Saturday night. I had a full schedule on my plate. First stop was Uncle Ming’s where my friend Kevin was deejaying his occasional “New Data” party. Kevin’s a great guy but, man, that place was packed and, except for Kevin and his friends, it was packed with the type of people the L-rd told me to peg with rocks. However, since it wasn’t a Friday, I wasn’t quite sure I was allowed to do that. Instead, I took off for a block away to Planet Rose for my friend Laura’s birthday. Now, why someone would throw a birthday party at a karaoke place on a Saturday night is beyond me but, okay, she’s from Jersey so how would she know better? Needless to say, my rock collection was going to get smaller here, too, so I took off rather quickly for yet another birthday party across town.
My friend Alex English (NOT the basketball player), for those of you who don’t know, is perhaps one of New York’s best deejays. He used to deejay back in the day at NASA and that was now a long time ago. In an era when anyone can call themselves a deejay because they know how to use a cross fader (guilty as charged!), he has perfect technical skills of the old school beat-matching deejays we only read about on messages boards. There isn’t a genre he can’t deejay because his knowledge of music is wikipedic, so much so that he can easily tie up every writer at Pitchfork.com and beat them over the head to unconsciousness with the vinyl he forgot he owned.
This is Alex English:
Hanging out with Alex can produce substantial amounts of jealousy from anyone who was old enough to attend high school in the 1980s. At any given moment, he’s taking a call from Martin Gore of Depeche Mode while emailing Peter Hook of New Order and texting Andy Bell of Erasure. I went to a Kraftwerk show with him one time and he asked me to stop by the Maritime Hotel so we could pick up one of his friends. It turns out that friend was Andy Rourke from The Smiths. Alex English’s social life is one big John Hughes movie soundtrack.
Over the past several years, Alex has built up a good reputation for putting together and deejaying some of the best parties in New York. The Cheeky Bastard party at Hiro on Thursday nights and the Robot Rock party at Le Royale on Fridays (an island of glory in a sea of garbage) are the most notable, though you can find him at behind a turntable virtually any night of the week and it’s bound to be a good party.
When I read on Facebook that his birthday party was going to be on Saturday at Le Royale, I had to go, not only because Alex is a friend but also because Xavier De Rosnay from Justice was deejaying it. For me, though, the former was the reason to go. Otherwise, I’d say to myself, “Oh, great. Another hipster musician who thinks he can deejay. Eh, I’ll just pass”.
I got to Le Royale at sometime around 12:45 am. Alex was outside, being the mayor of 7th Avenue South, talking with everyone who lined up to kiss his ring. I walked over to him and he introduced me to Xavier. Little did I know what that little scruffy Frenchman was going to do just a few minutes later.
Walking inside, I immediately knew something was up. The venue, which has been substantially renovated since its old days as the MisShape’s former home, Luke and Leroy’s, was buzzing.
Then I got upstairs.
Itwasascrowdedupstairsasthisverysentenceonlymoreso.
At exactly 1am, Xavier got on deck. The entire upstairs turned into one giant sweaty mass, dancing feet resonating in time and threatening to send the entire floor crashing down while a cloud of human perspiration floated above. The crowd was larger than anything ever assembled up there, perhaps including the time Madonna deejayed MisShapes. This is how the local tragedies you see on Eyewitness News start.
It was virtually impossible to move around. I spotted Alex making his way towards a platform with sofas by the deejay booth. I pushed the crowd out of my way and got to it myself. At that point, Alex was already in the booth and I was on the platform, minding my own business when one of the cocktail waitresses approached me.
“I’m going to have to ask you to get down. This is a private table for Justice’s manager,” saying it as if Justice’s manager was someone important. Well, he’s not and I’d like to use this post as an opportunity to call him a total a-hole before the entire world solely for that.
I then dropped that I was Alex’s friend and was there only because I was following him. “That’s great that you know Alex,” the waitress sarcastically said. “But, I’m going to have to ask you to get down.”
Let me also add, Ms. Cocktail Waitress, that I am writing a blog post – A BLOG POST! ON THE INTERNET! – about this very evening and I’m going to single you out on it for being a fascist a-hole, too. How do you like THAT, Ms. Cocktail Waitress? Huh? Sucks to be embarrassed publicly, doesn’t it?
Meanwhile, Alex and famed party photographer, Nicky Digital, were risking life and limb to get a better view of the booth. At one point, they were hanging from a small platform just above the stairwell without any guard rail. One bad step and they could fall down several feet, breaking their necks.
It would’ve been worth it, though. This was one of the five best sets I’ve heard in years.
I won’t describe Xavier’s set, other than to say that most of the people who were there that night thought it was infinitely better than any of Justice’s lives shows. I’ve never seen Justice live so I have no way of verifying it. All I can say is that it was eclectic and great and it flowed smoothly.
I normally hate The Romantic’s “What I Like About You”. Since the song came out the first few chords are like a warning siren, urging me to turn the radio dial or run out of the room before the drums kick in and they shout, “Hey!”. But, in the hands of Xavier De Rosnay, for the first time in 28 years, I actually enjoyed the song. Yeah, he was that good.
Finally, after months of lamenting about how bad nights were becoming in New York, I cheered up again. This may have been a turning point. Who knows?
All I know is that at 2am, when it was all over, I texted everyone I thought who’d care saying, “Alex English and Xavier De Rosnay just saved New York City”.
Happy Birthday Alex!:
