Detours: Cracking Kode9, Day-Raving in a Yoga Studio, and a Weeknight Reckoning

By Arielle Lana LeJarde

Detours is a column within our All Hours column, collecting the recent rants of nightlife reporter Arielle Lana LeJarde from dance floors, green rooms, and shows all over the city.

It’s been a few months since the last dispatch, but I’m back and very much outside again. 

In this installment, I somehow end up playing direct support for Kode9, my favorite artist (still processing that one), then accidentally stay out way too late on a Thursday night like I don’t have responsibilities, and, for good measure, spend an entire day raving at a yoga studio on Bicycle Day. 

It’s a little crazy, a little euphoric, and exactly what I’ve been needing.

Screenshot via Arielle Lana LeJarde

Cracking Kode9

At the beginning of the year, I wrote down some of my goals for my DJ career, which included a list of artists I would be honored to open up for. At the top was Kode9, and coincidentally, he was set to perform at H0l0 that same month. I knew it was a reach, but I sent out an email to the promoter anyway with some mixes, asking if the opening slot was available. Inconceivably, it was open, and they wanted me to play direct support.

I had a few weeks before the set, but it dawned on me that I was given a prime slot spinning right before my favorite artist and I was freaking the fuck out. What should I play? What will the crowd want? What will impress him?

Turns out Nikki Nair was also performing that night at Paragon. I asked if he wanted to have dinner before our respective shows (something of a ritual it seems). He agreed, but also invited Kode9. 

We meet at Nowon a few hours before our events and, of course, we talk about music. I kind of black out during the dinner because I’m riddled with crippling impostor syndrome, but my company assures me I’m on the right track and am exactly where I was meant to be, calming my nerves for exactly as long at it takes to get to H0l0 from dinner. 

Since the bar room floods, we have to readjust the set times to fit two lineups in one. My time has to be cut down, and the act the act before me is spinning techno on viny, sending me spiraling over how to switch into the bass-heavy set I’d prepared. But once I get behind the decks, the room glows, absolute strangers signal their ready for whatever transition’s ahead. I start with dubstep, the crowd craves it, and suddenly, I’ve never felt so comfortable on a stage, bouncing back and forth from tone-setter to footwork, paying homage to the artist who introduced me to all of it (and, remind you, playing right after me). 

Halfway through the set, I see Kode9 out of the corner of my eye. I play a baile funk edit of “Creep” by Radiohead and his face lights up. “Is this dj lukinhas?” he smiles. I nod happily. 

For my closing song, I mix in TASO’s bootleg of Burial’s “Archangel”—a song released on Kode9’s own label and probably had a good chance of being in his setlist for tonight.

I lean over and ask him, “Am I allowed to play this right now?” He grins and says, “Yes.” 

Courtesy of Honey’s

Giving your cancelled friend a shot on a random Thursday night

Raise your hand if you have a friend from your adventures in local nightlife who’s been cancelled. It happened to someone I was very close to, and it was devastating. But I happen to, maybe naively,  believe in restorative justice—and she seemed to be taking the steps necessary to be a better person. 

So on a recent Thursday night in April, she plays her first DJ set at Honey’s after a long hiatus, and even though it’s a school night, I make my way to the East Williamsburg bar to show my support.

I’m there at 8:30 p.m., bright and early, to give her half of my burger—another Nowon honorable mention because I love that place—but she’s still on her way from New Jersey. I wait at a table with my ex while we wait, and his middle-school best friend comes to join us. They’re eager with questions about our relationship dynamic, which tickles me a bit.

My friend finally arrives a few minutes before her set time, and I give her a big hug. She’s nervous (I can tell), which is understandable given the circumstances. But once she starts spinning, it’s like she never stopped. Her brave blends of Jersey Club edits are always surprising and exciting, and it makes me happy that she was able to find her way back to doing what she loves with a new and improved mindset.

While talking to one of the other DJs, I find out that my other friend, Shekdash, is playing across the street at SILO. It’s now 12 a.m., but we’re already out, so we decide to head over and see him, too.

I can’t find Shekdash on the dancefloor, so I lead the group to the green room to try to sneak in a greeting before he goes on. He’s in good spirits, rightfully so because he’s been blowing up in the scene, and we catch up for a few minutes before he goes on.

Back on the dancefloor, it’s sweaty and everyone’s moving to high-energy techno. He mixes in some of his own tunes, and I feel like a proud mom watching my son grow up in front of my very eyes. 

Courtesy of Arielle Lana LeJarde

Arc’teryx-watching at a daytime rave in a yoga studio

How many people wearing Arc’teryx does it take to fill up a daytime rave in Brooklyn? I make my way to Greenpoint on a Sunday to find out.

After a long Friday night and sleeping all day on Saturday, I’m reinvigorated and ready to head to a 1 p.m. show at a secret location. We walk up a few flights of stairs and reach a yoga studio. The floor is covered in pillows and mattresses, it reeks of incense and herbal tea, and K Wata‘s ambient jazz collections are blasting through the speakers. It’s the perfect setting for a weekend cool-down and I instantly get cozy. 

The bar is stocked with yerba mate, pre-rolls, and shroom chocolates. It’s Bicycle Day, so you already know what my friends and I are reaching for. As the psilocybin settles in, we lay on the mattresses, the SLINK co-captain’s selections wash over us, and, suddenly, we notice there’s an unbelievable amount of Arc’teryx in the room. Enough to inspire an in-joke between the members of my little group, now keeping count of just how much GORE-TEX and microfleece we can find as the event progresses.

Enayet is next up, honoring his Bangladeshi roots and training as a drummer, blending South Asian melodies with rock rhythms. The shrooms are now at full velocity; I’m overstimulated, so I lay down for a while. When the venue crew starts putting away the yoga paraphernalia to make room for the dancefloor, I get up for rrao‘s set. She’s dedicating it to PROGRESSIVE FOrM, a Japanese label known for its glitchy groove and eclectic soundscapes. (By this time, we’ve counted six Arc’teryx items, and I’m wearing two of them).

When Lovie gets on, she immediately starts with Outkast’s “SpottieOttieDopaliscous,” and it’s somehow the perfect segue into her acid and classic house cuts, building up to Simisea‘s tribute to Ricardo Villalobos, exclusively playing the Chilean-German minimal techno pioneer’s songs.

The high dies down, and we all head home to rest up for our dayjobs in the morning; not terribly glamorous, but they help us afford all of this (specifically, the Arc’teryx).