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11/21/2004: "goodbye volume. hello vitalic."
Volume (mere months ago, I dubbed it "Brooklyn's best new venue"), has officially closed for good.
Dear Volume patron,
We have to sadly inform you of the closing of our Williamsburg venue, due to the stringent city regulations and the ensuing costs. We would like to thank you for your support over the past year, and would like to give you a little update on our future plans.
In the near future we will be programming interesting events at St. Ann's and Hiro Ballroom(at the Maritime Hotel), and will of course continue our programming at Joe's Pub and Central Park.
Despite Volume's passing, two recent events give me hope for New York: the hot-love Superpitcher set at the surprisingly great Ikon a few weeks back, and the flat-out unbelievable live set by Vitalic that I saw at the Tribeca Grand yesterday.
I didn't recognize anyone I knew at Vitalic, and the usual posse of music critics and indie scenesters (who showed up in spades for Ellen Allien a few days ago) were nowhere to be found. Instead, the place was packed with fashionistas, pretty-boys, and rich folks dressed to the nines, precariously balancing their $15 martinis and lighting up defiantly as they rocked out to the music. No one seemed snobbish at all; people were super-friendly and sweet and easy to talk to. If they bumped into you on the floor, they apologized, and it was funny to see people tripping over their own 5-inch stilettos in a mad rush to dance.
Dude's not German, but he looked positively Kraftwerkesque with his severe black dress shirt, skinny black tie, black pants, and cleanly shaven head. He pumped out anthem after anthem after pulse-pounding anthem that made Alter Ego seem like, I dunno, Pole in comparison. People were rocking out in a way that I hadn't seen since I was in Germany, and the vibe was incredible. Hearing all this stuff stacked end-to-end was like eating a whole bag of candy at once (there is, after all, a Vitalic tune called 'Candy')--a total mad sugar/dopamine rush to the head. Even the most grindingly hard electro seemed maximal, over-the-top colorful, poptastic.
High points included his tuff-as-nails remix of Basement Jaxx's 'Cish Cash' that somehow makes Siouxsie Sioux sound a hundred times more brutal than in the original, a hilariously housey version of the Normal's 'Warm Leatherette', and, of course, "La Rock"--during which the entire assembled crowd lost it simultaneously, hands in the air. New York City we still loves ya!
