Well, I’m sorry but this working-on-the-boat-all-day lark has been getting just a tad tedious, and the weather hasn’t helped matters. Apparently we’ve been hit by the first tropical storm of the season, charmingly known as Arlene, which explains why it’s rained virtually non-stop for the last fortnight. This has meant I’ve been unable to top up my tan which is in serious danger of fading, so I definitely needed cheering up and decided to go away for a weekend break.
As some of you may know, I do like to strut my stuff at the local disco with my musical preferences being at the faster end of the spectrum of trance, techno and hard house. I’ve been in Florida for 3 months now and have so far found nothing but funky house (nice but boring) or gangsta rap, which is far too full of swearing for my liking.
Actually this reminds me of a radio station I’ve taken to listening to as it doesn’t have quite so many adverts as the others. On most channels here the presenters also seem to do the ads live, so for example when they go to their traffic report the guy will briefly mention the latest snarl-up on Interstate 95 before waxing lyrical about the rather special deals at the local Mazda dealer, which always seems to get him terribly excited.
Anyway, I can’t remember what this particular station is called, but it plays mainly rap and r’n’b of the less objectionable kind, and the reason I listen to it is that most of the day they do phone-ins which invariably go something like this:
“Yo, caller. Wassup.”
“Yo. Was goin down?”
“I’m chillin. Was happnin?”
“Yo. Jus chillin.”
“Yo.”
“Yo.”
etc etc.
Just occasionally they deviate from the script and the caller will launch into a rapid-fire and utterly indecipherable rant about something, which is usually followed by a pause, a click, and another “Yo, caller. Wassup.”
All very entertaining but I’m finding my musical needs are far from being met. I’ve been to all the local clubs and they’re quite nice, but it’s just more house. Every time the bassline kicks in a little harder or there’s a hint of a snare roll I get all excited thinking they’re going to ramp up the pace, but then it inevitably collapses into more soulful vocals and sampled guitar licks.
So, after asking around I was reliably informed that the best place to go for something harder was Space in downtown Miami, which also hosts the only afterhours club in town these days, staying open till well into the afternoon. I found that the venerable Roger Sanchez was playing this Saturday so decided to make a weekend of it and stay till Monday morning so I could also visit Twist in South Beach on Sunday night. It’s always nice to round off the weekend with a little bit of camp nonsense, don’t you think?
After checking into the Leslie Hotel on Ocean Drive I immediately went to bed with two small bottles of red wine and a good book to get in the mood. By around 1am I was feeling ready for action so hopped in a cab and was whisked across the causeway towards the shimmering skyline of the city.
Space turned out to be brand new and very nice indeed, and was pretty busy by the time I made my grand entrance. Remembering not to order any spirits I soon got on the dancefloor to some very pleasant tribally stuff courtesy of Mr Sanchez, and awaited with anticipation the build-up to a decent level of bpms. And waited. And waited some more. And went for another beer or three. Came back to the dancefloor. Still only about 120 bpm. Hmmm. Maybe a vodka or two would help… or maybe not!
Time passed and I eventually realised that the American concept of ‘hard dance music’ is very different to ours back home. This was the kind of stuff I’d listen to at a post-club chillout, or waiting for the dentist or something, but definitely not peak-time on a Saturday night.
Oh well, once over the disappointment I made the best of it and found the roof terrace to be a very pleasant place from which to experience the sunrise over the Atlantic. I met a few friendly people amongst the very straight and pretty drunk crowd, and stayed till around 10am before having finally had my fill of funky house.
As soon as I got into the hotel I flung on the iPod and immediately dialled up the hardest techno I could find – 160bpm of pure bliss! (Thank you, *Ting*) So passed the rest of the day.
Twist on Sunday night turned out to be fun, and I found three more rooms which Reg and I hadn’t seen during our visit in May. In one of them there were some rather under-dressed young gentlemen who kept asking me to dance with them, but I eventually realised that their gestures towards their pants were inviting hard cash and nothing else!
I finally made it back to my room at 3am and spent the rest of the night listening to more hard house on the iPod, finally drifting off around 6am. Sod the boat, I’m on holiday!