a meditation on the indie sleaze video dance party

are themed DJ nights the vibe? not sure!

The hottest club in town is hosting theme nights. “Sorry for Party Rocking: 2010-2015 Pop & EDM Throwbacks”, “K-Pop & J-Pop Night”, “Sleaze Pleaze Indie Video Dance Party”; I’ve scrolled by Instagram ads for Broadway sing-along nights, One Direction tribute parties, Emo Nite hosted by a local Fall Out Boy cover band. It would be hypocritical of me to make a value judgement here because I personally have attended at least a dozen theme nights all over the city. However, I have a burgeoning theory: What if these atomized, hyper-personalized DJ sets are making it harder to create community? In making going out an activity that revolves around a singular event as opposed to dropping in on a place where you know the people, I worry we’re forsaking historical scene-making circumstances in favor of wanting to dance to those club classics.

Last night, I went to the Sleaze Pleaze Indie Video Dance Party™ at Swan Dive, an east-side night club in the industrial section of Buckman. Portland doesn’t have many hard neighborhood boundaries, partly because it’s a comparatively (to other mid-sized cities) homogenous place but, I think, primarily because Portland is mostly an oversized suburb masquerading as the Brooklyn of the West Coast.¹ However, I’ve always considered this section of Buckman to be It’s Own Thing. It is the closest thing we have to Bushwick in this city. Every rave I’ve ever attended has been within ten square blocks of this section of Buckman. It’s where people go to dance and grab bar food by night and where they go furniture shopping by day. In other words, this is a great location for meeting people and building community in this city.

Sleaze Pleaze is unique within the realm of themed nights because it is a weekly occurrence, inherent to the brand of the bar in takes place in. Swan Dive is a cocktail bar masquerading as a dive, which totally tracks for a place that is currently making its name as The Indie Sleaze Bar. Nothing says “indie sleaze” quite like high-class pretending to be low-class. This little gripe aside, I do think the energy here is genuine; there’s a diverse selection of records behind the bar (trust me, I looked) that ran the gamut from jazz standards to Plastic Beach, and the upstairs of the bar is an honest-to-god venue that local bands can book. Last night, a tribute show to the work of The Cars and Rick Ocasek played on upstairs, while the sleaze DJ kept things moving downstairs. You could argue that hosting a regular night for one of the most popular cultural movements of the moment is an easy cash grab, and I’m sure it is, but no one is holding you at gunpoint to host a niche new wave² tribute show. This endeared me to the place immediately.

Here is the point in the article where I explain what indie sleaze is for the uninitiated. Indie sleaze is a retroactive-continuity term for the indie pop/rock/electronic/hip-hop crossover that took place (generously) roughly between the years of 2001-2014. It’s defined through fashion and musical genre shifts. It was the collision course of hipsterdom, cultural and then economic austerity, blog culture, and music festival programming. More than anything, it describes the kind of person who may enjoy Arcade Fire as much as they enjoy Kid Cudi and Daft Punk, someone who knows what Ed Banger Records is, someone who has shopped at Urban Outfitters in yesterday’s clothes. It’s a lifestyle of cultural identification with just-slightly-outsider art that tends to go hand-in-hand with partying, with a laissez-faire lifestyle. Arguably, the name of this newsletter is indie sleaze. If none of that made sense or resonated with you, this is not your cultural moment. That’s okay. I’m actually arguing that cultural moments should belong to smaller groups of people, so don’t worry about it.

However, “indie sleaze” is primarily a term created for convenience. It originated on Instagram through the account @indiesleaze, run by a woman named Olivia who exclusively posts throwbacks to the above-mentioned era or events that relate to the current movement (that she sort of iconically founded). It’s an online term primarily used by people who were children or teenagers during the original 2001-2014 run, only evoked to describe an idea that would be formless if only it hadn’t been vibed out on the internet. I’m not sure this is the best foundation on which to build a scene. Really what we’re doing is building a scene from the rubbles of another scene because we lack the mental resources to originate a new one from scratch. I think about this a lot: Gen Z has yet to craft a lasting cultural movement that has the legs to stand on its own for future generations. You could argue that we originated the SoundCloud rap era, that we pioneered “the streamer” as a celebrity category, or that Gen Z meme culture is somehow more important or influential than Millennial or Alpha meme culture, but I would argue back that these are poor legacies to leave behind. Somewhat besides the point, but even as I argue for finding scenes in your area and I am personally attached to one that has ties to the internet, I would much rather we be creating something else entirely. For now, the events that actually exist will have to do.

Now, with the context of the event out of the way, why did I find it so compelling? Even though I think these themed events are a little silly, there’s a major selling point to be had in throwing an event like this on a regular basis. It has a buzzy name and it draws in a specific kind of person, so the place was relatively packed for the size of the venue. It brought in an almost-equal split of men and women, straight and gay, a good range of ages (21-40?), and the layout of the bar meant there were plenty of opportunities to dance, sit down, smoke, eat, talk to people; whatever you wanted to do, you could probably make it happen at this venue.³ This is the first time I’ve seen a friend approached by a normal-seeming guy and actually exchange numbers in a club setting. Moreover, I noticed groups around me acknowledging some level of familiarity, waving and high-fiving each other as they streamed in and out of the bar. Once again, this is the first time I’ve noticed this at a club in Portland. I’m not big on EDM, so I’m sure I’m missing some context for people in those communities, but for someone who seeks out pop and indie music, this felt unique. People weren’t just coming here with their friends, they were actively mingling in a space that was conducive to it. This should be bare minimum club-going stuff, but it isn’t in Portland, especially not for people in their twenties.⁴

It excites me to know that there’s somewhere I can go regularly that will play the music I like and that already appears to be building a community around that music. Sure, that music might eventually get old and I’ll want to go somewhere else, but having a regular option that caters to a hyper-specific crowd is something I’ve been looking for. Like, I love Badlands⁵, but it’s not for me. They play a wide range of gay hits, which often overlap with my taste, but they also play a lot of 2000s bargain bin pop radio monstrosities that appeal to the widest mass of people possible. I don’t like this! I don’t think every club should have to play Jason Derulo and Katy Perry to get people in the door. I don’t even think anyone wants to hear those things, we’ve just learned to tolerate and expect it. If Badlands wanted to lean into a specific wave of gay pop music on a semi-permanent basis, I would be all for it. Just no more “Dynamite” by Taio Cruz, PLEASE.

So, yes, I think clubs should pick a niche and stick to it. If we love these theme nights so much, what’s so wrong with a club that happens to have a theme? 45 East does this with EDM and, from what I’m aware, has a very regular crowd and can book larger artists due to this venue loyalty. Holocene, despite the theme nights, has a regular crowd because the themes are at least mildly consistent in concept; Brat Night, their own Indie Sleaze theme and their Sorry For Party Rocking line-ups are actually all fairly similar in that you can expect to hear “Satisfaction” by Benny Benassi at any given one. This used to be how clubs built up their cultural cachet. We recognize the most successful clubs by their genre, not their wide appeal: CBGB was punk, Berghain is techno, Ministry of Sound is house. These are places that not only are iconic within their genres, but that have created scenes that pushed those genres forward and that forged friendships between innumerable outsiders. Swan Dive is nowhere close to that, but something can be. More bars should be. Those niches are where like-minded crowds begin to gather. That’s a real audience and a basis for something more, something real and creative and good. Theme nights gesture toward a desire for this, but no one has capitalized on it yet. Not in my city.

And like yes, there’s an economic aspect to all of this, the widest appeal possible gets butts in the door, but I am an idealist. I like feeling like a regular and knowing that there’s a place I belong to. I think it makes sense that the most recent place I’ve found this feeling is rooted in a movement that, tenuous as the very concept is, is at least philosophically aligned with clubbing as an ultimate release. Dancing yourself clean. Energetic music that, when stripped to the basics, is often about being lonely and confused and unsure of yourself. I talk a lot about getting offline in this newsletter and this entry is not an exception: Finding a place to be that is not your apartment, that isn’t your bed or couch, is imperative to whatever future we’re going to be tasked with building. It doesn’t have to be a bar or a club, but why shouldn’t it be? Our standards should be high. If you find a place that clears yours, no matter the place, that’s a great start. Now keep going back.

1. Something I appreciated about living in Chicago was the diversity of neighborhoods and their clear delineations as defined by locals, which I just can’t ever imagine happening here. It was helpful, for instance, to be like “this area is called Wrigleyville so I should probably avoid it while the Cubs are playing” or “I would like amazing pizza today so I will take the train to Little Italy this evening”. It made the city feel more rich with potential cultural experiences and gave groups looking for something specific (young professional with indie leanings = Logan Square, single gay male that likes beer = Boystown) a name to look for on a map when identifying a place to live. Portland has some neighborhood boundaries on the west side, but I don’t find that they have distinct neighborhood character outside of architectural/landscaping differences; on the other hand, the East side has some areas that are definitely Asian or Russian in demographic but the names of these places aren’t common parlance, someone might say “you can find great Vietnamese food past 82nd”, instead of “I went to the Jade District for great Vietnamese food.” Totally not the point but it is something I find interesting about this city!!

2. A genre that, while not technically indie sleaze, certainly plays nicely with it. I appreciate this kind of consistency from a venue, by the way. It’s why I also love Holocene, which leans into being the actual OG indie sleaze venue of the city by booking every electroclash artist ever to set themselves to tape. You can see The Faint, Andrew VanWyngarden, or Uffie DJ there for like $20.

3. Get your mind out of the gutter and also please don’t have sex in club bathrooms

4. I think raves are a notable exception but those are, by nature, not regular. Just acknowledging that those are other community dance-forward places for people in their twenties, even if it’s an inherently flawed way to meet people.

5. Hottest gay club in town, baby!