This post is waaaay overdue, but in my defense, I was setting up the new blog in the meantime. I spent most of the summer in Brooklyn, and my trip coincided with 3LIAS's (Stamina) tour of several clubs and private events in and around New York City and Washington DC.
3LIAS is a very good friend of mine, and I am unabashedly one of his biggest fans. Whether its him mixing, or him producing, I've never been disappointed over the past few years, even when I see him spin the decks 4 times in the same week!
Output / Panther Room
I love the sound in this intimate space on the groundfloor of Output in Brooklyn. 3LIAS was spinning on vinyls that night, and for a second, I forgot where I was and felt like I was in b018. I was fresh off the airplane, saw lots of Lebanese friends who were in town too on the dancefloor, and 3LIAS was on the decks. Talk about tripping.
Blkmarket Membership
This venue was awesome. It was in a courtyard behind a wooden furniture workshop, with only indirect red lighting on the brick walls surrounding the dancefloor. The two-hour 3LIAS set was when the party got to its peak, and that's the first night I noticed how well the crowd was responding to what 3LIAS was hitting them with
Flash DC
The most obvious feature of this 3-story club is that its top floor's roof is retractable, and very similar to b018's. I was talking to the sound engineer during 3LIAS's set, and mentioned we have a club in Beirut with a similar roof, and he interrupts me and says, "b018, yes, that's where it's inspired from". I was of course very pleased that folks in DC got inspired by our very own b018, and that 3LIAS was making the clubbing experience there a little more authentic Beirut style.
Bushwick A/V Afterparty
This was perhaps the most intimate and experimental of 3LIAS's shows I was at in the US. He played an extended 4-hour set, then back to back with a few local talents such as Dave Turk at a nondescript loft in an industrial part of Brooklyn where you had to RSVP beforehand to get the address.
Lebanese Pride
What I loved most about 3LIAS' music selection, is that he always featured tracks produced by other Lebanese artists, such as Technophile, Ali Ajami and Three Machines. This sense of wanting to promote the Beirut scene in its entirety in these forays into new territory, is something I wish more local artists would do.
It was also awesome seeing the first line of clubbers always standing still and ogling 3LIAS while he was mixing on vinyls. People would come up to me and ask me what type of music this is, what genre and some artists. What's refreshing is that the scene here is growing really strong and fast, but people still have the intrigue and excitement of discovering nuances subgenres and styles. It's not like the hardened veterans in places like Berlin where everyone knows exactly what they're looking for, it's more of a novel journey into frequencies of sound many of the revellers haven't explored. And of course, I was glad it was 3LIAS steering them away from the uppity pophouse, to deeper, more melancholic techno and house.
Make sure you follow 3LIAS on Soundcloud,
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