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Clubs

Get Ready Moscow, Nightlife’s Evolving!
Miguel Francis

Hopefully everyone who is into modern nightlife enjoys this section that we have got going at PASSPORT magazine. Designed for jet-setters, accessible to all, especially to those who are willing to submerge themselves in the mysterious world of Moscow’s nightlife. You can catch up online at www.passportmagazine. ru and start with the first nightlife article which ran in July 2010.

“Moscow’s nightlife, the best DJ’s, the most fashionable people, for its playtime— play beautifully, play everywhere, in a world where you must live to play and play to live… Ladies & Gentlemen, I hope you’re prepared, its time to play!” is the slogan that I had the honor to create and record for the Playhouse Club, which is now being fully produced for the foreign eye by the all-loving Giorgio Paolucci and Domenico Anaclerio.

At first people had doubts about the longevity of this club giant. To recap, this was a sister club idea, created in part from the Playhouse Hollywood concept that was generated by MUSE Lifestyle Group from Hollywood in California. Not too long ago, the owners of Moscow’s very own yacht club/bar club Royal Bar, among whom is Max Karrenberg, visited the place and said hey, this is something that Moscow can definitely develop on. A club which would feature huge but luxurious surroundings, lots of acrobatics, and a circus-like feel to it. It’s now been almost three months in operation and the place is getting better week by week. More and more ex-pats are coming over, getting ignited by what they witness inside. The Go-Go dancers dancing inside spinning cages which are hung from the ceiling along with other acrobatics and lots of stage shows make this place really something. To add to the extravaganza you also get sophisticated foreign acts almost every weekend, from Camille Jones to DJ Mousse T from Ministry of Sound Germany. But the main thing is that this place is finally becoming a hive for ex-pats before going to Imperia or other ventures which you can embark on, typically being the first place where people go on their Friday or Saturday. Lubyanskii Proezd 15/2 near Metro Kitai Gorod is probably one of the best places to start your weekend!

A big DJ convention took place in Amsterdam, the 15th annual international Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE), this past month became an amazing opportunity for DJs from across the world to rendezvous and embark on a journey of getting acquainted, exchanging demos, and hopefully creating some freshness for the world to hear. My good friends DJs Eugene Noiz and Julia Belle went there together and had a blast. They met and partied with people like Fedde Le Grand, the Freemasons, Sebastien Leger, MastikSoul, Fast&Small, Roger Sanchez and other world-renowned acts. Eugene Noiz had the honour to play during the event and was instantly recognized for his unique musical taste and mixing style. This is a Russian man who can talk about music with the biggest smile on his face, stretching wide from one ear to the other, infusing you with enthusiasm as you listen to him say “You have got to listen to this track”.

DJ Noiz has been accelerating fast in the Moscow music scene, working for such DJ companies as 4 DJs, which is a very big brand here in Moscow, cycling DJs between top clubs like Imperia, Poch Friends, Rai Club as well as the biggest bookings all over Russia and major clubs in major cities like Nizhniy Novgorod, St. Petersburg, Tula, Vladivostok. Now he has joined forces with DJ Nejtrino or Anton Zagradskiy who is one of the founders of Luxury Music, another big DJ-booking brand. ADE is the next big thing for Russian electronic music artists in getting acquainted with the West and even getting signed. Both DJ Eugene Noiz and DJ Nejtrino have international releases on Beatport.

Now lets swing over to the clubs and start with biking. Biking, Harley, Ducati and so on have been a big luxury for Russians. Lots of successful businessman in this city wear suits by day and get into their leather jackets and bandannas at night to break out their beasts from the garage and race the light traffic of Moscow’s night. Custom Bar, located on the territory of Motorhouse Moscow, 3rd Selikatniy Proezd 4, is a conceptual club/restaurant/bar that was created by a group of people, all of them savvy clubbers, among them Konstantin Nikolaev, a young entrepreneur operating between Miami and Moscow. The feel here is simply high-tech Nevada. When you enter it’s like you’re on an alley of motorways with all the luxuries of Moscow’s nightlife. I went there for Halloween and it was great. I performed my live vocal set there and had tons of fun with one of the old Honey Bunny producers, Pavel Rudanovsky, and my good friend who used to feed me vocal house tracks back when I was in Los Angeles, DJ Anton Denisov. A circular bar in the middle, tables along the perimeter of the whole bar, walls are basically big windows made out glass with the view to the parking lot full of Harleys and Lamborghinis, two podiums in the middle for Go-Go dancers and a dance floor around them. Great bar menu with some signature cocktails, sushi and continental cuisine ready to be served up fresh. Cozy, Western, and very fun. Halloween in Russia was just awesome, my first Halloween in over 5 years, because I‘m usually not in Moscow during Fall. I think they do it better over here than anywhere else. All we’re missing is a big costume parade on Tverskaya at one in the morning!

Discotheque Club near Kurskaya Metro, at the back of Winzavod is an awesome place to be if you enjoy a freer, boundless type of setting. A huge factory made into a club, how lovely! The place is very well done inside and if you’ve ever been to clubs like Avalon Hollywood, or generally any Avalon in the United States, then you’ll feel right at home. This club’s function is to hold many people, provide basic luxuries for them from furniture to a good bar menu, and get them excited with huge DJ bookings like Erik Morillo, Axwell, David Tort, you name it they had it or will have it. This place isn’t the easiest to find but, again, this is the kind of place that simply sets you free, no worthless posh and unnecessary glamour, very Westernized crowd, definitely a fun place to stop by if you’re lucky enough to find it. The place is located on Nizhnii Susalnii Pereulok 5A, within the alleys of Winzavod.

Ladies and gentlemen, a new all intercontinental joint complex of the new Starlite at Pushkinskaya and Chicago Prime Steakhouse located in the same building at Strastnoy Blvd 8, might step outside the box and engage in some late-evening midnight madness and entertainment and I might even be woven into the music program. This is going to be live band entertainment with vocals from Rock & Roll and some Blues to Indie Rock as well as DJ-ing in Experimental Lounge and House/Dance/Top 40 music.

Just imagine, munching down on a mouth-watering steak with smooth live Coldplay-like acoustic rhythms and Nickelback- like vocals soothing you along, or dancing on the Starlite couch (shoes off please!) with a Strawberry milk-shake in one hand and Buffalo Chicken Wing with Blue Cheese Sauce in the other. The owners of Starlite decided to let the muse and the creativity of both domestic and international artists finally get an outlet at a very atmospherically all- American location. The stage construction is already on the boards. Get ready Moscow, this will be very, very fun!

Stay tuned, it’s the holly-jolly season, get ready as New Year’s in Moscow is probably one of biggest club events in town, although be careful because lots of Muscovites prefer to go to warmer places to celebrate. I haven’t had my turkey yet but by the time you read is I probably will, so I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, wishing you all, wonderful expats to stay full, but be wary of turkey meat, it has a compound that puts you to sleep, not good for a clubber! Cheers.







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