Shake, BMG, Todd Osborn and Chuck Hampton

Friday, February 13, 2009 11:00pm
Elements
2125 Michigan Ave
Detroit, MI

This party was amazing. It was so worth the exhaustion I felt for the two days after. After finding out that my babysitter got a flat tire on the way to our house, I sadly realized that my husband was not going to be going with me to this party. He was probably happy to sleep, but I missed being able to go out with him. But I went anyway...research, I had to do research! I picked up WhoDat and drove down to the Corktown area. We had great conversation on the ride about her starting up her record store and selling local hip hop and electronic music, she was talking about the importance of licensing your own music so that you can actually earn money from your art! Here's the link to her store (still in it's early stages): Ya Digg Records.

So we got down to Elements, I found it really interesting that the flyer listed important landmarks in the area, some permanent, some temporary to give people an idea of where to go.
It listed the old train station (Michigan Central Station), Corktown Tavern, and The Works. The old train station which used to be a historic landmark in Detroit and is now abandoned, fenced in, and home to many homeless people and explorers with their cameras or graffiti supplies. This is the permanent landmark. Also listed on the flyer is the Corktown Tavern and The Works, both clubs that for at least the past few years, feature Detroit electronic music. The Works hosts a diverse variety of shows and electronic music. I think most Saturdays are a gay club night, after hours. Terrence Parker has played there a few times, Buzz Goree’s Thanksgiving party was there. The younger white, kind of raver crowd sometimes has parties there usually hosted by the Massive Detroit group. Corktown Tavern is more of a Detroit Techno Militia, Bang Tech 12 spot, and I’ll always remember the DTM sticker on one of the draught taps in the upstairs bar (sadly I only have a cell phone pic of that).

So, WhoDat and I parked down the street from Elements and walked around to the back alley. We went in, paid, and set out to explore. There were cloth curtains dividing the space into walkways and seating areas, there was a triangular shaped “lounge” space in the middle of everything, drink ticket table, then the hallway with bathrooms, and then the bar and dance/DJ space. It was pretty full when we got there, around 12:45AM. Chuck Hampton was playing. There were a lot of people dancing for such an early time in the night, there were a lot of people there for such an early time. I was so ready. Shortly after we got there, Todd stepped up and I got ready to dance. His set was incredible. He killed it, of course.

I need to go eat some lunch...so I'll post more later...