Audio By Carbonatix
Nightlife, as any nocturnal adventurer will tell you, is all about comfort zones. Is that why Basshead has spent many a Saturday at Poplife? The music is familiar — after a brief infatuation, I have developed a strong aversion to Mount Simss How We Do, while learning to accept and even enjoy the White Stripes Seven Nation Army. I am beginning to recognize friendly faces, too, people that I often see and talk with. I have become its Norm Peterson, always seeking out my favorite stool at the bar, religiously ordering cranberry vodkas, and jumping onto the dance floor whenever I hear my favorite song.
You can best bet that Basshead was at the front of the line when Poplife held its fourth anniversary on June 21. Eagerly taking a free copy of Popaganda 2003, a mix CD of underground hits by acts like Postal Service, Glass Candy, and Gravy Train, I walked into I/O to find a crowd straight out of the pages of Vice and Nylon. There was the teenage girl dressed in a frilly black skirt complemented by jelly bracelets, a throwback to the early Eighties and Like a Virgin-era Madonna. Another woman had three rings (!) in her lip in addition to the usual nose and ear hoops, a bizarre and exotic vision I had to acquaint myself with. But when I trotted out an admittedly lame opener — Hey, so what do you think of this place? I asked — she held up her hand as if to say, Sorry, I cant talk to you right now. Yeesh. I wonder if that ever happened to Pharrell Williams?
Aside from that, it wasnt until 3:00 a.m. when I encountered something new and altogether unexpected. Lorie was manning the CD decks in the main room, blending together tracks. Although most people are used to hearing their favorite hip-hop and dance tracks mixed together at clubs, its less common to find a raunchy guitar sample from a separate rock cut interpolated into a Beastie Boys chestnut, or Jamiroquais Virtual Insanity smoothly blended into Digable Planets Rebirth of Slick (cool like dat). The brief performance was galvanizing, causing me to throw up my hands and dance, legs all askew, as if I were at some misbegotten rave party.
Two weeks before, on a Thursday afternoon, Poplifes promoters — Barbara Basti and her boyfriend Aramis Lorie and Ray and Paola Milian — took a break from retouching the I/O building to powwow with Basshead. Endearingly, the two couples tended to finish each others sentences while animatedly recounting Poplifes history.
The quartet originally held Poplife at the Mesa Fine Art Gallery on Friday, June 4, 1999. Although all of their friends came out for the first few nights, it took quite a while to build up a following, admitted Basti. Since then it has moved to Piccadilly Garden, Power Studios, and Soho Lounge before moving to I/O earlier this year. The music has changed over the years, too, from dour, sarcastic Brit-pop bands like Pulp and the Verve to effervescent postpunk and electro-styled dance acts like Ladytron and the Rapture. As a result, the crowd has gotten less inhibited, too: Before the music was so party-oriented, people would dance and have a good time, but you wouldnt see people nasty dancing, or making out on the dance floor, or all the things that happen all the time now, said Basti.
Like any good hot spot, Poplife has an identifiable aesthetic. Its scene can be defined as indie-oriented and collegiate, with a taste for mainland music not often heard in other Miami nightclubs. Now there are other like-minded clubs too, like Lounge 16s Spider-Pussy on Tuesdays and Electro-A-Go-Go on Fridays; and Revolver at Soho Lounge on Friday nights. Which raises the question: How can Poplife stay ahead of the curve?
Then again, maybe people dont want Poplife to change. During the fourth anniversary party, the songs that got the most attention werent fresh-out-the-crates cuts by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs but old standbys by Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Smiths (whose twenty-year-old Girl Afraid even earned a bit of applause!). The more familiar the track, the easier it is to dance to.
