Cleveland Rocks!!? (originally published 1.21.06)

Flew into Cleveland at 4:30 and Saturday afternoon and walked about a mile to get to the baggage claim. Got my bags, met up with Don, one of the promoters for the night and drove into downtown Cleveland and got checked in at the hotel.

My friend Toad had driven up from Oxford, Ohio about 4 hours from Cleveland and we met up and headed up for a few beers. We walked right past Jacobs’s field and the Quicken arena (formerly Gund Arena) where the Cavaliers play. We caught up a bit and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.

We headed down to the club, called Touch and dropped our gear. I set up my EFX 1000 and we decided to eat at Touch. The place was EMPTY, not slow but literally empty at 7:30 on a Saturday night. Not a good sign. The food was actually pretty good, and it was good getting to finally talk in person to Zolie and Don. They were really down to earth and we got along well, from the beginning.

Me, Toad and Zolie left there to head to his house to pick up a few last minute pieces of gear. He had a really nice pad, with a great production studio in the basement. Full 64 track mixing board, nice monitors and a great set up for making beats.

We then headed down to this other club (the name escapes me at the minute), a brand new spot that just opened right downtown. The place was gorgeous. LED lights on the walls and ceilings, projection screens everywhere and a really solid, EAW sound system. Unfortunately the DJ was very sub par and the crowd was MIA.

Left there and headed out for a tour of Cleveland nightlife that should have been titled, what ifs and used to be’s. We drove by more than 25 venues that used to be good, are good a few months out of the year or are completely out of business at this point. Zolie told us “Oakenfold played there in 1995, Josh Wink used to play there every month etc.” The story was (unfortunately) a broken records and the same tour could have taken place in countless other cities in the world.

This begs a bigger question, about what happened to all the partying that used to take place. Not even related to the dance scene, but the nightclubbing scene for all genres (aside for hip hop and pop) seems to have gone away for the most part. What are 22 year olds doing on Saturday Nights these days? Certainly not supporting local nightclubs…that’s for sure.

Touch is really small, but a nice place. Good sounds, decent lights, nice dark atmosphere...the kind of small club that could go off under the right circumstances. Unfortunately on this night, club politics and the BS that comes from promoters not working together reared its ugly head. A group of locals decided to throw their own party with more than 15 Cleveland DJs playing that same night. Needless to say, they took a bite out of Touch’s turnout and we had less than 150 people all night. Disappointing to say the least.

Having said that, I had fun hanging out with Zolie and Don and we are not working on a couple of events for WMC in Miami in March. They are great guys and even better hosts.

Hope to be back in Cleveland soon, this time playing for a crowd that actually does rock.