Velodrome @ Selam

April 28, 2008 by Patrick  Send to a Friend

photos by:
Dakota Fine (full set here)

What had started off as a simple cough on Tuesday night, quickly evolved into a headache, fever and a runny nose by Thursday morning. Lord have mercy, I’ve never had allergies this bad. I mean, every time I breathed it felt as though my lungs were on fire. I spent much of the week trying to nurse myself back to health with Claritin and Sudafed. There was no way in hell that I was going to let springtime allergies keep me from attending Velodrome on Friday night.

These days, it seems as though every bar and club in DC hosts some sort of dance night. But very few of them play anything that I’d want to listen to at home. So you could imagine my excitement when Scott Bauer and Ed Dudes announced that they would be dedicating an entire evening to post punk, Italo-disco and no-wave releases from 1979 to 1984. And to keep things interesting, Scott’s band, Lode Runner, was scheduled to do a special performance at midnight. All of this was to go down at the recently renovated Selam; a venue I haven’t frequented since last summer.
Yeah, my expectations were pretty high.

I wondered whether or not the night would end up being a bunch of record store nerds drinking and talking amongst themselves. After all, Scott and Ed were going to be spinning some rather obscure records. (I know I was tempted to hang out by the DJ booth and discuss out of print A Certain Ratio 12 inches). Thankfully, most people who attended decided it was more important to get down and enjoy Friday night. Hell, after a few drinks, dancing and schmoozing moved to the top of my priority list. When I wasn’t shimmying to Can’s “I Want More,” I was having a laugh with the guys from Koko or sipping on Amstel and being “mad ignorant” with my boy Chris.
Lode Runner did not begin performing until about 1am. But I don’t think anyone was in a rush to go anywhere. Everyone’s energy level was pretty high by that point in the night. Perhaps inspired by the brilliant music that had been bumpin’ all night long, the fellas managed to perform better than usual. The transitions between songs were much smoother. And it seems as though they’re really beginning to explore the nuances of their keyboards, drum machines and effects pedals.

In spite of all the chaos and stress that comes with launching a new dance party, I think that Velodrome was a success. Certainly the owners thought so. Allegedly, they were so happy with the turnout, they want it to happen weekly, as opposed to monthly!

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