Bangin’ in Silver Spring: Flash Party 2.0 @ Jackie’s Back Room

May 13, 2008 by Sexy Fitsum  Send to a Friend

>>> Click the links in bold blue for more bold and blue photos.

Jesus Ch-uh-rist.
The Red Line to Glenmont pulls into the New York Avenue stop and I get a good long look at the ten-story Spacestation Artomatic on its opening night last friday. A hundred glass compartments aglow in shifting 24 bit color. Hundreds more crisp silhouettes of human bodies walking around checking shit out, gravitating to flickery things I assume to be LCD panels or video projections. And I’m heading to Silver Spring to a competing (really?) multimedia dance party in a bar I’ve never heard of. Siiiiiiggggh (or long exhale. whatever. it wasn’t a happy thing). When the train finishes taunting me with this long pause, we started moving again. The passengers, me and this sinking feeling.

But when I got to Jackie’s Back Room after a hop and a skip fom the Silver Spring station, the place was buzzing. Not bad for 10:30PM. DJs were set up at the far end of the space and projected onto a screen behind them were slideshows and video clips from host Albert’s laptop. At the other end covering the bar’s front window, another screen ran Flash animations that man like Marcalamari spent the night switching and tweaking. Co-host Graham — who shares duties running this party and the X monthly at BeBar with David Fogel — hobnobbed with the steadily growing crowd.

After chatting with Graham and meeting Albert and Dave, the first thing I noticed was this wee bull mastiff named Bruno, who would end up being the star of the party. The second thing that caught my eye was this couple sitting at the bar wolfing down an Elvis Burger, the local take on sliders made with Pimento cheese, pickles, and micromatoes on a midget croissant. The third thing was Albert receiving his Elvis Burger order. I was getting the lord’s message loud and clear and acted accordingly. So now I’m eating meat, drinking Belgian, shooting pictures and feeling a whole lot better about my circumstances. And just as Graham predicted, the bar is filling with Artomatic’s spillover. Not predicted was Bruno’s alarming pimp skills.

The party ran strong until last call; very impressive for a night of this kind in a suburban locale. More impressive was the number of city folk who made the trek. They’d probably agree that this monthly is a solid bet for anyone who wants to trade up for something fresh and leave amateur night in the city to the bamas.

After cleaning up and loading out, we headed over to Fogel’s studio, where we continued the pursuit of happiness. Use this link to stay up on this party as well as X and all the other trouble that Graham and Dave are causing.

Complete photoset here

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