IT’S hard to tell where kitsch stops and hip starts in Manhattan lounges these days, especially when Phil Collins’ “Sussudio” begins to play. Sure, one man’s nostalgia is another man’s new, but who died and made Jay McInerney DJ?
With nearly every audio file of the past 40 years just a keytar click away, the generation coming of age in Manhattan nightspots is more familiar with the previous era’s music than ever before.
Until recently, Reagan-era synth-pop served as a backdrop for bridge-and-tunnel bachelorette parties and even launched the occasional theme club. These days, “oldies” are no longer just a novelty. They’ve become an essential component of mainstream night life, rendering gimmicky niche clubs irrelevant. And as lounge owners such as Antik’s Craig Koenig have discovered, playing a wider range of music attracts a wider range of people.
“I’d say at least half our crowd is 27 to 33,” he says.
That leaves another half of the crowd divided among people of different generations. It’s unlikely 25-year-olds and 35-year-olds will be equally up to speed on Williamsburg garage rock, but everyone knows “Summer of ’69.”
With Scott Baio as a possible exception, no one remembers the ’80s as fondly as TriBeCa’s Canal Room. Here, some evenings mix ’80s music with modern stuff, but the busiest nights see actual ’80s sensations like ABC and Men at Work’s Colin Hay on a stage that also hosts tribute bands to Journey, Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen.
Canal Room’s hottest act right now is ’80s catch-all band Rubix Kube, which recently drew hundreds of clubbers such as 29-year-old Amy Singer and her friend Erin to hear live covers of “Jessie’s Girl,” “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” and “99 Red Balloons.”
“Nobody gave a s – – t,” says Singer, when asked why she wishes she’d come of age in the days of leg warmers and parachute pants. “Everyone was more expressive and more creative – and there were more drugs!” says Erin.
Definitely not to be ignored, 80s alternative music culture has enjoyed a comeback too, manifesting itself in high fashion rather than cheeky retro revisionism. Nowhere is that more evident than downtown club Sway’s regular Sunday night Smiths soiree.
“If you look at what The Smiths were wearing then, it’s come around again,” says a club spokesman.
Just outside the Meatpacking District, the jukebox at nautical-themed Rusty Knot features its share of ’80s music and even reaches into the 1970s for schlock rock by the Eagles and Kris Kris-tofferson. Owner Taavo Somer doesn’t see anything funny about his tavern’s tunes.
“I really love all the music that’s on there,” he says.
“I don’t find it ironic, but if you’re youngish and you’re doing something, people will always interpret it as being ironic – when it just is what it is.”
What is ironic is that Somer made the jukebox free to play and stocked it with a lot of less-popular recordings by popular bands hoping that would encourage patrons to discover new old music. As it turns out, though, New York scene seekers gravitate toward the familiar.
“I thought they’d take a chance because there’s really nothing to lose,” says Somer. Instead, Rusty Knot’s most-often-heard song is the Eagles’ “Hotel California,” about which Somer laments, “We’ve been meaning to take off since we opened.”
So does New York’s need to hear “Walking on Sunshine” for the millionth time mean supposed taste-makers are turning a deaf ear to what’s new? Quite the contrary, we’re told.
“With a lot of my friends in bands, a lot of this is coming full circle and it’s influencing them,” Somer notices, citing groups such as Crosby, Stills and Nash as being influential once again.
Canal Room owner Marcus Linial says the newer bands he books for his club’s “Artist You Should Know” showcase don’t initially make much money, but revenue from the ’80s parties offsets those losses, allowing newcomers to ply their trade.
“I think that they try to create a sound that’s similar (to the ’80s),” says Koenig of newer bands he plays at his Antik lounge, adding, “Everything’s cyclical.”