Whistle 5

I haven't been to a party like Whistle 5 since... well, since Whistle 4. There is something really cool about hanging out behind the scenes amongst a fully packed party. Now that I am officially a member of the 611 staff, it was kind of fun to represent in the brand new 611 t-shirt and schmooze around with people. Sure, there was a fair share of truly fucked up people... I mean, there was some serious drug usage going on in that club. This is one thing I still do not envy about the superstar DJs I know. A super sweaty guy came up to Nigel and started blathering on about something incoherently... Nigel handled it well, but those are the types of fans I don't think he particularly likes talking to.

I am still pretty amazed by the amount of full-on ravers still doing the complete get up. I'm talking tiger striped fuzzy pants, heaps of candy beads, pacifiers, blinking mouth lights, and dancing with glowsticks. The funny thing is a lot of them were older, some even looked to be about in their 30's!

We arrived at the party fashionably late, at about 1 am, right when Nigel took the decks in the outside tent. We made our way to the tent, and I noticed that every room was packed with people. We stuck around to see some of Nigel's set, and then realized that the bar was closing in the next half hour, so we hurried to the 21 and over room to grab a drink. I got a red bull and vodka (being that I had 4 hours sleep the previous night from having puppy issues...)

We walked up to the bar and who do we see, Mr. Charlie Feelgood, the famous DJ hailing from Baltimore. He looked pretty spiffed out in his velvet blazer, sipping on his drink. He mentioned something about Ketel One, and I looked at Mike and said, "Charles knows whats up!"

I downed my drink, and Charles glanced at his watch. "Only 15 more minutes til the bar closes, you guys want a drink?"

I asked for another of what I was drinking, and Charles replied, "With Ketel One?"

"You know it!" I answered. Charles was such a sweetie for even buying me a drink at all, but he went the extra mile and got the good stuff. After guzzling that one down, and counting the beers we had before we got there, I had a pretty nice buzz going on as we headed back to the main tent.

Backstage with Nigel, we caught up with his girlfriend Carli. Nigel was finishing up his set so we chit-chatted with his girl, and then got up on stage and danced a bit to hype up the crowd. Then came the CD throwing, which makes the crowd go nuts. I grabbed a few and did the same, some girl in the front row was waving her arms wildly and Nigel as he threw over her head. I handed her one promptly (remembering what it was like to be that girl in the front row who missed out!) and she smiled widely at me. Next came the mad autographs of posters and CDs, etc. As Nigel handled his fans, Donald Glaude surprised me by handling the decks. I hadn't seen him in years, and the last time I saw him he scratched over all his songs and played a bunch of cheesy vocal house. This time he was playing some harder stuff, and chopping it up a bit, doing cut-ins and using his mouth to move the crossfader around. He even played one of my old favorites, that song "Rock Right" from back in the day. I was pretty impressed but for me the song selection kind of soured in the second half of the set, nothing really bad, but nothing I was too excited for either.

We headed back to the 611 Booth where the boys were slanging 611 Gear and music. As we stood there, we looked over and there was DJ Funk and friends. He walked over and talked with us for a bit, and told us he was going on at 330 am. Oof. I didn't know if I could last that long. We were chillin for awhile when I looked over and saw Dave Mass headed toward the 611 booth. Everyone put their hands up and said "Heyyyyy!!!!" and he ran over and gave us all hugs. Dave Mass, the man who sold me records everytime I visited 611, and also the man who poured me drinks at O-Bar. He went off to join the military and had been in Alabama for awhile, and it was a wonderful reunion for him. And he came bearing gifts! I scored a Mass original painting! It was an excellent addition to our newly arranged living room. After a while of hangin, we decided to go check out the main room and see what was happening there.

I never quite figured out who was spinning in the main room when we got there but it was sounding pretty good. We ran into my friend Suzannah, who was representin' in her I Love the DJ tanktop. I met some of her crew and we went up to the loft next to the DJ booth to get away from the crazies.

Overall it was a really fun night of socializing and people-watching, and all around good music. I was pretty surprised with most of the DJs I heard that night, and pleasantly surprised by some of the sets I heard. DJ Icey even played harder than his usual Florida breaks style. Mike and I had an awesome time. We went to say goodbye to Nigel and Carli and he tried to convince us to stay for DJ Funk, but we were suddenly starving and running out of energy.

We had a nightcap at our favorite diner, Silk City, as it was nearing 5 am. After a good hearty breakfast, we headed home.

I wish I wouldn't have had a second nightcap with coming home to the dog's crate being filled with a very undesirable amount of solid waste which he had trampled all over throughout the night. Instead of getting my much needed sleep, I spent the next 1/2 hour cleaning up pieces of shit out of a cage. The dog then followed me upstairs and as I was loading the messy towels into the washer, proceeded to poop in the hallway, which I didn't notice, and ended up stepping in. Ah the joys of puppyhood. Sometimes they ain't too damn cute.