Brian Hieggelke

Tony Duffy has a new fetish. The longtime Chicago promoter--he did Lunacy Wednesdays at Crobar for a decade, and Sunday Servitude at Dome Room for six years--is jumping back in with Retro-Trash Electro-Clash, a party that he hopes will take up regular residency at Vision. Compared to the Crobar night that featured on-premise piercing and the occasional live mummification, the Electroclash stylings of Larry Tee and his protégés are, in Duffy's words, "more bubblegumish."

There's always been nightlife tension between those who take their music seriously, and those who take their fun seriously. Which goes a long way toward explaining the backlash that seemed to spring up just as quickly as the new electro movement popped its head out of the underground. Combining dance-friendly synth lines the likes of which haven't been heard since the eighties, with a harshly ironic sensibility about fashion, fame and the general trash heap of American culture, electro plays as well in the art and fashion worlds as it does in music. This underground movement has been running amok in New York and London for the last year or so, epitomized by the club nights Berliniamsburg in Brooklyn or Nag Nag Nag in London. As Duffy notes: "The music is omnipresent and very important, but not the be-all in its totality. The performance and environment are essential too."

Duffy's been around long enough to recall the heyday of the late eighties and early nineties, when installation and performance art graduated from the marginal and melded with music and fashion to create an underground nightlife scene resplendent in its decadence. He's excited again, and he expects that the participatory nature of this movement will excite others to get "excited about putting their outfit together, excited about being part of it, rather than just watching it." He's not a fan of the DJ superstar culture that dominated the club business the last few years, when going out meant "paying $30 to go watch a DJ twiddle knobs."

For his Chicago launch, Duffy's planning a complete blacklight environment, what he describes as "eightiesesque with a millennium edge, lots of projected art and projected surfaces." But since he's bringing in Larry Tee, a longtime fixture on the New York nightlife scene (Tee penned the hit "Supermodel" for his pal RuPaul), the debut party will center a bit more on the music and the fashion. Although the list of artists incorporating electro sounds right now is a mile long and spans both pop-rock and dance music, Tee's been one of the lightning rods at the center, as a DJ, a promoter, a record-label owner and as the owner of the Electroclash trademark. Tee's bringing along the fashionable girl-group W.I.T. (Whatever It Takes), whose debut record is just out on Tee's Mogul Electro label (Tee himself has just released the double CD "The Electroclash Mix by Larry Tee" on Moonshine Records.), for a live performance. Of course, with the ironic cultural deconstruction that lies at the core of electropop, "live" may be open to interpretation. When Tee's Electroclash tour occupied the Abbey Pub for two days last fall, W.I.T. outraged a few hipsters by lip-synching Cars remixes.

Perhaps this is further evidence that electropop belongs in a nightclub, where its emphasis on fun leaves no room for confusion for those who are "serious" about their music. Consider Duffy's personal mantra: " My whole life, all I give a shit about is going to clubs and having fun."

Retro-Trash Electro-Clash launches April 25 at 10pm at Vision, 640 North Dearborn. Also featured will be DJ Ryan Bedlam and host and DJ Pier Novikov (co-owner of Medusa's Circle). Cover is $10 before 11pm; $20 after. And remember, promoter Tony Duffy wants you to "dress the part, to be part of the event, not just attend."

(2003-04-15)

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