Emil Hyde

It's an unnaturally warm August night, and for whatever reason the block of Western Avenue just south of Division has become the center of gravity for electro music in Chicago. While the corduroy crowd at the Empty Bottle nods off to the jilted beats of some visiting laptop jockeys, a more sensuous strain of electro emanates from the darkened doorway of Lola's Show Lounge just down the street. The rainbow balloons and banners adorning Lola's Show Lounge mark this off-Halsted tranny cabaret as a GLBTQ establishment, but tonight, for Lola's inaugural Thursday night Liquid Sky party, the crowd is a bit more mixed than usual. Saro Spice, the Gothic diva slinking about onstage, isn't doing the usual cabaret act. Rather, she's lip-synching to a sultry electro redux of the Doors' "Alabama Song" as her leather-bound boy toy stalks her with a full-length mirror. Between Saro's sets, the DJ spins some irresistibly rhythmic nu-electro, new wave, and classic Wax Trax! cuts, to which a few brave (or drunken) souls in the half-packed room get up and dance. At one in the morning, Saro pulls a scrap of paper from the bowl (the secret word is "P-Diddy"), and the cherry-redheaded raffle winner steps forward to claim a free hour in a sensory-deprivation tank. The DJ resumes, as does the chatter and the dancers.

Liquid Sky takes place at Lola's, 1005 North Western, every other Thursday from 8pm-2am.

(2003-09-04)

Also by Emil Hyde

Big nights
As the Logan Square kids light off purple and red fireworks on street corners, the same colors flash from automated spotlights in the party room above the Royal Restaurant. Those inside--boys in pink tank-tops and karate headbands, girls in slashed-up blouses and dagger-point shoes, most under 21--dance, nod, and/or make out to a steady electro thump.
(2003-07-16)

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