Parties I big fun to be had over the next two months!

Wow mona really rocked it last week, but for the past few months it has taken up quite a lot of space on this blog, as the team and I have devoted a lot of  time and energy to improve things, so I’ll come back to that in a later post.  There have been quite a few other great nights of late too : Best Friends with Domu (expect the last two hours of the night up here soon), What the Funk with Mr Thing, Regine’s for the Proverbe crew.
So what’s coming next ?

djoon_krivit_web_fb

I’m lucky to be involved in some amazing gigs over the next three months : playing with Danny Krivit at Djoon (26.02), Elevation with Rork, Ladybird and dj Elias (07.03), mona goes Chicago (20.03), with Derrick May for the Technorama crew at Rex (26.03), back at Elevation this time at Djoon with Elias and Emmanuel Caurel (28.03), a disco deluxe with Dimitri from Paris (09.04), a Mona special (17.04), a trip to play in Marseilles at Le Passe Temps and Le Polikarpov (23.04), Rex with Danny Wang, Patrick Vidal and Morgan Geist (29.04).


derrick maySo it’s quite an exciting start to this year and I’ll be sharing a few nights with some amazing djs and artists. Of course I’ll keep you posted with the flyers and more information about these nights, but definitely big fun to be had over the next two months!

A special mention goes out to the guys at Elevation who have started up a Sunday late afternoon early evening dance party at Le Back Up club, a great space, with a massive dancefloor and good sound system. ELEVATIONThe club isn’t in the usual eastern Paris circuit but they still managed to attract a good amount of people to their previous events with a relaxed (but definitely up for a party) Sunday night atmosphere and quality deep house played by residents Rork and Elias with Ladybird on live PA. I send out my fullest support as we all know how hard it is to set up a new project in Paris at the moment. You can find out more about Elevation on their Facebook group


2010
02/24
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Nickv
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Mona’s second anniversary saturday 20.02

To tell the truth I wasn’t really sure about making a big deal about mona being two years old. It didn’t really seem to be a very big figure, but a friend pointed out to me the other day, that the longevity of a night should be measured on a human scale in the same way as we work out a cat’s age. It is indeed hard to keep a party thriving and exciting, you need to keep things fresh regularly by renewing yourself and your music and by making sure your people are always having a good time. So I decided to go along with the fuss in the end … mona is 18 then, about time she became an adult.
M2
Like last year we’re inviting a many past djs as we can to come down and play. Last year we had 12, this year it should be more than 20, 25 in fact – this includes the actual members of the mona crew (fred, moh and carlos) who will like the rest be playing between two and three tracks each between 1130 pm and 330 am. Considering the large spectrum of djs present we should cover the best of the last 30 years of dance music from original soul to future minimal techno. In three hours with over 20 djs it should be a more than interesting soundtrack to the night. I’ll take over the second part from 330 am onwards, I still haven’t quite worked out how I’m going to approach the night, but I’ll definitely include the tracks that have gone down the best with the crowd at mona over the past 12 months.

Here’s a lovely article written by my friend Aïcha about mona. Aïcha is one of France’s leading disco djs and runs the excellent disco queer night. Very well schooled in the genre and excellent mix master we simply could not resist inviting her down to play for us. You should be hearing more of her out and about Paris this year and deservedly so! And if you come to mona this saturday then you may well catch her again!

MONA IS TWO
saturday 20th Feb 2010
LA JAVA
105 rue du Faubourg du Temple
75010 PARIS
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2010
02/16
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Nickv
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Mix | mona jan 2010 Nickv & Cosmo Vitelli … mona supports Haïti

mona nickv & cosmo vitelli all night long

LIGHTS
Running a club night after a while sometimes raises questions that can go beyond the simple fact (but far from easy feat) of congregating your crowd and playing the music of your life every month. We have been doing mona for two years now, it’s mainly been quite successful from a commercial point of view, we don’t earn heaps of money but we never lose anything, are able to afford great djs, make regular improvements to our set up and invest for future nights. I started to feel we could  maybe set aside part of our earnings and donate it to a charity.

When the tremor in Haïti happened we were actually in the process of thinking about how to support such causes, and with the sheer scale of destruction and despair, it occured very naturally for us to donate the whole amount of the night’s earnings to La Fondation France – Solidarité Haïti. The quake occured on the Wednesday, mona was on the Saturday, the decision was wrapped up pretty quickly.

When you make a strong statement, you get quite a lot of attention. La Java, always empty at 1am for mona, filled up pretty early. I’m sure people were expecting a full house, was it conscious support for Haïti or was it because, as a consequence, people had been talking about the party for two days ? Maybe a bit of both. I felt a strong sense of solidarity throughout the night and most regulars, used to being on the guest list, were more than happy to pay (even if we’re still wondering what happened to the others that never made it and whom we never heard about afterwards – I wonder if they will put in any future requests). Other people attending didn’t really agree with our stance. Why support now ? Why not before ? Why Haïti ? Why such a widespread cause when you appeal to such a closeted crowd ? Isn’t it a deguised way of promoting your night ?
CARLOSFANTO
We had regularly thought about doing this with part or all of our earnings, without really knowing how to (and I still don’t feel we do so today). Why ? There’s always been a special mood at mona between people. Quite a lot goes on during a night, energies are liberated and exchanged, this is what makes people hang out for so long in such a confined and crowded space. You give out a lot and people take that home with them. So making a donation is an extension of that. It’s also a way of spreading a certain form of consciousness that you might not associate immediately with such a hedonistic activity, but isn’t in opposition with it, on the contrary. You can influence people in a positive direction by spreading out a positive message. Music is filled with such messages, listen to the lyrics of certain disco songs, naïve sometimes but uplifting nonetheless.  A club night can be the same, if the experience is positive then you go home feeling good.

If you have the capacity to reach out and make an impact on a group of people like we have at mona, then you should use it positively. We spread messages about music or a particular, sometimes marginally perceived, way of being. We encourage social mixity and open mindedness, we push boundaries and share experiences with others regardless of who they are, what they do for work or who they sleep with. So showing support and care for those in need is exactly the same type of message that we are trying to convey every month, except on a more universal scale. This universality may bother certain people as mona can appear to be a very confidential affair, but we don’t exclude people from our nights, anyone is free to join in.
1001nickvcosmo
Making such decisions can always be a bit delicate as you never receive total support, whatever you do, there will always be someone to question or even challenge you. If you believe in your actions and believe they are right then you should plan them and carry out that plan. It is good to question but never good to remain in doubt.

I hope you enjoy the mix of the night above, I’m sorry I didn’t time to edit it (I might do a bit later on) so that’s nearly six hours of music mixed live for your ears. Thanks to Cosmo Vitelli, who came down and showed why he is one of the best French djs around. This short video was shot at 525 in the morning with Jean Carne singing out loud and clear, a very sweet moment.

2010
02/02
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Mix | mona dec 2009 Nickv Carlos JasonW Gregblackjack Fantomette

mona carlos warm up
mona JasonW
mona Fantomette mix

mona Nickv mix
This date was supposed to be the big one. They (the big party promoters) always say that the weekend before the xmas holidays is the best for having a night as everyone is out to party before packing up and going home to open their presents. But this year it wasn’t to be, at least on the attendance side of things, as Paris was covered in snow and experiencing it’s first bout of sub zero temperatures on the night of the final mOna party of the year. It’s not Helsinki here, people aren’t used to it, so our expected attendance was down by a third I guess.

photo by Mat Cav

photo by Mat Cav

They missed out on yet another great night though as mOna has been getting better every month. We had four guests playing : Carlos (who isn’t really a guest being actually part of the mOna team), JasonW aka fist fusion (king of the def mix edits), Greg Blackjack (my mate since 1982!! so you can guess how much music we’ve been through together since then) and Fantomette (who will soon be in charge of programming Paris’s newest and most exciting club since Le Pulp closed a few years back).

GREGFANTONICK

photo by Mat Cav

Each played an hour and you can listen to all the sets above. I finished the last 2 and a half hours off at the end. It was a definite house party this time – except for Carlos who played a mix of kitsch world soul fusion at the start, in front of about two and half people, (why don’t people turn up earlier in clubs in Paris ?). It’s a great feeling to hear good house music in a club, when the vibe clicks I don’t think there’s anything better for a dancefloor. Feels like being suspended in time, beats flowing, bass rumbling, dark room, deep atmosphere … I really miss that vibe now, we don’t get it as much as before in clubs today sadly. Track of the night goes to André Lodeman ‘where are you now’ a superb piece of modern house music that encompasses many different atmospheres and an almost dissonant jazz touch too.
photo by Mathias Casado Castro for Têtu

photo by Mathias Casado Castro for Têtu

The icing on the cake came thanks to Arnaud our very own light jockey, who built our new light show, and managed to persuade the club to allow us to use a smoke machine (it’s non smoking in Paris and there are alarms in clubs now). Lights look so much better when you have a smoke screen for them to beam through !
MONA LIGHTS

photo by Mat Cav

You know it’s been a good night when most people are still aound when the music stops. Check out our friend Mat Cav’s pictures from the night on facebook here and here too, some of them were taken at the end of the night with the bouncers inhaling the helium in the balloons and then squealing at people to leave. Here are other great photos taken by Mathias Casado Castro for Têtu.

Hope you enjoy the music and any feedback is always appreciated!

2010
01/10
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Mix | mona nov 2009 Nickv Patrick Vidal & Aïcha

mona disco special

This was indeed a great night. I think we broke our attendance record (outside of our birthday nights), something like nearly 600 people, that’s still far from the bigger more fashionista nights in Paris, but I love our crowd. Definitely into the music, very loyal and great loving people. It really makes me very happy to see them every month.

photo 3-1Here is the mix to the last two hours of the night. I keep repeating myself but it’s always the best time to be at mona. Always loads of fun. If you were there you could have caught Aïcha miming the lyrics to each song. Anyway this is a sort of jam between Patrick Vidal, Aïcha and myself, you will hear stuff from : Sylvester, Patrick Adams, Eddie Drennon, Tata Vega, George Michael, Jocelyn Brown, MFSB, Sweet Cream, Hot Streak, Laidback, Punkin’ Machine, The Strikers, Deodato, Sharon Brown  …photo 4

Also many thanks to our friends Tim, Gauthier and Gilles who kindly chose mona to do the release party for the first edition of the very excellent Revue Monstre.

Please let me know if you enjoyed the listen, we are thinking of doing more disco funk nights, so any feedback is great.
2009
12/15
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Party I mOna in December 2009

Mona has been improving greatly of late, and we’ve had two amazing nights back to back. Firstly in October with Mr White (you can hear that night here) and then in November with Patrick Vidal and Aïcha from Discoqueer, a superb disco night we did with our friends from Revue Monstre, the mix to that night will be up here very shortly (loads of stuff to listen to from Patrick Adams, Sylvester, MFSB, Strikers, Persia, Deodato, Tata Vega, Sweet Cream …). I have to say I’m very pleased about it, Moh, Carlos and Fred who also run the night with me, have been working their socks off so it’s nice to see positive results and people enjoying the mona vibe, getting down to some of the most amazing pieces of dance music, until very very late!

mona-logo-19decembre09-1

This Saturday it’ll be the final party of the year. It being close to xmas we decided to make it more of a family vibe and have invited 4 djs who really know all about mona as they are regulars at the night. We’ll have a different dj on every hour from 1130 through to 330 am, when I’ll be coming on. Music will range from kitsch Gipsy ballads at the start through to minimal techno via the best ‘fist‘ edits of Frankie Knuckles’ Def mix remixes and deep house inspired from the excellent Panorama bar club in Berlin. To make things particularly festive, we’ll be adding on a few extras to spice things up : balloons, smoke machine, maira the fortune teller, the paris branch of the sisters of perpertual indulgence and a limited series of mona badges.

As usual blog readers will get guest list places by writing to me here : nickv@nickv.fr

la java / 105 rue du Faubourg du Temple 75010
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2009
12/15
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Mix | mona oct 2009 Nickv & Mr White

nickv warm up

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mr white part 1

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nickv part 2

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mr white part 2

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nickv & mr white jam till close down

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LA JAVA PARISAll the promotions team (and this includes myself) had worked exceedingly hard for this month’s party, so as to improve on september, which we felt hadn’t been as good as our previous nights. Promotion can get rather tedious and repetitive at times, we try to make sure we don’t do too much but sometimes we can get a bit carried away so I hope we weren’t too intrusive for people.

My guest for this month was american singer and dj, Mr White, who performed the vocals for the underground acid house music hit ‘the sun can’t compare’ by Larry Heard on his own imprint, Alleviated Records. I don’t think we tried as hard as usual to keep his identity secret – maybe a bit worried about pulling a good crowd in – so quite a few people knew who was to be expected, especially as we had sent out emails promoting the night featuring the youtube link to his song (if that’s not letting the cat out of the bag then I don’t know what is).

mr white

So a conjunction of both factors made up for a pretty big crowd, and quite a few music heads too – which is always a good sign. I really didn’t know what to expect djing wise from Chad (mr white) – sometimes artists can be very mediocre on the decks, but I was quick to brush aside any doubts, when he started playing (and singing) his first two records. A great mix of house music ensued sometimes deep and vocal, sometimes pumping and jacking and impeccably mixed, as with most american djs. He also performed his songs, singing on top of the instrumental versions. This contributed to building an extremely warm atmosphere in the club. You can’t beat live performance and crowd interaction for that. The best part was right at the end when he sung ‘sun can’t compare’ and carried on accapella when la java turned the music off (why can’t they wait until the track ends ? so impolite).

I hope you enjoy the mixes posted above. Make sure you skip through at least to listen to Mr white’s singing!

NICKV & MRWHITE @ mona
Here are some of the favourite tracks or songs played :

liquid people ‘hypnotize’
erykah badu ‘bump it (cottam rmx)’
blakkat ‘rite place’
jay shepherd ‘pipes and sneakers’
deetron ‘orange’
seiji ‘I can’t let it go’
snap ‘exterminate (simioni and flip rmx)’
seiji ‘ravin A’
mr white ‘spellbound’
mr fingers & mr white ‘sun can’t compare’
bugz in the attic ‘reject’
Markus Homm ‘channel by channel’
A guy called gerald ‘voodoo ray’

If you are lucky enough to have opportunuty to see mr white don’t miss it! This guy is a true artist and has amazingly infectious positive energy that will send you home into the early morning with a beaming smile.

Photos by mat cav
2009
11/10
POSTED BY
Nickv
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Party I dates for october and november

A few people have asked me how they can stay in touch for my dates in Paris. This blog is supposed to be the answer to that question. Unfortunately my blogging technique is rather limited and I can’t work out a good way to post all my dates up here automatically, so for now I’m going to do a monthly recap post that should feature my main dates. This is one of such (for a day to day update, the easiest way to stay in touch is via facebook – contact Nick Vu-Hoang).

Anyway back to nights in Paris, of course guest list requests for any of the following nights are welcome : nick.vh@gmail.com.

Nickv @ regine ProverbeNext date coming up is on SATURDAY 31st OCTOBER at REGINE’S with the guys from PROVERBE. Yes that’s halloween isn’t it ? Well in France Halloween definitely isn’t part of things, and for some very commercial and, in my opinion, completely unwelcome reason a lot of street corner businesses have picked up on it in the past ten years, using it boost sales of whatever trade they were into. Anyway the guys at Proverbe are not having any of this, check out their halloween style, tribute to the tabloids flyer also featuring keith cowboy, scorpio and flash if I’m not mistaken. PROVERBE is a monthly webradio podcast (that can sometimes last 10 hours!) run by LutS, Lee Bayer and Etienne des Roseaux covering all faces of dance music. The night promises to be quite a festive moment (expect a lot of disco and quality house music) as it’s a saturday, Regine’s is a wicked little joint and, to crown it all, entrance is FREE! (to avoid Paris’s notorious west end ‘get out of the way cheapo’ door policy get in touch for safe guest list action).

best friends novembre 2009 nouveau casino avec domuAnother good date is BEST FRIENDS on FRIDAY 6th NOVEMBER at NOUVEAU CASINO. Best Friends is one of my two Parisian residencies, mona being the other. Dedicated to leftfield soul music best Friends has had some great guests this year including Mad Mats, Gilles Peterson and Mitsu the beats. This the final party of the year and DAVINCE (my fellow resident dj) and I shall be sharing the decks with producer and dj supreme DOMU who is famous for his excellent tracks that cover all styles from broken beat to disco to hip hop and drum & bass. He’s also a very skillful and crowd pleasing dj and is part of the infamous posse of djs that includes Bugz in the attic and who reigned over that night called COOP … nuff said! A great domu mix can be found here:


mona la java
Last but definitely not least we have MONA on SATURDAY 21st NOVEMBER. We are very bad with keeping things up to date at mona, I don’t really have any recent links for you to find out anything more, plus I’m not supposed to say anything about who’s playing so I guess you’ll all have to wait. I might put something up here a bit later on, as it promises to be a very very good night. I’m not trying to sell it or anything as it’s already quite a reputed night (mona spreads by word and mouth, which is the best way to learn about things in my opinion), just make sure you come down this time. The last party was with MR WHITE from Memphis who performs with Larry Heard on Alleviated records. It was the first time we actually had a singer do a live performance and he rocked. The mixes to the whole night will appear here within a couple of weeks. In the meantime you can get a taste of the atmosphere by looking at the pictures of david volants and mat cav. Stay in touch with mona here.


And also :

Friday 30th october : 4 hours of jazz funk at Baxo
Tuesday 17th november : 3h hours of good music with Franck Roger at Andy Wahloo

2009
10/22
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Mix | mona sept 2009 Nickv & Erik Rug

mona sept 2009

nickv warm up

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erik rug part 1

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nickv part 2

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erik rug part 2

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nickv & erik rug jam till close down

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I’ve just discovered that it’s incredibly hard to blog post on a regular basis. A french person would probably say ‘you haven’t invented hot water by saying that’, and yes it does sound obvious doesn’t it ? However I am supposed to reveal who played at mona before the following party for promotional reasons. But it’s just not that easy to find time to edit the mix, find pictures, find something to say, when you have a day time job, two dj residencies, mix requests, loads of new tracks to listen to … anyway enough ranting now!

The five mixes above are the complete recordings of september’s mona party. That month I had the greatest of pleasures to play once more with Erik Rug, one of my all time favourite Parisian djs. Erik has an amazing collection of records and he has been djing since 1981, so he just about covers anything you can find in dance music. On top of that he has irreproachable taste in music, so you’ll never be disappointed when listening to him play.

erik rug @ mona

It was however quite a strange night, it sometimes felt like people had just come back from holidays and had forgotten how to dance (maybe I was myself a little tired after just getting off a 13h plane trip back from my own holidays in Vietnam). Erik still did the job with style and you can check out the mixes recorded on the night on this post.

You might notice on the pictures that the light show has changed at mona. We replaced the fixed neonesque fluorescent lights with LED light sabres that can actually flash and change colour upon demand. Everyone was really happy with the new set up (thanks Arnaud).
Erik Rug has a new music project out called Le Damn Dog check it out here.

nickv & erik rug @ mona

Favourite tracks on the night were :

Grace Jones ‘La vie en rose’
2000 and One ‘Spanish fly’
Sweet Cream ‘I don’t know what I’d do if  you ever left me’
Skyy ‘First time around’ (played twice)
Raphael Cameron ‘Boogie’s gonna get ya’
Nightlife Unlimited ‘Peaches and Prunes’
Armando ‘Don’t take it (johnny fiasco mix)’
Expansions ‘Move your body’
Erykah Badu ‘Honey (souled remix)’ … an amazing mix that you can listen to and download below

Erykah Badu – Honey (Souled Remix) by Souled

2009
10/20
POSTED BY
Nickv
CATEGORY
live & guest mixes
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TWO MAN SOUND – 10/09/09 – Le Panic Room

2009
10/09
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