Articles about Nightlife
Vote for the Best Nightlife in Dallas Through April 21
Right now, we need you to drop everything and go vote for your favorite places to drink, eat, dance, and play until the wee hours.
Yes, our Best of Big D Readers’ Choice: Nightlife has begun.
Cast your ballot once a day through April 21.
Vote For the Best Dallas Nightlife Starting April 8
The third round of this year’s Best of Big D Readers’ Choice voting starts in just a few days. To prepare, you’re going to have to go out and party at the best spots for drinking and dancing, seeing and being seen, in the city. We hope you take this obligation as seriously as we do.
You know the drill: our survey will be open for two weeks, and you can vote once a day for all your favorites. Ballots can be cast via desktop, laptop, or internet-connected mobile device.
So come back on Monday to vote. Until then, to see the categories for which we’ll be picking winners (and therefore the topics that you’ll need to research), take the jump.
Local Developer Spotted at Starck Club
There were certainly plenty of factors exterior to the nightclub that fueled the city’s character change in the 1980s, but the Starck Club represents a moment when music, dancing, and drugs found a common denominator among this city’s segregated subcommunities — where the rich and nonrich, white and black, gay and straight blended in a sleek, Bauhaus-inspired room designed by a Frenchman to facilitate the blending. Opening in late 1984, just 20 years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Starck helped knock off Dallas’ Stetson.
Which brings me to the photo you see above. It is the lead art for Peter’s story. Cain let us borrow the picture of two anonymous club-goers in their ’80s finest. Except one of them is no longer anonymous. I have it on very good authority that the smiling guy on the left is Braden Power, best known as one half of Power Properties, the outfit that renovated and now operates some 40 residential buildings near downtown.
To Power we say, “Like, totally gnarly, man! High five!”
Meet the New D Magazine Mascot
For spring break this year, my 14-year-old son is playing Call of Duty for about eight hours straight every day, and my 7-year-old daughter is throwing marbles around the house. It’s a blast. No way was I going to miss all that fun. So today I stayed home to spend quality time with my laptop while the aforementioned machine gunning and wildass glass ball chucking takes place. Which is a shame. Because according to electronic communications from headquarters, there’s a bat in the office. From a co-worker:
Quincy and I were by the coffee machine. She said, “There’s a bird in here.” I said, “That’s no bird. It’s a bat!” Then it started swooping and diving. There were a lot of screams. It flew up to the 22nd floor, then came back and went after Quincy and Halley. It finally settled right above Quincy’s head.
Programming Note: Artist Richard Patterson Unveils Rare Video Work at Texas Theater Tonight!
You may know the name of British artist Richard Patterson for a variety of reasons. Perhaps you were enthralled with his defense of the opening ceremonies of last summer’s London Games. Perhaps you’ve read his musings on FrontRow. Maybe you caught his exhibition at the Goss-Michael Foundation in 2009. More than likely, though, you know him because Patterson is an accomplished and renowned painter who has been residing in Dallas now for some time, a member of that pivotal generation of British artists that is known by the clumsy moniker “YBA.”
I said painter, but as you all know, Dallas does funny things to people who move here and stick around for a while. In Patterson’s case, he has been dabbling in video of late. The result is a series of video pieces Patterson is calling “Six Short Stories.” They are screening tonight at 8 p.m. at the Texas Theater for one night only. Admission is completely free.
Why can’t you miss this screening? Well, for one, because the work is hilarious, fascinating, moving, deeply intelligent, and beautiful. It is also likely the only chance you’ll ever get to see Patterson’s videos (in part because of all sorts of confusing copyright stuff that tends to give gallery dealers headaches).
So what to expect? Pushed to describe his work, Patterson calls the videos “dream-like vignettes” and feigns British self-deprecation:
[It is] A film with scant originality and little authenticity featuring fast cars, bare breasts, inflatable furniture, the music of Allegri and Michel Legrand, death, the Jaguar Mk2 and much, much more… Don’t bring your children.
Also, following the screening, I’ll be participating in an onstage conversation with Patterson, and after we gab, a DJ set by Wild in the Streets will take us all into the night. See you there.
@StripperTweets on Rep. Bill Zedler’s Stripper Certification Bill
Yesterday, news hit that state Rep. Bill Zedler (R-Arlington) is proposing a bill that would require dancers at strip clubs to be licensed to perform. As Texas Monthly‘s Ross Dubois explains: “The bill, if passed, would require a performer at a ‘sexually-oriented business’ to be certified in much the same way as a bartender is with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, or in the same way that a restaurant employee must have a state-issued food handlers’ permit.” Since she has written smartly in the past about the “pole tax” and would be directly affected by the proposed bill, I contacted my internet acquaintance Bubbles Burbujas, aka @StripperTweets. Here are her thoughts:
Zedler’s idea is half-baked; he’s already backpedaled on workers (and he would include all employees of sexually oriented businesses, like clerks at adult bookstores, in this bill) having to display their legal names while on the job. As a small business owner in Texas–like almost all dancers in the state, I am classified as an independent contractor–I see this as simply another way that the socially conservative right chooses to selectively obstruct the operation of legal businesses they find objectionable. I don’t see how it would achieve its supposed objective of ensuring dancers aren’t victims of trafficking any better than the practice already in place when clubs hire dancers and require ID and Social Security cards. Does Zedler think that pimps can’t get their girls to get licenses? It’s also supremely insulting that he thinks he can require me to take an STD test for my job.
Zedler has come out and said his primary goal is to discourage women from entering the business. To do that, his time would be better spent providing them with more options, via better access to education, job training and placement, healthcare and childcare. Instead he’s trying to limit one of the options available to them based on his conservative worldview, making it plain that his interest is in controlling the actions of women and what they do with their bodies rather than protecting them from harm.
The Best in Dallas Nightlife Party Pics of 2012
The Joule’s White Party (photography by William Neal)
The jury deliberated, and the results are in. The top Party Pics of 2012 have been selected. Take a photographic journey through Dallas after dark in 2012 here.
Where to Ring in 2013 on New Year’s Eve in Dallas
photography by Jim Pasant
For those who haven’t settled on suitable New Year’s Eve plans, this roundup is for you. If you feel like breaking out your glow sticks and bumping against sweaty bodies to some of the best electronic DJs, it’s Lights All Night for You. Looking for a swanky affair? Try Teddy’s Room with its bottle service and burlesque performances. Of course, should a low-key night be more your taste, Dallas can also meet your needs. You’ll have to bear the requisite champagne toast, but live music, free cover, and drink specials are aplenty. Check out our list of places to ring in 2013.
Where: Absinthe Lounge
What: All That Glitters: A Fancy, Funky New Year’s Celebration
Start Time: 9 p.m.
Details: DJ spinning the best of disco, funk, the ’80s and old school hip-hop; champagne toast at midnight; and 2013 horns, hats, and glasses. Tickets here.
Where: Adair’s Saloon
Start Time: 9 p.m.
Details: Live music by Cody Jinks & The Tone Deaf Free Hippies, no cover, party favors, and a special toast at midnight
Where: The Balcony Club
Start Time: 5 p.m.
Details: Live music by 508 Park Ave. and Kenny Daniel and Friends
Where: The Boiler Room
What: New Year’s EVIL
Start Time: 8 p.m.
Details: Live music by Serosia, the Suicide Hook, and Even the Dead Love a Parade.
Playboy Ranks SMU, TCU Among Our Nation’s Top Party Universities
Via the Star-Telegram, learned this morning that Playboy magazine ranked Texas Christian University as the ninth-best party school among the nation’s institutions of higher learning. (the University of Virginia was No. 1).  ”Sex, sports, and nightlife” were considered in the ranking.
TCU failed to make the party school cut on the recent Newsweek ranking, but as the Star-T puts it: “when it comes to ranking party schools, who would know better, Newsweek or Playboy?”
What I found even more interesting was that SMU was rated No. 1 in the country for nightlife. Says Playboy:
Tired of Solo cups of warm beer? At SMU, Dallas is your never-ending house party. The number of bars within Dallas County: around 2,000, including Idle Rich Pub, the campus hot spot that best describes the student body.
And this quote from a proud student:
“The bar scene at SMU definitely dominates everyone is all about going to the bar and balling out.” – Colton Moyer, International Studies, Class of 2013
Yep, SMU is Dallas’ team.
Where Airplanes Doused Dallas With Bug Spray
The scribblings of a madman?
Last night two planes rained down poison upon much of central, east, and northern Dallas, just as the League of Shadows had arranged. They were supposed to get over into areas east of the city as well, but rain prevented them from finishing the job. That’s why only a portion of that zone pictured on the city’s map above (showing where last night’s aerial bombardment was to have covered and where it actually did) has been colored in with purple (or is that pink?)
Tonight four planes will be on the job to finish this block and expand into a much bigger chunk of Dallas County. The mayor and the county judge are supposed to be having a press conference about tonight’s spraying, right about right now. Find the details that the city has released here.
Don’t Spray Me, Bro
Mayor Rawlings’ office called the TV stations yesterday to ask for their help in getting the message out about West Nile virus. We didn’t get any such call here at D HQ. But we still want to help. So here’s a helpful video. Watch. Learn. Then take a look at the spray map to see if the poison will rain down tonight on your veggie plants and herbs. Then know that, according to North Haven Gardens, frost cloth or floating row cover will protect your plants from the poison. Then, finally, know this: only female mosquitoes bite. Not males. Just females.
Betches Love SMU
There’s a thing called Betches Love This. It’s kind of like Stuff White People Like, only instead of white people, you’re talking about betches. And a betch, if you don’t know, is just another word for that other word. Anyway, the anonymous betches over at Betches Love This periodically break down a university, betch-wise. Yesterday they did a betches guide to SMU. It is unkind is a very NSFW way.
Leading Off (7/16/12)
Grandma, Baby Survive Wild Middle of The Night Adventure Unscathed: Elizabeth Smith’s grand baby was sick, and so early Saturday morning around 3 a.m. she headed to a 24-hour pharmacy in Pleasant Grove. On the way back, a man in a passing truck stopped and told her to get in his vehicle. Smith refused, the man pulled a gun, and the grandmother ran, finding shelter near a church and calling the police. When the police arrived, Smith and baby got in the squad car, only to be suddenly swept up in a three mile high speed chase.
Storm Causes Chaos At Hospital, Lake: Yesterday’s afternoon storm knocked out power at the Doctors Hospital near White Rock Lake. Then the backup generator failed, leaving the hospital without power for nearly two hours. On Lake Ray Hubbard, the storm reportedly caused panic, as sudden winds and waves stranded and capsized boats.
If Three Shots Are Fired in Downtown Dallas, How Many People Will They Hit? The answer is zero, but this is not a joke about the business district’s lack of vibrancy. In fact, hundreds of people were reportedly hanging out downtown early Sunday morning when the shots were fired at Dallas police officers by 23-year-old Daniel Cortez (an obviously brilliant young man who was later arrested). In addition to the gunfire, fights were breaking out as clubs spilled their cliental onto the city streets. Which is encouraging, right? More and more people are finding their D-Spot.
Jason Kidd Arrested for DWI: The former Maverick, current Knick ran his car into a telephone pole in Southampton Sunday. He was arrested and released without bail. The charge could carry up to a year in jail, but something tells me that’s not going to happen.
Jason Burkett Went Missing on McKinney Avenue
An alert FrontBurnervian passed along to me a curious police report. Here’s the full narrative:
REPORTEE STATED ON 5-13-12 AT ABOUT 12:30AM THE COMPLAINANT WAS PLACED IN A CAB AND THE DRIVER WAS INSTRUCTED WHERE TO DROPPED THE COMPLAINANT OFF AT. REPORTEE STATED THAT THE COMPLAINANT HAS NOT BEEN SEEN OR HEARD FROM SINCE. END OF ELEMENTS
The offense location is listed as 2908 McKinney, which is the address of St. John’s Tavern. The complainant (the guy put in the cab) is listed as Jason Burkett. So you’re leaving a bar. Your friend is a little drinky. You put him in a cab and tell that cabbie where to take him. Then your friend vanishes. Not good.
Contact DPD if you know anything about what happened to Jason Burkett early yesterday morning. Then, of course, let us know in the comments.
What Do You Get When You Cross Cinco de Mayo and Rhinestones?
Bedazzled mustaches at the Cinco de Mayo celebration at Sandaga (photography by Jason Acton)
Bedazzled mustaches, of course. Check out all of our photos from this weekend, including queso eating at Mattito’s, sassy señoritas at Hacienda, and sparkly ‘staches at Sandaga.
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