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David Mancuso – The Loft

New York at night buzzes with the endless array of fashion, innovative interiors, music and popularity. With a city full of potential it’s easy to loose sight of why you went out in the first place. It’s not to be seen or flaunt your ego. It’s to experience an atmosphere, a moment in time, which really allows you to let it all hang out and share with like minded people.

No one curates this experience better then David Mancuso. I’ve been blessed to have attended two of his Loft Parties. David has been curating music events since the 1970’s pioneering the longest running “private party”. These events are widely different from the conventional nightclub business model, on a fundamental level there is no liquor or food sold (only given). In additional, to his unconventional form of playing records (abandoning mixing and beat matching). It goes much deeper then this though, he delivers an overall sense of community, openness and radiance based off rhythm and ambiance.

He brings together the highest-end sound system for a party in the world. It enables people to hear music in the clearest way possible, and immerse yourself in the music in a deeper way. It’s loud enough to get lost but quite enough to carry on a normal conversation with your comrade. Then there’s the music itself: One of the things that David has always tried to do at the Loft is to enable people to hear music in the way that the artist intended. The point is to have a deep emotional experience with the music, as opposed to having DJs’ egos involved. That’s why there’s no mixing. Requiring him to choose quality songs that are great from beginning to end and that tell a story in themselves.

Will nightclubs ever be able to recapture the purity that they once had? In my opinion, it will only happen if your audience is there for the music and the promoter is there to curate an experience based solely on music.