Hang the DJ

I think I loved Rash so much because of its grime. The scrappy atmosphere. The way things didn't work...but did. The aesthetic of the place is unclear. There are 90s design elements mixed with 70s details. A beaded curtain guarded the entrance to the bathrooms, always seeming to get caught in my hair. A thick glass partition, quilted of glossy squares separated the lounge from the dance floor. There was a long leather couch along the lounging area which was snuggled in by an acrylic table, scratched and scarred. Perched next to the couch, a large floor to ceiling mirror, covered in comic book-like graphics resembling cartoonish reflections of light. Gray and black splotches on an already wobbly misshapen mirror; fun house-like. While waiting in the line for the bathroom I would watch people take pictures of themselves or catch a glimpse of their own reflection while they thought no one was looking.  

*

Man set fire to LGBTQ bar with staff inside, an early Friday morning article from the Washington Post reads, in bold black font. The article continues as the author, Jaclyn Peiser, recounts the event. One of the bartenders that night, “joined a customer [who was] having a cigarette outside.” Moments after they left the bar, “the security guard, who was standing near a side door, noticed a man pouring liquid onto the floor. The guard asked him what he was doing, and the man responded saying it was water and that he was a cleaner.”

Then he lit the puddle on fire.

*

The first time I went to Rash I was with someone I barely knew, Chase, who I had just spent the past 12 hours with in Philadelphia because he had an extra ticket to a concert. The day was crammed with a Greyhound ride to Philly, exploring the city, the show, and then a light doting and flirtatious tension that unfurled on the drunken bus ride back to the city. After a drowsy train ride into Brooklyn, we walked through Bushwick headed towards our respective apartments. 

And then, heavy bass and fog rolling out of an open club door was curious. The black void was calling. We both took notice and silently agreed to go inside. Only for a second. The club was nearly empty, a few shadows sitting at the bar. We went to the back room, where the music was coming from.

It was loud, bass bumping hard, the kind that makes your eardrum vibrate, your ribcage rattle. There were only a couple people on the dance floor, all swaying to how the beat felt to them. Swaying, gyrating, and oscillating with rhythm. And so we did the same. I shuffled my steps, floated my hands above my head, closed my eyes and rocked back and forth. I soon opened them back up to strobing red lights that pulsed like a heavy heart. Chase twirled towards me, gesturing a bottle of poppers into my hands. A tiny red bottle reading Rush. I took a whiff of the gnarly chemical cleaner, and sank into sound. 

Thumpthumpthump, heavy in my chest.

The fresh high from my deteriorated brain cells soon wore off and we leapt off the floor, out of the club, and back into the real world; fake fog trailing off our heels.

When you’d enter the club, step onto the black painted wood floor, the bar is the first thing you’d see, tucked in a small pocket of the opening room. Small cylindrical chandeliers hung from the ceiling forming glass ringed reflections on the bartop. Behind the sparse bottles of liquor, pink lights reflect off the glass. A scrolling LED sign reading RASH over and over again in stippled lettering hung overhead. The sign had that same red burning light that would surge and grow fuzzier as my nights there would trickle into the morning hours. And the inside of Rash was painted entirely black, the only light coming from the bar, the bathroom, strobes from the dance floor, and the occasional car light dripping in from the windows. This made for a disorienting time-escaping realm I’d get lost in. I could dance for minutes that would feel like hours, or dance for hours and then the sun was coming up. I’d rarely check my phone, rather just let the time slip away and dissolve into a nothingness. It was always more fun, to let ease and will guide me rather than notions of when I should be home. 

One night I went, the place was nearly empty. I sat at the bar, a little more stoned than I had planned to be. It was to help with the nerves, I told myself. Going out alone can be daunting and I was still finding legs in confidence. I took note of the acrylic bar top, the shabby accouterments in an unorganized mess before the bartender. But I liked that. 

This place wasn’t trying to please anybody.

The bartender poured me a drink and we began chatting. All the usual questions which trailed into longer conversations and more genuine laughs. I knew it was going well when he kept returning to me after helping another customer. When the bar had a lull, we stepped out to share a smoke. Blonde curls shimmered in lamplight and his softly rounded face made his age hard to guess. We took slow sips from our drinks paired with slow drags from our smokes. The cold air chilled our backs while the music echoed into an empty street, fanning out into the corners. He worked every Wednesday, he said, but I never saw him again. I wish I could remember his name.

When I first heard about the fire, I was in disbelief. I saw videos circulating on various social media, videos of fire trucks wailing with their emergency lights flashing. I thought it was a small fire that was blown out of proportion. Maybe someone flicked a burning cherry too close to the building and embers struck. I would've never guessed it could've been a crime of malice and ill intent. Some think the fire was a targeted attack against its patrons. A hate crime towards a haven for alternative queer folks and misfits alike. There had been similar attacks, a stabbing, and bombs threats made at other clubs beating with queer nightlife. But, the perpetrator’s motive is still unknown. 

I don't have any idea as to what went through this person’s head wielding a can of gasoline and a match. I haven’t thought much past the security footage of the building as a glistening inferno. Maybe it was a hate crime, or maybe they just wanted to wreak havoc in the shape of flames and this seemed like an easy enough place. I don't really care to know why they lit Rash ablaze. It doesn’t change much for me. All I care about is the ways the community can rebuild it from scrap and ash, and keep it alive in memory. 

 On busy nights, hoards in all black clung to the walls staring at the others around. It is hard to say what kind of group Rash would bring in, though. I’ve walked to the club on weekdays, ill at ease and wanting to move, to find chatty bartenders and sober dancers. Groups supporting their friend’s set. Sometimes ravers left from the night before dancing off a high. On weekend hours, the doors overspilled with all types of people. Painted eyes and lips, strappy raver gear, fishnets, lots of black and intricate up-dos. Other times it would be filled with old punks, rocking frayed and studded leather. This is something I also loved about Rash, it welcomed a variety of people, all wanting to get drunk off of some type of beat. Nights like these I made eclectic groups of friends all chasing that similar high that no drug can really simulate.

I never went to Rash with friends because it was a place to escape myself, who I am, and how others know me. What I enjoy most about going out by myself is that I’m not me. I’m no one, and it leaves me feeling more fluid than if I was with people I know. I can choose to be myself at any moment. I am no one’s keeper and no one is mine. The rules of the night are up to my creation. 

That, and most of my friends are not into the type of music Rash would play, always sheepish at the club door when all they could hear was a battering pounding of noises rolling out. Noises whose pattern made no sense to them the way it did for me. And nothing is wrong with that, we just weren’t hearing the same language. A language from drum and bass to techno variations like gabber. Music that is so heavy and thick, hammering through your ears.

Rash opened its doors in October 2021, co-owned by two young artists Jake Sillen and Claire Bendiner. I couldn’t find much about them online, seeming to be nearly as young as I with not much experience in bar owning, but I imagine they opened the club in the hopes of creating a unique space for music lovers of all kinds. And that’s truly what they did. 

Rash mainly hosted techno or house music djs, all small names that would have people dancing with true adoration. They would host metal, jazz and punk shows too. Ill at ease, I strolled to Rash and entered the dance floor swamped in a green light. Younger kids, dressed in grungey cut up clothes, surrounded one person and their microphone. Lit by fragments of green, they screamed into the mic with their whole body and the others bobbed in solidarity. It was an intimate screamo show. It wasn’t necessarily the kind of music I go for, but I more than appreciated how Rash was always bringing in small underground artists. It reminds me there should always be a space for any type of music, no matter how small the crowd is. 

But, I was always attracted to the heavy bass thumping ear bleeding shit. A repetitive beat with a common time rhythm and varying tempo. A beat I can feel in my palms, on the crown of my head, and one that twists deep inside my chest.  

The dance floor is simply a black box at the end of a short hallway led away from the bar. The perimeter is lined with a shallow shelf, and on lively nights it is piled high with coats, spilt drinks, and the occasional little baggie. Cut at a diagonal, the room dips into one end, shallow on the other. On one angle the dj booth protrudes from the wall, backlit with the pulsing red light. On sparse nights, the room felt cavernous, yawning in its corners. I could twirl and revolve around the room amongst the few others. Wave my arms around like a little techno ballerina. 

On crowded nights, the once cavernous black box couldn’t feel smaller. Suddenly a14 foot or so room feels like a 3x3 one. The floor is packed with sticky bodies, the smell of sweat and spilt beer. When passing through, you couldn’t help but get caught in long hair, rub up against torsos and asses or interlock with a few fingers. I’d be close to people's bodies, faces, and gyrating limbs, but somehow the pounding tempo drowned out the intimacy. Sometimes dancing, I’d close my eyes and it would feel like I was alone in that room. Just me, my body, and sound.

I’ve danced there for hours on end through a night. Out by myself, sober even, moving till my legs collapsed beneath me. 

And after a long night of dancing I, of course, need to step outside for a smoke. The outside of Rash could be described as less than atmospheric, although the crowd always made do. The building, located at 941 Willoughby Ave, is painted entirely black, inky chips peeling off the brick layers onto cold concrete. Above the building is a bridge that the subway passes on every few minutes, clamoring metallic, interrupting conversation, being the only thing louder than the music coming from inside. Surrounding both sides of the club are picnic tables, two on each side. When the crowd spilled onto the avenue, people would squish up against each other on the benches, others drifting to the curbs; laughing while gripping on to cigarettes, joints, and drink glasses. I’d watch people passing by, intrigued but the rumbling building and dramatic patrons standing outside. Some passerbyers would laugh pointing, what is that place? Others would look at each other, intrigued, and agree to step inside, but only for a second, just like I did. 

Nights of solitude and the drive to connect with unfamiliar faces, I’d sit outside of Rash observing after intervals of dance, and watch the cliques of people huddle together. If I was feeling brave, I’d walk up to a group or individual who seemed inviting, or just wait for someone to approach me. Which someone always did. I imagine they must wonder, why is she sitting all by herself, and the curiosity is enough for them to attempt conversation.

This is how I met Lia and Issa, two bright smiling beauties who approached me on a buzzing evening. Dressed in the very popular and oh so chic look of the club goer; they wore drapey black tops, cargo pants, scarves and sunglasses, even in the pitch black of night. Lisai was petite with a pixie cut made up of wispy black tails and big eyes that always broke eye contact. She had a low voice and a hearty chuckle. She always had a cigarette in her hand, even on the dance floor, smoking up the room, ash falling with every beat. Larissa is the more theatrical of the two, a black shawl tied around her head, shiny beads raining on her forehead from its edges. She laughed like a hyena, a high pitched shriek pouring from her mouth any time I would say something witty. 

The two of them came up to me as I sat waiting for someone to do just that. We chatted about the last dj’s set, bummed cigarettes off each other, and poked fun at the other’s around us. I got their number’s and promised I would see them again. And did soon after. We linked at Rash several times after, sometimes just by the chance that all of us had decided to go out that night. 

Now, we occasionally check up on each other, trying to find new stomping grounds. But we haven’t met up since Rash closed, nowhere else really feeling the same as our origins. I wonder if we will ever meet again, or if our friendships could only exist in that black box or just outside of its time warping walls, chain smoking til morning's birds coo. 

Directly across the street from Rash is a bar called Byrdies, and it couldn’t be more opposite. Byrdies provides a cozy dive bar for those looking for a barstool or booth to chat in. It’s quieter, more subdued in its customers, but just as lovely. The two bars sitting side by side is almost comical, like two siblings who walked down different paths of life. Sometimes, a mix of strangers would mingle in the empty street between the two venues, asking the other what each bar was like. On a rare occasion I went to Rash with some friends, they shied away at the entrance, the music just simply not their taste. So they headed over to Byrdies. That evening, I bounced between the two, stopping in Byrdies when I needed a moment of quiet with them and then rushing back to Rash when I wanted to keep moving. 

As many times as I’ve sat outside taking rapid drags from a one-too-many cigarette, I’ve never noticed the apartments above. 941 Willoughby Ave carries a three story apartment building above the venue.. I’ve tried searching more of its history, but as far as I know it has only housed residents willing to live above a bar or a restaurant, a revolving door of commercial renters calling the space below home. I imagine they must feel the heavy stomps of the bass below and attempt to drown it out with headphones or a pillow over the head. Or maybe, they were dancing with me too and I’d never know. 

The club is still closed, the fire’s destruction going to take many months to repair. Money has been raised through fundraisers and other clubs hosting nights in dedication to Rash’s memory. I hope to memorialize Rash’s brief but impactful history through these words. 

For me, Rash wasn’t simply a club to get drunk at and then stumble back home never to return again. Rash was a sacred place. It was somewhere I’d go to find friends, experiment with people, drugs and have long drawn out nights that seemed endless. It was where I would hear new music and meet artists. A place I went to to relieve stress, to exercise and to sweat. It was a space that allowed me to get in touch with my body in a way you only can when you release yourself to free flowing. And I know it was all these things for many others. Since its loss, I’ve found myself aching for a similar space. One as anonymous and yet, still intimate. One that cares less about what it looks like and more about how it feels. I try to emulate the feeling I would have twirling, spinning, and vibrating through the nights there. I'll put on my headphones, blast something that I can't stand still to, turn off the lights and only leave one red lamp on. There’s something about dancing in a flourishing red light. I’ll move and move and move until I’m out of breath. I’ll close my eyes and perform in solitude, although still wishing I could be among others.

But for now, I’m just in my living room with my headphones on, dancing by myself