Too Much Love

There're two things you might want to keep in mind about First Ave's trendy Saturday-night cool-kid institution before you start muttering the same anti-hipster sentiments you've been harboring since !!! were an ellipsis. The first thing? Well, it's an 18+ dance night. Being 18 in 2008 means you were 12 in 2002, when LCD Soundsystem and the Rapture were starting to take off and all those cool anime Daft Punk music videos started circulating online—in other words, nights like these are part of the culmination of a new youth movement, and if kids fresh out of high school aren't allowed to have fun, nobody should be. The second thing: DJ Sovietpanda knows his shit. Not only does he play hot club singles you haven't heard before, he gravitates toward the remixes you really haven't heard before, as well as incorporates some classic post-punk and '80s pop in ways that owe more to education, context, and just plain hot mix segues than nudge-wink irony. 18+. Photo courtesy of Moon Goons
Saturdays, 10 p.m., 2009