A few weeks ago I went up to the Six Degrees Festival in Downtown LA. While there Jeremiah and I were fortunate enough to catch the vaudeville circus troupe, Lucent Dossier. Luck had it that the only pics we got were from my little digi. Didn’t do such a great piece of art justice. The next morn i hopped on this here trusty computer and sent a few emails to the contact on their site thanking them for such a great time. Within an hour or so I heard back from Helios Jive, who did the music and Dream, who is the director. They both mentioned that Lucent Delerium was coming up and it was going to be party I didn’t want to miss.
Timothy and I met there around 11 and both of us we’re in awe as we walked around The Do Lab warehouse which had been converted into an artful underground fantasy land. The walls were plastered with art courtesy of a bunch of great artists and Transport Gallery. Smack dab in the middle of the perfectly sized setting was a huge dancefloor at the foot of stage where top-notch local DJ’s were spinning their mix of underground/house/tribal/dance tracks. The speakers were set up on all corners of the dance floor so no matter where you were or which way you were facing you felt the funk.
Usually I’m the wacky guy slinging ice cream in a sea of relatively normal folks. Tonight was the complete opposite. I’d say roughly half the crowd was dressed up especially for the occasion. I reckon there’s a large LA Underground Burning Man Scene that’s been brewing for a while. Butterfly’s with lit up wings, a six-and-half-foot-tall male devil with horns and a catholic girl skirt, and numerous scantily clad sexy men and women.
Out back they had a large area with a stage setup on one side of the alleyway and on the other was a live human painting black light experiment. At the back of the stage, behind the DJ was a huge art wall that was being built while everyone below was dancing and passing under to get to a lounge area behind that allowed for a peaceful break. Sometime around midnight I headed out to Lucy (my lowrider) and filled up my shoulder sling with some cream. The lounge area was the perfect place to hit. As I fulfilled Vegan requests and saw ice cream go places i’ve never seen (no i don’t have pics…..yet) I was amazed out how different this crowd was. Yeah there were a lot of “freaks” out there but this was the most respectful large crowd i’ve ever seen at a party. Even the folks that didn’t want any ice cream graciously thanked me and the ones that did were even more excited. The first batch of cream was slung and it was time to head inside to catch Lucent Dossier again.
I have a feeling that the very dance floor where they were set to go on was where their current vision, was born. They sat everyone down in the front then i faintly heard the sound of crickets. Ah yeah, here we go again. The performance was just as good as the one at Six Degrees. It’s a uniquely choreographed constumed vaudeville circus set to a great soundtrack by Helio Jive. They worked the whole room into a frenzy then the crowd erupted as it came to an end. Check their site to see where they’ll be next, wish they were on the Xingolati cruise.
It was about time for the second round of cream slinging. I went to head back to the car to pick some up but the door guy abruptly told me to get back inside. That was the first sign something was up. I danced back though the warehouse and was hanging out back when the rumors came that the fire marshal was in the house. I wonder what those guys musta thought walking into that scene. A few minutes later one of the brothers who runs The Do Lab jumped up on a table and got everyone’s attention. He briefly thanked everyone for coming out then regrettably informed everyone that per the fire marshals request, everyone had to go home. Usually this would followed by some snide remarks or boo’s or chaos but this party was different. Everyone started clapping and yelling thank you for such a great party. Slowly everyone made there ways back to their rides and I headed home. I bet there were some serious afterparties going on somewhere though. It was only just past 2 and way too many people weren’t gonna sleep til dawn whether they liked it or not.
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