There are few qualifications as paradoxical as ‘cool’. “The appeal of coolness is presumably enhanced by the mystery of what cool really is,” writes Australian social psychologist Ilan Dar-Nimrod in an investigation into the meaning of the word in social interaction† Cool is fleeting and elusive, but it is widely used, and perhaps the most in the music and nightlife world. Regardless of style or movement, and for over a century. One of the paradoxes is this: While most qualifications can also be measured as necessary – for example, you can say you are smart or free, bold or brave, observant, unruly or generous – there is one that eludes you. as soon as you want to claim it: so cool. Cool is intuitive, sovereign and attractive. Cool always seems effortless and ‘natural’, it’s inviting but never needy. What is cool is mutually understood. But whoever claims to be cool usually loses it immediately. The qualification is given, not claimed. And trying too hard is a guarantee to lose it. That is why it is ideal to describe the energy of music. Also musicians and DJs know; sometimes it’s there, sometimes it isn’t. Cool is a certain magic.
although the word cool was already used deep in the Middle Ages, as a temperature metaphor to describe a correct situation, and since Shakespeare also to name an inner mood, hears it especially in the music world† There it was introduced to jazz a century ago, coming from the slang of African Americans. Cool jazz became a genre. The cool cat and daddy cool became descriptions that everyone understands, but which have no fixed values. In the nightlife there is a constant dynamic about which places, styles and people are cool right now. It is precisely there that it is clear how much what is cool depends on momentum. It can be there for a moment, on the dance floor, and everyone feels it at the same time. The energy is then shared, the feeling of togetherness rises, no one is alone anymore.
LISTEN TO V’S RADIO DANCE COLLEGE
Every Friday at 9 pm, de Volkskrant plays the best pictures from the nightlife article of the week Penguin India (pinguinradio.com). And we chat them up with a tasty lecture on the music in question. This Friday you will hear Wieteke van Zeil about the phenomenon of cool. The broadcast can then be listened back on Penguin Indiawhere the previous episodes can also be heard (about where rock disco has stayed, how the remix was invented or how acid ushered in a new hedonic zeitgeist in 1988). Or listen to the Spotify playlist†
That togetherness and the magic of the dance floor is what many have missed so much when we were forced to be at home in the lockdowns. Club programmers know that’s what people come for. And as elusive as it may be, a club can largely make such magic itself. Whether it actually occurs is never certain, but there are ingredients that increase the chance. Two programmers try to explain what clubs can do to make their audience feel that magic. How do you direct the elusive feeling that everything is just right, that this is the best place with the best energy, with all the irresistible elements that everyone understands implicitly as the ultimate sense of cool?
Philip Powel (48) is a programmer at the HipHopHouse in Rotterdamco-founder of the successful club bird which became a fixture in the city in no time. Together with Sacha Dees, he organized the acclaimed spoken word program Crime Jazz and hip-hop film festival Black Soil, is still a DJ and in 2018 he received the Laurens Medal for his cultural contribution to the city of Rotterdam. His career started in the 1990s, after moving from a village to the city and looking for black culture in the nightlife. It led him to all corners of the nightlife scene, from jazz to techno, from the gay scene to punk and house, in addition to arts such as spoken word and theatre. That made him a versatile programmer who left his mark on the circuit in Rotterdam and Amsterdam.
How to create a sense of ultimate magic on the dance floor is intuitive, he says, but it takes experience: ‘I’ve always remembered a line from a Detroit DJ I work with, Theo Parrish: a good dj understands the concept of energy. Energy is something you immediately notice when it is there, but also when it is missing. I can put my finger on how he is able to create that. Above all, it is very good to feel what the needs of your dance floor are and at the same time what your own needs are, and to have the courage to make that known. Good DJs make themselves vulnerable.’
When it works, Powel says, the music becomes almost tangible and the dance floor is very much together. ‘That’s really nice to see, and that’s actually possible, especially if something unexpected happens.’ It’s a misconception that such moments only come from building to a higher tempo or sound, he says. A good example was a set of the deceased in 2014 New York DJ Frankie Knuckles, who suddenly played a ballad by Stevie Wonder in the middle of a techno set: ‘Everyone sweating, and then suddenly that quiet song from beginning to end. That was total magic. This can also arise if the tempo suddenly drops. But then all elements have to be right. If he’d put it in two numbers earlier or later, it could have killed it completely.” A DJ is like a conductor who sets the tempo for his orchestra, but lets the energy come from them. And there’s no denying that drugs also determine the atmosphere, says Powel: ‘The house scene would never have been what it was without ecstasy. Especially drugs that have a social, fraternizing effect can form the energy on a dance floor. But unfortunately there is also abuse everywhere, and then it turns out completely different.’
What works in which club differs, as does the experience of the ultimate alluring sense of cool, but for Powel it has always been about mixing and bringing together. ‘When I started as a programmer at Nighttown I learned interdisciplinary programming. That tent all had small spaces. You really learn to see what fits together, which audience groups overlap and have good energy together’.
With good organization you can pretty much direct the atmosphere, he says. That’s in all kinds of little things: ‘In Bird, for example, no bottles of liquor are sold and there are no VIP areas, which attracts people who bring an atmosphere that we don’t want; too elitist and exclusive. There is no hierarchy in the design of the room, and we don’t have a door policy either, although we do pay attention to balance.’ There is rhythm in the programming between music styles and target groups, and support is always sought. Evenings are organized with club organizers who bring their own audience. The organization and staff are diverse, and there is a sense of inclusion at the door. Also in the programming of the artists? Powel: ‘That’s a thing. Frankly, the balance between men and women has long been a blind spot been for me. While there are great female DJs. Much more attention is paid to this in the HipHophuis. When I arrive there with an all-male line up, Aruna (Vermeulen, the director, ed.) immediately sends me back to the drawing board. Go do your homework, she says. I have to, and that’s very good.’
In the hip-hop world, the male and female energy is definitely not in balance, even in the Dutch scene there was no eye for this for decades. That changes now, says Wesley Texel (38), programmer at Paradiso in Amsterdam. He mentions hip-hop evenings at club TwentySix in Rotterdam as an example, where the atmosphere was controlled with a small intervention; transgender people were at the door as hosts. ‘Anyone who takes offense at that will stay away anyway and that is exactly what they wanted. It was good for an inclusive atmosphere.’
Like Powel, Texel is an interdisciplinary programmer in a club without a principled door policy, and also a DJ himself. After the long silence of corona, he mainly sees that people really want to meet each other again. ‘With a club night, people from different social bubbles who have overlap in lifestyle, interests, background and views and would normally never meet each other can effortlessly have fun together.’
At the Tribes evenings in Paradiso, for example, different generations met; young people who like African electronic music and an older generation who came for Afrohouse. Corona has not changed much, the need for a place where a kind of magic is created has always been there, says Texel. But he does make sure that a club night is as much as possible an experience for all the senses. With fragrance, for example, such as incense or palo santo, scented wood used in rituals and ceremonies in South America. ‘Scents can evoke feelings and associations, and that contributes to the energy you want for such an evening. The music and the sound are the most important, but you can turn a lot of knobs to get the right atmosphere’. It matters, for example, whether there are gender-neutral toilets or not. Whether or not there is photography – some audiences want that, others don’t. And you can’t do anything if you don’t completely involve people from the communities with which you organize the evenings, says Texel: ‘then your audience immediately feels that it is not authentic.’ On some evenings, the cameras of all smartphones are taped up at the entrance to give people a greater sense of freedom and privacy: ‘We explain that too. Some people want to discover something of themselves at night that they are not ready to show during the day. The atmosphere is freer then and you spend more time with each other, in the moment and in the place.’
As clearly as you can feel that it is exactly right in a place, where when a perfect chemical reaction creates something new and more beautiful, it can also go wrong and immediately feel uncomfortable, unwelcome or painful. What’s cool is also about inclusion and exclusion. And what people who value cool mean by it will always be changeable. In club life, this means a kind of ongoing experiment for organizers to find the right chemistry. To create evenings about which you can try to tell your friends afterwards, but those descriptions invariably end with: you should have been there.