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Watersigns
State of the Art: Soulful Offerings "We don't run a club. We build a community. We use these clubs as a vehicle for gathering the people, but it's not about the club," insists long-time Boston promoter Courtney Grey. An audacious statement for a party promoter, but it's the sort of utopian mindset and earthy idealism which makes events hosted by Grey and his partners in the Watersigns Entertainment Group (DJs Adam Gibbons, Fran Englehardt, and Paul Nickerson) such a revelation. Relying mostly on word-of-mouth and personal contacts, Watersigns attracts a wonderfully diverse and unpretentious crowd -- in race, age, and sexual orientation -- to their various dance nights around town. During a recent visit to "Life," a Friday night weekly held at the Lava Bar in Kenmore Sq., track-suited b-boys busted breakdance moves in one corner, flossy girls schmoozed and smooched by the bar in teetering platforms, while dreadlocked dancers lined the DJ booth with flailing arms and twirling torsos. The resident DJs at "Life" and "Soul Revival" (a monthly event) -- Fran Englehardt and Paul Nickerson -- match the eclecticism of the crowd with selections that can be loosely categorized as deep house, but stretch that label to it's breaking point. Tracks by Fela Kuti, John Mellencamp, and Souls of Mischief have all graced their turntables, alongside a steady mix of classic vocal house and plenty of percussion-laced Afro/Latin-house earthshakers. But, instead of following a typical nightclub trajectory -- aiming to slowly increase BPMs over the course of the night, leading to a collective dancefloor orgasm -- the residents take a more oblique approach to the art of Djing. Adam Gibbons explains their program as such, "(we) usually start it out with old soul and downtempo tunes at mid-volume until almost midnight. It gives exposure to music that doesn't get played in the middle of a DJ set and it gives a chance for people to interact and talk, which doesn't usually happen in a nightclub." Around midnight, house music's four-on-the-floor thump makes it's appearance, but it's offset with long ambient segues, off-beat accents, dubbed-out trip-hop, and on one occasion, the first movement of John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme." Gibbons admits that the peaks and valleys of this free-form, multi-climaxing style might not be for everyone, "When Paul (Nickerson) played "A Love Supreme," half of the people were like, 'Oh shit!,' and the other half were like, 'What the fuck is this?' It's okay if those folks walk out the door." The "Soul Revival" full-moon monthlies at the Villa Victoria Cultural Center in the South End, expand the cultural offerings with appearances by ethnic dance troupes, international food buffets, and occasionally, free dance lessons beforehand. The recent addition of "Mercury," a Wednesday night lounge/grub/bowl session at the Milky Way, and the upcoming debut of "Pho Phunk," a Monday night lounge at Pho Republique, aim to mix conversation and dancing in a more low-key atmosphere, bringing the grand total to 13 nights of programming a month. "We created this community because we didn't have a place to go to ourselves," explains Grey. Well, now you do. --Michael Endelman 'Different
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