Don’t Turn Out the Lights

When it’s 3 a.m. on a Saturday night and all the other clubs are closed, you know where to go: Does Your Mama Know?

This 4-year-old after-hours weekly club on Sunset Boulevard draws a diverse crowd of dance music aficionados, Hollywood hipsters, gays, lesbians, cross-dressers and straight-up drinkers (the bar opens at 6 a.m.).

With its cushy nooks and crannies, two dance floors and outdoor patio (good for watching the sunrise), this spot is true L.A. But it is held in the most unlikely of venues, the Coconut Teaszer, a live rock club known for its preponderance of hair bands. (One bouncer, aware of the arrival of an internationally prominent deejay, remarked: “I don’t hear anything different. Sounds like the same old crap to me. . . .”).

But Does Your Mama Know? works, it really does. The main attraction is the music. The club is organized by famed L.A. deejays Marques Wyatt and Tony Largo. It regularly attracts the creme of house deejays worldwide. It even pulls in jocks that regular-hour clubs in L.A. can’t touch. Case in point: “Little” Louie Vega.

DYMK was the only L.A. appearance in early August for the New Yorker--one half of the Masters at Work remix duo and a producer of the “Nuyorican Soul” project (on Giant Step records; a contender for best dance music album of the year).

His performance, in the back of the dark cavern that is the main room, was enchanting. Vega worked hard during his three-hour set, glowing with sweat over the club’s console, constantly mixing, in perfect synch, song after song. He blew more than a few minds by rinsing in a house song, then dropping in a remix, then another remix, then scratching hip-hop style into the original version again. If you weren’t watching, it would sound as if Vega were working on four turntables instead of two. It must have seemed to be cozy and chummy for the deejay, who is used to playing to crowds of several thousand rather than a few hundred.

The club emphasizes the musicianship involved in deejay performance, allowing trainspotters to watch the deejay in action and utilizing an old-school, East Coast-style mixing board, which features only knobs and which lacks a quick-mixing “cross fader” (it requires a lot of skill and attention).

If, after a bout with a deejay like Vega, revelers are tired or need a drink, there’s an excellent chill-out area in the back where couples can crash on couches and the bartender mixes special juice cocktails, at least until the alcohol is unlocked at 6 a.m. That’s when the serious drinkers line up.

Coconut Teaszer is actually a converted house gone awry. And DYMK feels like a house party. The floors are wooden and the halls are lined with flowing sheets. It’s darker than a Gotham back alley. But new friends are easy to meet.

The club opens at 3 a.m. to allow time for the Coconut Teaszer rock crowd to disperse and for the transformation to dance club. People begin queuing up early and there’s a fairly thick line from the moment the doors open. There’s no dress code, but there’s plenty of frisking. (One man was turned away after doormen discovered a plastic baggy full of a mysterious substance in his pocket.) But the organizers seem to let people in as fast as they can.

By 9 a.m. Sunday morning, the last song comes on. It whispers, “Does your mama know? Does your mama know? . . . “

BE THERE

DYMK at Coconut Teaszer, 8117 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. Cover: $10. 18 and up, 21 for the bar. (213) 957-4787.