Sales Tacks Included
Sign on to the Internet and they try to sign you up for Visa cards. Sit down at the movies and they hawk cell phones. Go to a local club and they foist commercials on you in the form of a momentum-killing fashion show.
Clothes are cool. A cool hairdo’s cool. But why do we have to listen to vendors hype goods when we’ve spent good money to flee the material world into danceland’s purely physical cocoon?
Purveyors of local rag and mop shops commandeered the mike during two fashion shows at the recent debut of the Kitty Show, a house-funk-retro-disco promotion operating on Thursdays at the spacious Majestic in Huntington Beach.
Captive clubbers were forced to listen--over and over--to who designed the attire and the ‘dos and where to get both, as models strutted rubber skirts and coifs that the salon stylists later described as “art.”
Since 1971, the number of advertisements the average American encounters has skyrocketed more than 500% to 3,000 a day, author David Shenk noted recently. Yikes!
I know that fashion and clubbing have become one in the ‘90s. Talented, youthful Orange County designers have contributed flair, sponsorship and crowd density to the scene. Still, can’t we even party commercial-free?
Apparently not.
The Kitty Show was packed with a 20ish set that seemed to already have acquired much of the urban club wear on preen parade: chunky platforms, strappy tees, slinky pants. Dancers’ tattoos and ‘dos--Stefani-esque punk, ‘40s chic or blond-black glam--also matched those of the dark-pits-for-eyes models’.
Even five busy go-go booths couldn’t draw the bulk of the night’s attendees, who congealed around the bar. At 10:45, deejay AFG, who lives in Irvine but previously worked exclusively in L.A. at Billboard Live, sneered when his European deep house failed to inspire anybody to take the floor.
“If I was playing this at Billboard,” he said, “people would be dancing.”
While the night was still young, a guy in eyeliner, a jester’s cap and jackboots went home. He’d received a flier promising “a club like you have never seen before,” but this Angeleno wasn’t impressed.
Still, by the time he left, the black-lit Kitty Show’s floor was filled, if not to overflow, its dancers finally responding to mainstream retro funk and disco rotated by deejays Danny Love (the Galaxy’s Rubber) and Priest (the Tap House, Huntington Beach). A line had formed outside.
Of course, it was spring break. Still, the new gig has behind it power-promoter Danny Aguilar, who runs the popular Tap Room and presided over Limelight for a few years at the Warehouse in Newport Beach.
Other promoters on the Kitty flier include Floyd Raglin, who throws those Newport Beach fetes for pal Dennis Rodman when the Chicago Bulls star is in town. Bad boy Rodman reportedly stripped at one of his many going-away parties last fall--maybe he could give us something we’ve never seen before--without a commercial.
BE THERE
The Kitty Show, at the Majestic, 18582 Beach Blvd., Huntington Beach; (949) 726-8879. 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Thursday. Cover: $10.
