- It's not easy to pack out a club on a Sunday night, but Horse Meat Disco have made it their specialty. For over a decade, the DJ collective's "queer party for everyone" has transformed the Eagle London into an end-of-weekend disco haven, earning them admirers and imitators around the world. HMD also hold down an occasional residency at Brooklyn's Output, and the party returned to the club this past Sunday for Martin Luther King Day weekend. Justin Strauss joined HMD's Luke Howard and James Hillard in the main room, while Justin Cudmore warmed up for Mike Servito in Panther Room. (While it wasn't widely publicised, Servito wrote on Facebook that a portion of the party's proceeds would be donated to Black Lives Matter.)
Despite the freezing January weather, both the ticket and guestlist lines were bustling at 1 AM. Once inside, the biting cold of the street was replaced by a wave of heat from hundreds of dancing bodies. Giorgio Moroder's "I Wanna Rock You" wafted through from the main room as I queued for the cloakroom, suggesting HMD were already at the controls.
Sure enough, I emerged into the heaving, humid dance floor to see Howard, AKA Filthy Luka, and Hillard on the decks. These two are more into songs than HMD's other members, and their reverence for disco's golden age played out in a string of warm vocal throwbacks. While the crowd covered HMD's checklist of "homos and heteros, club kids, bears, fashionistas," the typical dancer was male, shirtless and happily sweaty. People danced looking at one another, not at the DJ.
After an hour of disco, I was ready for something with a little more jack. Mike Servito was in Panther Room, mixing slickly between bumping bass lines. The room's intimacy can make for an electric atmosphere, but it can also turn the space into a non-stop thoroughfare. Sunday night served up a bit of both—testament to Servito, I almost forgot I was dancing in a sliver of space next to a bin. In a set that spanned the house spectrum, from deep to tough and old to new, my favourite stretch delivered Kerri Chandler's vocal remix of The System's "You're In My System," MD X-Spress's "God Made Me Phunky" and Chandler's "Bar A Thym" in quick-fire succession.
The night's heady atmosphere mellowed a little after 3 AM, though Howard and Hillard still had a hold on the main room, saluting George Michael with "Flawless (Go To The City)" and Wham!'s "Club Tropicana." It wasn't long before I was drawn back to Panther Room, where, even as numbers thinned, Servito's set held its focus and energy till the end. You can see why he's one of the scene's most respected DJs.
Like many venues its size, Output often attracts guys who don't know how to be respectful on a dance floor. HMD made the club feel very different from usual, bringing a predominantly gay crowd that got what the party was about. All the DJs played to their strengths, so this particular edition wasn't about musical surprises or showy moments. In fact, the pitch was perfectly uncomplicated: come in from the cold, show some skin, and get down.