- So, this is Robert Johnson? Famed Playhouse playground, the club that rarely bothers to announce its guests in advance, a venue somehow honored for its design by RA in 2008 despite not having much of a design at all. One room. A bar built out of scrap wood clearly taken from the local hardware store. A small DJ booth at one end of the room, six televisions above it, a tiny booth for the VJ to the left and...well, that's about it. OK. Fine. But one of the best clubs in the world? In a word: Yes.
The thing about Robert Johnson is that once you walk behind that comically temporary looking bar, there is literally nothing to do but dance. Especially in wintertime. There are a few seats along the wall, and you could venture outside into the freezing cold to enjoy the view of the Main River. But other than that, there are no distractions from the music. And so you dance. And so I did.
Robert Johnson officially announces their line-ups near the beginning of the month. If you're thinking of traveling to the city specifically to visit the club, your best bet is to simply have faith in its booking policy. (That, or hope that the line-ups late in the month are especially good.) The particular weekend I was in Frankfurt featured Mara Trax all night on Friday and Ata and Joakim on Saturday. They rarely let you down two nights in a row.
Some might scoff at this business practice—if you can even call it business—but judging by the crowd for Mara Trax, it works quite well. No one that was in the building seemed to be there for any other reason than the tunes, which pumped crystal clear from speakers that were physical but never overbearingly so. Just soft enough to talk with a friend, just loud enough to make conversation completely unnecessary.
Trax, the duo of Miss Fitz and Vera, were impeccable on the night. They've been DJing back-to-back for years now, and know each other well. It was my first time seeing them together, and I was prepared for plenty of Mannheim-centric house, something I'd expected after hearing them play solo and considering their various label associations. But they seemed to be in a more celebratory mood, pulling older tracks perhaps picked especially for the occasion of playing at Robert Johnson. I couldn't blame them. It's a pretty special place.