Let's Go Clubbing!

Anyone who knows me (or has seen our wedding video) knows that I belong on a dance floor about as much as chocolate belongs on lettuce. I dislike dancing more than all other forms of exercise. It's bad enough to sweat profusely while working out - do I have to smile, keep rhythm and be social to strangers at the same time?! So when I was invited to go to a local nightclub with some friends, you'd think I'd be smart enough to say "Thank you but I have to iron all of my socks this weekend." Fortunately for you, I was not smart enough to say that and now I can bring you my (limited) experiences with the local "club scene" here in Penang.

It's worth noting that I've only been to 4 local clubs, but I have been told that these are the best clubs in all of Penang so I feel safe making some generalizations based on my experiences. Even if it's not safe, I'm going to do it anyway because I can assure you that I won't be going to any more clubs for a long while. I was a "bouncer" at a club at Purdue for about 4 weeks one summer, so I have that for a point of reference.

There's one very obvious similarity among the clubs I went to - they are freaking loud! The first place I went (called "Mambo") was so loud that the wait staff could not hear us trying to order drinks. And I'm not talking about complicated drinks like "almond flavored bay breeze with extra tomato juice" - all we wanted was beer. Finally, we had to pull out our cell phones and type it in as a text message. In fact, we ended up sitting on a couch in the club texting back and forth for the time we were there. This particular club is about 200 yards east and 20 floors below my apartment and I can still hear the music most of the night. It starts around 8pm and goes past 3am pretty much every day. You're asking yourself "Who goes to a club at 3am on a Tuesday night?"- trust me, they play the music that loud even if no one is there. In fact, when Al and I were there, we were 2 of maybe 20 people in a club that probably holds more than 100 when it's full and they weren't planning to turn the volume down even a bit. It's been almost a month and I still don't have full hearing back. It's extra funny when you see people in the club talking on their cell phones - who are they kidding?

The music they play is mostly familiar, probably about what they're playing in US clubs now with some Asian songs mixed in. The one thing that was odd was that songs that have long since become passe at home are still popular here. I thought it was interesting when they played the Madonna song "Who's that girl?" from like 1988, but I actually laughed out loud when they played "Ice Ice Baby" and the whole place went wild.


2 of the places I've gone ("ChillOut" and "Slippery Senoritas") had live bands instead of DJs. Each band had a full ensemble - guitar, bass, keyboard, and drums, as well as 2 female singers and 1 male singer all on stage at the same time. Oddly, they were cover bands for modern dance and hip hop music, much of which doesn't use a live band on the actual recording. On top of that, the singers didn't know the words to the many of the songs (something that could be easily looked up on the Internet). When you see a band full of skinny Malaysians attempting to slam dance to Limp Bizkit while mixing up the words "i know why you wanna hate me cause hate is all the world has even seen lately" - it's definitely entertaining in ways they don't intend. Then again, the DJs like to sing along to the music as well, and they often get it wrong without trying to dance around the stage and look cool, so what can you expect of the people doing the full performance?

Apparently, going to clubs requires you to have nothing to do the next day because these places are practically empty until after midnight. People have actually told me that the best time to go is after 2am! Seriously, what the heck are people doing until 2am that they can't get to the club at a reasonable hour? Surely they're napping, which they wouldn't have to do if they went to the club around 7 or 8 and then went home by like midnight. I know I'm not much of a club-goer, but there's no reason to stay out that late. Nothing good happens after 2am, in fact, I'm not sure anything good happens after about 11:30pm. It's one thing to stay up until 4am playing video games, but hopping around in a dance club is clearly different and much less useful. :) And this is not because I'm too old - some of the people in these clubs are well into their 40s and 50s.

In the clubs that don't have a band, they actually pay young women to stand on podiums in key areas of the club and dance in these psuedo-skimpy outfits. The clubs are usually very dark, so you can't really see them. In fact, in one club ("glo"), the podium dancers had a ring on each hand that they turned on like flashlights so you could at least see where they were standing, even tho you still couldn't see them dance. Besides, it's not a gentlemen's club - isn't the idea that the patrons are supposed to be the ones dancing? Why pay women to perform non-choreographed gyrating on top of the bar, further preventing me from getting my drink? At glo, I asked for a vodka and got a beer - the words don't even look the same if you lip-sync them!

Overall, it's the social aspects of "clubbing" that I don't understand. You pay about 50 bucks to get in (local currency, not 50USD) and get one drink free. The "dance floor" is only about 25% of the club space, so that fills up pretty quickly and the rest of the people sort of bob their heads near tables around the room. And the music is so loud, no one really can do any talking. People still try (just like they try to talk on their cell phones), but I'm not buying it. In some cases, people go out as large groups - 15+ people, and there's no way they are having any real conversation the whole night. Plus they'll all be tired when they get back to work on Monday anyway (and deaf too, for that matter). I just don't get the appeal. At least I know one thing - when I'm playing my video games at 2 in the morning on a friday or saturday night, I can lower the volume when my ears start to hurt.

I didn't bring a camera to these clubs, but here are some of the pictures they have posted on local websites. They're pretty small and poor quality, but at least there's something to look at other than my prose.