The Heineken Green Room Session is happening next Tuesday, November 10th at Pop Opera (686 West Hastings). Past venues for this event includes Opus, George, Space Lounge (I went to that one!) and Sanafir. This event deserves a mention because it’s my favorite beer…!

“Baby get shaky after school….” does that sound familiar to you? So go the lyrics of DJ Ian Carey’s most well-known track, Get Shaky and he’s coming to Vancouver on Thursday November 19th, in collaboration with Zed Denim.
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Caprice Nightclub will be transformed into a Hollywood / Las Vegas style party. “Complete with a red carpet, photographers, custom decor, exclusive VIP areas, beautiful models, hostesses and classy go-go dancers. It will definitely be a place and night for the exclusive elites of the industry and party go’ers to see and be seen.” Get your tickets now from Clubzone for only $20 (earlybird).
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The The Donnelly Hospitality Management group (Pop Opera, Bar None, Library Square, etc.) has reopened the downtown pub Smiley’s as “Smiley’s Public House” (911 West Pender Street).

The space has been given a sleek makeover that has drawn both thankful regulars and new clientele. Smiley’s Public House delivers the style of a modern, British-style pub while retaining the warmth and character of a traditional pub. The open-concept room boasts 240 seats and a range of table sizes, including 16-seat picnic tables. Guests come in to loosen their ties, tuck into modern pub food, watch a football match and engage in good-natured banter around the pool table. The dance floor brims on busier nights, and a DJ spins to the after-work crowd on Fridays.

Ah, Gastown. Arguably one of my favorite districts in Vancouver. If you’re 19+, here’s an opportunity for you to head down there for “The Gastown Shuffle”, sponsored by Red Bull, Heineken and Sauza. The event starts at 7pm and goes until 11pm. There is no cost to participate, simply ask for a Shuffle badge at any of the participating locations (Livestock, ALife, Complex, Stussy, JD’s Barbershop), and get into the shuffle ending up with a club DJ show at The Modern. Participating bars include Diamond, The Metropole, Deighton’s Well, Revel Room and The Lamplighter.

I met a new friend at the Markus Schulz concert last July, and of course, at things like this, you meet people who love the same type of music you do! Who would have predicted that nearly a year later, DJ Eric Allen would be one of the ones at the forefront of starting a trance night in Vancouver?!

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A week from now, on Sunday May 10th, trance is attempting to make its way back into Vancouver with a bang. For Vancouver’s resident trance fans, limited options for a night of electronic music on the town are the norm and long has the city’s scene now been dominated by hip hop & top 40. On May 10th, at the sleek and stylish Shine Nightclub in Gastown, DJs Eric Allen (and my personal friend!), Marty Palin and Danny Taylor (resident DJ in Taipei’s Ministry of Sound) are bringing back the trance sound. As the second of two trial trance nights, May 10th hopes to bring out enough trance fans to make the night a regular staple in Vancouver’s nightlife scene.
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On May 10th, come down, dance, relax and enjoy a fresh new sound in one of the hottest clubs in the city! With plenty of seating, an expansive main room and a smooth and relaxing second room, Shine is an ideal venue for this event and with your support hopes to hold many “Experience” Trance nights in the future. As the event is on a Sunday night, parking downtown is easy and available. Cover is FREE before 11pm. I’ll be there!

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Click HERE for the Facebook Event.

If you’re a fan of Caprice Nightclub and you’re looking for that extra “push” to go, check it out this Friday March 13th for a fundraiser in support of the Kids Help Phone. Cover to Caprice is normally around $15, but for this fundraiser, buy your ticket early for $10, with 100% of the proceeds donated to the Kids Help Phone! For more information, click here for the Facebook Event and message my friend Leslie for more information.

“Kids Help Phone is Canada’s only toll-free, national, bilingual, phone and web counselling, referral and information service for children and youth. [They] provide immediate anonymous and confidential support, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.”

If you’ve walked by Tunnel (622 West Pender Street) lately, you may have noticed that the club is currently undergoing some major renovations. CanThrill Productions (aka. the same group that hosts Lobby at Ginger 62 on Friday nights) has been working alongside the team at Tunnel to design “an amazingly fresh and unique environment” for Lifted (Saturday nights at Tunnel) and beyond. Go see for yourself – be one of the first to experience the grand re-opening celebration on Saturday January 31, 2009. For more details, click here for the Facebook Event page.

Looking for something to do? Every Monday morning, we present to you “Modern Mix Monday”, a brief but link-filled one-liner review of our past weekend loaded with suggestions to inspire you for your next!

Despite the freezing cold weather and bare legs (thank goodness for nice bouncers and no line-up even at 11pm), we had another night out at Ginger 62. If there is such thing as a “resident club” that I frequent, this would be the one. But only on Friday nights with Canthrill’s Lobby Nights. And, what an appropriate way to celebrate my first Friday night out since exams, with a group of 10+ of us and DJ Kamm and Skilla spinning house tracks and a live percussionist and saxaphon(ist) on stage above a comfortably packed dance floor. All I drank that night were rounds of shooters – Red Dragons, Lemon Drops with a sugarcoated shotglass rim and my personal favorite – Pornstars, made with Blue Curacao and Sour Puss Raspberry. But do not be fooled by the sweetness – alcohol content definitely adds up. Ask for any of these 1-oz shots and they’ll know what you’re talking about – especially “Justin”, our bartender for the night.

I can’t believe I got postal mailed VIP invitations to Caprice’s Winter Wonderland clubbing event this coming Thursday, December 18th. I guess this didn’t really come as a surprise because they called me a few days ago asking for my mailing address. But how they got my phone number is another mystery. I don’t know if I’m going to go yet, but it’s definitely an option for this Thursday since I have three postcard invitations for me and a guest! What music should you be expecting? “DJ DARYLO spinning the best of top 40, and Hip Hop.” Anyway, just because they took the time, effort and postage to do that for me, I feel like I should reward their targeted marketing and put up their event flyer on Modern Mix Vancouver.

Looking for something to do? Every Monday morning, we present to you “Modern Mix Monday”, a brief but link-filled one-liner review of our past weekend loaded with suggestions to inspire you for your next!

Despite being the the midst of exam season, I still managed to go out and celebrate a friend’s birthday at The Blarney Stone on Saturday night. The Blarney Stone is more “grungy bar” than modern Gastown joint. However, I was quite impressed by the size of the venue! Two floors with a pool table and a moderately large dancefloor on the bottom floor. On the second floor, picnic-style benches fit about six to a table – perfect for having a drink or looking out of the castle-like window openings to the floor below. However, despite spending my previous New Years Eve Celiah (”cay-lee”) dancing in Scotland, the live Celtic music at the Blarney Stone is not my preferred genre of music. Then again, with 2 for 1 shooters for $6.50, you could just drink a lot and drown out the music.