Every Saturday in March, electronic-music website Resident Advisor hosts a spectacular residency at local club and dance-music institution Smart Bar. The residency is part of a yearlong RA programming effort dedicated to 12 of the finest dance clubs in the world, each of which gets a month of its own.
Last Saturday was no joke, with DJ Nobu, Eric Cloutier, and Jeff Derringer, but starting tomorrow the bookings get turned up a notch. Descend into Smart Bar mañana and get down to the sounds of Tin Man, Olin, and none other than Dial Records mainstay Roman Flügel (to whom I dedicated a 12 O’Clock Track a little more than a year ago).
Unquestionably the biggest draw is next weekend, when DJ Harvey—in my opinion one of the half dozen or so greatest DJs alive—stops by. Black Madonna, who could be the headliner on any other night, opens. There’s another impressive bill on the 26th: Mood II Swing, Analog Soul, and Michael Serafini all play.
Resident Advisor has been the leading authority on electronic music for the past decade, largely due to strong writing (look no further than this excellent feature about defunct Chicago club Medusa’s), a famous DJ-mix podcast series, and perhaps the best worldwide calendar for electronic-music events. (Full disclosure: I contributed to RA from 2009 to 2011, before I started at the Reader.) But they’ve outdone themselves today with a superb feature on Smart Bar, with flashy Web design and a bunch of cool smaller pieces, such as a profile of Queen! host Jojo Baby, a breakdown of the sound system, and a mix of representative tracks by Chrissy (fka Chrissy Murderbot). I advise spending the slow part of your afternoon checking it out.