I thoroughly enjoy admitting when I’m wrong. Maybe because it happens so often. Everyone ready to time travel? Good. Let’s go way back to October of last year, when I had this to say about the swanky, closet-size, SoHo lounge Goldbar:

In broad terms, Goldbar pisses me off. The door’s extremely tight and the place is never packed. They’re super snoody and won’t let patrons take pictures inside, and no, I don’t think this is to protect the artwork (I really doubt they’re hanging paintings that valuable in place where people come to get shitfaced and often climb/fall into the walls).

Hmm. Several months later, I opted for a softer tone:

After not loving Gold Bar my first few encounters, I actually had a positive experience there this weekend. This might have had something to do with the fact it was our last stop of the evening (we arrived at 3:30 AM) and everyone had easily drunk a bottle of vodka a head since we left the house.

Not really a ringing endorsement but okay.

The ‘gold skull closet’ as I fondly call it was actually FULL (I guess that’s what happens when you go out on Saturday instead of Monday night), the music was FUN (Billy Joel? Yes, please!) and the bathrooms, which I used for the first time, were clean and spacious enough for me to stretch out and change my clothes (don’t ask why I was changing clothes).

As if we weren’t retard enough, my girlfriend ordered me a specialty alcoholic concoction called the Gold Rush. It tasted like a Long Island Iced Tea on crack. When I inquired about its ingredients, I received a slurred response that it was whisky, bourbon, and honey, all made ‘bearable’ by a giant ice cube in the middle. I took two sips and wisely professed to my friend,

“This is throw up. This is throw up.”

I think what I was trying to express is that the drink was both vomit inducing while also tasting like liquid sour patch kids gone bad. It’s a miracle no one projectile puked that night.

Months later again, I’m here to come full circle and give Goldbar two tequila happy thumbs up. I found myself hanging out there both this past weekend and the one before. I’m here to say, on the record, that this place is a good time.

I partied there on a Sunday night and found what I judged to be the sexiest crowd out that night in the city. The flocks of female supermodels seemed relaxed instead of rigid. Men weren’t busy boasting bottle service to impress, they were actually pulling out cute dance moves and managing to look like homo-sapiens genuinely enjoying themselves instead of bankers desperate to prove that they know how to party.

Since Goldbar shimmers with a lounge-y feel, that hard-core club vibe that often makes intimacy, listening or thinking impossible, isn’t there. You are therefore more prone to talk to some one instead of just making vulgar “I’m checking you out” insinuations with your eyes across a crowded dance floor.

I’ve been getting excited since someone in the rumor mill has been churning out news that the owners of Goldbar and Cain would be opening “Cain Downtown” here in the SoHo area. Naturally, I was thrilled about the birth of another downtown club I could attend, get wrecked in, and walk home from. It only took me an entire year to warm up to Goldbar! Now that the skull closet and I are friends, I had high hopes for my relationship with Jamie and Jayma’s next downtown venture.

Sadly, it doesn’t seem like this is going to materialize. Apparently, the locals are hell-bent against Cain becoming their new neighbor. And frankly who can blame them? I wouldn’t want an establishment that was known for go-go dancers in zebra bikinis and for pushing people too drunk to see straight onto the street at four AM as my neighbor either.

Tragic story for all of us who were hoping to save cab fare to Chelsea by hanging out downtown.

Miss Model Behavior’s the new nightlife writer for theBlaqlist.com. Feel free to post any nightlife comments or questions on our forum or contact her at MissModelBehavior@theBlaqlist.com

If your New York relationship was good (and by good I mean was able to last longer than the customary three months), it can be exceedingly difficult to let go of. City breakups are rough, and if you partied together, splitting up can also lead to a lot of awkward encounters and hardcore game playing.

So here’s my question: If you have clout at a nightlife establishment i.e. you know the doorman, the owner, the investor who mattered or the security dude, is it socially or morally acceptable to have your ex-significant other banned from the place? Setting up an infrastructure with the powers of the locale so that when your ex walks up to the red rope they’re automatically turned away? A nightlife blacklisting of sorts?

I think the answer to this question is more complicated than it seems. On the one hand, this is spiteful, childish, and clearly illustrates that you still like the person and haven’t moved on. On the other hand, aren’t all relationships, at their fundamental level, a power struggle? And what better way to showcase your power than by excommunicating the former object of your affection from a place that you used to both go to together? And with New York being as large as it is, is it really so much to ask that they party somewhere else?

Just like a messy custody battle, it’s not that easy to divvy up your spots versus my spots. What are former couples supposed to do? Create some sort of calendar that clarifies you can go to Goldbar every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and he can have full reign of 1 Oak on Saturdays? When there is no tacit agreement, and your request for personal space at Cain is disregarded (meaning your ex shows up and flaunts their new diet and girlfriend in your face) is it okay to use your connections to make sure the club’s staff keeps them out?

Anyone who’s ever had a disastrous clubbing event with an ex, cast your vote here.

When I lived in Milan I knew Ania J. as that sassy, over-the-top diva in my group of girlfriends who was always harassing us to come hang out with her at Milan’s underground club Gasoline. Six years later, this Canadian vocalist has achieved Italian fame and is hard to miss in the European club culture. She’s in your face no matter what musical genre, vocalizing over beats aside top international DJs, as Masters at Work, Joe T Vanelli, Kenny Carpenter, Supernova and more.

In March 2005, Ania J. traveled to Miami for the Winter Music Conference together with producer Giacomo Godi from SUPERNOVA, representing their first single “Rock U,” which hit the top ten charts in the house genre in Europe and New York. Ania J.’s performed at various fashion ceremonies including Dolce & Gabbana, where she shared the stage with Grace Jones, and perhaps most well-known for her regular performances at Milan’s most exclusive nightclub, Chandelier Motel - the dinner theater New York’s The Box is modeled after.

Since America’s a bit behind on the vocalist bandwagon and many clubbers, myself included, don’t fully understand what a vocalist is, I sat down with this “rock star angel” to learn about nightlife through her eyes.

Can you explain what a club vocalist is?

It’s someone who wakes up the crowd and gets them involved with the music. Someone who knows how to intervene with the music, yet not over do it!

How and where did this tradition begin? When did it become popular in nightlife and why?

I used to go to raves in Canada when I was really little and saw people performing vocals at raves. So I think it’s a rave tradition. In the commercial base really started in Italy. It became really popular in Italy and that’s where I was at the time.

Why is it a bigger phenomenon in Europe than America?

I don’t know. See in America you don’t really have vocalists. A vocalist in America is a singer. I think it’s different in Europe because people really like it when you give them attention. Like people really like to hear their name called out if they’re celebrating a special occasion. The crowd likes it when you make them feel good about themselves. People like to stand out in clubs in Europe. They like to be part of the scene, part of the party. So if you involve them with the vocalist and the DJ, they feel like they’re part of the party themselves, not just going out to the club and dancing with three friends. They become one with the entire experience.

You’re originally from Canada. How did your career in music begin and how did you end up in Italy?

I was modelling before I started doing what I’m doing now - before I became a singer / vocalist. I was modelling in Europe (Paris, London, Austria, Greece) and I met this agent who brought me to Milan. And that’s where it all began. I was modelling and going out to clubs a lot. I was going out in Milan more than anywhere else. One of those nights, I drank a little bit more. I saw the mike and I grabbed it. (laughs) It’s the champagne, Dom Perignon. That’s how it all happened.

Had you ever sung before then?

No. As a child, I played the piano by ear. At age seven, I kept asking my dad for a piano. He’d ask me, “Why?” And I’d say, “Because I know I can play!”

But you didn’t have any formal voice training?

Never. No. I was always shy. I was always admiring singers. When I was ten, I remember someone asked me if I had one wish, what would you ask for? And I said I would love to sing in front of an audience of ten thousand people and feel that energy. Whenever they advertised things for kids, toys or whatever that had to do with music, I remember I always wanted them. But I never knew I could sing. I was just always attracted to music.

So after you grabbed the mike that one time, how were you able to make a name for yourself in Milan? How did you start working in nightlife?

It happened on its own. I was lost. I was a model. I didn’t want to go back home without achieving something more or discovering a new dream and knowing what to do with it. I was always very goal oriented as a kid, and I always wanted a dream: The one thing that I could call mine, focus and go for. After I grabbed the mike that one time, a friend of mine came in from Canada and had me do it again as a dare. And we were at a huge party, a fashion party for Andrew Mackenzie, in Milan.

So I went to the DJ and I lied. I told him that I knew Andrew Mackenzie and that he wanted me to take the mike. So I took the mike and started doing some vocals. I didn’t even know what I was doing. I had no clue. Then this guy Filippo Rossi, from Gasoline Club [Milan] came up to me and started asking me what I did and took my number. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to stay in Milan that summer or if I was going home. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was lost. And Filippo really took me under his wing. Gasoline was my school. Filippo believed in me. Anyone else would’ve said, “Get out of here!” cause I think I sucked in the beginning! (laughs)

Then from there people come to the club, see you, and ask you to come to their club. It’s like a chain. A domino effect. And somebody came who worked at Chandelier Motel (Milan) and asked me if I wanted to work there. I said yes and that was six years ago. And at the time I was working as a vocalist at another night in Milan called New York Bar, and I couldn’t really work both of them because they’re hot clubs in the same city – they where in competition. So I decide to try and offer to Chandelier that I would sing. I felt ready to just sing, and at New York Bar I’d just do vocalist so I could work them both. And it just so happened that they both agreed! So I did both of them one night, for one year. I was opening New York Bar, taking a cab, going to Chandelier, singing there, getting in a cab, going to New York Bar, closing the night there and then going back to Chandelier. No one’s ever done that. That was a first in the history of Vocalist!

How do you book jobs?

I have an agent / manager but I also do it myself when it comes to clients I have worked with for over the past six years. You build up a clientele through word of mouth.

Can a person make a career out of working in nightlife?

In Milan, yeah. In Italy, yes. There are vocalist that are forty-something, and they’ve been doing this for twenty years.

What are the pros and cons?

Well, you’re around a lot of alcohol and drugs. That’s the difficult part about working at night. If you’re doing three gigs a week and if you start drinking, you just kind of keep drinking and that gets tiring after awhile. Sometimes you just want to stay in and watch a film like everyone else and you can’t cause you’re working. You also don’t see your friends that much because you’re working on weekends and holidays when everyone gets together. So you’re pretty much always alone. Then if you’re travelling all the time - it’s like any artist - you’re alone all the time.

Tell me about the persona you project when you sing. I know you love wearing wigs and have an over-the-top personal style. Where did this come from?

Honestly, I didn’t really think of it before. I wanted something special. I wanted something my own. I was always really creative. I’d change my clothes from what everybody else was wearing, I’d have the same shirt as someone else, but I’d have to cut it or do something to it to make it different. I used to shop second hand a lot. I’m always looking for something different. Something that when I see it, I know it has my name on it. I really have to like the piece. I like punk-ish, yet elegant and clean. I like bright colors, but I also like black and white. I’m constantly changing. You never know with me. Like with the wigs. I used to wear wigs just going out. You don’t have to style you hair and you get into this other character. You make this big impact. You feel big with a wig! I love big hair. My hair is so thin, and there’s so little you can do with my hair. If I had a huge afro, I’d just leave it like that.

Where’s your favorite place to perform?

Chandelier Motel. Antonio Coppola makes up great choreographies and he always makes me look outstanding on stage surrounding me with dancers acrobats special effects…a little club stage becomes a circus and I love it!!!!

Do clubs need vocalists? Why? What do you bring to a party?

It depends on the club. If it’s really deep house and people just want to go and be in their own little world and dance, than I don’t think they need a vocalist. Sometimes a vocalist can help involve the crowd in the party - and give them something extra. You vocalise and reach out with your voice and energy to them and you’re giving them something. Not just saying, ‘Put your hands up!’ and if you’re singing, you’re really giving them something.

What’s your favorite kind of music?

I don’t have a favorite kind of music. I love music. I love classical music. I love hip hop. I love rock. I love punk, rockabilly, Mozart, house, club, electro. If the song has a good beat, good lyrics and a good melody it could be anything. It could be a country song. I like Garth Brooks. I love Bob Dylan. It’s the song in itself. And I’m such a chameleon with everything, with fashion and music, that I could never just stick to one style.

Can you tell us some of your favorite artists or DJs?

A lot of DJs from New York are not used to working with vocalists. More of the bigger European DJs are okay with it, like David Guetta, Dimitri from Paris, although he was a little skeptical about having a vocalist at first. Other good DJs and club scene artists: Supernova (Italy), Pete Tong, Bruno Bolla (Italy), Princess Superstar, Deep Dish, Joe T Vanelli, Moloko, Peaches (She’s Canadian!)

What’s a vocalist’s relationship with the DJ? Do you two have to be perfectly synergized? Are there ever feuds?

A good vocalist doesn’t work well because of the DJ, they work well because of the music. You have to have the rhythm in your heart and you have to listen. You have to know when he’s mixing. And when he’s mixing, you shut up. When he’s playing and there’s a singing song, you don’t sing on top. That’s where a lot of vocalists go wrong. They sing on top and they ruin the song. You listen to the music and you stay out of the DJs way. You do your own thing. You weave yourself in with the music and the rhythm.

How do you know when to sing and when to shut up?

I feel it. It’s instinct. And I try not to overdo it. I said I try!!!! (laughs)

Do you have every house song in the world memorized?

Are you crazy? I don’t even know the names of the songs. I’ve been working with house music for the past six or seven years. I’ve heard some songs a thousand times and I don’t know the words. When I work I get lost. In my work, in the music, in the people. I’m not there for the DJ. You want to blend in with his music but stand out on your own.

Can a vocalist ever over do it and detract from the music, making a party worse?

Yeah, they can. If they’re screaming all the time. If they’re talking too much. I wouldn’t want to go to a party if I heard one of my favorite songs and someone started yelling over it ‘Put your hands up!’ and screaming at the top of their lungs all the time. Say what you need to say, make it short, make it sweet, and shut up!

Do you sing words? How do you know what to say?

Yeah! I sing words. Or I sing vocals. Skats. I wrote poetry as a child and I love rhyming words and it just comes to me. I pick at things. Like I’ll see a couple fighting in the audience and I’ll hear a beat and I sing -

He loves me

He loves me not

He loves me

He loves me not

Because you get it from them. They feed it to me.

Have you ever been booed off stage or sang for crowd that just wasn’t feeling it?

No, but I was really paranoid at the beginning. If people were looking toward me and laughing I’d always think they were laughing at me. But I think every artist goes through that.

How do you energize a crowd?

I just get in front of the crowd usually in front of or aside the DJ. I grab the mike and begin by announcing the DJ, myself and the party. This usually gets everyone going (it all depends on how you say it). I wait for the pause in the music, this way they can hear me more. I rehearse what I’m about to say in my mind by memorizing names…dates…the event the city I’m in… Sometimes I’ll ask the DJ how long the pause is before the beat kicks in, this way as I’m going up with my voice the music will kick in at the right time of my intro.

What was your best clubbing experience ever?

I used to love going to raves when I was younger. Because of the music. I loved jungle. And I loved dancing. I was in the best shape of my life back then.

Favorite club to go to?

I don’t really like crowded clubs. I like smaller clubs. Only when I’m working do I like big clubs because I like being on stage. I like Gasoline Club Milan because it’s so underground. It’s so tiny and it has its own character. And they change every year. They paint. So one year it’ll be a Barbie theme and everything is pink and gold and then they’ll have a war theme with messages about peace and love written on the wall - its’ like walking into a comic book.

Tell me something you love about New York nightlife.

It all depends on the club you go to…in New York where I was performing at the Mansion, people where going insane dancing and jumping up and down I loved it…but I notice that people in New York prefer more intimate clubs…like The Box, GoldBar… where they can hang with a close group of friends.

Favorite Song?

“Blowing in the Wind” by Bob Dylan

Favorite drink?

Green tea because it’s detoxifying.

Favorite cities to perform?

Milan, New York, Switzerland

Future plans?

I have been working with dual DJ’s producers Supernova (Giacomo Godi, Emilliano Nencioni) in Milan, Italy for the past four years. We have come out with s few singles on the house charts in Europe and U.S. as well as our first album last year Supernova (Downtown Underground), where four of the songs on the album where co-written with me. Two of the songs came out as singles. Silence is the Enemy, & Dude. You can hear the songs and see the videos on www.myspace.com/anotherblondeakaaniaj

I am also working on my own album coming out soon, “Sex, Detox and Rock ‘n Roll.” So keep in touch New York!

Saturday night I dressed up as if I were going to the Oscars since a friend of mine was having a black tie themed birthday party. I’ve written before about my strong dislike of costume requirements when going out. Isn’t being a girl with a thimble size closet, pathetic salary, trying to look modelesque in one of the most fashion forward cities in the world hard enough without additional complications?!

So usually I pooh-pooh events that require I waste extra brain cells figuring out how to not look not like a moron while also incorporating a theme like 80s, Egyptian or toga. Yet when the invitation for a black tie birthday party rolled around, I squealed in delight like an over-sugared child. Practically all women have a collection of prom / bridesmaids / wedding / opera gowns which we’ve only got to cavalier around in once. Any opportunity to debut them once again should be taken advantage of.

This story would have ended swimmingly if New York nights weren’t so utterly unpredictable. My initial plans for the evening ended up being hijacked and I found myself on a completely different social trajectory than a priorly anticipated.

Translation: I never made it to my themed birthday party uptown and was dressed in black tie all night for no reason.

This fashion mistake however, has a happy ending. While I remained bitter about detouring from my initial plan, the group of friends who kidnapped me insisted we go eat dinner at La Esquina. I’d munched on late-night tacos at this joint many times, but never gotten there early enough to consume an official meal at their secret, underground, overhyped restaurant.

All the fabulous rumors about the place proved true.

Once the restaurant’s makeshift bouncer radios down and gives you the go-ahead, you snake down a dark staircase and long corridor, until walking through the kitchen. The light is blinding and pots and pans clatter. Then you enter an underground space that clearly got an M.B.A. in ambience. It’s dim, candles glow, a fireplace crackles, the walls are gray and stone but unlike many restaurants that go for this theme, La Esquina didn’t feel like a Medieval dungeon.

I know technically this place is considered “over,” but to me, the guests looked swankier than most of the people I see on your average night out. Going to a place like this isn’t really about the food, but what I consumed was delicious anyway and the service was above average. Best of all, with the seductive lighting and underground yet elegant feel, La Esquina is one of the few places we could’ve gone where despite the fact that I was dressed to sing a solo at Lincoln Center, I fit in quite perfectly. This joint seem to encapsulate what’s great about New York. While everything’s superficial, nothing is as it truly appears. The outside of La Esquina looks like a dumpy diner.

The inside is mysteriously unexpected: A place where you could see anyone, anything could happen and you feel trendy in both a ball down and ripped jeans.

Rumors are out that Serge Becker is opening La Esquina in Miami at the Mondrian Hotel and Residences on a sunny, seaside, modern terrace - a venture that could not be more different from his current restaurant. How can both these institutions even share the name La Esquina? I guess we’ll find out. In the meantime, I’m grateful places like this exist in Manhattan so that even a foolish girl accidentally wearing an evening gown doesn’t have to stick out like a sore thumb.

Wednesday night Upstairs, the exclusive SoHo club and location of much debauchery like dollar bill tossing, was raided by the cops.

Old news.

The charges had something to do with liquor license violations and a legal problem with the sound system. All I focused on was trying to hide my inherent panic: Where would I go to hear Hip Hop and Bruce Springsteen in the same night? Where would men go to meet models age sixteen and under? Where would Leonardo Di Caprio go to schmooze low key with his entourage?

Luckily, this terrifying series of questions didn’t continue for long. A mere thirty-six hours after the raid, I received a text from one of the owners at Upstairs assuring me it was re-opened and ready for Friday night. That was fast! It wasn’t until I was in the club this weekend that I realized why: The bar was closed.

But don’t think Upstairs was going to let a pesky little thing like a liquor license get in the way of their bash or business plan. They’re just serving bottle service only until further notice – and the creepy part is that is took me twenty minutes to even notice that the bar looked like an abandoned warehouse: a blank wall, utterly void of life, liquor or bar tenders.

Talk about a loophole in the system!

“No, you cannot purchase a vodka on the rocks; I can only sell you the entire bottle.”

Interesting.

I found this similar to how Milan recently enacted laws that prohibit liquor from being sold after 2 AM instead of after 4 AM in order to help prevent drunk driving. Now bartenders scream, “Two AM last call! Everyone get your bottles!” and people stock up on Magnums or just purchase bottles of champagne which they walk around downing as if it were JuicyJuice.

Yes, this is really going to encourage people to drink less.

Just when you think you’ve seen all the weirdness NYC has to offer, you stumble across a party like this.

Dressed like a normal person and expecting another uneventful clubbing night out, I unsuspectingly found myself at the Kostume Kult and Disorient’s annual Black and Light ball at Comix, an experience which can only be described as “jaw dropping.” Different artistic projects took place throughout the party which ranged from a mock Vogue-style photo shoot to performance art involving laptops and wall projections, and body painting with spay cans. Then you had your rave areas in the large back room and downstairs.

The Kostume Kult goes to Burning Man every year, so the party doubled as a fundraiser for their camp. I have an endlessly fascination with Burning Man and suggest that anyone unaware of the tradition read about it here. Amongst the black lit carnival, I felt like the freak as I sipped an amaretto in a plain black dress among

-People with neon afro wigs larger than the circumference of my closet

-Naked couples wearing only body paint, sheathes, and nipple covers (my favorite were the orange leopards with gold tassels on their boobs)

-Dresses that left one breast exposed

-Transparent skirts that left vaginas exposed

-Colorful fake eyelashes long enough to be a fire hazard on the dance floor

-Enough glitter to fill an Olympic size pool

-More colors of pleather than I knew existed

I’d need to drop some acid in order to even come up with a costume as unique and creative as these folks did. I didn’t end up doing much partying as the visual fun of this circus kept me continually aghast. My friend and I spent so much time admiring the kult’s ensembles and postulating which couples had the craziest sex that we even forgot to drink! Imagine!

A video of what it’s all about here,

Miss Model Behavior’s the new nightlife writer for theBlaqlist.com. Feel free to post any nightlife comments or questions on our forum or contact her at MissModelBehavior@theBlaqlist.com

Ah, Cain.

This is one of those nightlife establishments my heart goes out to. It’s like that really popular kid in high school who had the world at his finger tips, but ultimately ended up staying in his home town, teaching local soccer, and living in his mother’s basement.

This isn’t exactly a negative: Who doesn’t like the comforts of their childhood home’s basement?

The point is that years ago, Cain opened as the hottest thing on the block. I remember it being notoriously hard to get into. I used to quake in my heels at the door thinking about how threatening long-haired euros wielding clipboards looked. And everyone was wowed by their animal head and safari theme.

This was long before Goldbar’s impressive skulls and 1Oak’s ridiculously expensive engraved walls entered the picture, upping club’s decorating requirements significantly. Cain was hot. They had girls in zebra bikinis convulsing on white sides of the club that resembled caravan sheaths, they had drummers in abundance, they had struck an exquisite balance in music that managed to be tribal yet commercial. And who didn’t like their sexy, high ceilinged individual bathrooms? The club reminded me of Pangaea in London, and for that reason alone, I doted on it.

Around the same time, spots like Guest House and Home sprouted up. Twenty seventh street experienced a glorious run, then that dude fell down the elevator shaft of Bed, and the underage girl at Guest House was found chopped up in a dumpster. Consequently, establishments started carding and the street lost some of its shine. Soon it was clear Cain’s owners favored their sparkly, lounge-like younger child Goldbar, and Cain began to feel like an after-thought. The neglected older sibling.

That doesn’t mean there still isn’t fun to be had at Cain. I did a swing through last weekend, and while much has changed (the drummer’s now stationary, the music’s more hip hop, the door’s less daunting) I found the vibe enjoyable and fun.

Why?

Because the club’s lost its pretentiousness. It’s been dethroned. And the benefit of no longer being the coolest kid on the block is that your staff can lose some of the attitude and everyone can stop taking themselves so seriously. The atmosphere becomes laid back, dare I say – relaxing. Yes many of us are masochists who want to go out to be treated like shit only to savor the victory of knowing you achieved entrance into the hottest new place. But I don’t think anyone could categorize Cain’s transformation into kinder, more approachable creature as a ‘bad’ thing. And another animal is entering the Goldbar-Cain family. Cain Downtown in the SoHo area is officially in development. So those of you that enjoy lines, celebrity sightings and doorman abuse should be prepared to shimmy over there.

Miss Model Behavior’s the new nightlife writer for theBlaqlist.com. Feel free to post any nightlife comments or questions on our forum or contact her at MissModelBehavior@theBlaqlist.com