• Volume

  99 North 13th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 718-388-3588

  Last fall’s superclub onslaught did little to solve a problem that’s vexed New York nightlife since D.J. culture went bust at the turn of the millennium: a dearth of big, dance-friendly spaces with bookings more adventurous than the typical Sasha-Digweed-Oakenfold fare. Then came Volume this January, and though its parties are sporadic and it has only a beer-and-wine license, it feels something like the second coming of the Paradise Garage to clubland veterans faced with the Hobson’s choice of cramped hipster watering holes or tacky, impersonal superclubs. The bookers (including Serge Becker of Joe’s Pub) have already brought in an eye-and-ear-popping roster of talent, from U.K. rap superstar Dizzee Rascal to German techno prince Michael Mayer. And the club’s unusual setting—it’s a hangarlike space with soaring ceilings of circus-tent height on an otherwise desolate manufacturing block—has inspired promoters to get creative. Dizzee Rascal, for instance, performed atop an eighteen-wheeler parked in the middle of the dance floor. So take these words of encouragement literally: Keep on truckin’, Volume.

From the 2004 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine