DAYBREAKER: A NEW WAY TO RISE IN LOS ANGELES
The things we typically do in the morning range from banal to breath-taking: Make eggs, pound coffee, groggily read the newspaper/iPad/Instagram feed, check traffic, take out the dog, drop a load, meditate, medicate, kiss and bang, surf, yoga, sail, kayak, sky jump…. (hey, we’re sure there is someone!). And yet no matter how ambitious, one can rarely say the AM entails joining a dance rave. Until now.
New Yorkers Matthew Brimer and Radha Agrawal started an A.M. dance party, Daybreaker, as a way of igniting spirits and strangers, getting a community together and dancing like hell without unhealthy doses of liquid courage and gnarly hangovers. This simple concept has become, (excuse the pun), all the rave. After taking NYC by storm, it has since spread to San Francisco, London and reached the sunny shores of Venice, CA this Tuesday AM Sept 17th2014.
As curious and fun-loving folks, we found ourselves grumbling at the alarm clock at 6:30 AM, throwing on sneakers and heading to the nearby hot dog and beer joint Wusterkuche in Lincoln. Sure, it wasn’t easy getting up, it wasn’t easy to rally our friends to check it out (“Huh? 6 AM? Dang that’s early! And why on a Tuesday?”) and we’ll be honest, we found ourselves second guessing our motives right before entering: “Dear self. You are pretty much gung-ho for anything, but this behavior has officially lead you to a dance rave at 6 AM on a Tuesday at a hotdog joint. Is this something you should monitor more?” But then we shrugged, reminded our left brain that our right brain deserves a dance party whenever they want a F***ING dance party and headed inside.
The crowd and beats assuaged our uncertainty almost instantly. Evidently there was at least a hundred people who were as crazy as us and better yet, they were dancing harder and happier than we could have ever imagined. The place was packed wall to wall with colorful, glowy, sweaty, smiling people. In fact, we know what you are thinking, but most looked gainfully employed, smart, super-duper humans. Many of them were in some kind of spandex day-glo combo. And seriously, every last one of them was dancing.
The maverick-mustached DJ Eric Sharp built up delectable layers of upbeat, sun-filled deep house so we could not resist rising up and getting down. He chose to share the love by embedding the entire mix here! And, just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, he was accompanied by a full brass section. Oh and hungry? A mix of Runa Tea, Groundworks coffee and KIND granola bars overflowed the bar. Then, the band Magic Giant did a sing-along acoustic drum-circle performance to close the morning.
While a 6am dance-athon may not be everyone’s idea of a good time, if you want a morning that is guaranteed to be the exact opposite of banal, you should give it a try… more pics and info on Facebook!