Part of my role as the lead consultant for Vanwingen & Hepburn is I often get invited to parties hosted by strange, elusive men in velvet suits at club that only exist for one night in perpetually rainy parts of the city. I believe this concept was inaugurated into public fantasia in the Seinfeld episode “Bizarro Jerry,” and has been used by wealthy Chinese investors ever since to convey a sense of access to “forbidden fruit.” We’re talking equity funds here, to be clear.
Last weekend, Hope Sick Cola, a subsidy of Drylife Soda International, was hosting an after-party to their conference on the sugary, strawberry flavored pop beverage from which they get their name. The after party began at 9pm, and after my 9th Hope Sick Serenity® cocktail, I was feeling pretty sloshed. I chatted for a few minutes to a transgender stripper who was a bit nervous about having to meet the CEO of Hope Sick Cola later on for a “private consultation.” I asked her if she was a freelance stripper, if there’s such a thing, and she said she was part of Hope Sick Cola’s Happy Party Clique, or HSCHPC, the official team in charge of entertaining guests and clients of the company. She mentioned that the DJ was on the team as well, and this was the first time I noticed that the playlist for the party was cerebral, glitchy drum and bass – a bit of an eccentric choice for a club atmosphere that was 70% pink, 30% fizzy. Out of nowhere (in hindsight, it probably came out of the house PA), a raw, stretched piano sample held down the fort as breakbeats clattered overtop, tripping and morphing with ugly, carbonated energy.
A server wearing googly eyes all over his face offered me another cocktail, and after that things started to get fuzzy. The music kept me buoyant, and I must have stumbled pretty hard, because my next memory is waking up the next morning with a voicemail on my phone saying I had been let go. I searched for my wallet in my jacket pockets and came out with a tape I must have taken from the DJ. I recall asking him what that one song was… with the piano. “Warm” he must have said, “by Vaenus…. No, V-A-E-N-U-S,” because thats what I had scrawled on my hand before falling asleep. So that’s the story about how I became a writer for Chocolate Grinder. Vaenus’s Warm EP is out now.
• Hope Sick Cola: http://www.beatport.com/release/warm/1445355
• Vaenus: http://vaenus.bandcamp.com
