The Rex Clubs website (which has been under construction for the past four months or so) gives the establishment the air of being a swank lounge. The logo and colours are slick and calm and the loop is martini-sipping downtempo.



If I hadnt been encouraged to go to the Rex by someone on a tech house board I would have scoffed at the idea of setting foot in this club because I do not do swank, slick nor calm. I definitely do not do downtempo. But some no-name dude in England suggested the Rex Club and I didnt know where else to go I scoped it out.



Well now, the Rex has a very misleading website. The faade is that of a movie theatre and the inside is as exciting as The Drink (in Vancouver). I arrived at 24:30 and the peripheral tables were all taken by people

inhaling bottles of beer. There was some hot shot doing basic manoeuvres with mismatching glowsticks.



The music, though, was good and the sound system was great. According to the flyer three DJs were to be spinning. They were DJ Teknos, Da Gil and Millimetric (live). I am not one hundred percent sure if they played in

that order but lets just pretend that they did. Teknos was dope. I hadnt heard that type of techno in ages. His

techno was different because it wasnt banging, straight-forward techno (yawn) but techno with a less obtrusive bass line and fun, fluid details to give alternative direction to your dancing. It had personality. A few tracks after I had started dancing, the floor had filled up. I was pretty

close to the DJ and could see what a spaz he was. However, not once did he look at the crowd (that always makes me sad) but as he was working he was constantly dancing to his mix. It didnt take long for people to start whistling and cheering him on loudly. The most memorable moment of his set was a very epic build-up that went on forever and made me cringe with dread but that never crashed into a horrendous blizzard of organs and whistles, it just ended and the techno came back full force. As well he played a track that was very reminiscent of old school Depeche Mode with a chick singing in French.



I dont know when Da Gil came on but from the moment I realized the switch til the end of his set he played spectacular, good-humoured techno.



The Millimetric. Silence. Like, at least two minutes worth of silence. Some young lad with a Nitzer Ebb shirt gets on the platform, behind a laptop and then for the next hour it was all techno and it was fierce and fast and breathtaking and dope.



Hearing the music is one thing but watching the guy in action was incredible. He kept on bobbing back and forth, staring at the screen and rubbing his nose in the most fiendish manner. Sometimes his left hand would escape from the keyboard and hed flick it to the time of the music.



On the tech house board that I was told about the Rex Club someone also mentioned that the Parisians are not a very enthusiastic bunch. My night at the Rex Club makes me think that this fellow is wrong but, then again, perhaps the Rex this one Friday night was an anomaly. Most of the club was crowded and on the dancefloor, screaming and dancing. It was cool to see girls in shiny tube tops and stilettos pogoing and guys in polo shirts and dress shoes punching the. And, well, the music had personality and I had a great time.