A Nashville After-Hours Remembrance

Saturday's Old School Reunion dance party at Third Man Records celebrates both the social and musical roles played by an array of after-hours clubs in Nashville during the late ’90s and early Aughts — and there's more to that story. From a musical perspective, traditional nightclubs stuck to house hits, big room boomers, remixed R&B and Eurobeat. After-hours spots had the freedom to get weirder with it, delving into subgenres that got stranger, or more aggressive, or more euphoric. 

If you wanted harder sounds, like proper breaks and maybe some tweaky acid or aggressive house, Katatonic fit the bill nicely. If you thrilled to the prettier side of trance, or the more feminine twirls of Hi-NRG, then Kiss was your destination. And eXceSs/Orbit was where moving between floors popped you into completely different scenes, where speed garage battled against epic circuit vibes, only for a funky Miami-style bass line from Deep South to come in to settle any scores and keep the people dancing ’til after the sun came up.

In that spirit, here's a sub-genre-spanning collection of vintage tracks to get your juices flowing.