A warehouse party in Bushwick. It’s an expression that signifies, even in the years after the once-blank, once-warehouses of the greater empire of eastern williamsburg have slowly turned into office buildings, condos, co-working spaces and the occasional Michelin bib gourmand. One imagines it must have signified as much to James Thomas Smith, the popular, well-connected electronic musician who records as Jamie xx, who decided to expand a series of London club nights to Bushwick, before hittingdowntown LA. “Guests at the London dates included Charlil XCX and George Daniel, Romy, Daphni, Jockstrap, Axel Boman, and Two Shell,” some blog reported about this. As might be expected, tickets sold out within seconds.
Locations were not revealed ahead of time and turned out to be an enormous warehouse, hidden behind a gate and that used to contain an Australian cafe called Carthage Must Be Destroyed. According to the internet, this was a phrase that an ancient Roman politician named Cato the Elder used to like to say, but in Latin, not English. The place was all pink and had some kind of rule about not photographing most of it. Somehow, they had kept some version of idea going until last year, when their instagram page announced: “Carthage Must Be Destroyed was a beautiful dream of a place, thank you for almost 7 years, and for all the people who ventured down a strange driveway to find us.” It posted once more, last month, to mark the death of the actor Donald Sutherland. Now, all trace of it was gone and overpriced cocktails were now being sold instead from booths outside, while the latest generation of lite-techno heads congregated politely, without the benefit of indoor plumbing. The “heaven that fulfills all of your Pinterest fantasies” was now covered in darkness, lit only by occasional strobe lights and a bleak, glaring red dot.
