As we push toward celebrating Long Beach Food Scene: Last Call—a 10-day, 5-event celebration of our city’s rich bar culture and the people who make it happen—we will offer a series of features that highlight everything from our most stellar cocktail programs at restaurants to to the very events occurring (like this one, a partnership between Brian Addison, Good Luck Vinyl Club, The Social List, St. George Gin, and Nosotros)… All in order to lift a glass to a social and economic driver that rarely receives the love its deserves: our bar industry. For more information on Long Beach Last Call, click here.
For those that don’t know the Good Luck Vinyl Club, it’s a pretty straight-forward concept: A hand-selected DJ takes over a customized, hi-fi vinyl booth and begins with, first and foremost, what will be a listening of an specifically chosen artist’s specifically chosen album.
Since its birth back in September, it’s played a variety of artists: Marvin Gaye, MF Doom, Cocteau Twins, The Cure, Sade, and in a kick-off to 2024, a wild Snoop Dogg session. When it came to organizing events for Long Beach Last Call, I knew I wanted to have a queer-centric event that was different—and the only place I thought to look was toward the Good Luck Vinyl Club, hosted monthly at The Social List.
So come Tuesday, Mar. 5, DJ Cocteau Twinks (brilliant fucking name) will spin Madonna’s “Erotica” in its full on vinyl while The Social List churns out Madonna-inspired cocktails, followed by a crawl down Broadway to our favorite queer watering holes.
Hold up—what is Long Beach Last Call?
After the success of my restaurant week last year during August, Long Beach Food Scene Week, bar owners and tenders rightfully asked: “What about a week for us?”
So I decided to oblige and present Long Beach Food Scene: Last Call, a ten-day long celebration of Long Beach’s amazing bar culture, it’s even more amazing workers, and the industry that often goes without recognition as one of our city’s largest economic and social drivers.
Thanks to my collaborators—Scott Lennard of RNDC and Chris Lewis of Nosotros Tequila y Mezcal—we’ve created some 15 events across the ten-day span on Last Call. To say the least, we’ve worked our asses off and we hope you’ll come out and celebrate with us (that is, if we make it to Day 10 alive). This vinyl listening session is but one of 15 across the city during the 10-day celebration.
Okay, grand and all—but why Madonna’s ‘Erotica’ of all her albums?
I know, I know: Les Gays are yelling at me, “Why not ‘Confessions on a Dancefloor’? Or ‘The Immaculate Collection’? Or ‘Like a Prayer’?”
One of the things I respect most about the Good Lucky Vinyl Club, especially when its comes to artists with vast discographies, is that it chooses challenging albums (like it’s choice of Marvin Gaye’s 1976 album “I Want You” over “What’s Going On?” and “Let’s Get It On”).
Madonna’s “Erotica” is such an album and, during a time when sex was feared, the queer community was feared, and female autonomy was feared, she directly addressed these issues all the while creating an absolute mind-fuck of a media blitzstorm surrounding the album’s release in 1992.
I’ll be happily and nerdy discussing this at the event—so come with your library card, bitches.
Some Long Beach Last Call events are free—is this one? No, it is ticketed (but includes a free drink)
This listening session is not a free event and requires a ticket but is basically free: Your ticket scores you a free Madonna-inspired cocktail created by a really awesome collaboration between head bar master Erik Rios-Wentsky and the most lovable queer bartender ever, Devon Jade.
This event takes place on Tuesday, Mar. 5, at The Social List, located at 2105 E. 4th St. A ticket is required and space is limited. Doors open at 6PM.
