Gonzo Report: Bang Bang’s Tokyo subway motif and Chicago house music

The recent storms and floods didn’t deter hundreds of electronica and house music fans — myself included — from bundling up and rendezvousing at downtown’s Bang Bang Japanese restaurant and nightclub on January 14. Electronic lounge music from the second floor — courtesy of resident DJ Jesusdapnk, also known as Jesus Diaz — echoed down a flight of stairs and spilled out onto Market Street, beckoning us inside.

As I strolled upstairs, the bass became more prominent. The stairway doubled as an echo chamber, enclosed as it was by a white, high-gloss tile — decor inspired by a Tokyo subway station. The look made the entrance into a dope photo op: I passed a group of girls wearing beauty pageant sashes and silk dresses, snapping selfies and group shots. “Keep it moving,” said the security guard. The Tōkyō no chikatetsu (Tokyo subway) motif continued at the top of the stairs, where a dot matrix electronic sign displayed hiragana and katakana — Japanese characters and numbers. Another digital display featured the E. Honda cartoon character from the Street Fighter II video game.

By that point, the music was hitting loud and clear. Diaz blended a deep house track with jazzy overtones together with a downtempo song, followed by some of his own cuts. In the foyer, a massive geometric art ensemble surrounded the multi-faceted check-in stand. The walls were decked with octagon sculpts amid a hundred or so painted triangles on matte-black surfaces. Mirror balls of different sizes completed the space-age collection. Up top by the sushi bar’s entrance sat a Japanese rikisha, a human-powered two-wheeled cart designed for people-moving.

“Coming through, excuse me,” yelled a waiter sporting a Hawaiian shirt and bearing two enormous sushi platters. I followed him as he weaved through the crowd in the Lantern Room. He was nimble and swift, and swayed to the deep house music as he moved. He dropped off the platters close to the DJ setup.

Now offstage, Jesus Diaz/DJ Jesusdapnk told me, “From 5-10 pm, it’s a restaurant here at Bang Bang. Then after that, it turns into a club. Every weekend, they’ll bring an international artist to headline the club, and it’s mostly in the realm of electronica — but not the mainstream stuff.” Diaz sipped on a giant can of Sapporo beer and continued, “I dropped a lot of the original songs I produced, kinda loungey and deep [house]. That way, I get the reaction of the people.”

Some attendees laid down their chopsticks and danced by their tables. The dining room was packed, with Japanese lanterns hanging from the ceiling and a long and fully stocked bar. A popular sushi dish here is called the Roll Party, a gigantic platter that costs $150. Table service for spirits involved top-shelf brands like Grey Goose and Belvedere. A more lively group hit the sake bombs: glasses filled with beer into which the drinkers dump shots of saké (rice wine). Then they guzzle the mix as it fizzes.

At around 10 pm, the Bang Bang staff removed the dining tables in the adjacent Garden Room to make room for the discotheque, where another set of DJs played on an elevated stage. To access the Garden Room, the clubgoers and diners passed through a torii, an old-school Japanese gate like you might find at the entrance of a shrine. “Our D.A.S. speaker system provides a crisp and bumping sound,” touted Kayley Griffith, the club spokesperson. “And when it comes to lighting, our pixel flex, intertwined with our greenery, provides a unique experience for our clubgoers.” The “greenery” included plants and flowers hung throughout the high-ceilinged room; lasers beamed amid the vines and leaves.

The main dance floor below was flanked on each side by table service spots for the VIPs. Up top hung a massive five-foot mirror ball. “I remember when this place first opened [in 2013], they had to bring in that mirror ball through the ceiling with a crane,” said DJ Halo Varga, the headliner for the night. The San Marcos-based DJ started spinning house music in 1989 as a grom in Chicago. “I was inspired by Derrick Carter, the late Frankie Knuckles, and Boo Williams,” he said. The music at Bang Bang is predominantly House, often built from altered disco dance songs popularized at 1980s Chicago underground parties. The genre evolved in the 1990s, bringing in samplers and drum machines, and Varga evolved along with it; the result was his signature Chicago House style. “Then I moved to San Diego in 2000, bringing all I learned in from Chicago.” He spins with both CDJs and turntables. “For vinyl, it’s an artform,” he said. “When people see you play records on turntables, they have a different appreciation for the music.”