Issue #02/57, January 28 - February 10, 1999  

There's no avoiding starting off my first ever eXile club review without mentioning Johnny "The Chenster" Chen. It'll be a hard act to follow, since he made quite a name for himself here. A lot of what he wrote was b.s., but you probably already knew that. I'm not good at b.s.-ing like him, and I'm definitely not Mr. Swinger. I asked them not to publish my photo or use this headline, but as you can see, they're not the listening types. Anyway, I'm just filling in because Chen had to flee Russia earlier than he'd thought (drug debts, pregnant Russian girlfriend) and the eXile hasn't found a permanent replacement. If you are interested, the eXile is looking for a regular club reviewer. all the offices or send an email to exile.editor@matrix.ru.

Let's start off with Diamond, a rocker club that's been around for a good year or so. I'd seen their flyers for metal and punk shows sometimes when I'd go to DK Gorbunova's rynok to buy pirate CDs. The crowd last week reminded me a lot of what this newspaper calls "dirtheads." The guys had long, unwashed hair, bad skin and cheap leather jackets with skulls and "Iron Maiden" etched on the back, while the chicks were uniformly, er, big-boned, and stuffed into cheap jeans so tight you thought they'd disfigure themselves. Like all rocker clubs, the boy:girl ratio was 10:1.

Diamond has a standard rocker club layout: bar on one side, music on the other. What was most impressive though was how much it could have been any second-rate rocker club in Austin. Baltika beers were 15 rubles a pop, and the bartender-ess was one of the cutest things I've seen. Okay, now I'm starting to sound like the Chenster here. The point is, Diamond is one of the few good, authentic rocker places in Moscow (maybe U-Too too), and it's cheap.

Let's giddyup on to the next club, Sirius, a brand new joint on Strastnoi Bulvar, just down from Pushkin Square. On opening night last Thursday, Sirius was jam-packed with more krutiye lyudi-flatheads and molls-than anything I've seen since way back in 1993, when I accidentally wound up in the Karusel club. Sirius has the distinction of being run by one of the same Swedes who helped make Monte Carlo that happening high-class 'ho house that it is.

First, you enter a small gun-check foyer where about five security guards in suits make sure that you're not packin any heat. While Charleton Heston would surely object, seasoned Muscovites appreciate this service. Anyway, you pay your twenty-five bucks at the door, and enter a very high-class nightclub, well-furnished, dark, with little planetarium lights built into the blacklit stucco walls. The cocktail waitresses wear tiny skirts with slits up the sides, making them more like muff flaps than anything else, and they keep their debit cards stuffed into their cleavages. I think you're beginning to understand what's Sirius is serious about here.

If you still don't get it, then go into the "Monica Lewinsky Cigar Room"--I swear to God that's what it's called. It's basically a VIP/striptease room. For all the electricity in the air in the Monica Lewinsky Cigar Room, I didn't notice any cigars, and the strip show was pretty tame. In fact, the waitresses were far sexier than the strippers.

Sirius seems to be angling more for the Not-So-New Russian crowd, which is probably a smart bet. Heads will be measurably flat. Since most eXholes have already bailed on Russia, and since the Russian middle class became extinct last August, the only people left with cash are bandity.

Well, that's about it for this review. Sorry I don't have anything clever to say about girls I bagged and stuff. Actually, my girlfriend would kill me if I even dared. My advice is, if you're rich and horny, go to Sirius; if you're tired of disco techno stuff and you long for your high school dirthead days, then definitely put Diamond on your list. Bye-bye, y'all.