Feeding the Raccoons: Physical Therapy B2B CCL at Nowadays Indoors
On Physical Therapy's last night of Nowadays residency, B2B CCL
Yesterday evening, after attending a birthday at a bar in Bed Stuy, we made the long trek to Ridgewood for my first Friday club night in a long time. This was the first of too many parties on the docket for the weekend, but I was determined to make it to Nowadays come hell or high water because I simply could not miss yet another opportunity to see CCL, who was playing back-to-back with Physical Therapy for the final night of his six-year residency.
I’d previously had the pleasure of locking in with Physical Therapy—most notably at his Saturday closing set during the inaugural In The Open. But despite having tried on five separate occasions in four different cities across three countries, I had never made it to the dance floor for one of CCL’s legendarily playful yet heady sets.
When we arrived around midnight, the club was far from full, but the fog hung heavy, and melodic disco deep cuts were chugging along at a steady pace. The couple dozen people already on the floor seemed to be having a good and chill time nodding and grooving along, though not quite dancing yet. The DJs matched their vibe behind the decks, taking turns doing the dirty work of keeping this party going until the rest of the crowd showed up with the energy. It was alleged to be a sold-out show, which was hard to imagine given how sparsely attended these Friday night parties are reputed to be. When I told my friend earlier in the day that I was going, he went as far as to imply that I might be making a mistake. “It’s always a bunch of twenty-year-olds who found out about it on TikTok.” Noted.
I greeted a couple of my friends who had arrived before me and noted that CCL was hanging back as Physical Therapy leaned in towards the CDJs. Excusing myself briefly, I took advantage of the moment to approach the booth. “Can I tell you a story?” I asked. To which they responded affirmatively.
“Do you remember at Primavera Sound in 2022, when the Boiler Room stage collapsed the night before you and Physical Therapy were supposed to play?” I asked again.
Their eyes lit up with recognition as they responded “Of course!”
“Well, that was the first time I tried to see you play. Since then, I’ve bought and had to give away tickets to your last several appearances in New York. I went to your Sunday R4R club night at Tresor the last time I was in Berlin but had to leave because my friend and I were simply too tired from being at Berghain two nights prior, and, just two weekends ago, missed almost your entire set at Sustain because we were chilling too hard in the hammocks at camp. But now I’ve finally made it, so thank you for listening.” At that, they cupped their hands to their face to cover a chuckle as their bleached blonde hair and gray eyes shimmered with laughter inaudible over the sound of music.
“Well I’m glad you finally made it!” they said as I performed a little prayer hands bow before waving and backing away towards my friends.
I looked around for the people who I came with and upon seeing none of them, I made moves towards the smoking patio. They were there, waiting for me as I stepped into the balmy, Indian summer night. “Where’s M?” I asked as I joined them on the bench. M was a close high school friend of Physical Therapy’s, now well into one of those successful careers requiring a postgraduate degree from a fancy school. We’d told him to ask for a spot on the list, but, having not come to a show in so long, he was too bashful to do so. But this was the last hurrah at Nowies and he’d come prepared, wearing his faded Allergy Season hoodie (Physical Therapy’s record label)—the surest sign of a longtime fan. Even though he’d been told the event was sold out, they eventually let him pay money to enter the still mostly empty club. Go figure.
Not a minute later, he appeared outside as well, with Physical Therapy in tow. As they shared smokes while catching up on the opposite side of the patio, their body language indicated that whatever reservations M had had about the state of their relationship were completely unfounded. Old friends are real friends—a fact that straight men in particular tend to forget between hangs.
Cigarettes done, Physical Therapy returned to his post and M rejoined the rest of the group as S appeared through the door, followed by another friend I had forgotten was coming, as yet another friend pulled up beneath us on his bicycle. An unexpected reunion! As we gathered our group and established the context of where we’d all been and were planning on going for the rest of the evening, the music started heating up a bit. “It was empty when I was dancing in there,” informed S, “but just as I was leaving, there was a rush of 20-somethings coming onto the dance floor so it’s probably pretty good by now…” That was all we needed to hear.
Back inside, the vibe had shifted for the better. The floor was not quite packed, but there were dancers from wall to wall in both directions and the music had progressed to some kind of funky, groovy, melodic tech house-type thing. (Honestly, that might not be an accurate descriptor as I am terrible with genres, but the important part is that the party was now bumping.) We shuffled our way through many gaggles of 20-year-olds to our perch at the front left and settled into my preferred spot, between the speaker and the lighting control panel.
As we started dancing, my wife turned to me and asked if M was wearing earplugs. I turned to see him dancing directly in front of the speaker, with no earplugs in sight. I asked if he had any and he said no, so I told him where to find them in the cubby at the far right end of the bar. He returned a minute later and flashed a thumbs up, ears aglow in safety orange. Now we could get to work.
I hand M a bottle of poppers, partly just to see how he would react. I was chuffed that he knew exactly what to do and made no attempts at drinking them. It was then that I knew that he could hang. The music continued to crest as the selections became closer and closer to what we now refer to as a “return to the Grove,” in reference to the ascendant outdoor stage at Sustain Release. Think acid house and techno with a hard groove, unexpected melodies, and a small, but mighty dose of pop edits. After a while, B turns to me and says, “They’re flying the spaceship, but doing so carefully” and I agree with him. We were clearly taking off, but it wasn’t clear if they were really planning to take us all the way out of the atmosphere. Until they did.
There’s a secret third state between clearing out the sludge and riding high on euphoria that is only accessible during certain types of sets. Most house and techno music is produced at about 127 BPM give or take 3 beats. Whereas Djrum finds interest in speeding things up into DnB territory (about 170 BPM), I find that many of my favorite DJs go the opposite direction, slowing it down just a little bit to about 115-120 BPM. This gives the music an ineffably psychedelic edge that feels especially trippy when you’re hearing songs you know and love. CCL and Physical Therapy are too versatile to be typecast, but tonight, this was their bag.
In this zone, when you close your eyes and let the sound overtake you, you can enter what I sometimes refer to as the mind palace. A series of ever-expanding hallways and rooms covered in vaguely Aztec/Incan patterns that multiply with each step you take. It's kind of like playing Temple Run, but not a total waste of time. When running through the mind palace, one is neither elated—as you might be while peaking during a house music set, nor grinding through it—as with a techno set. Instead, you’re exploring the astral plane with no agenda and no care in the world. It’s a pretty great place to be on any given night and it was the perfect place for this particular night.
My wife and I had made a pact with B and A that we would try to be in bed by 4 AM, which at this point, felt like an impossibility given how much fun we were having. But every thought about that eventual future was taking me out of the present and causing me to miss what was happening in front of me, which was the whole reason for being here. Looking down at my watch, it was 2:18 AM. Still plenty of time to shut the fuck up and just enjoy the moment. And so I did.
The person running the lights was the same person doing them for Identified Patient and Djrum. They sensed that this party needed very little in terms of visual effects to keep it going. Just a few solid blue or purple color fills here and there, keep the fog at a reasonable level, and lay off the strobes. Utmost restraint. It was truly perfect and I told them as much—a compliment accepted with grace.
As a result of the lighting choices, the most consistent source of illumination throughout the night was the halogen lamp shining on the mixer for the DJs while casting an angelic glow upon their faces—like the suitcase in Pulp Fiction. As I turned to face the room, I saw a sea of dark faces bobbing expressively, eating up what was being served as if we were a horde of raccoons visiting the porch of that one guy in the neighborhood whom everyone knows is always good for a scoop of kibbles around this time of night.
For the next hour, we were fully locked in. Leaving only for bathroom breaks and the occasional drink of water. Not everyone gets to be on the spaceship so you have to make the most of these moments when they happen. As 2 AM became 3 AM, the music swelled with confidence as they dropped hit after hit of songs I’d heard many times before but never bothered looking up the names of. By the time we peaked at around 3:20, I was ready to go until the end, but the opportune transition to a perfect dub edit of Sister Nancy’s downtempo reggae classic “Bam Bam” allowed us to assess the state of our bodies and accept that we would be better off going to bed. After all, there was a long weekend ahead of us.
After saying our goodbyes to all, we hopped in a car with B and A and headed back north towards Bed Stuy. By the time we got into bed and checked my watch, it was 4:10 AM. Close enough.