The girlfriend and I went to two parties last weekend, and they couldn’t have been more different. On Friday night, we danced to Claptone’s house music set at Exchange LA, a storied DTLA venue packed tight with some 1,500 decidedly anti-sober revelers. This was a big, commercial event at one of LA’s largest clubs. I have no idea of the budget, but I’m guessing it was in the low six figures, and profitable, because that places is a machine. Very not Despacio in almost every way, including the fact that’s (likely) profitable, hah!
The next night, we attended the event we were most excited about: Burnin’ Chancla 003, a Despacio-inspired underground event held at an undisclosed location — undisclosed because not everything was being done strictly by the books, and smart organizers don’t put addresses online for LA’s party poopin’ po-po to pop in on.
The name of the event is worth explaining. Andres Montiel, who cofounded the event with his partner in partying and roommate Chris Pavlov explains, “We were doing research about the history of the disco movement in LA. We found an article that talked about how the disco movement was embraced by the Latinx community in East LA, and in this article there was an interview of a woman who was describing how epic their nights out were. She said that they would go out and dance so hard that they’d be burning chancla all night long. When we read that, we literally paused, ‘cause the visual of someone dancing so hard that they’re melting their shoes — I mean c’mon!”
The number suffix of 003 refers to the fact that this was the third in the series, the first two events being smaller-scale private house parties (in 2023) the duo hosted in their LA home between Despacio #17 (Coachella 2023) and Despacio #18 (iiipoints Miami 2023). They’d been fired up by their experience of Despacio at Coachella and began to dream of how they might build something like it on a budget.
And so a couple weeks ago, Andres shared a note to Reddit promoting the event, giving credit to Despacio, the pop-up club experience from James Murphy and brothers Stephen and David Dewaele (aka 2manydjs aka Soulwax). He wrote, “Although we don’t have a fraction of the budget that [Despacio has], we are working super hard to build the spirit and energy that they introduced me to! We bought a sound system (Altec 19s for you audio nerds), built a mini portable lighting rig, will be hanging a disco ball, and are working hard on an all vinyl set hoping to capture that Despacio spirit as best we can.”
I knew those claims of being inspired by Despacio to be true because I saw Andres and Chris experience their religious conversion on the floor of Despacio during the first weekend of Coachella 2023. That weekend, I spent a full 18 hours inside Despacio deliriously dancing and trying to meet everyone who looked like they were having a good time. It was my quest, and these two beautiful humans were clearly having a great time.
And not only were they having a great time, they were taking notes. Chris and Andres learned from Despacio how powerful a thoughtfully designed dance floor could be. Just a month after Coachella, they threw Burnin’ Chancla 001, then four months later they threw Burnin’ Chancla 002, but still their thirst wasn’t quenched, so they dug deep into their savings to attend Despacio at iiipoints Miami in October 2023. This is the Despacio where Andres boldly handed to the DJs a song he’d produced and pressed to vinyl and — miraculously — the DJs actually played it! It’s an amazing story, but it’s one that’ll get a more fulsome telling here in the future; for now I’m just going to focus on Burnin’ Chancla 003.
So now that you’ve heard the backstory, you’re probably impatient to know how Burnin’ Chancla 003 went — your burnin’ pregunta is likely, “did they nail it?”
I’m happy to report that yes, they understood the assignment.
Embedded in this post are a couple of short clips from the event to give you a feel for it. The loft space they chose for the event looks like the sort of place where people get their skin tatted up. In fact, that’s exactly what it is by day. Its wooden floors and rafters were forgiving on dancer’s feet, and the crew stretched their tight budget with tasteful decorations: fabric to create a sense of privacy and intimacy for the dance floor, and lights to hit the slowly-rotating disco ball and wash the ceiling with color.
Attending this event (and the highly commercial Claptone event on the prior night, and many other events over the last two years post-pandemic) helped bring into focus for me the truths of Despacio. Sometimes you see a thing best when you look at its reflections and ripples, and these Despacio-inspired events show the shape of Despacio in reflection.
If I were summarizing what Despacio does particularly well, and using it as a scorecard by which “Baby Despacios” could be measured, I’d use the following list of must-haves that in my opinion define Despacio:
🪩 dancefloor uber alles — every design element and track played must elevate the dance 🫣 hide the DJs — if dancers face the DJ and not each other, you’ve failed the dance floor ⛏️dig for gems — crate dig for music that moves bodies and isn’t too played out 🔊 play it hi-fi loud — loudness alone isn’t enough, it’s got to sound “relaxed at volume” 🪩 use light, strategically — womblike darkness nurtures dancefloors; use light sparingly 🎭 tell a story — play long sets with dramatic arcs, with highs and lows, climaxes and recoveries
Despacio’s budget is probably roughly $300,000 per event, with the most recent government-sponsored Despacio in Belgium costing multiples of that. So it wouldn’t be fair to compare Burnin’ Chancla, with a budget of maybe $5,000 (not including equipment). It’d be totally unfair, and yet I’m going to do it anyway.
In short, they nailed it! All of the scorecard items above were present at Burnin’ Chancla, just in less polished forms.
Let’s talk about the tracks played — Burnin’ Chancla was an eclectic mix of new and old, with every tune selected for, in the words of the team, its ability to “get the body moving.” Here are some of the tracks played by Cole Thompson:
- Too Many Games – Stacy Latisaw
- Magnetism – Eugene Recorder
- Sandy Riviera ft. Haze – Changes
- Pure Pleasure Seeker (Murk Deep South Remix) – Moloko
- Planets of Life – The Whispers (Closer)
And here are some of the tracks played in the second half the night, by Andres and Chris:
- Like Sugar – Chaka Khan
- Uriah – Waffles (Despacio Classic)
- Protection from Evil – Ibibio Sound Machine
- Get Innocuous – LCD Soundsystem
- Let it all Blow – Dazz Band
- Another One Bites the Dust – Queen
- Nightlife Unlimited – Peaches & Prunes (Ron Hardy Edit)
- Pete Hellers Big Love – Big Love
- Opposite People – Fela Kuti
- I Just Wanna Dance – SAULT
- Do the Do – Bobby Rush
Cole Thompson’s perfectly mixed set was the star of the night, for me. His mixes were tight, his track selection was on point, and he kept the floor packed with a smooth and continuous vibe. Under his spell, the wooden floors occasionally bounced so much that the needle skipped across the records as he played them. (Chris and Andres at one point asked me to stand on a particular spot and dance without bouncing my weight, to keep the needle from skipping. I did my best to hold that spot, but didn’t always succeed in not bouncing — sorry, guys! — sometimes the music makes you do things you can’t resist.)
The second half of the night was a little more uneven in terms of mixing. I’ll never forgive the DJs for cutting “Another One Bites the Dust” off early, mid chorus, while the dance floor is singing along. The ghost of Freddy is gonna reach up out of his grave and smack the DJs if they do that again, I just know it.
On two occasions, the records played lacked loudness and definition, resulting in an uneven volume that felt too quiet. A quick tweak of the EQ levels would have fixed these quiet records. The speakers sounded brilliant when great records were spinning, so it wasn’t the sound system that fell down in these moments.
But these rare rough edges gave the night an authenticity that can’t be denied — this kind of sound doesn’t happen with quantized digital tracks mastered for loudness played through CDJs. There was a real human feel to the mix, and of course what matters most is whether the dance floor responded, which it very much did.
Speaking of the system, here’s what they were running for Burnin’ Chancla 003:
- Mixer: Xone 43
- Turntables: Technics 1210 MK2 (times two)
- Needles: Ortofon Concorde Mix
- Amp: Yamaha M4
- Speakers: Altec Model 19s (with custom risers to get the high-frequency horns about 8 feet high)
Time to wrap this up. Bottom line:
- Should you attend Burnin’ Chancla 004? And will I? Yes. And Yes. See you there?
- Is this an important addition to LA’s underground dance scene? Yes.
- Is this crew going to be one to watch in 2024 and 2025? Yes. Subscribe to their RA page, follow the Insta, and dust off your dancin’ chanclas the next time this show comes to town. Or don’t, and wallow in regret and fomo for at least a week after.
Credit to the crew + Andres and Chris:
