Hey Music Mag - Issue 4 - February 2019

PARIS
PARTY
VIBES
Photo_Mona by David Volants
The French capital can claim to be the birthplace
of the modern discothèque, but which clubs and
parties are shaking the city today?
Words_Ben Murphy
Paris
was the first city in
the world to have a
nightclub resembling what we know
today. In 1953, Belgian chanteuse
and club manager Régine Zylberberg
invented the modern discothèque,
replacing live bands and the
jukeboxes that were commonplace
then at her Parisian venue Whisky
à Gogo with a pair of turntables,
and decking out the space with
a dancefloor and colorful lights.
She operated the decks herself to
ensure there would be no breaks
in the music, anticipating the nonstop
music of the disco era several
decades early.
Ever since, France, and the capital
in particular, has maintained a strong
bond with dance music, cemented by
innovative French disco artists such
as Cerrone, Sheila & B. Devotion and
Space in the 1970s, and glamorous
Paris clubs in the ’80s and ’90s, such
as Le Bains Douches and Le Queen.
In 2019, though the late ’90s boom
time of the French Touch movement
symbolized by artists Daft Punk,
Étienne de Crécy and Cassius might
be over, the Paris scene remains
effervescent, thanks to a host of
underground clubs that help to
promote its various electronic
music strands.
The most famous of them all is the
long established Rex Club. Located
beneath the venerable Grand Rex
cinema on Boulevard Poissonnière,
it was founded (in its current
incarnation) by DJ and tastemaker
Laurent Garnier in 1992. It has
retained a vehemently subterranean
booking policy through its operation
and is a passionate advocate of
techno in particular. DJs as varied
as Jennifer Cardini, Tijana T,
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