Earlier in the night at Underground, I hopped about the dancefloor with my brother and Annie, Dave and Drew to "Charmless Man," a Blur classic that you don't hear too often at the clubs these days. It felt very Old School.
Old School is in a constant state of flux. When I started clubbing in the mid-1990s, Old School meant that you went to Scream or Marilyn's or even Helter Skelter when it was in Little Tokyo. Now my friends and I are considered Old School as most of us went to Helter Skelter (although this was when it was at The Probe, which was the autumn of the club's life), Stigmata, Perversion (when The Ruby was still known as Diamond Club) and even Coven 13, Cafe Bleu and Shout!, which came after the first three clubs I mentioned. We were at Bang! on opening night and were at Beat It when the club was struggling to find a crowd.
My friend Sean asked where the crowd went. The sad thing is, I can name several people from our crowd who aren't even in the state anymore. Paul the ex-GGBW moved to Texas with Kris, his wife, who was also part of our smoking patio crew. ("Denton!" said Sean. Yeah, I think all of us had the same reaction.) Club friends-turned-roommates Jamie and Jen headed off for Nashville. Minidress Melissa is in Denver. Erika made a few-year pit stop in San Diego before heading out to Arizona. We miss our friends.
Earlier in the conversation, our friend Eric said that people want us to make the distinction between club friends and real world friends. We agreed that there really isn't one. Just because we might generally see certain people in one particular setting doesn't mean that the relationship is more shallow. I thought about this car accident I had five years ago. It was a nasty car accident, leaving me to look like a still-ripening plum. Plus, it rendered me carless, which is actually worse for an LA native than looking ugly. In the six months that it took for me to settle the insurance claim and get a new set of wheels, Paul the ex-GGBW and Tim took me everywhere. On one night, Paul was running late, so Tim picked me up and took me to Beat It, even though he couldn't even stay at the club. That's what friends do, even if the only reason that the friends came together is because of a certain club.
These songs are for my "club friends."

Blur "Popscene" (Live at Peel Acres)

Blur "M.O.R." (Live at Peel Acres)

Back when my friends and I actually weren't Old School, Blur stood side-by-side with Pulp as the two bands that would be played no fewer than four times a piece during the span of the night. Can you believe that there was a time when you could dance to Blur songs that weren't "Girls and Boys" or "Song 2?" Yeah, I know, it's difficult to imagine now, but "Popscene" and "M.O.R." were quite the hits at one point.
These are live versions taken from the CD Bustin' + Dronin'. I'd tell you about the recordings, but the liner notes are written in Japanese.
This CD was a limited edition release in 1998. Disc One features remixes from the likes of William Orbit, Moby and other top producers of the late-1990s. Disc Two is live. I randomly came across it at Second Spin in Sherman Oaks sometime around 2000 and couldn't resist the urge to add it to my collection. Used copies are available on Amazon and the prices are reasonable.