BEST CLUB – NORTHEAST: OUTPUT

With a regular spot in our DJ Mag Top 100 Clubs poll, it’s no wonder Brooklyn’s favorite techno outpost, Output, clinched out a Best Of North America win. As one reader commented, “The sound system is hands down one of the best in the five boroughs.” Having spent more than one night immersed inside its Funktion One laden walls, we are hard-pressed to disagree. The 12,000-square-foot venue is a converted warehouse, with unvarnished concrete and exposed steel beams lending a vibe that suits its regular line-ups – think residents like Horse Meat Disco, Bonobo and Seth Troxler.

There are four separate rooms boasting their own versions of underground grit, from the dark main room, redolent of long-gone-New-York-club-days (before Giuliani’s sanitization of the city’s cultural outposts), to the velvet disco-themed Panther Room (slink along like a wild cat as you dance), the roof deck with million-dollar views of the city skyline (you can never afford it, so may as well party to it), and Halcyon, a speakeasy style bar-slash-record-store. 

Output’s main room is probably as close as you can get to Berghain in America, and recently underwent an overhaul with a brand new DJ booth, expanded floor for more elbow room with significantly less sweat, and upgrades to what was an already out-of-this-world Funktion One system. Their standing policy of “respect, discretion and dancing,” is one that many a club kid seems to have forgotten, but will probably remember upon being dropped into Output’s old school dancefloor vibe. Forget the Hamptons and its predictable bottle service sound – Output promises to keep Brooklyn bumping for the rest of this summer with the likes of Matador, Hito, Visionquest, Kink, Marc Houle, Frank & Tony, and a strict no-photos policy that’s sure to infuriate many an Instagram model while delighting the rest of us.

The other nominees:

Soundcheck (Wachington, DC)
House Of Yes (Brooklyn, NY)
Rumors (Philadelphia, PA)
Bijou (Boston, MA)

WORDS: ERIN SHARONI