America’s party scene is thriving— if you know where to look. (Pssst, it’s not where you think.)
Doomsayers, cynics, and other unbelievers have declared a mass extinction event in nightlife as beloved clubs around the globe continue to shutter. Yet in pockets across America, underground scenes aren’t gasping for air—they’re breathing fire, igniting a renaissance in techno led by dedicated party promoters. While the plug-and-play club nights of yore may be dwindling, community-oriented collectives and DIY parties are replacing them in cities as varied as Buffalo, New York, McAllen, Texas, and Chicago, Illinois. Whether they’re rocking Portland warehouses with twerk-quakes, or flooding techno temples in Queens with sweat-soaked zealots, these five visionaries are defining the scenes in their respective hometowns.
EWASTE photographed by Luke Misclevitz
EWASTE
PORTLAND, OREGON
Instagram: @ewaaste
David Marinos cut his teeth throwing parties while hang- ing out with other Portland crews who threw their own. One spring afternoon in 2023, he stumbled across a vacant warehouse that would become home to his grungy DIY rager, EWASTE. Since then, his party has become the party—all bets are off at his rowdy, seismic event. With six nights thrown sporadically across 2024, Marinos is looking to expand EWASTE in 2025 by taking it to Berlin.
Adnan Qiblawi: How’s the nightlife scene in Portland?
David Marinos: I prioritize throwing parties in the winter because it’s dead and obsolete. Nowadays there are more parties, but they’re not amazing. I’m not gonna lick my ass, but, like, I think you come to my party and it’s go- ing to blow your fucking socks off. You’re gonna have fun. EWASTE has a very diverse crowd. There are freaks and a lot of younger PLUR kids, hardcore kids, and a lot of kids from the rock, punk, and metal scenes. Then you also have a lot of divas pulling up with their girls and a lot of dolls. And usually everyone’s kitted out or they are absolutely dressed to the fucking socks.
AQ: Does EWASTE have its own sound?
DM: EWASTE has always stood for bringing online trash and hard-banging drums and absolutely intense, super-deconstructed sounds. The sound is very high oct- ane, very juicy, and bass-forward. It would be the most atrocious neon green if you could put a color to it.
AQ: Tell me about the venue.
DM: It’s an old warehouse that primarily stored cars in the ’80s and ’90s. People would park there and go to the airport with the metro. Now it’s just an empty parking garage warehouse where we’ve made our own bar and have some back rooms.
AQ: Back rooms?
DM: I’ve seen orgies go down in the back rooms. I’ve seen people sleeping or just cuddling. Anything goes as long as you’re not hurting anybody or being a total asshole. They do their party favors, whatever they want, and return to the dance floor.
AQ: And what’s the energy like on the dance floor?
DM: In July of 2023, we had the legend Total Freedom come play. He absolutely destroyed the whole house. I’ve never seen anyone so masterfully blend Beyoncé with a thunderous trance track and then switch to a Detroit jit track. It was just mind-boggling. It felt like I was in the middle of an earthquake. At least nine people were hanging off scaffolding, just shaking ass. It’s become a thing with EWASTE parties. Now people are always like, “OK, what can we climb on? What can we hang off of? What can we shake ass off of?”
this picture and above: DANIEL LEYVA, AKA WORD OF COMMAND,
Photographers, from top: ZACH HILTY/BFA.COM AND ANDREW BOYLE
FIST: FUN IS STILL TRANSGRESSIVE
QUEENS, NEW YORK
Instagram: @funisstilltransgressive
FIST is a New York institution. The pioneering techno party was first held in 2016 at Mercury Lounge, a small local music venue in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. In 2019, after a nomadic stint shuffling between venues for a few years, FIST finally took root with a residency at Basement, the techno dungeon in Queens, where cam- eras are prohibited. In the nightclub’s winding cobble- stone halls, you’ll find technoheads hooking up in the shadowy catacombs in between stomping in the dance floors’ strobe lights.
The Cuban-American techno kingpin Daniel Leyva, aka DJ Word of Command, FIST’s founder and resident co-DJ, is the wizard behind the curtain. Leyva wields frenetic blends and propulsive techno to inject his dance floor with radical fun while elevating othered communi- ties in the techno scene through prime guest-DJ bookings.
Adnan Qiblawi: Tell me about FIST’s beginnings.
Daniel Leyva: In 2016 there wasn’t much of a queer techno scene in the city. There was only Unter. Every- thing else was house music or tech house. This was right around the time of the shooting at Pulse in Orlando. I felt it was very important to have a gay techno party in NYC. I had the idea to make the small party I threw at Mercury Lounge into something bigger and FIST was born. It was different from the other parties I was attend- ing. First of all, I was one of the only gay POC throwing a techno party. I was inspired by what was happening in Europe, like Herrensauna in Berlin. This was at the end of [the revolutionary New York warehouse party] GHE20G0TH1K, when I was really into club music, house music, and rap. While that was nice, I missed a techno scene and wanted to be at the forefront.
AQ: What else makes FIST stand out from the other parties?
DL: FIST’s primary focus is music. I forget to say that sometimes because I take it for granted. Music is at the genesis of everything I do. It’s like magic to me and it’s the driving force of FIST. There’s also so much good talent in New York and there are so many non-white people we can book who are pushing music forward in the right way. Booking the dolls and POC is fundamen- tal to FIST. It has always been important to me to book people of different backgrounds.
AQ: And how does FIST fit into the scene today?
DL: I feel like we’re the grandfathers to the baby ravers. The whole techno-partying culture has become so differ- ent since 2016. People weren’t going out the way they are now. If they were, they would go to warehouse raves. I love a good mix of dolls and girls and guys—like hot guys and stinky, weird trolls. I also love club kids and other people who dress up. I love seeing the weirdos. The whole point of New York partying is meeting all these different people.
BUDDY BUDDY photographed by FERNANDO MULLER
BUDDY BUDDY
BUFFALO, NEW YORK
Instagram: @buddybuddy.fun
Buffalo, New York, is known as “the city of good neigh- bors” for a reason. Sure, it may be frigid in the winter, but there is always the promise of a warm welcome.
Brandon Davis and Patrick Finan maintain that promise at Buddy Buddy, their mostly house—sometimes tech- no—dance parties hosted every three months. The par- ty attracts a regular crowd of 400 locals. The duo first began throwing their party in 2018 as a response to an unfriendliness they detected in the city’s gay scene. Eager for a reliable space where their friends could experience joy, catharsis, and connection, Davis and Finan decided to forge one for themselves.
Adnan Qiblawi: How did it all start with Buddy Buddy?
Brandon Davis: I remember we had Keenan Orr and Tom DeBlase play our first event. There was a pretty decent underground scene in Buffalo at the time, but there wasn’t anything specifically queer. We experi- enced such community and kindness when we partied in cities like NYC, but there was still a cattiness to Buf- falo’s gay scene. So we were inspired to bring that kind of kindness here. That’s where the name came from. It implies kindness with a bit of flirtation.
AQ: What’s the vibe? Who’s attending?
BD: People come from Buffalo, Rochester, and Pitts- burgh. The three small cities come together to make a larger scene. And the girls move between the cities very regularly. I would say it’s 100 percent queer, leaning gay. As we’ve moved into different spaces we’ve seen more femme and queer folks showing up. We predominant- ly have house music. I’ve always liked to bring in a lit- tle more techno or a faster, harder DJ in the wintertime because we have a lot of feelings to get out in the win- ter when we’re pent up.
Patrick Finan: What I love about the crowd at Buddy Buddy is there’s a real sense of community. People bring 150 percent and they leave it on the dance floor. Buffa- lo is a long life in a small town. It’s not like bigger cit- ies, where you can say, “I’m never gonna deal with you again.” So, being in a small community within a small town, you will run into those people. That pushes folks to let stuff be water under the bridge—and to be friendly.
AQ: Where do you host your parties?
PF: There’s this playground of grain silos along the Buffalo River, and someone has purchased them and created this exciting art space over there. It’s called Silo City. When throwing these parties we’re building them from the ground up in these raw spaces with only a bar. We bring in the door team, carry the coat racks from our attics, and set up coat checks.
AQ: What are some of the most memorable sets from Buddy Buddy?
PF: The last party before the pandemic shut everything down in February 2020. Rachel Noon was playing in this tiny, hot, sweaty club. She was playing such insane, deep-space techno. The hazers were going way too hard and they triggered the fire alarm. Suddenly the fire department came in and there were firemen everywhere. All of the boys on the dance floor went crazy. She nev- er stopped playing.
DJ Ultrathem playing Touching Infinte photographed by CAMERAFINO
TOUCHING INFINITE
RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS
Instagram: @touchinginfinite
In Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, Derek Joseph Fuentes is cultivating a grassroots underground scene through his genre-defying monthly party, Touching Infinite. Since launching in November 2021, the nomadic event has been held at venues like Cine El Rey, a historic 1940s movie theater in McAllen, Texas, with a massive sound system. Fuentes, promoter and resident DJ, books lineups of musicians spanning techno, indie rock, and post-punk, and Touching Infinite regularly draws crowds of sever- al hundred people since it’s the only party in the area.
Adnan Qiblawi: What inspired you to start Touching Infinite?
Derek Joseph Fuentes: I live in the RGV, which is a bunch of cities along the U.S.-Mexico border. When I moved back here after living in Austin for a while, there was nothing cool happening. It was just a bunch of Fresa tech-house parties—snobby, wealthy Mexicans booking the weirdest straight white DJs with fake followers on Instagram. At first I just wanted to play good music on a loud sound system. I didn’t know I was gonna be able to afford to fly out my dream artists.
AQ: Tell me about the music programming.
DJF: I aim to be genreless. I’m just booking fellow music nerds that I find on NTS Radio. I’ve booked Nabihah Iqbal, an indie rock artist who was really sick. Also Abyss X, who released her psych-rock album Freedom Doll in 2023. I want shows where I can have a band playing one hour and then a DJ tearing shit up the next hour. The party is predominantly dance music. I’m booking artists that no one’s ever heard of—people just know that it will be good and they trust my cura- tion. Only a handful of people at every show have even heard of the artists I’m bringing.
AQ: What’s the scene like at your parties?
DJF: Ages range from 18 to mid-forties, but primarily mid-twenties. I’m picky with sound, so I’ll always find a spot that has a really powerful sound system. That’s all I care about at the end of the day. I want state-of- the-art lighting because some of these clubs are giving karaoke bar with their weird lasers. Sometimes I throw renegade parties, but it’s hard to get away with them. I have a couple of haters who try to find the rave’s address sotheycancallthecopsonus.Mygoalistoopenupa venue that I can build from scratch, to have more con- trol over the atmosphere. I’m definitely gonna use some of my crypto profits to do that.
AQ: So Touching Infinite has been a financial success.
DJF: I never got into this to pay my bills. Once I started seeing the money coming in I wanted to do my part and invest some into fundraisers. We’ve worked with Fron- tera Fund, which helps fund out-of-state abortions, since the laws are super-fucked here in Texas. Last year we also raised over $3,000 for food distribution in Gaza. They’re community events, not just parties.
FLORES NEGRAS DJs a MICTLAN Productions party, photographed by NOE PADILLA
MICTLĀN PRODUCTIONS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Instagram: @mictlan_productions
Flores Negras is a renaissance woman: a wellness prac- titioner by day, the banshee vocalist of shoegaze doom rock band Rosaries by night, and the visionary behind MICTLAN Productions, a party collective at the fore- front of Chicago’s underground scene. Each MICTLAN rave emerges with a new identity, blending mesmer- ic techno with Latin rhythms in clandestine industri- al spaces. In 2024, ravers donned superhero costumes for Chemical X, a Powerpuff Girls fantasy, while sum- mer’s cicada emergence inspired Emergence, a Godzilla vs. Mothra throwdown. Flores’s parties are autonomous zones, where club kid culture springs back to life in the shadows of industrial Chicago.
Adnan Qiblawi: How did MICTLĀN get started?
Flores Negras: I started throwing parties as Flores Negras in 2017 that were primarily fundraisers—punk DIY-type shows. After picking up DJing during the isolation of the pandemic, I threw my party, Evil Lair, in 2021. It was based on villains because my partner would always say that, when I was playing music, it was like I was playing for villains. I love that vibe. I encouraged people to dress up as their favorite villain, even if it was a made-up villain. We decorated the whole space with vines and I dressed up as Poison Ivy from Batman. She’s just like, “Free the Earth, fuck men.”
AQ: What drives you to throw these parties?
FN: I’m just somebody from Chicago who has this in- tense passion for club kid culture and is trying to bring it back. I feel like people need to escape reality and be whatever they want.
AQ: Tell me about the venue and the experience.
FN: My main place right now is a two-room warehouse. I’m not going to disclose the location, but it’s by train tracks. We dress it up a different way every time. So it’s a new world, basically. People tell me that time goes by and they walk outside and are like, “Oh my God, it’s 9 in the morning.”
AQ: What do your parties sound like?
FN: When I DJ, I like to sound sexy, heavy, almost hyp- notizing. I like it when there are words you can’t make out and it sounds like distorted vocals of some sort. If the party is right, I could drop some cumbia vibes with the techno vibes. Those are my favorite parties because those people understand rhythm. At last year’s Under- world, the Aztec new year party in March, we had Devil Kitty play. She does techno with corridos, which is clas- sical Mexican music.
AQ: Who makes up your community?
FN: Most of my parties are definitely more queer and people of color. I do aim to have most of my vendors be trans, undocumented, or BIPOC. It’s a way to employ people who don’t usually get to have work.
AQ: What has been one of MICTLĀN’s highlights?
FN: Devils Night was so good. I encouraged people to dress either as a demon or something Catholic, like a priest. I bought a bunch of Bibles and put them on the bar, and I had a sign that flashed “repent.” That was right next to the Spank cage. For Underworld, we had papier-mâché dogs at the entrance and this enormous altar with flowers and fruit. I put fruit every- where because people are raving, and I’m like, just eat some fruit.
EWASTE photographed by Luke Misclevitz
Text ADNAN QIBLAWI
Instagram: @dqibb
Taken from 10 Magazine USA Issue 04 – MUSIC, TALENT, CREATIVE – on newsstands now. Order your copy here.
