Does anyone remember when the Boston dance scene was fun?

I barely do.

The days of Start, Lush Life, Next, Happy Endings, and Paper (when Paper was actually good) seem to be nothing more than fading memories. What the hell is happening? Every time a night starts up, it’s HUGE, then slowly fizzles out of existence.

Where have all the good club nights gone?

I remember the days of the early 21st century driving from the suburbs to Landsdowne street, paying $5 cover to get into Start, dancing to the Smiths and The Faint until 2 in the morning.

After the Landsdowne dance nights had been replaced with house and top 40. I waited…scrolling through weekly digs and Myspace profiles for months on top of months hoping to find another place to burn the soles off our feet and wear sweat stains as badges of pride for how much we’ve danced that night.

Then the day came…Paper at Harpers Ferry.

We went, we saw, we liked, we went back, (a few times actually).

But each time we went, all we heard were remixes of good songs mixed with Metallica, Salt and Pepa, and Jay-Z; and these were played sometimes TWICE a night.

The one good thing about Paper was that I could spit, and hit a hott girl. They were everywhere. Shitty music brings hotter women. (Why?)

Maybe that’s why we kept going back to Paper. Was it the content of women? Landsdowne St., and for those couple nights at Roxy a while back, dance nights never had the kind of cute girls as Harpers Ferry, the Middle East, and the Middlesex lounge did. But all the cute girls and sexy go go dancers couldn’t bring me back to a place that remixed The Smiths and Salt and Pepa.

Now I drive from the suburbs, to clubs like Great Scott and the Middlesex lounge, still paying $5 (thankfully) to get in, but instead of random good new songs we’ve never heard thrown in to complement the fun beats we know and love; I’m subjected to remixes of two songs perfectly awesome by themselves but mixed together make me walk to the bathroom and shit out my dinner from a few hours prior waiting for a better song.

It’s 2008, in one more day, it will be 2009, and remixes are all the rage. Artists like Kanye West, Edit, and various others are now extremely popular…can we expect more indie hits remixed with mainstream chart toppers? If so what happens to the content of the people at these nights? Who will attend? What kind of crowd will this draw? Will this raise cover? Raise the price of drinks?

All my animosity on remixed songs aside, why does the Boston “scene” fail?

Why can Boston not hold a decent “indie” dance night?

Are the the club owners to blame? Are the DJ’s? Or are we…the frequenters of these nights?

Do the club owners give us shitty nights like Tuesdays instead of Fridays because we buy $2 PBR’s? And only pay $5 covers?

Do the producers of these nights give their DJ friends a chance to spin instead of people who actually know what they’re doing?

What about us? The frequenters. Why do we give certain nights the benefit of the doubt and not others? Is it a transcendence of hipness? Or are we aging and regressing away from hipness?

I can sympathize with owners. The club owners have to look out for their investment. Why give a high profile night like Friday or Saturday to a dance night that draws people who don’t spend money?

I can also sympathize with the party producers. Why pay a professional DJ a lot of money when you can get DJ with less experience for lesser money? After all, the nights don’t make that much money to begin with, taking into account the low cover and drink of choice.

And finally I can also sympathize with the club frequenters. I like many others are quick to judge the dance nights based on the type of music and content of people.

I could say with great certainty that many Americans feel they could do other people’s jobs better. I don’t know how to spin a track, remix a song, or use half the equipment that DJ’s use…but I do know crowd mentality. And I feel this where the Boston DJ’s lack.

Lately I’ve been making the trek down to Providence and New York to see what they have to offer. Every night I have been to in both cities far surpasses anything I have seen come from Boston since the early days on Landsdowne Street.

Clearly I do not speak for the masses, since many people attend and love these nights. But I question whether or not they are attending because they truly love it…or they just want something to do.