ABSTRACT
It’s after 1 a.m. on a February night in 1999, and Allan Garland and I descend the stairs to the bowels of the multilevel nightclub Stardust. We can hear the muted sounds of Chicago-style house music from the other side of its heavy doors as we are confronted by the gatekeeper, a pixyish young woman with two-tone dyed hair and a long vintage coat. Sprayed-on glitter sparkles on her cheeks in the dim light. “It’s $10 [to get in],” she informs us. Allan, a slender black man in his middle twenties, rocks on his heels, dreadlocks bobbing. We had just left the downtown café Third Coast, where Allan, an aspiring club DJ and West Side resident, works. He’s still dressed in his work-mandated white shirt, now untucked and mostly unbuttoned. “Does it matter if I’m industry?” he asks, with a conspiratorial smile.
