BlackBook

Wednesday night, André Balazs accepted a small green KidRobot monster. There's nothing quite like an awards ceremony to inject a little energy into nightlife, and the gracious Balazs excitedly accepting on behalf of his Standard Hotel promised energy is on the upswing. Just being in the same room as nightlifers like Six Six Sick and Harley & Cassie invigorated my addiction to the night, and I'm not the only one.

Everyone knows that behind any great party lies a good DJ, so under that truism, last night's Resident Remix party presented by Stoli at The Bowery Electric was great, six times over. In partnership with Stoli, we wrangled six of New York's best resident DJs (two of which were duos) under one roof for a night that had something for everybody. To celebrate the BlackBook Resident Remix, Nick Cohen from Southside, Frano V. and Brion from Baddies, Lindsay Luv from the Soho Grand, Blair and Reed Van Nort from Home Sweet Home, Jesse Marco from Avenue, and home turf girl Gina Bon Jersey from The Bowery Electric, played their diverse jams while party-goers sipped on the DJs specialty cocktails.

Blair and Reed Van Nort are two DJs that know music—not because they have encyclopedic vinyl collections, or because they spend their waking hours scouring music blogs for the latest tracks. They know music because they play it. The brothers started their Solid Gold Saturday night parties at the Lower East Side drinking den Home Sweet Home as a way to promote their rock act The Young Lords. After a successful run playing in venues around New York, the five-piece has since disbanded, but their weekend parties live on. They’ve recently gone back to the studio with their new outfit called The Rassle, and even though it’s got them working overtime, their weekly rager shows no signs of dying down.

An unassuming tourist type at an unassuming football bar tells me this: "New York restaurants are crazy! There's a club in every basement!" I nod my head. He means RdV, the bass-thumping club below Bagatelle. "No," says the unassuming tourist, "We were in some East Village pizza restaurant or something!" Jesus, it can be tough keeping up with the NYC Jones. There seems to be tons of hidden gems that try to stay away from the people like me who can write about them, Twitter about them, Facebook about them, and ultimately ruin them. Some things are worth keeping a secret, but when the party is in the basement of Coffee Shop or some media lunch spot that regularly gets off on decent press, it's easy to broadcast. Some other things will remain a mystery, until I can fully understand if it's an actual basement party or simply a couple of bus boys getting high between shifts.

As the holidays near, it's fun to roll the dice on what former hotspot will have a revival, or what invitees may finally get a glimpse of the most exclusive space by way of special event invitation. This week alone the The Bowery Hotel had a major resurgence, proving it's a party player by hosting the annual Humane Society’s Cool vs. Cruel benefit, back-to-back with tonight's Art Rocks! event. Same with the six-thousand-foot "local hang'" -- The Ainsworth -- which was ground zero for Stylecaster's Short Films Premiere Party. Sienna and Savannah Miller hosted a dinner to celebrate their spring 2010 collection at the Royalton (not exactly the downtown scene we'd imagined for them). Party palaces also revive with extreme makeovers' the closed 105 Rivington space -- a splinter off of the Rivington Hotel -- is getting a redux. It will be called CV, and it had a little show-and-tell this past Tuesday. All in all, the holiday times bring a little nightlife cheer in the form of new beginnings at old places, reminding people how awesome some of our nighttime landmarks can be.

Once again, the landscape of nightlife is a'changing. Sometimes, you have to stir up the water to catch a few fish, which is exactly what happened to us. East Village Monday-night favorite Le Souk lost its liquor license, forcing patrons to take their business to Le Souk Harem, but it's the neighborhood that's the real loser. Wandering aimlessly in search of something new and good on Sunday night, we found a new party at White Slab Palace. Places we'd long since wrote off somehow hit the spot if not filled the void. An object lesson on wandering outside your comfort zone.

New York's hottest spots on its hottest nights

What better way to use the only sunny day of the week than to make our legion of snobbishly fashionable fashion interns take to the streets in their eight-plus platforms and play fashion detective? Armed with only a camera and an arsenal of questions, the fearsome three -- Lindsay, Laura, and Justine -- did their finest Anne Hathaway impressions and scouted the city's most sartorially delicious in their favorite retail playgrounds. Initially, they aimed to sneak up on their YSL-clad boutique-bag-bearing victims and demand to know what, exactly, they had just splurged on. But considering the current dime crunch, it ended up being an ambush of attitudes, BlackBook style. Take it away, ladies!

It seems like slim pickings for a Tuesday party prowl. Perhaps many are in hangover recovery courtesy of their Friday to Monday weekend. Most are waiting it out for humpday. But as we anticipate a heatwave, these hot spots emerge. Break out of your comfort zone, put off buying that AC unit, and join the rest of the denizens of the anti-day scene.

Women in music reigned last night in New York City. To begin with, Catherine Pierce, from the songstress-sister-duo The Pierces had an art opening at Cameo Gallery in Brooklyn. Catherine invited me to check out her latest paintings on display, so naturally I said yes to the lovely lady and friend. Nadia Koch, a huge music fan and partner in Home Sweet Home, tagged along with me for the evening. We arrived at Cameo -- which sits behind The Lovin’ Cup Café -- to a sea of Catherine’s friends and family, including her younger sister Louisa, plus Paige Wood, who also had artwork on display. Alison Pierce, Catherine’s better half from The Pierces was of course there as well to support. And oh! I can’t forget this bit -- the girls introduced to me to their mother! After our introduction, I knew why her daughters are so sweet.