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.

● Lily Pond (East Hampton) - The 1Oak family will be hosting this Saturday and will have special events here all summer. The Grand Opening on Saturday has DJ Lee Kalt on the decks, and Sunday kicks off "1OAK at Lily Pond Blue & Cream" with DJ Jus Ske.
● Dune (Southampton) - AXE Lounge features DJ Phresh Friday night, DJ Mel DeBarge on Saturday, and Kiss & Fly hosts on Sunday night with DJ Berrie.

Terry Casey’s Le Royale is a serious attempt to have a club that's both musically and socially relevant. If you start with the premise that a 1Oak or a Kiss & Fly or Tenjune cater to a mostly musically ignorant crowd, while the Santos' Party House, Pacha, and Cielo seek musical nirvana, then Le Royale leans towards the latter. The DJs at the former clubs and their ilk offer up sets of music cloned from basically the same Serato. I just don’t think a really cool crowd wants to hear Kanye West, Beyonce, or crooker crap anymore.

Joey Morrissey seems firmly in charge of M2 as of this writing. Yesterday’s interview and today’s were done before the media tsunami over the name change; many are saying that Mansion is out of business, and this semantically may be true, but the new M2, under the control of Joey, Artie Arboleda, and nightlife hero Mark Baker goes on. I spoke to Joey Morrissey last night and asked him to clarify some things.

With hits like STK, One, Kiss & Fly, Coco de Ville, and Tenjune in his portfolio, the CEO of The One Group dishes on the bar/restaurant prototype, banking big in difficult times, and a newfound affection for live music.

Favorite restaurants? There was a restaurant called Baoli in Cannes that was probably one of my favorite restaurants, and was also a major inspirational restaurant for me in what we started to do here in America. In terms of Italian, I like Da Silvano in New York. I love my own restaurants— does that count?

Of course. Which is your favorite? My favorite for vibe and energy is probably One. And for a very cool scene is STK.

There's a funny thing in clubland -- it’s this divide that has developed between the joints that play mostly house music and those who play mashup. Each often discount the other and doesn't consider its opposite number a true club. The mashup meccas like 1Oak and Marquee are lumped in with clubs like Pink Elephant and Kiss & Fly, which play house and are considered by the Pacha crowd to be almost irrelevant. These clubs have strong social scenes, are based on the table/bottle mentality, and for the most part have small dance floors, opting to let their crowds dance at the booth. To these crowds, the scenes at Pacha and the big clubs were -- until very recently -- discounted as reserved for the house-heads, and the lack of strict door policies turned them off. Mansion has tried to balance both and has had mixed success, yet it has survived and is adjusting constantly. I think year two will be better than year one; more on that later.

Randy Scott tells BlackBook about RDV— his newest nightlife muse, being considered the Kevin Bacon of the Industry and the social importance of the lounge.

What is your current project?
I am involved in the whole complex on 13th Street between 9th and Washington which is now, Kiss and Fly the nightclub, Bagatelle the restaurant and the third space, which is the lounge, is the new project called RDV. Abbreviation for Rendez-vous. Bagatelle is one of the most successful restaurants in New York. Remi Laba and Aymeric Clemente are the partners and great to work with. I was brought on to head the lounge. RDV is a plush lounge—it is the gem. We are just doing friends and family now, but we will be opening shortly. We did a party for Josh Lucas and another for Quincy Jones. We hired a mixologist, Thierry Hernandez from Bar du Plaza Athénée in Paris, and we are following his formal steps of service.

I’ve avoided the Pink Elephant story that's been developing in the blogosphere because I don’t really like to gossip. I ran into Shawn Kolodny at a meeting, and after we chatted for a few minutes, he asked me if I heard what went down. I said I heard he was now at Kiss & Fly and asked if congratulations were in order. He thanked me, and I asked him if he wanted to comment for this blog, but he told me that until he got the go ahead from his lawyer, he couldn’t speak about the circumstances that had him leave Pink Elephant. He said next week would probably be OK. I got home, kissed the dogs and cats and the little woman, and I got a call from my old pal Rocco Anacarola.

A few weeks back I spoke of the Haves and the Have-Nots. I tried to explain what the club market would be looking like as the now "official" recession sets in. The rich (or well-run clubs) are maintaining; they have tightened their belts and shed bottle promoters whose clients haven’t survived the crunch. With payrolls cut and a steady flow of people, they scoop from the Have-Not clubs which are dying -- things aren’t so bad for them. On the other end, however, its bad news across the board. The C- and D-list clubs are swimming upstream, and they're in a losing battle with the bad economic current.

RDV opens tonight with a John Legend party. According to co-owner Corey Lane, the new lounge is an “exclusive venue under our highly successful restaurant Bagatelle." "RDV" is short for "rendezvous." The style is a hip, chic mix of classic Victorian and modern art. I’m sure partner and designer David Graziano will kill it; Pink Elephant and Kiss & Fly are perfect. The new space will have a separate entrance from both Bagatelle and Kiss & Fly. There's a team of powerhouse players involved as well: Randy Scott, Aymeric Clemente, and Remi Laba bring more to the table than just tables. This is a sharp, mature crew with a great crowd. It looks like a home run -- yet another small lounge with big players.