On a recent Friday night, I donned my flares and a black off-the-shoulder crop top that would have been hanging at The Limited in 1995. Then I crossed the bridge into the city toward Madrone Art Bar’s “I Heart the 90s” night.
It was my friend Christie’s forty-something birthday, and us “olds” had gotten there just as doors opened, relishing the pleasure of being on the list even if a line of jealous strangers had not yet formed to crane their necks at us. We greeted our friends and the adopted 90s-night family we always looked forward to seeing at this monthly tradition: the woman whose generous ass-slaps felt like feminist battle stances; the guy who belted every rap lyric; the dude in the black hat who dutifully kept the creeps away, whose name I never remembered but whose presence made me feel safe from errant boners, like I rarely did on a dance floor in the actual nineties.
Much of the 90s revival of late was by us but not for us. We couldn’t pull off a night on chunky platforms. We had to listen to Olivia Rodrigo in secret. If we bought a Nirvana shirt from Target, we felt appropriately like tools. But a night of dancing to the music we had known and loved for decades, that was something we could get behind. Nineties night was for us, because nineties night is for everyone.
Michael “Spike” Krouse bought what was then Madrone Lounge in 2008, changed the name to Madrone Art Bar, and worked out a few early kinks to keep the fledgling 90s night on its feet. “I Heart the 90s,” which runs at Madrone the fourth Friday of each month, celebrated its fifteenth year with a bash, natch, this fall.
Carissa Baird was dating 90s Night DJ Sonny Phono (Jeremiah Liebrecht) at the time. “He asked me to invite some friends and basically our job was to get on the dance floor and encourage others to dance. That was an easy job for us. We were college students at the time, all we wanted to do was drink and dance!” After that, she became a loyalist, attending the event as much as possible even when she moved out of the Bay.
Loyalty is easy to come by at 90s night. As Krouse put it “The longevity of the party and what it means to other people is the definition of community.”
That community starts with those putting on the party, which includes the original DJ crew of Liebrecht, DJ Samala (Samala), and DJ Mr. Grant (Anthony Grant), as well as more recent additions like DJs Mama K (Kate Levitt) and Such N Such (Julian Mocine-Mcqueen). The music is heightened by the work of videographer Matt Sengbusch of Small Change Arcade, whose visual remixes of 90s music videos are having their own party on the walls of the bar. Even the bouncers are OGs; most have been there since the beginning.
But the family-like vibes extend onto the dance floor, too, where people of all ages, races, styles, identities, incomes, and sexual proclivities, lock eyes as they yell out “You can’t trust a big butt and a smiiiiiile!” get their dance moves graded on effort, not talent, and blend themselves into a single, pulsing, grinning entity. We do see Gen Zers clap for Millenials, and happy partygoers will buy a round for their friends and throw a few randos in for good measure. One of my crowning life achievements was when a large, kind-looking man pointed to me across the room and yelled “she knows all the words!”
Angela DeCenzo was a bartender at Madrone for eight years. She believes what is so special about the dance party is how true it stays to the decade it invokes. “It was the last decade before the internet and cell phones took over our lives. When I think back on it now, there’s an innocence we didn’t even know we were experiencing. And the 90s night DJs really channeled that vibe. They are the sweetest most down to earth group of folks and the patrons they brought in were well behaved and a pleasure be around.” Or in owner Spike Krouse’s words “All smiles and smooth dance moves.”
Samala came up with the idea for a 90s night as a bit of a joke, in response to the 80’s night party the bar already hosted. Back then, nineties revival wasn’t what it is today, but she thought the idea had legs, and it quickly moved from a weekday spot to prime time Fridays. On one of Samala’s favorite nights, a guy was pumping gas across the street from the club, saw the line and heard hip-hop blasting and came in to see what the buzz was about. Sonny Phono immediately recognized him in the crowd as Goldie Gold, member of the Bay Area hip-hop group The Federation, and invited him up on stage.
“It was epic,” Samala recalled. “J (Phono) put on a few Federation instrumentals and Goldie did his thing. He bowed out off staged after saying something to the effect of “I didn’t know SF still got down like this! Bay Areaaaaaaaaa” and then dapped me and Jeremiah up and told us to keep holding it down.” To Samala, this moment seemed to speak both to the institutional knowledge of sometimes forgotten musical history that the 90s Night crew maintain, and to the event’s ability to perform the timeless trick of a great party — to turn a bystander into a true believer.
When I asked Ms. Baird what 90s night meant to her, she told me “It means a lot that these folks have continued to show up for their community. They’ve adapted, but they’ve stayed true to themselves and their target audience, even when a lot of things in the city have been changing.” She recently moved back, and was able to catch the anniversary party, which she said “felt like a family reunion.”
It happened to be her birthday, and she decided to drive an hour with her mom in tow to NoPa to spend it with her old friends. At the bar, she struck up a conversation with a group of younger women, who said it was their first time.
“It was simultaneously nostalgic, and hopeful. I don’t think they had any idea how long this party has been going on, but for the past 15 years, this crew has been providing a space for people like them to escape and connect.” When Ms. Baird finally left, around 1 a.m. there was still a line out the door. “I hope that line continues to form,” she added, “for many more years to come.”
// Madrone Art Bar is at 500 Divisadero Street, San Francisco, CA 94117
Sarah Wheeler is an Oakland-based writer.
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