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Santa Monica
DJ lounge Zanzibar finds the comfort zone
By Justin Hampton
When
a club owner starts a new club in an old one’s location,
more than the name needs to change. An entire transformation
is in order to brush away the cobwebs – and the bad memories
– that a seasoned nightlife audience may hold against
you. Such are the challenges that Nettie and Louie Ryan faced
when they took over The West End in Santa Monica and turned
it into Zanzibar.
Prior to the
Ryans’ purchase of the space, The West End was known for
disco nights and rock/reggae cover bands that catered to a frat
crowd. But the couple had already constructed a successful live
music venue in the area with the Temple Bar (and even earlier
with Louie’s first venue, the Scrap Bar in New York City),
and figured they could do the same for the failing club when
it came up for sale. “One can tell after years in the
business that a particular location is just begging for a fresh
start,” says Louie. “We felt that this was the case
with The West End.”
And thanks to
some judicious and tasteful choices in music and décor,
the Ryans have seen their Moroccan-themed DJ lounge Zanzibar
take off quickly within the area. Barely open a year, the club
already houses DJ Jason Bentley (KCRW radio jock and music supervisor
for The Matrix film series) and his eclectic bossa:nova club
night, and has hosted special DJ sets from Herbert and Afrika
Bambaataa, as well as live performances by Bay Area hip hoppers
Blackalicious. Though he presents the occasional live acts,
Louie Ryan has reserved this club specifically for DJs who can
select from a vast array of urban music to suit the sophisticated,
multicultural Los Angelinos that attend.
“We believe that the West Side of L.A. did not have a
real dance club offering the layout and sound that this particular
room had,” he says. “We felt because of our strong
connections to the music industry through the success of Temple
Bar, that the next logical step was for us to offer another
great venue, [but] this time highlighting the high-caliber DJ
talent that we only get a little taste of at Temple Bar.”
Casual Elegance
Much had to be
changed with regards to the layout. The West End had a basic
black-box décor with virtually none of the continental
cool the Ryans wanted for their new space. They had planned
to use some of the furnishings originally in The Temple Bar,
but went instead with an “eastern-Buddhist” motif.
Says Louie: “The space tells us where to go as the ideas
unfold.”
In addition to
their own ideas, the Ryans enlisted interior designer Nathalie
Cohen to assist them. Having worked on television and film commercials,
Cohen was ideally suited to realize the Ryans’ vision
at a reasonable price. “There’s some really great
designers out here in L.A., and I found that even the places
that were done up were so overdone that they were cold –
I was afraid to walk in,” says Cohen of her research into
similarly themed bars and restaurants in the area. “And
I also remembered that these people had a special situation.
It was going to be a DJ lounge, so it had to be different; [a
place in which a] 20-, 30-something crowd [would] feel comfortable.
They don’t want to feel like they’re in their grandmother’s
antique living room.”
The main room
of Zanzibar offers a study in casual elegance. The former band
stage was turned into a DJ booth, with two lounge areas to each
side featuring low tables and poufs. The black drink rails were
knocked down to make more space on the varnished hardwood dancefloor,
and another lounge area next to the sound booth was included.
“We ended up doing soft architecture,” Cohen elaborates.
“We decided to divide the room up with 14-foot-high, four-foot-wide
chocolate linen curtains that slide really freely [from the
ceiling]. So if you want to divide up the stages with those
free-floating curtains, it sort of blocks off the sound, and
it makes it a little more private, but you can open them up.
They’re fun. I went to go see the club when it was packed
one night and there were people sort of playing around with
them.”
Restrained Sound,
Soft Light
For sound and especially lighting, the Ryans decided that in
the case of Zanzibar, less was definitely more. The club’s
sound engineer Swan Montgomery worked for many years as The
West End’s primary soundman, and currently works at The
Temple Bar, so he had a deep understanding of Zanzibar’s
legacy system, which includes Carvin loudspeakers with various
power sources (Crest, QSC, Yamaha and JBL) and varied signal
processing (Rane, Symetrix, AB, DOD, DigiTech, Alesis and Yamaha).
The DJ booth features a Pioneer DJM-600 mixer, two Technics
turntables, two Pioneer CDJ-1000 CD players, and a JBL SR4702
monitor.
As for lighting,
Zanzibar’s system is meant to create an intimate, subdued
atmosphere. Montgomery counts about 20 par-56 cans trained on
the stage, as well as two Martin 812 RoboScans and some Martin
StarFlash units, which are handled by Martin’s since-discontinued
2008 controller. In addition, up to five slide projectors are
brought in at a time, projecting images of Hindu gods and North
African art onto the walls to add to the atmosphere.
During the late
part of the afternoon, the main portion of the club is closed,
and a side bar (referred to by Irish expatriate Louie as a “snug”)
opens for Happy Hour, attended by many West Side media professionals.
And while extra audio can easily be added to this room, the
Ryans choose to keep the speakers out. “Sometimes if you
want to go to an area of the club where you just want to get
away from it for a little bit, the sound doesn’t get into
that area,” says Montgomery. “You can hear it, but
it’s not going to be very loud, so you can at least be
able to have a conversation. And some people like to be able
to do that, and come back into the scene and dancing and everything.”
“That Best-Kept-Secret
Feel”
From the looks of it, the Ryans’ instincts have paid off
quite handsomely. Bentley, who approached the Ryans about moving
the bossa:nova night over to Zanzibar during the club’s
renovation period, finds his new home a vast improvement over
the club night’s previous residency at Santa Monica’s
Club Sugar. Since the move, bossa:nova has presented such global
talents as Germany’s Trüby Trio and England’s
Mr. Scruff. “We always had a few fundamental problems
with Sugar, such as building/soundproofing issues, no full bar,
and a lack of promotional support,” says Bentley, “so
I saw Zanzibar as a unique opportunity to come into a newly
renovated venue, and partner with a group of people who I genuinely
trust and like. [Zanzibar] feels like another world, and definitely
has that best-kept-secret feel at this point. When I play other
gigs, which is frequent, it’s always an adjustment. Zanzibar
feels like home base for me.”
The Ryans have
also achieved a subtle romantic mood that also keeps the young
and single coming back. After the club’s grand opening,
“[patrons] looked like they had lived in there forever,”
Cohen recalls, “but it had only been open for a few days.
There were people on the dancefloor, people leaning on the bar,
having a drink, socializing and it was this beautiful mixed
crowd, all ages. There were people making out on the couches,
and I just turned to my boyfriend and said, ‘Well, that’s
the biggest trophy I could get right there!’”
Zanzibar
1301 5th Street,
Santa Monica, California,
(310) 451-2221
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