Welcome back, beautiful souls… it’s that podcast girl, C-Dub. I wanted to give a quick shout out to our listeners tuning in from the UK tonight, thanks for your support from across the world.

Tonight—especially since the episodes on New York, New Jersey, and Detroit House Music are leading our search charts—we’re leaning deep into the roots, starting with New York City. We’re not just touching the pulse of ’90s NYC house. We’re breathing the air from those rooms.

Red Zone wasn’t just a club—it was a confession. David Morales famously called it the place where he “made a statement for the new age,” and he wasn’t exaggerating. He described that era as mixing the “dark side”—minimal vocals or no vocals—not just music, but revolution in 4/4. He said, “Red Zone was the turning point on the map for music changing.” People remember it as the spot that flipped disco into club soul through sheer grit, vinyl dig, and rebellious rhythm. 

Red Zone was theater in flesh; the naked, the naughty, and the unapologetic moved inside it. The club embraced extreme self-expression—think raw nudity, sex, spontaneous hookups, and sometimes eruptions of violence. It was a place where curtains, fog, and a pulsing beat blurred lines between pleasure and performance. The edge was always one step away from confrontation, because survival in that crowd meant daring to be seen.

This was the home turf of the Club Kids—Michael Alig, James St. James, Screamin Rachael, Lady Buddy, Dan Dan the Naked Man, Goldie Loxxx—and the rest of that flamboyant crew who tore the norm apart with feathers, glitter. Their wild identities flashed, flirted, and fought in the space. They were Red Zone.

Imagine this: curtains hiding backrooms where sex happened behind velvet folds. Fog machines creating halos you couldn’t see—but felt in your bones. Fights that erupted out of passion or possession, fueled by too much adrenaline, and too little filter. Sex, chaos, and liberation weren’t just tolerated—they were invitation-only. Red Zone allowed things to come unhinged, and unhinged they became.

Then came NASA nights at The Shelter—NASA stands for Nocturnal Audio Sensory Awakening. Moby called it “utopian,” and Chloë Sevigny said it “transcended raves.” Imagine a Tribeca loft drenched in light and smoke, with acid, trance, and jungle tracks all whirled through that booth by Scotto and DB.

And then there was Sound Factory. It was hallowed ground—Junior Vasquez said people told him they were “going to church on Sunday morning… but they meant Factory.” He co-founded that room with Richard Grant and Christine Visca in 1989. Right in the heat of New York house’s golden era, Junior Vasquez dropped a track that became infamous—not just for its sound, but for how it ended a whole era.

The track “If Madonna Calls” (1996) loops a snippet from what sounded like Madonna’s voice on his answering machine:

“Hello Junior… This is Madonna… are you there? Call me in Miami.”  

It continued with a cheeky retort — “If Madonna calls, tell her I’m not here.” The vocal loop was so bold that it became known as a “bitch track”—campy, savage, and hilarious in its defiance. 

The story goes: Madonna allegedly bailed on appearing at his club night at The Tunnel, leaving him in the lurch. He turned that moment into house-music history—with total disregard for permission or precedent. Not surprisingly, Madonna never forgave the joke. Their friendship—and any chance of future collaboration—was done. 

Yet the track exploded on dance floors. It did hit #2 on Billboard’s Dance Club chart and became a cult anthem for underground queer scenes and ballrooms. DJ queens would perform it, the sound of gossip and betrayal turned into pure euphoria on the floor.  

Junior said the Factory “put the DJ at the very center of the club experience,” and watching him mix on that triple-deck rig was theater.

Then there was The Tunnel. The Tunnel was literally named for its bones: a cavernous, elongated space built inside a former freight terminal on Manhattan’s West Side. When you stepped in, the train tracks from the building’s industrial past still cut through the floor, anchoring the space in raw grit. 

The main hall stretched out like a cathedral—long, vaulted, and echoing—while side rooms splintered off in every direction, each one designed like a portal into a different world. One night you’d wander into a Jetsons-inspired lava lounge painted in neon futurism; on another night, you’d find yourself in a Victorian-styled parlor, or an S/M chamber draped in chains and curtains. The layout was a labyrinth, part playground and part dreamscape, which made every visit feel like stepping into a movie you couldn’t fully script.

No two nights at The Tunnel looked the same. One of the most iconic intersections was through Johnny Dynell, a Tunnel resident DJ who also produced the underground anthem “Elements of Vogue.”

That track, born out of ballroom culture, wasn’t just music — it was language. It carried the sounds of Paris Dupree, the House of Xtravaganza, and the ballroom families who turned dance into survival and style. At The Tunnel, tracks like this weren’t background; they were blueprints for movement, inviting dancers to cut the air with arms, to pose, to throw shade with elegance.

So when people talk about The Tunnel being cinematic, this is what they mean. You weren’t just hearing a record, you were watching bodies translate it into living art right there on the floor— voguing battles in one corner, tribal house in another, progressive trance upstairs. All happening at once in that cavernous, train-track cathedral.

These weren’t just clubs. They were ceremonies, awakenings, sanctuaries, manifestos, and portals back into yourself. Red Zone was initiation. NASA was escape. Sound Factory was resurrection. The Tunnel gave us manifesto.

That was the New York house scene of the early to mid-’90s—the grit, the reverence, the sweat, and the stories that still pulse in corners of dance floors today.

Look out for our next episode drop, where we will dive deeper into the scene in Detroit. Until next time… keep the beat alive.