THE NIGHT STUFF
What's new at Pussycat? Whoa ... and it turns 7

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Terese Birkeland and Solvi Midttveit, both visiting from Bergen, Norway, chat at a recent Wave Waikiki Pussycat Lounge evening. Pussycat will celebrate its seventh anniversary Tuesday. Photos by Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser

Guess it was Norwegian Night. Tore Midttveit of Bergen, left, and Geir Karlsen of Oslo enjoy the post-midnight Pussycat Lounge festivities.

Pussycat Lounge Where: Wave Waikiki, 1877 Kalakaua Ave., 941-0424 When: 10 p.m.-4 a.m. Tuesdays Cover: $5 Age of crowd: 20s-30s Soundtrack: Underground/urban hip-hop and house styles What to wear: According to Hansen, "Dress up or dress down ... whatever you want." Resident DJs: KSM, Jrama and SubZero Seventh anniversary party info: Tuesday, 10 p.m.-4 a.m.; 21 and older, cover is $10 before 11 p.m. On the schedule: DJ Mei-Lwun, percussionist Ravi, a Lingerie Heaven fashion show, and March 1998 Pussycat opening night DJs G-Dog, SubZero, Jrama, D mofo D and KSM

I didn't know they were dancers, mind you. A couple of guys in the hip-hop room overlooking Wave Waikiki's house-ruled main floor, however, insisted they had just seen them hard at work up the street at Club Rock-Za.

By 3 a.m., a few of the women were upstairs seriously grinding to some equally serious hip-hop. No one really left the hip-hop room after that.

The beauty of the Pussycat Lounge — which celebrates its seventh birthday Tuesday — was that every conceivable type of early-a.m. Honolulu club crawler also began showing up around 2 a.m. Virtually alone in the hip-hop room just a half-hour earlier, I was suddenly surrounded by spinning b-boys, nodding hipsters in skull caps and some guy still in his day-job aloha shirt and slacks combo doing the Roger Rabbit.

Downstairs, the bar was busy with just-off-work restaurant and bar workers, after-hours heavy hitters (DJ G-Spot, promoter Komo Low, O-Lounge g.m. Roni Yurong), and, well, more strippers.

All in all, pretty much the usual guest list of serious connoisseurs of late-night activity the Pussycat Lounge has always happily attracted.

The long-running weekly was born in March 1998, six weeks after Flash Hansen — these days Wave Waikiki's promotions director and an independent promoter (Skyline) — and some business partners shuttered their nightclub/lounge 1739 Kalakaua. Though cash-strapped, 1739

had amassed a sizable crowd of devotees over its 18 months of life. And Hansen wanted to give them — and himself — somewhere to go post-1739.

The Pussycat Lounge — designed by Hansen as "everything 1739 was about, shoehorned into one night a week" — was an immediate success.

"I would say the (crowd) is now a lot of what you would consider the typical and yet unique late-night Waikiki nightlife," said Hansen. "It's definitely made up of a lot of different characters. You could walk in sober at 2:30 in the morning and just people-watch and have a good time."

Tuesday's anniversary bash will feature San Francisco mash-up master DJ Mei-Lwun, Playboy Mansion percussionist Ravi, a lingerie fashion show and turns at the tables by Pussycat opening-night DJs G-Dog, SubZero, Jrama, D mofo D and KSM.

"The Pussycat Lounge means everything to me," Hansen said of his first and still favorite after-hours creation. "My other parties might make more money, be busier or be more high-profile successes or busts. But without the Pussycat, none of them would've happened.

"It doesn't take long to trace it all right back to there."

Reach Derek Paiva at 525-8005 or dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.

NIGHTSPOTTING ...

BRING ON THE JUNKIES

Wednesday night after-hour parties return to Compadres next week when Pussycat Projects and Vertical Junkies launch their Pussycat Junkies monthly. Spinning on opening night (fresh from a guest slot at Pussycat Lounge's seventh birthday party) is San Francisco mash-up DJ Mei-Lwun. From 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.; 21 and older. The party continues on the last Wednesday of every month thereafter.

LINGERIE AND PINOT

Wine and cheese we're familiar with and enjoy together. Wine and a lingerie fashion show we'll have to see for ourselves and get back to you. Formaggio wine bar will host a tasting of 20 Wine Spectator top-rated pinot noirs and preview a selection of spring lingerie styles from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday. They're calling it The Passion of Pinot Noir & The Elegance of Lace. We're calling it as we see it. Tickets are $35 advance, $40 door. Lower level, Market City Shopping Center. Call 739-9463 for reservations.

BURN, BABY, BURN

Burning Man is a counterculture arts event annually drawing more than 30,000 to a desert outside Reno, Nev., for serious and not-so-serious meta-meetings of the minds. Ka Pilina — a Hawai'i-based interactive-arts collective that attends each year — prepares for its August sojourn with Saturday's 2005 Burnal Equinox at Anna Bannana's, 8 p.m.-1:30 a.m. Live and DJed music, interactive art and fire dancers are on the bill. Entry is $10 (21 and older) and $15 (ages 18-20). Call 372-9143 for more info.