Fabric 30: Rub-N-Tug

If NYC’s nightlife oddsmakers were to predict who among the city’s clubbing underground was going to make it to the bright lights of megaclub stardom, Rub-N-Tug’s Eric D and Thomas would have been among the longest of long shots. True, Eric knew his dance-music history through a longtime gig at the East Village vinyl-collector outpost A1 records, and Thomas had enjoyed brushes with stardom as a member of San Fran’s outlaw-party Wicked Crew and, later, synth-punk outfit A.R.E. Weapons. But as anyone who’s survived the extremely messy affairs that the deck duo has tossed in Gotham’s dark underbelly can attest, they were hardly candidates for the scene’s Most Likely to Succeed award. Their unruly view of the deejaying arts, with sets reeling from disco stomp to hip-hop bebop to technoid growl and back again (and Thomas infamously playing keyboard with his gluteous maximus at one particularly dissolute hoedown), didn’t bode well for steady employment.

Well, dip us in shit—Rub-N-Tug has a mix-CD out as part of perhaps the world’s most prestigious mix-CD series, put out by the London nightspot Fabric (which itself is among the most super of superclubs). Granted, the boys have had to clean up their act a bit—but they’ve done so with oodles of style. Kicking off with the midtempo electro-house sleaze of Claude Vonstroke, the set meanders nicely through old-school house from Curtis McClaine, Sir Drew’s teched-up disco, and near prog from Slok and Âme’s deep grandeur, before ending with the lovely and emotional Ewan Pearson mix of Mocky’s “Catch a Moment in Time.” Not bad for a pair of party-boy reprobates.—Bruce Tantum