Chapter

01

In Residence

Goa Club, Rome

Celebrating 12 of the world's best dance floors

In 2016, RA's In Residence series is celebrating club culture by throwing a month of parties at 12 of the world's best clubs. Clubs are the beating heart of dance music, and these are the venues that keep their local scenes thriving. Week-in, week-out, they open their doors to play the music we love.

As we settle in for a month at each of the clubs, we'll be running features that, through a combination of different media, aim to provide lasting documents of these iconic spaces.

Goa Club is one of Italy's best, longest-running and most beautiful clubs. Since 1996, it's been serving the people of Rome with a weekly programme of high-quality electronic music, set against a backdrop of exquisite interior design. It also pulls off a tricky double act: the club is known as both an excellent place to relax and an excellent place to dance.

Oct 13 RA In Residence, Goa Club, Rome feat. Silent Servant, Daniel Avery

Oct 14 RA In Residence, Goa Club, Rome feat. Jeff Mills, Neel

Oct 27 RA In Residence, Goa Club, Rome feat. Konstantin, Job Jobse

Oct 28 RA In Residence, Goa Club, Rome feat. Rhadoo, Domenico Rosa

Chapter

02

Key info

Goa Club at a glance

01
Address
Via Giuseppe Libetta, 13, 00154 Roma, Italy
02
Club opened
1996
03
Soundsystem
Audio Factory
04
Dance floors
1
05
Capacity
700
06
Resident DJs
ADIEL, DJ Red, Fabrizio Sala, Giancarlino, Marcolino, Silvie Loto

Chapter

03

History

Decadence and dancing

Descriptions of Goa Club don't do it justice. Like all the best venues, it really must be experienced firsthand. The theme of the interior is the Indian mansion of an English Lord. The space is as exquisite as that sounds, though you wouldn't suspect this from the club's modest exterior. Inside, everything has been designed to the nth degree, with incense and candles, rich satin tapestries, polished furniture, ornate trinkets and gold, black and purple colours throughout. It's a unique blend of comfort and luxury that has become Goa Club's signature. "It's like a proper club, you know?" said Fabio Colicchi, who became a partner in 2008. "It's a comfortable space where you can also sit, have a drink, have a talk." The vibe is just one of many reasons why Goa Club has become a Rome institution.

Its music policy is another. Goa Club projected itself onto the European circuit early on. For inspiration, the team travelled to Frankfurt, London and Ibiza, and to clubs like Cocoon, fabric and DC-10. The parties were headlined by international artists and attracted a jet-setting crowd, two characteristics that remain true to this day. Sven Väth, Luciano and Ricardo Villalobos were all booked when their careers—and Goa Club itself—were still in their infancy. Väth and Villalobos are still regulars.

There was nothing quite like it when it opened in the autumn of 1996, in the industrial Ostiense quarter, in the south of Rome. Goa Club had a clear vision from the start. It was to become a world stage for music, a place of experimentation and eclecticism that reflected the tastes of its globe-trotting crowd and founders. Much has changed over its 20-year history, but these fundamentals have remained firmly in place.

Goa Club opened at an opportune time for Rome. Throughout the '90s, the city was enthralled by raves. As Simona Calvani, AKA DJ Red, one of Goa's longest-serving residents, recalled, "Parties were no longer a prerogative of nightclubs, but started to take place in outdoor spaces, warehouses, disused factories or squats where thousands of people used to gather. For a brief period, I think nightclubs lost their place at the forefront of this cultural revolution." It was a time of both excitement and stagnation that lasted just over a decade. "Rome needed something new and bold," Calvani said. "The city was lacking a stylish venue with beautiful people and quality music. The other nightclubs in the city remained static and unchanged."

Giancarlino, together with original founders Fabrizio Caccetta, Danilo Proietti and Pierluigi Di Filippo, settled on Via Libetta, a "dark, forgotten" street in Ostiense. A "typical shabby" peripheral area of Rome, the neighbourhood was a hive of abandoned spaces. "Goa Club was born in an old hangar right next to the general food markets of Rome," Giancarlino told me. "During its early years, people had to queue between the trucks which were waiting to enter the markets at 3 AM." The hangar was a mechanic's workshop that had been turned into a club, which closed only three months after opening. "It was a cold, empty place without a soul," said Giancarlino wistfully.

These days the aesthetics are handled chiefly by Matteo Parenti, a local designer who specialises in artisanal techniques. He's been working with the club for seven years, creating one-off art works that adorn the space. Giancarlino commissioned Parenti to refurbish the entire club in 2009. It's now a more dynamic space that shifts in tone every year, with fresh pieces produced by Parenti and others. It's scenographic, theatrical and playful. Besides dense clusters of paintings that cover most of the walls, there are sculptures—a carousel horse currently lords over the dance floor—and interactive playthings. "Every year the scenography changes to make the visitors, as protagonists, experience a different story and stage," says Parenti.

Goa Club's design and layout is channelled towards the dance floor. There's an open DJ booth set slightly above the dance floor, meaning artists aren't shut off from the crowd or aggrandised above them. There's a raised viewing platform to both sides that runs around the back of the booth, and an embellished iron gate divides the punters from the DJs. There is no backstage, just a secret slip in the drapes leading to a tiny hallway and the club's office. Here, one of the walls is full of artist's signatures. It was started by Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, who performed an intimate live concert in the club's opening year. I noticed Gilles Peterson's name alongside Afrika Bambaataa and Frankie Knuckles.

Goa Club originally opened six days a week but now does Thursday to Saturday, plus the occasional Sunday-daytime event. After Tea, the Sunday party, has been going since the early days. Alessio Armeni, AKA Freddy K, a Rome native now living in Berlin, played a couple of these in the early '00s. Back then, Armeni was working with Sandro Nasonte at the record shop Remix, co-running its associate label, the influential Elettronica Romana, which released some of Donato Dozzy and Giorgio Gigli's first EPs. At After Teas there was also a market—"like a small village"—where Remix would sell vinyl and CDs.

On Tuesday there was a party called Gorgeous, a gay night, with artists like Jimmy Somerville, Imagination, Marco Moreggia and Kikko Messina, the resident DJ. Live music happened on Wednesdays. Calvani came on board as a resident for a party called Modula, which she helped organise with friends. Modula was dedicated to the "intelligent" end of electronic music—Gescom, Mouse On Mars, LFO, Burnt Friedman, Funkstörung, Kid606, Jimi Tenor, Two Lone Swordsman, Vitalic and DJ Spooky all performed.

"I used to listen to several genres being played, from funk to trip-hop, Afro, breakbeat, house, US garage," Calvani said of her early experiences as a punter at Goa Club. "Back in those days a DJ used to present a very heterogeneous selection of music, it was very different from today, where DJs rarely venture outside a certain style of music." House soundtracked the weekends at Goa Club, which, through events called Nozoo and Touch The Wood, is still the case today.

Ultrabeat, on Thursdays, is Goa Club's most renowned party. Giancarlino and Claudio Coccoluto started it in 1997, when Coccoluto stepped in to replace Fabrizio Caccetta and Pierluigi De Filippo as a partner. Ultrabeat was my first experience of Goa Club. I visited on its opening night (it shuts during the summer, when Romans prefer to be outside). DJ Red and Ellen Allien were performing, with one of the club's newer residents, ADIEL, on warmup. It was all vinyl, all night long, and one of the busiest dates of the year. "Just follow the people," said my taxi driver as he pulled up on the main road.

Two clubs share the same lot, with Goa on the right-hand side. There's no sign, just a leering fibreglass crocodile, the club's "mascot." I arrived just before 1 AM and the place was heaving. You couldn't move for immaculately turned out kids, though it was clear they were all here to dance. The floor was packed for the duration, staff included. "You can easily find me on the dance floor with other people who work with us," Colicchi told me. "One of the biggest things about our team—and our request to new people coming in—is that they must love the music."

I came back the following night for Anarchy In The Club, the event Colicchi brought to Goa Club eight years ago, after its illegally squatted home—an old school in the centre of Rome—was shut down. Going from an abandoned space to the splendour of Goa Club was a big change, but the night has stayed true to its avant-garde roots. The crush and the glitz of Ultrabeat had been replaced by a few hundred casually trendy people; it was like another club entirely. I sat down, had a drink and got a sense of what Colicchi meant about the place—the comfiness and the soothing, homely ambience. A short while later I sat cross-legged on the dance floor, watching family movies on a projector as part of Alessandro Cortini's new live show, as tides of ambient drone washed over me.

Chapter

04

Residents

...in pictures

Chapter

05

Character profile

Luciano Carbone

Driver

I met Luciano Carbone in the chaos of Ultrabeat's opening night. He caught my eye immediately, darting in and out of the DJ booth. Dressed in a white t-shirt (with the apt slogan "All my friends are DJs") and wearing a thick beard, he stood out from the rest of the darkly-clothed crowd. "Who is this guy?" I wondered, assuming he was one of the club's owners. Carbone is, in fact, the club's driver, and quite possibly Goa's greatest advocate.

Carbone has only been driving for the club for a year, but he's been part of scenery since 1996. "I started in PR when I was younger," he says. "By the way, at that time I was 28." Now a spritely 48-year-old, he represents Goa Club's old guard, someone who's lovingly watched the club grow from obscure beginnings into the historic haunt it is today.

He started out promoting the first series of Saturday nights at the club. "What happened," he says, animatedly, "after one season Goa Club said, 'Guys, you are so stunning, you are so good, why don't you try to have a party on Thursday,' because the famous Thursday in Goa Club didn't exist in the first season." House Motion, as it was called, laid the foundations for Ultrabeat. Thursdays have been a key night for Carbone—and the club—ever since.

After ten years Carbone stopped working for the club, but he never really left. "I always came to the club, I always had a relation with the DJs, I always came to the opening, every time," he tells me. "In the ten years I wasn't in Goa Club, I was in Goa Club, if you know what I mean?" He's warm and embodies the exact air of hospitality that Goa Club prides itself on. He hands me his card and says, "Call me if you need anything." The next night he's driving me home, ad-libbing as a tour guide along the way.

Chapter

06

Soundsystem profile

Audio Factory

Besides the decor, the ambience and the history of the place, the most formidable aspect of Goa Club is its sound. "The music is really loud, the bass really fat. You have no escape," says Fabio Colicchi. It's true. Eight 18-inch subwoofers and eight top speakers encircle the dance floor, ensuring that revellers are cocooned in the system's rich, powerful emissions. A further two subs and tops serve the DJ booth, with five more tops for the upper nook and bar.

The system was custom built by Oreste Parmentola from Audio Factory, who doubles as Goa Club's in-house technician. Parmentola and Giancarlino's relationship is older than the club itself, and like so many of the crew, Parmentola has been around since the beginning. Parmentola has 25 years' experience behind him, and Audio Factory is now one of the most sought-after audio companies in the country. Giancarlino has been DJing for 30 years, so he knows exactly how to get the best out of the system. "The soundsystem has always been the first thing I personally check," Giancarlino says. "I spend a lot of time working on the sound." For him, it's all about "deep bass, power and pressure," while Parmentola describes the Goa Club system as "warm, clear and fascinating." The system's performance depends on the night and who's playing, though DJs are encouraged to push the limits.

Because of Goa Club's dynamic design, its broad music policy and polar impetus of being both a lounge and a club, the system is constantly being tweaked and improved. At peak time, the wooden floor is literally vibrating under foot. Head to the back of the club, however, and you can recline and chat freely with friends. Goa Club pulls this off with surprising ease.

Chapter

07

Mixes

The sound of Goa Club

The club's residents bring the heat

So what's it actually like on the Goa Club dance floor? Giancarlino, Silvie Loto, Fabrizio Sala, ADIEL and DJ Red, the club's residents, emphatically answer that question with these mixes, showing that Goa Club is a hotbed for high-quality house and techno.

Still haven't got your Goa Club fix? You can visit its club profile here, and there's more information on the series via the dedicated In Residence page.