I was 15 the first time I went to Le Poisson Rouge. I was in New York on vacation from Canada, and a concert listing for the Kronos Quartet caught my eye. I had grown up on their recordings of Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and Morton Feldman, but to see the group up close, in a New York basement packed full of people gyrating along to Missy Mazzoli and Laurie Anderson was transformative. For most people, the first time in a nightclub is a rite of passage into adulthood, with cheap alcohol, sweaty bodies, and the tantalizing possibility of sex. And, though my first club experience involved watching classical music accompanied by my parents, Le Poisson Rouge still felt like the coolest place in the world.
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