{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2022}} {{Short description|Electronic music dance party in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania}} {{distinguish|Hot Mess (disambiguation)}} '''Hot Mass''' is an electronic music dance party held weekly since December 2012 below Club Pittsburgh, a private gay club and bathhouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The event indirectly grew out of Pittsburgh's LGBTQ, disco, and electronic music subcultures of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Critics have noted the experience and quality of music at Hot Mass is difficult to find elsewhere in the United States, comparing it favorably to European nightclubs and parties.
==Format== Hot Mass is usually held weekly on Saturday nights into Sunday mornings.<ref name="eb">{{cite web |title=How America's Standout Party Hot Mass Is Changing Pittsburgh |url=https://www.electronicbeats.net/hot-mass-pittsburgh/ |publisher=Electronic Beats |access-date=March 10, 2021 |date=February 3, 2016}}</ref> One night per month is called '''Honcho''', a specifically gay party.<ref name="eb"/> Hot Mass and Honcho parties take place on the second floor of a building at 1139 Penn Avenue owned by Club Pittsburgh, a private gay men's club and bathhouse.<ref name="eb"/> The party can legally remain open past the 2:00 am closing time imposed on bars and nightclubs because it is hosted at a private club; Hot Mass organizers charge an entrance fee for a membership.<ref name="eb"/>
==History== ===Background=== During the 1970s and 1980s—at the height of disco's popularity and prior to the AIDS pandemic—at least three private social clubs in Pittsburgh which served gay clientele used their spaces to legally host afterhours dancing and drinking.<ref name="deitch">{{cite news |last1=Deitch |first1=Charlie |title=In new exhibit of after-hours gay clubs, local historian unearths the city's LGBT legacy |url=https://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/in-new-exhibit-of-after-hours-gay-clubs-local-historian-unearths-the-citys-lgbt-legacy/Content?oid=1752833 |access-date=March 10, 2021 |work=Pittsburgh City Paper |date=May 21, 2014}}</ref><ref name="pqhp">{{cite web |last1=Apple |first1=Harrison |last2=Haggerty |first2=Tim |last3=Lamonte |first3=Dani |title=Lucky After Dark: Pittsburgh's Gay and Lesbian Social Clubs 1960–1990 |url=http://pittsburghqueerhistory.com/exhibits/luckyafterdark/ |website=Pittsburgh Queer History Project |access-date=March 10, 2021 |date=2014–2021}}</ref> These three clubs—Lucky's Transportation Club, House of Tilden, and Travelers—were owned and operated by Robert "Lucky" Johns and were popular nightlife spots frequented by LGBT and heterosexual patrons alike coming from as far as Ohio, West Virginia, and New York.<ref name="deitch"/><ref name="pqhp"/>
Throughout the 1990s there was an electronic music subculture in Pittsburgh which likely traced its origins to similar Internet chatroom-based movements in Detroit, Cleveland, Minneapolis, and across the United States.<ref name="matos">{{cite web |last1=Matos |first1=Michaelangelo |title=How The Internet Transformed The American Rave Scene |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2011/07/17/137680680/how-the-internet-transformed-the-american-rave-scene |website=The Record |publisher=NPR |access-date=March 10, 2021 |date=July 11, 2011}}</ref><ref name="kelly">{{cite web |last1=Kelly |first1=Justin |title=Hot Mass: Rebuilding Pittsburgh's Dance Music Culture |url=https://www.attackmagazine.com/features/long-read/hot-mass-rebuilding-pittsburghs-dance-music-culture/ |work=Attack Magazine |access-date=March 10, 2021 |year=2018}}</ref><ref name="pro">{{cite news |last1=Pro |first1=Johnna A. |title=Police out to crash drug-laced 'rave' parties |url=https://old.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20000926ecstasy3.asp |access-date=March 10, 2021 |work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |date=September 26, 2000 |archive-date=May 9, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210509122342/https://old.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20000926ecstasy3.asp |url-status=dead }}</ref> Pittsburgh promoters and DJs organized raves in warehouses, ice rinks, barns, and fields which eventually attracted thousands of attendees, some of whom were high school students or even younger.<ref name="kelly"/><ref name="barnes">{{cite news |last1=Barnes |first1=Tom |title=S. Siders raving over rink's late parties: Sleep-starved residents giving Ricciardi an earful |url=https://old.post-gazette.com/neigh_city/20010109ravecity3.asp |access-date=March 10, 2021 |work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |date=January 9, 2001 |archive-date=May 9, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210509081950/https://old.post-gazette.com/neigh_city/20010109ravecity3.asp |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="silver-barnes">{{cite news |last1=Silver |first1=Jonathan D. |last2=Barnes |first2=Tom |title=Word of rave performance resulted in added police |url=https://old.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20010103ravereg5.asp |access-date=March 10, 2021 |work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |date=January 3, 2001 |archive-date=May 9, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210509062324/https://old.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20010103ravereg5.asp |url-status=dead }}</ref> As the events grew more popular, they drew internationally known DJs such as Adam Beyer and Richie Hawtin.<ref name="kelly"/> Pittsburgh rave culture itself spawned at least one well-known artist, the drum and bass DJ Dieselboy, who attended the University of Pittsburgh between 1990 and 1995.<ref name="matos"/><ref name="carter">{{cite news |last1=Carter |first1=Kelly |title=Nonprogressive portrayals – Letters to the editor |url=http://old.post-gazette.com/forum/20001003edlets6.asp |access-date=March 10, 2021 |work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |date=October 3, 2000 |archive-date=May 9, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210509081951/http://old.post-gazette.com/forum/20001003edlets6.asp |url-status=dead }}</ref> Eventually people began using raves as places to buy and sell drugs—including MDMA and Rohypnol—leading to Pittsburgh Police crackdowns on raves in 2000 and 2001.<ref name="kelly"/><ref name="pro"/><ref name="kobell">{{cite news |last1=Kobell |first1=Rona |title=Covert, all-night parties are all the rave |url=http://old.post-gazette.com/magazine/19990524snl1.asp |access-date=March 10, 2021 |work=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |date=May 24, 1999 |archive-date=April 3, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220403230622/http://old.post-gazette.com/magazine/19990524snl1.asp |url-status=dead }}</ref> Continuing drug busts and new legislation put a stop to these kinds of events and, therefore, Pittsburgh's dance music subculture by 2002–2003.<ref name="eb"/><ref name="kelly"/>
===Origins and growth=== Aaron Clark moved to Pittsburgh as a college student in 2003.<ref name="kelly"/> He was interested in house music and chose Pittsburgh partially because of its reputation for large raves, but he arrived too late to witness all but the vestiges of the 1990s subculture. Over time Clark met and started collaborating with Pittsburgh-based producers and promoters such as Steve Simpson, Paul Fleetwood, and Shawn Rudiman, who continued trying to book premier DJs for shows at Pittsburgh bars and clubs. In the late 2000s Clark became part of a DJ crew called '''Humanaut''' which eventually hosted its own electronic music parties, first at mainstream nightclubs and then at smaller venues.<ref name="kelly"/>
Around the same time as Clark's move to Pittsburgh, artist and DJ Lauren Goshinski returned to the city from an exchange program in London, where she frequented Fabric nightclub and became enamored with house music.<ref name="kelly"/> Looking for a similar milieu in Pittsburgh, Goshinski discovered afterhours live music at Shadow Lounge, a coffee shop allowed to host afterhours events as it did not have a liquor license.<ref name="kelly"/> Eventually Goshinski started DJing and designing audiovisual experiences at Shadow Lounge and other Pittsburgh venues, ultimately leading to her founding the VIA Music Festival in 2010.<ref name="kelly"/>
Clark and Goshinski met because Goshinski attended Humanaut parties, while Clark began working with her on the VIA festival.<ref name="kelly"/> John McMarlin, the manager of Club Pittsburgh—inspired by the private Pittsburgh discos of the 1970s and 1980s and his experiences at DJ Larry Levan's "Saturday Mass" shows at Paradise Garage in New York City—convinced Clark to make the party a weekly occurrence.<ref name="eb"/> To manage the work needed to plan and host weekly parties, Hot Mass was split between four or five different rotating crews, including one known as '''Pittsburgh Track Authority'''.<ref name="eb"/><ref name="stolman">{{cite news|last1=Stolman|first1=Elissa|title=The Secret Techno Sex Parties of Pittsburgh|work=Thump|publisher=Vice Media|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/secret-techno-sex-parties-of-pittsburgh/|access-date=March 10, 2021}}</ref><ref name="kelly"/>
Since 2014 the party has attracted many DJs to Pittsburgh, including The Black Madonna, Daniel Bell, Mike Servito, and Theo Parrish.<ref name="eb"/><ref name="maven">{{cite web |title=Hot Mass: The Party That's Changing Pittsburgh |url=https://mmmmaven.com/2016/03/02/hot-mass-the-party-thats-changing-pittsburgh/ |website=MMMMAVEN |access-date=March 10, 2021 |date=March 2, 2016 |archive-date=March 5, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210305065423/https://mmmmaven.com/2016/03/02/hot-mass-the-party-thats-changing-pittsburgh/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Electronic music artist and DJ Yaeji credits Hot Mass with her "indoctrination into nightlife"; she regularly attended the party while studying at Carnegie Mellon University.<ref name="kim">{{cite news |last1=Kim |first1=Michelle |title=How Yaeji Found Her Voice |url=https://mixmag.asia/feature/how-yaeji-found-her-voice |access-date=March 10, 2021 |work=Mixmag Asia |date=October 14, 2020}}</ref><ref name="posner">{{cite news |last1=Posner |first1=Nina |title=Yaeji: All Together Now |url=https://crackmagazine.net/article/profiles/yaeji-together-now/ |access-date=March 10, 2021 |work=Crack Magazine |date=October 1, 2020}}</ref>
Hot Mass was on hiatus since March 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, with the exception of a virtual New Year's Eve party held on the night of 31 December 2020–1 January 2021. Hot Mass resumed holding weekly events in May 2022. <ref name="waltz">{{cite news |last1=Waltz |first1=Amanda |title=New Year's events with Hot Mass and Mostbeautifullest offer two days of dance music, performances, and more |url=https://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/new-years-events-with-hot-mass-and-mostbeautifullest-offer-two-days-of-dance-music-performances-and-more/Content?oid=18641279 |access-date=March 9, 2021 |work=Pittsburgh City Paper |date=December 29, 2020}}</ref>
=== Closure of Club Pittsburgh space, and move to new space === On February 6, 2025, Hot Mass announced an abrupt exit of their longtime venue built inside of Club Pittsburgh, and a quick move to a new undisclosed location. They have resumed parties on a bi-weekly schedule in the new space for the time being.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Instagram |url=https://www.instagram.com/p/DFvS6nsvKVq/ |access-date=2025-02-08 |website=www.instagram.com}}</ref>
==Cultural impact== Critics have noted the experience and quality of music at Hot Mass is difficult to find elsewhere in the United States, comparing it favorably to European nightclubs and parties.<ref name="eb"/>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *{{Official|https://www.hotmasspgh.com/}} *[https://www.clubpittsburgh.com/index.php#!/page_home Club Pittsburgh website]
{{coord|40.4457|-79.9929|type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-PA|display=title}}
Category:Electronic dance music venues Category:Organized events in Pittsburgh Category:LGBTQ culture in Pittsburgh Category:LGBTQ nightclubs in Pennsylvania Category:Rave