Coachella Valley clubbers and nightlife enthusiasts have a plethora of options—with new events popping up all the time.
The newest event: Disco Inferno, at Reforma Palm Springs, featuring—as the title suggests—disco music! Starting at 9 p.m. every Saturday, DJs Alex Harrington, Millionsworld (Mill Essex), and Sebass (Sebastian Lopez) blast a mix of jams with a heavy focus on disco classics and remixes. The series is set to continue through the summer.
During a recent phone interview, Harrington explained how Disco Inferno came to be.
“We were brought into it by Reforma; they wanted to do something different on Saturday nights, and they wanted to bring in a disco sound,” Harrington said. “We do it with a heavy house influence, so essentially, we just created a night for everybody. … We wanted to create a night that could basically host everyone from wherever they come from.”
Throughout his career, which has included a couple of stints as an Independent contributor, Harrington has witnessed the Coachella Valley’s love for disco first-hand.
“I’ve actually been in the desert for 20 years, and I’ve been DJing for about that same amount of time,” Harrington said. “I started DJing at a lot of the clubs out here, and disco was a big influence in the scene. That’s kind of where I started with it, and over the years, it evolved. I’ve played a few Splash Houses now as well, so I’ve been able to kind of merge that house sound with that classic disco sound I started with.”
The trio of DJs, along with occasional special guests, keep the party going all night long, while also providing fresh approaches and twists on the evening’s disco sound. Harrington called it “a huge collaborative night.”
“We all put our own style to it,” Harrington said. “Sebastian’s got a lot of fun, great classic remixes, and Mill, he’s definitely more about house music with a heavy disco element. Throughout the night, we’re switching off constantly, so you’re getting that mix of the different styles.”
Disco Inferno has been entertaining audiences for several weeks now, and Harrington said he’s noticed the evening is providing a meeting ground for people within varied demographics.
“We get young people, old people and everyone from every walk of life,” he said. “It’s been a really good response, and it’s something different. The one thing we’ve heard probably the most is that people are excited to have something different in the valley. It is a club night, but you can go out, and it’s very relaxed and fun, and we found that’s the element that people are really into.”
Harrington said no two Disco Inferno nights will ever be the same.
“We’re always going to play classic disco, but we create all of our sets on the fly,” Harrington said. “It’s kind of like going to see your favorite band, and they’re playing all the songs, but they’re different every night, and not in the same order. We have certain songs from Abba and Earth, Wind and Fire that we will play every time, but we’re playing for five hours, so we’re always changing it up every week, depending on the crowd. If we see that they’re responding to the classic stuff a certain way, we’ll kind of move in that direction, and if they’re looking for stuff a little more modern, we’ll go that way with it.”
Harrington said Disco Inferno will soon include other local performers as well as other artists from Southern California.
“We have a lot of local DJs on here that we’re adding on,” Harrington said. “We’re bringing people out from Los Angeles and San Diego. There are some other things in the works that haven’t been confirmed yet,” he said.
Harrington loves house music, and enjoys incorporating it into his disco performances. He said the mixture has helped keep audiences with varying ranges of disco knowledge entertained.
“The saving grace is that we get to kind of flex with the house genre, because playing any one genre for five hours is difficult,” Harrington said. ‘Disco is great, but a lot of people just know the hits, so if you break into some of the more obscure things, it sometimes creates a disconnect. Thankfully, we have a lot of different genres to pull from and mix in that makes it fresh. We’re adding every week, and we’ll find some new stuff. What we really like to do is find remixes of classic stuff, so you’re still hearing it, but with maybe a different sound. The exciting part every week is finding new music to share with everybody.”
Disco Inferno takes place at 9 p.m. every Saturday at Reforma, 333 S. Palm Canyon Drive, in Palm Springs. Admission is free before 10:30 p.m., and $10 after. For tickets and more information, visit reformaps.com.