Scene Report: Free Your Fabulous at Madrone Art Bar

Scene Report is our continuing series on the best parties and music nights in the Bay Area

December 23, 2018

By Brennan Ko

Free Your Fabulous

If you walk into Madrone Art Bar on a Thursday night you may be lucky enough to stumble upon one of San Francisco’s best weekday dance floors. The monthly all things disco party, Free Your Fabulous, has been running for over two years thanks to its two tireless residents and disco lovers Dan Harris and Arnold.

The two formerly helped curate and produce the beloved weekly party Run The Length of Your Wildness at Underground SF until its last party was announced a few months ago. Now, they devote their energies into promoting and playing the genres of music they love to make people dance with, disco.

With Dan and Arnold at the controls you can be sure to hear the infectious four on floor disco rhythm and good bit of rare cuts taken from their personal vinyl collections. A love for record digging is at the core of these two selectors and it shows in the their mix’s. You never quite know what will get played, sometimes its classic disco or some hip swaying Afro-disco then next second it could be a high energy Italo track that sends the dance floor into a frenzy.

That ability to surprise an audience with an obscure, but choice selection of a widely popular dance genre makes Free Your Fabulous one of the most refreshing disco dedicated nights in San Francisco.

Residents Dan Harris (left) & Arnold (right)

The venue

If you’ve never been to Madrone Art Bar, just know that it is a low-key kind of place that gets a lot of foot traffic. This makes it an ideal location to have a weekday party because you are bound to get a lot of curious passerby’s peeping in, which in realty is more often the case. Red mood lighting sets a subdued tone throughout the place making it comfortable to sit and chat without feeling like everyone is looking at you.

That’s not to say the energy in the place is low. More often than not, music is compelling the nighttime crowd to make their way out of their comfort zones and out of their chairs. Combine that with the bars ample dancing room and it creates a recipe for an underrated bar night and in the case of Free Your Fabulous, the best Thursday night dance floor in the entire city.

Embrace the Disco

Don’t let it be said that disco is dead, especially not in the Bay Area where it has so much history. If you want to learn more about the Bay Area’s impact on disco’s history, check out the words of disco lover Dan Harris himself.

If you have time on the third Thursday of the month to get a drink with friends make sure to check out Free Your Fabulous and support your local music scene. The fact that it is located right on the corner of Divisidero and Fell Street in San Francisco makes it easy even for people coming in from the East Bay to attend.

If you want to keep up with these local DJs and their parties, make sure to check out their episodes here on our website.

Edit: As of March 21, 2019, Free Your Fabulous is on indefinite hiatus

Scene Report: Free Your Fabulous