• Courtesy Of Shelby Cross
• Malcolm Miller

Let's face it: Burlington is just about the furthest thing from a "club city." If you've lived in a place with a proper dance music culture, you know the signs; you've seen the people heading out to dance the night away. They're often dressed a little nicer than the rock show set or the comedy club people, and they usually have different drugs to accompany their evening — hey, if whatever floats your boat doesn't ruin anyone else's time, go for it, I say.

That's not a dig against Burlington, by any means. The Queen City bats well above average in terms of musical talent. It's just not a city that has ever been known as a great place to go out dancing, despite ever-reliable institutions such as Sunday Night Mass at Club Metronome and DJ Taka spinning weekends at Radio Bean — though even he's down to only Friday nights as of this week.

In short, it's rare to see lines down the street to get into a dance club in B-town. But that doesn't mean the scene doesn't exist — you just have to know where to find it.

"It's weird, but there are little scenes popping up now," Malcolm Miller, aka Malachi, told me the other week as we shared some dim sum downtown. "There's a spot for hip-hop. There's a house and techno scene. I've got my emo nights ... There's a lot of great DJ sets in town these days; they're just kind of stratified."

Miller is one of my go-to sources for keeping tabs on the DJ and EDM scene in Burlington. Readers with good memories will recall my chatting with him a few years back. In 2021, just as clubs were opening back up during the pandemic, we spoke about the ascendancy of the DJ.

"I'm not sure exactly why it's been this way, but it feels like, coming out of COVID ... people want to hear and dance to stuff that reminds them of happy times, so they can let loose," he told me then.

Now Miller thinks the balance has shifted back to live music as the main draw at downtown clubs. But he is noticing intriguing developments in the DJ-set-and-dance nights in Burlington.

At Metronome, Miller runs two of the more popular dance nights in town, Emo Night and After Hours, an open-format dance night where he spins everything from modern hip-hop to No Doubt. He took off a big chunk of 2022 and early 2023, putting aside his decks to deal with personal issues and work-related demands. He stormed back in November, though, and relaunched his two series, ready not just to get the bodies back on the dance floor but also to shine a light on what he sees as a newly ascendant coalition of DJs, rappers and dance nights.

"Honestly, I love where the scene is going right now," Miller said. "I always used to think it would be this big, cohesive thing when it happened, but it's more like these individualized places, specific to a certain vibe, and I think it's really fascinating."

"You've got No Fun Intended and the Nexus parties," Miller went on, referencing Andy Kershaw's EDM record label and Nexus Artist Management, the booking agency that holds the Sunday Night Mass series and books big touring acts such as the Crystal Method. "So we have those two representing the house and techno scenes. And if you want bass music, just go to anything hosted by Full Melt Productions."

Miller pointed out that two Queen City bars — Orlando's Bar & Lounge and the Cellar, in the basement of Drink — are hosting more and more hip-hop, including Nastee and DJ Kanga's popular Rap Night at the latter. The Other Half, which opened recently in the former SideBar space on Main Street, is the spiritual successor to the Half Lounge, which hosted many a DJ night over the years before it closed in 2020. And Red Square remains one of the only venues with DJs booked every night they're open.

"There's so many club killers in town right now," Miller enthused. "Between DJ Baron, Two Sev, Cre8, Ron Stoppable ... there's just so many reliable, good DJs, and they're all finding their pockets in town."

Miller himself has been discovering new areas to hold down besides his Metronome and Red Square gigs: He recently took over the marketing and booking at Einstein's Tap House on lower Church Street. He's excited to move into booking and promoting and take the chance to turn Einstein's into a hot spot.

"We've got a killer sound system, and I'm bringing in some great DJs to spin," Miller said. "I think we can make Einstein's one of the best places to hear a DJ in the city."

Miller has never stopped creating original music while deejaying, amassing a library of tracks that he hopes to release in 2024. But he will retire his nom de guerre of Malachi in the New Year because there are too many Malachis (Malachae?).

"Apple Music was literally like, 'No way, too many people named Malachi,'" Miller said with a laugh. "And I have huge respect for a DJ like David Guetta, who just uses his given name. So that's what I'm doing — from here on out, it's just DJ Malcolm Miller."

He'll launch his new handle with the final Emo Night of the year at Club Metronome on Saturday, December 30, followed by a New Year's Eve set at Red Square.

"It's exciting to me, because there are truly a number of places to go and dance and hear great music being spun, and I'm not sure that's always been the case," Miller said of the scene.

If Burlington is on its way to becoming a clubbing city, that's fine by me. For one, you avoid any Footloose-style scenario in which one has to dance to fight oppression, which honestly sounds exhausting to me. For another, the more late-nighters are out dancing, the more late-night food trucks will appear. I am 100 percent pulling that correlation out of my ass, but I'm telling you, it's true.