Austin Powers meets Superfly.
A tiny room with a very big personality
If you were out in Hollywood around the turn of the millennium, you may remember a little bar on Melrose Avenue called Kane. It sat across from Paramount Studios. I say “around the turn of the millennium” because my exact years there are a blur of records, late nights, dancers, packed weekends, and very little sleep. Somewhere around 1998 to 2001-ish feels right. What I remember with absolute clarity is this: I was the DJ.
Kane looked like Austin Powers met Superfly and decided to open a living room in Hollywood. The old article described it in three words: eclectic, loungy, intimate. That is exactly what it was. The room was small enough that you could feel every shift in energy. There was no hiding behind a giant stage, a wall of lights, or a massive DJ booth. If the crowd loved a record, I knew it. If they did not, I knew that too.
A tiny room with a very Hollywood guest list
Kane may have been tiny, but the guest list was very Hollywood. You never knew who might walk through the door. Anna Nicole Smith, Wanda Sykes, Nicole Kidman, Jack Black, and so many others came through while I was DJing there. Because the room was so intimate, there was very little distance between celebrities, dancers, regulars, and whoever else found their way inside that night. Everyone was packed into the same little room, moving to the same music. At the time, it felt normal. Looking back, it was kind of wild.
The dancers were the real deal
The go-go dancers at Kane were not background entertainment. Some were members of the original Pussycat Dolls dance troupe. Others were top working dancers who toured and appeared in music videos with major artists. They brought personality, precision, and star power into that tiny room. Watching them work taught you quickly that club performance was still performance. Timing mattered. Music mattered. Chemistry mattered.
I played with them, responding to their movement as we built the night together. I had to read the dancers, the crowd, and the mood of the room. When everything connected, people who claimed they did not dance started dancing anyway.
I was not just playing records. I was learning how to read a room, shape energy, and build an experience.
Why I became the DJ
One of the surviving press clippings says I moved into DJing because the music critic in me was unsatisfied with what I was hearing in clubs. That sounds like me. I had already lived inside music as a dancer and touring performer. I knew what made people move, and I had opinions about what should come next. Eventually, the obvious answer was to get behind the decks and do it myself.
The same clipping says I DJed at Kane Thursdays through Saturdays. Three nights a week. It also mentions that I was working on music for Billy Blanks’ Tae-Bo videos and developing music for Deep before it opened. To be clear, I was never part of Deep or Forty Deuce. My chapter was Kane. My quote at the end was, “I don’t know when I’m gonna sleep!” Apparently, I have always been a multi-hyphenate.
“Pretty good for a woman”
The line that really takes me back is this one: “A caution to those who tell her, ‘You’re pretty good for a woman!’” At the time, people delivered that sentence like it was a compliment. It was not. Women DJs were still treated like a surprise, especially when we knew our music, controlled the room, and did not need anyone standing over our shoulder.
I did not need the qualifier. I was good. Period.
That part of the story still matters. Every generation thinks it invented women taking up space in music, media, and nightlife. We have been here. We were working. We were touring. We were behind the scenes, behind the decks, inside the edit bays, on the dance floor, and making the rooms feel the way people still remember them decades later.
Before Kane became Forty Deuce
Kane opened in 1997 in the little bar across from Paramount Studios. About three years later, Deep opened at Hollywood and Vine. In 2002, the original Kane space became Forty Deuce, the burlesque club that became the better-known name.
I include that timeline because it helps place these photographs and clippings. Kane came first, Deep followed, and Forty Deuce later occupied the original room. My story lives in that earlier Kane chapter, when I was behind the decks and those dancers were bringing the room to life.
Forty Deuce closed its original Melrose location in 2008. Mark and Jonnie Houston, the Houston Brothers, later took over the former space and opened Pour Vous there in 2012. They went on to become two of the most prominent club owners in Los Angeles, behind a long list of venues including La Descarga, Harvard & Stone, No Vacancy, Good Times at Davey Wayne’s, and Level 8.
The lesson I carried forward
I am not telling this story because I plan to become a nightclub DJ again. I am telling it because DJing is part of how I learned to do what I do now. A DJ curates. A producer sequences. A strategist reads an audience. A storyteller knows when to slow down, when to surprise people, and when to give them exactly what they came for.
Those years are not a random detour in my career. They connect directly to Jen X, Full Circle Creative Media, podcast production, brand strategy, and the way I build community today. The technology changed. The instinct did not.
The photographs are worn. The scans are fuzzy. The dates need a little help. But they are receipts. I was there, behind the decks, shaping the soundtrack in a tiny room on Melrose that would soon become part of Hollywood nightlife history.
The photographs are worn. The dates are fuzzy. But they are receipts. I was there.
Do you remember Kane?
If you remember Kane on Melrose, the dancers, the music, or those packed Hollywood nights before every night out became content, tell me what you remember. And if you have photos, I would love to see them. We had cell phones, technically, but most of them were not taking pictures yet. Any early digital photo looked like grainy evidence from an unsolved case. Part of me is grateful so little survived. Another part of me keeps wondering how many photos of me from those nights are still floating around in a drawer, on an old phone, or in somebody’s mystery photo album. If you find one, send it to me before you post it. I reserve the right to be delighted, horrified, or both.
Jen X ♥
From the Jen X Archives
The Clippings That Survived
The readable part of the J.J. clipping
Born and raised in Orange County, J.J. was described as a dancer who toured with N.W.A. and moved into DJing because she was unsatisfied with what she heard in clubs. The clipping places her at Kane from Thursday through Saturday, mentions her music work on Billy Blanks’ Tae-Bo videos, and ends with her saying, “I don’t know when I’m gonna sleep!”
“A caution to those who tell her, ‘You’re pretty good for a woman!’”Archival nightlife profile of J.J.
Archive note
- 1997: Ivan Kane opens Kane on Melrose Avenue, opposite Paramount Studios.
- June 1999: Kane appears on page 102 of Los Angeles Magazine’s “101 Sexiest People, Places and Things in L.A.” issue.
- Late 2000: Deep opens at Hollywood and Vine.
- 2002: The former Kane space becomes Forty Deuce.
- 2008: Forty Deuce closes its original Melrose location.
- 2012: Mark and Jonnie Houston open Pour Vous in the former Forty Deuce space.
- J.J.’s exact Kane residency dates are still being reconstructed from surviving clippings and memories.
Historical links used to verify the venue timeline
- Official Forty Deuce history page
- Los Angeles Times: “The New Hollywood,” January 18, 2001
- Los Angeles Times: “Striptease, With a Wink,” August 15, 2002
- Los Angeles Magazine: June 1999 issue, Kane listing on page 102
- Eater LA: Pour Vous opens in the former Forty Deuce space, April 2, 2012
- Los Angeles Magazine: “How the Houston Brothers Revolutionized L.A.’s Nightclub Scene,” June 28, 2023