Lonely Planet Review Up-and-coming DJs present their turntable dexterity at this narrow unpretentious club in Olde Bangkok. Hip-hop, break beat, drum 'n' bass and tribal fill the night roster, but only special events actually fill the floor.

www.lonelyplanet.com

lassic arty Cafe with two floors where you can listen electronic sounds from Drum and Bass, House to Techno.

www.clubzone.com               

Appealing mostly to the indie crowd tired of hiso joints, this place is as laid back as it gets. During the day they cook up delicious Thai and Euro fare, desserts and drinks; after sunset the furniture is pushed to the walls and Bangkok’s beat freaks emerge, pumping out thumping electronic sounds, d’n’b, breakbeat, hip hop, techno and even rock. Café Democ sees some of the city’s best DJs rotating at the decks. If there’s one place to cut loose on the dance floor, this is it.

Chivas Nightlife Guide, BK#162, Dec 1, 2007

www.bkmagazine.com

Cafe Democ is café-by-day with mainly tourist customers and an electronic musicoriented bar at night with a majority Thai crowd. This two-storey graffiti-covered, retro antique-scattered venue is one of the few joints where decent tunes can be heard by DJs from Wednesday to Sunday nights. But Café Democ is unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) a little out of Khao San Rd ., so it can fail to secure the crowds other, less worthy, venues attract. Although it won’t burn a hole in your wallet and the food is actually quite good – try the fish’n’chips for your Britannia fix. Cocktails are 140 baht, buckets from 280 – 350 or a Heineken for 110 baht. Every night hosts a different musical genre with different DJs (Thai and some international) so keep an eye out for their program.

Open: Tuesday - Sunday 4pm - 01:00

Address: Ratchadameon Klang, Banglampoo - 

Phone: +66 2 622 2572

www.blogcatalog.com / www.bars-reviews.blogspot.com

Appealing mostly to the indie crowd tired of hiso joints, this place is as laid back as it gets. During the day they cook up delicious Thai and Euro fare, desserts and drinks; after sunset the furniture is pushed to the walls and Bangkok's beat freaks emerge, pumping out thumping electronic sounds, d'n'b, breakbeat, hip hop, techno and even rock. Café Democ sees some of the city's best DJs rotating at the decks. If there's one place to cut loose on the dance floor, this is it.

www.ubradio.net

Khao San Road is renowned as one of the best places for nightlife both in the Bangkok capital and elsewhere in the Kingdom of Thailand. Sitting alongside excellent restaurants and pubs, KSR's clubs now rank parallel with Sukhumvit 11 haunts as some of THE places to visit when in town. Given the importance of the strip's role in catering to global club officiados, the fact that Cafe Democ is seldom included in any foreign clubber's itinerary remains a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

For those in the know, a trip to Cafe Democ is very much a trip to the source - to where it all began. Despite its unimposing architecture and presence (by Bangkok club standards anyway), Cafe Democ is the spiritual home of Bangkok's club scene. Opened in 1999 and located on a corner of Democracy Monument (hence its name), Cafe Democ is no more than a 10-minute walk from Khao San Road and is where the seed of local DJ talent was nurtured into the vibrant scene that exists today.

As I sit outside the club with owner Mr. Apichart - or Tui to his friends - we talk against a backdrop of some killer homegrown Drums and Bass. "This is not really a club to me," suggests Tui wistfully. "I also own club Culture, a big club in the center of town. That to me is a club - this (Cafe Democ) is my home! This is where I was brought up," he enthuses.

Now in his 40s, Tui started life as a DJ at Diana's in 1984, one of Bangkok's leading clubs back in the day. There he pumped out Madonna, Michael Jackson, and any other commercial sound his undiscerning audience fancied. At the time the local talent for even this was limited, and UK companies would send DJs out to Thai venues to entertain the masses.

The DJs brought a smattering of club sounds that although established in the west, represented something of a revolution in Thailand. Rubbing shoulders with these DJs, Tui's tastes changed, as did that of his audience. Slowly, seamlessly, pockets of resistance to commercial music emerged and along with it local DJs experimented. Thailand's first real underground music scene was born.

"15 years ago Bangkok was the leading place for club music in Southeast Asia," adds Tui. "DJs from places like Singapore and Hong Kong came over here to sample the scene. Unfortunately, as with other places in the world, in 90s the club scene became synonymous with drug culture. Drugs pretty much killed the underground. The police closed venues, and Bangkok became a bit of a wilderness. Hip Hop changed that."

"Local artists like Joey Boy made Hip Hop respectable and brought it into the mainstream," he continued. "Once there, the scene emerged again - it was a safe environment where people could experiment with sounds. Clubs and DJs started to flourish again, and Cafe Democ was there to help things along. Local DJs came here to play exactly what they wanted, with no commercial pressure. We brought over the occasional international act, but primarily, Cafe Democ was for local DJs".