When festival organizers approached D.C. nightclub icon Ed Bailey about imagining a new space at Project GLOW to represent the LGBTQIA community in 2023, he dreamed up the Secret Garden.
Having DJed and operated legendary gay nightclubs for decades, from the now-shuttered Town to modern staple Trade, Bailey wanted to pull homegrown talent that harks back to the ’80s and ’90s into the city’s electronic music festival.
These days, much of the energy of electronic music manifests in international, sprawling three-day events. The Secret Garden was to be a one-day throwback within Project GLOW, but parts of Bailey’s vision were too outlandish to execute in the mere weeks he had to plan.
“It’s an interesting way to enjoy dance music: these big festivals and these massive stages. It really was born in this other way,” Bailey says, referring to nightclubs and smaller spaces in general. “We’re trying to create that experience to some extent at the festival, to give people this different feel and vibe.”
Secret Garden’s 2023 debut was a hit. And given its positive reception, Bailey now has a longer leash and more time to design the verdant atmosphere he first envisioned for last year. He also has more time and space to pitch talent for both days of the third annual Project GLOW, which returns April 27 and 28.
Last year, Bailey lured remarkable parts of D.C.’s nightclub culture of yore back to the city, including drag queen Kevin Aviance, whose career resurged after Beyoncé sampled one of his songs on her 2022 Renaissance album.
This time around Bailey is targeting “hybrid” performers, who not only DJ but also dance or interact with their audience in other ways—artists whom those outside the queer and trans communities likely haven’t experienced.
DJ Sedrick got his start in D.C. and blends preacher theatrics into his sets, while ’90s clubbers might also recognize club kid Lil Monstah, who now goes by Monstah Black, as one half of New York-based the Illustrious Blacks with his partner Manchildblack. “The ’90s club kid world now lives in lore,” Bailey says. “And D.C. had quite its own contingent.”
Project GLOW will feature newer local DJs as well, including Baby Weight, aka Cara Eser, whose Secret Garden performance will be a festival three-peat.
Still based in D.C.’s dance music scene, where she’s been for the better part of the past decade, Eser, a trans woman, bounced around venues such as Flash and the now-defunct U Street Music Hall and Velvet Lounge in her college years honing her sound. Now she has music festivals such as Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas and HARD Summer under her belt, but it’s the opportunity to provide visibility and validation to her LGBTQIA family, who don’t always feel welcome at mainstream events, that keeps her coming back to Project GLOW.
“Electronic music was birthed in these small dance halls comprised primarily of queer people, persons of color, basically anyone who was an outlier to the mainstream,” Eser says. “And the dance music scene, from the time that the EDM bubble happened to the pandemic, lost a lot of that flavor.”
Eser views Project GLOW as a chance to “hit the reset button” and ensure dance music festivals reflect the people who brought the genre into vogue in the first place.
Over the years, Baby Weight’s sets have grown increasingly “vulnerable” with more music you can cry to and less house tracks simply for “throwing ass,” she says. Lately the DJ has been influenced by storytelling singers Tori Amos, Natalie Imbruglia, Shawn Colvin, and Michelle Branch.
Baby Weight’s moody dance ballad, “My Heart,” featuring gay, UK-based grime rapper Karnage Kills, perfectly exemplifies her style. “I think the reason why that song resonates with people is that it’s a universal feeling: like you’re being taken advantage of … like you’re not at the right place at the right time with the right person,” Eser says. “It further shows that dance music can be used to ground yourself and feel the softer, more melancholic sides of life, and when you experience that on a dance floor with lots of other people around you, it becomes a unifying experience.”
Leading up to the festival, Eser has a track on LP Giobbi and Insomniac Records’ “Femme House Vol. 2” compilation, which was released March 4 in honor of International Women’s Month. The song is the result of “hundreds of therapy sessions … to express the unease trans people in the U.S. face,” she says. “There are days where you don’t really want to stick your head outside, especially with some horrible headlines that we’ve been reading. It’s more important … to sit back, take a breath, and realize that we’re all kind of struggling here, and we need to do more work building bridges instead of burning them.”
That also happens to be the ethos of Project GLOW, which promises to have something for every kind of electronic music fan.
As for Bailey, who will be performing again, his set for 2024’s fest is a work in progress, but last year’s ranged from house to disco. “I was walking around the festival afterward, and people were coming up all around me who were like, ‘Oh my God, who are you? I just heard your set. It was great,’” Bailey says. “That is what you live for as a performer.”
Project GLOW runs April 27 and 28 at RFK Festival Grounds. projectglowfest.com. $205.64–$323.59.
