I saw her, only her, in the flashing lights of Neo. The place was packed. Every flash imprinted a different aspect of her face. Lost in stop-motion glimpses. I don’t know if I was reaching out to her or she grabbed my hand. Dancing now. Moving without thinking. New Wave washed over us with sounds of the future. We are here. The world waited for us.  I don’t think I ever felt music like this before, or since. We danced outside time. Have we always been together?

That’s my attempt to describe what it felt like at Neo Nightclub in Chicago back in the day. My inspiration for this illustration. Weird color text for a similar aesthetic of early net.

Neo… The place was an experience. New Wave night, on Thursdays, was probably the most popular. They played that '80s music, which felt like it was heralding something of great importance. Hopeful for the future, the world was ending, nothing matters but the right here, right now.

Think of songs from Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, Marc Almind, Joy Division, The Cure, New Order, A-ha, Tear for Fears. The list of bands goes on and on. These might be some of the bigger names, but the zeitgeist of the time spawned countless songs. We’re all better for it.

Neo had industrial nights, goth nights, punk, drum and bass, techno even. It was a lot of things. It was the antithesis of every single other nightclub. It was a place for alternatives. I loved it.

Speaking of new wave: the caption of the cartoon has to be sung like the chorus I queued this video to:

That someone in the dark is the someone who’s most important to me. She’s the one. My everything. She’s a huge fan of The Cure. So, I tried to give her Robert Smith hair. It kept getting bigger and more wild, until it got to this state of crazy. I like it.

We actually attended the 10th anniversary "Neo Nightclub Reunion" back in 2025. It was held at Metro Chicago. Not the best spot. The Metro is a big place. Neo was intimate. Neo was like 1/20th the size. Neo was someone’s basement.

Nonetheless, it was fun to “feel” the New Wave music again. It still felt that way – the music just smothered you of that trepid hopefulness all those songs had. Still have. We danced, and for a few moments, yeah, we were lost in it. Later, I drew a couple of 'toons inspired by the time revisiting Neo. This is one of them.

The code on the left is for a step-counter written in C. The code on the right is the same thing, but in JAVA. That's the one and only JAVA program I every wrote. The thought of “going back to the old days” made me remember going back to write a program in JAVA. Go back… and simplify... was the idea here.

That’s right. The Wachowskis would hang out at Neo in their hometown of Chicago. Rumor has it that the club influenced their seminal work, The Matrix. I want to believe it. If I ever get a chance to interview them, that’s the first thing I’d ask.

But, if you watch the scene where Neo meets Trinity at a nightclub early in the film, that's a near replica of Neo nightclub. Watching the scene again, it’s literally the same. Big pillars in the middle of the dance floor, mirrors, a seating area on the side. I think I would hang out on the same side like Neo is here. This side was near the coat check by the entrance.

Want to kind of visit Neo? There’s a documentary about the place. It’s not streaming anywhere, but you can get to the documentary here: https://www.facebook.com/2350LastCall/

Here’s the trailer.

Only ONE cartoon left until Engineering on Friday ends here at Electronic Design. Let me know what you thought of the series: [email protected]

See the rest of my 'toons at the Engineering on Friday comic gallery.