Hey look, the Wall Street Journal, of all things, has discovered Synthwave. That probably means its over now, right? "Synthwave, the Sound of an '80s Childhood, Goes Mainstream."

There's a particular type of article that gets churned out every couple of years that always begins, "Biff! Bang! Pow! Comics aren't just for kids any more!" This article is basically that but for music: it repeats the claim that "They're not just 80s cover bands!" so many times that you can tell that the author really does think they're all just 80s cover bands. (Incidentally, Stranger Things sucked, and while it was panderingly nostalgic, it did not invent nostalgia, or pandering. Note to lazy writers: other analogies exist.)

Meanwhile, in that other genre from the Lost Decade of 19A0, Revolution at 3.5″: Inside Vaporwave's Mini-Boom of Floppy Disk Releases:

"Floppies are cheaper than cassettes, they don't have to be tediously dubbed, they look appealing, they're available in a lot of colors and have cool designs that people like," says Matthew Isom, 40, of San Diego plunderphonic vaporwave label Power Lunch, who notes that floppies also cost substantially less to ship overseas than cassettes.

There are less convenient aspects to the format, of course, but floppy aficionados have found ways to work within its limits. "I discovered, after playing around, that you can actually release about 11 minutes and 38 seconds of 8-bit audio MP3 on a floppy disk," says Campbell, who has released six floppies so far via Strudelsoft. "The first one that I did was this vaporwave artist called Cat System Corp and I had a run of like 20 floppy disks. And it fuckin' sold out in 8 seconds."

Campbell sourced his first batch of disks on eBay. When that proved too expensive, he sent a call to the employees at the contract manufacturer where he works in IT. He followed that up with a post on Canadian classified site Kajiji, where he offered to pick up floppies from peoples' homes. He wagers he currently has about 400 or 500 floppy disks in his basement.

Wow, you have 500 floppy disks? You are like a little baby! I've been burning promo floppy disks that nobody can figure out how to read for years...

All of this is just a long-winded intro to my real point here, which is as follows:

You should come to to Turbo Drive this Friday to see Tonebox, Lucy in Disguise, and Mellow Fields. Is good music. You like.

Sell out early, sell out often!

Also, please enjoy jwz mixtape 202.

I'm gonna make two guesses here: first, that 80% of the people reading this post work for tech companies, and second, that 100% of you would like DNA Lounge to continue to exist.

Great! Here's how you can help that happen: help us get corporate parties. Does your company participate in any way at any San Francisco-based conference or trade show? Do you host an after party, a product launch, a side-session, a PR event, an employees-only event?

Find out who in your company organized the last one, or is organizing the next one. Go talk to them. Tell them that DNA Lounge is awesome and they should have the event there. booking@dnalounge.com. And the Rentals tab up top contains salient details.

Maybe that co-worker of yours who is in charge of these things accomplishes it by just hiring a party-planner company. Great! If your person were to say to the planner, "Hey, how about looking in to DNA Lounge?" that could be all that it takes to make it happen.

Putting us directly in touch with the party planning company couldn't hurt, either.

Some examples of what's coming up:

• RSA Security is the first week of March. It will fill all three Moscone buildings, plus close Howard St. We have nothing.
• The Game Developers Conference is the third week of March. It's just as large. We have two great parties (and thank you very much, Gordon and Morgan!) but they are both indie, non-company-sponsored events. We've got room for more.
• Google Next: Early April. We have nothing.
• VM World: Late August. Nothing.
• Oracle World: Late September. Nothing.
• TechCrunch Disrupt: Early October. Nothing.
• DreamForce: Late November. Nothing.

And those are just the 3-building tech conferences I spotted from a quick scan of the Moscone site. There seem to be an equal number of huge medical conventions in there, too.

We have, historically, been bad at getting events like that, try as we might. We don't have the right contacts. So maybe you can help with that.

The reason these kinds of events are especially good for us is that the companies behind them are paying for it out of their advertising and PR budget. Events like this don't have the same dynamic as a regular live show that has to "pay for itself". Success is measured by "was it a good party." Compared to a normal live show, they have money to spend.

The one Dreamforce party we had last year single-handedly saved the month. That one event made September be slightly in the black instead of deeply in the red.

So if, just by being a little irritating to some of you co-workers, you can get us just one event, maybe you too can save just one month.

Help us kick the can just one more month down the road.

Now, if you're like literally every person I know to whom I've given this speech in person, you're thinking: Wow, I'd love to help, but my company is different and inapplicable because we're: so small; so large; so broke; so dysfunctional; so frugal; so profligate; have a cafeteria; don't really "do parties" (except when we do); that's handled by another department; my team doesn't get invited; etc., etc.

I hate to break it to you, but your company is not unique. How about giving it a shot anyway? Everyone has a great reason to not do something, even something as effortless as prodding one other person with a suggestion.

But that tiny bit of effort could make you a hero.

And with that, some recent photo galleries.