Historically speaking, the nouveau riche have cash but lack staying power: Jay Gatsby ended up face-down in his swimming pool, and the Beverly Hillbillies were evicted to make way for more urbane programming. DC9 resident hot mess Nouveau Riche hopes to reverse that equation. In their two years together, DJs Gavin Holland, SteveLove (Steve Bock), and Nacey (Andrew Wallace) managed to swing their occasional roving dance party’s grimy blend of house, hip-hop, and pop nostalgia into a sold-out monthly at DC9. There’s something about the trio’s genre-stretching concoctions (Dizzee Rascal, Marilyn Manson, and “Hit Me on My Beepa”?) that tend to get people pretty worked up: They’ve caused dancers to swing from the rafters, men and women to remove their clothing, revelers to compare pit-stains, and Gridskipper to label them “douchebags.” If they keep that up, they might just skip from nouveau to historique.

—Amanda Hess