Future Househeads, This Was Tu’s House
Alan Nakagawa, Artist
Nora Kahn, Curator
STL MO
In 1994, Tu Tien Tran, a young Vietnamese immigrant, turned the second floor of his families restaurant into a music club.
For over two decades, Upstairs Lounge was a well kept secret but not to the dance music community locally, regionally and eventually nationally and internationally. This small room grew to have a seven days a week music program, bar and most importantly a community space. Upstairs closed in 2018, a year after Tu Tien Tran suddenly passed away.
In 2025, Alan Nakagawa was invited to participate in the 2026 Counterpublic Triennial, a art in public three month program that has transformed spaces throughout St. Louis.
On his first research visit, Nakagawa was introduced to the space formerly the Upstairs Lounge and there he met Michael Bishop, one of the many DJ’s who once played there regularly. Through this one chance meeting grew a series of interviews of DJs, patrons, staff and family who all had been mourning the loss of Tu Tien Tran and their home away from home, The Upstairs Lounge.
Tran did not advertise much during his decades long management. He didn’t need to. Word of mouth, flyers and the dance community network was enough to regularly pack the club. As a result, there’s very little information about this Mecca. In collaboration with the Washington University at St. Louis Library, St. Louis Central Library and the St. Louis County Library’s Oral History Department, Nakagawa will build an archive of interviews, photos and images so that Upstairs Lounge will be be acknowledged as the part of St. Louis Music History that it deserves to be.
For the 2026 Counterpublic, Nakagawa will be paying homage to this once mainstay of the St. Louis dance community, highlighting the enigmatic patron that was Tu Tien Tran.
