It’s true — Iowa is the second most homogenous state in this great melting pot called America. But for those of us who aren’t content with the corn-fed Iowa’s version of a good time, the beat of the world is throbbing every weekend right here in Ames.

Boheme Bistro, 2900 West St., designates every Friday and Saturday as World Beat Night. Pete Sherman, associate professor of aerospace engineering and statistics, opened the Boheme five years ago because he realized the under-21 student body at Iowa State didn’t have a real club. Sherman wanted them to have a place where they would be treated like adults.

The world in one place

Sherman has been to Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Ukraine and all of Europe for university work, but wherever he goes, he tries to bring back new music.

“I’ve traveled around the world, so I can honestly say you would be hard-pressed to find an international club with as diverse of a crowd as we have here,” Sherman says. “Where can you find people from 30 countries packed into a room that holds 105?”

Sherman admits one of his weaknesses as a DJ and club owner is not knowing many of the titles he plays, because he has collected thousands of records over the years.

To make up for this, he relies heavily on the crowd’s insight.

“Every Friday, we have people bringing music from their homeland, and it’s nice because they know what the music in their country is like,” Sherman says. “When I’m traveling, unless I speak the language, I have to do a lot of guessing when picking out music.”

A new school year means a whole new group of students wanting to know what Ames has to offer for entertainment and culture. On her first visit to the Boheme, Nina Crudup, freshman in anthropology, says she appreciates the diversity in music and people found at World Beat Night.

“I’m from Chicago, and we have lots of places like this,” Crudup says. “I was really impressed that they have something like this in Ames.”

Many of the World Beat regulars are very vocal about the aspects of the Boheme that are important and unique to them, particularly for our community.

An escape from Campustown

Greg Bonett, freshman in electrical engineering, waits at the entrance of the Boheme on a warm Friday night. He and his friends, Sergei Antropov and Roya Ijadi-Maghsoodi, can barely stand still, anticipating the good times that will surely commence on the other side of the Boheme’s brick walls.

“I seriously consider the Boheme a haven from the rest of this town,” Bonett says.

Bonett is one of the many loyal Boheme patrons seeking something different from the run-of-the-mill hangouts in Campustown.

“You see a lot of redundancy on Welch [Ave.],” Bonett says. “Basically, [those bars] are all the same.”

“People go to Sips to drink,” agrees Ijada-Maghsoodi, junior in biology. “They go here to dance.”

Even those club-goers not crowding on the dance floor can find the right forms of stimulation at World Beat.

“You go here to meet people from different cultures,” says Antropov, freshman in liberal arts and sciences.

“I actually have good conversations with people here,” Bonett adds.

Other than the mosaic of nationalities seen in the Boheme on World Beat nights, the range of musical flavors played is about as wide as, well, the Earth.

“There’s never been a time in history where it’s been so easy to mix music of different styles,” Sherman says.

“Where else can you hear an Eminem song remixed with a Hindi beat?” Antropov asks, pointing out one example of the musical variety heard on World Beat nights.

Different than the norm

Being a few blocks from Campustown is fitting for the Boheme, since it is certainly a world of its own — and on weekend nights, the world can be seen there.

Joffre Mila, a smiling Ecuadorian man sporting a melon-sized yellow afro, walks through the crowd, stopping every few steps to say hello to friends. Even though he’s not from Ames, Mila recognizes faces everywhere he looks.

“I live in Des Moines, but they don’t play Latin rhythm there on Friday night,” Mila says. “[On] Friday night, there’s nothing to do, so I come to the Boheme.”

The Boheme’s philosophy of having live DJs rather than a predetermined playlist is part of what makes this club a rarity in Ames.

“I’ve always thought the role of a DJ was to introduce new music to people instead of feeding them the same stuff they hear on the radio,” Bonett says. “The Boheme really fulfills that role in Ames.”

Being the only all-ages club in Ames not only means the Boheme has to collect much of its revenue from cover fees, but it must cater to a wide audience, which is exactly what it does.

“If you want to drink gallons of cheap beer, go to … Welch [Ave.],” Bonett says. “If you want to have good music, interesting people and a few good drinks, come to the Boheme.”