A few weeks ago Baltimore's Dan Rodricks interviewed Elijah Anderson about his new book The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life on local NPR affiliate WYPR. The main thesis of Anderson's book is that it is the cosmopolitan canopy, those spaces where all races and classes of a city mix, and agree to act civil toward one another, that provide the true social fabric of a city. As I listened to this interview, and the attempts by Rodricks and callers to name such spaces in Baltimore, I thought, well, in San Francisco, we call them street fairs. From How Weird to the Castro Street Fair, each provides an opportunity for a neighborhood to invite the rest of the city to have a visit, socialize, have some food and drink, and maybe dance a little while soaking in some of the unique "atmosphere" of the neighborhood. As I walked around Dore Alley Street Fair this past Sunday, I realized that I could not find a better example of how the cosmopolitan canopy of the street fair brings all of San Francisco together in a way that only this city really can.
Let's be honest: Dore Alley is FREAKY, and there are things both wonderful and terrible to be seen. But I think it's a mark of being a San Franciscan that one can wander into that scene, with perhaps only the slightest notion of what a "fetish fair" might be, and think, oh, there are some naked guys, and over there someone is pretending to a dog, and, wow, the sound of that whip is really loud, and it's all just another day in the city. There are many people who would take that as the very mark of how deviant and decadent Sodom by the Bay has become, but for me, it's a mark of what is truly special about "San Francisco Values:" we judge people not by how weird or freaky they are, but by things that really count, like the strength of you character. So you like to spend some time running around on all fours and barking, yeah, whatever -- are you someone I can count on when I really need you? As a city, we also have a vast tolerance for difference, because we're almost all people who have come here because we were so very, very different in the places we lived before. Dore Alley Fair is an event where people from all over the city come together, and whatever our differences in race, gender, class, ethnicity, etc., we can be civil to one another because we don't just tolerate difference, we encourage it in full display.
For me, Dore Alley was also a deeply personal reminder of why I came back to San Francisco. I went down there with no particular plans, no crew, and spent the afternoon wandering around, running into friends, hanging out for while, running off again, finding more friends, repeat repeat repeat. It was the best experience of "community" I've had in a really long time, because I could feel how I connected, in so many different ways, to this gathering of people. In some ways the big party aspect of Dore Alley Fair was far less important to me than this ability to just have a spontaneous, serendipitous experience of being part of something much larger than myself.
Showing posts with label Event Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Event Review. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Event Review: Comfort and Joy's "Active Touch," July 29, 2011
A few weeks ago I read a post on Facebook in which someone was responding to the closing of The Eagle by complaining that the gay bar/club scene "just wasn't the same anymore," how it had become boring and predictable, homogeneous, lost its cruise/sleaze factor, etc. While in my original post about the closing of the Eagle I pointed out that things change, and perhaps it was time to think about a "new gay" as opposed to waxing nostalgic about the "old gay," events like Comfort and Joy's "Active Touch" demonstrate quite well that there is a thriving, exciting, gay scene alive and well in San Francisco, with all the sleaze and craziness you could want, if you just take the time to go looking for it.
This is, to the best of my hazy recollection, the fourth or fifth year that Comfort and Joy has been throwing the Touch parties, usually in conjunction with a major holiday or event, in this case, Dore Alley. While the parties serve on the practical level as fundraisers for Comfort and Joy's annual excursions onto the playa, they also provide a glimpse into a "new gay" underground scene. Inspired in large part originally by John Cameron Mitchell's film "Short Bus," Comfort and Joy events evoke the vibe of the 70s bath-house, where you can cruise, dance, see some inspired performances, and connect with a community that is truly creating something new, rather than trying to hold onto the past. Comfort and Joy parties have provided a platform for musicians, DJs, drag divas, and visual artists like Honey Sound System, the House of Herrera, the House of Salad, III, and many others, and serve as a nexus for queers of all shapes, sizes, and varieties to cum, er, come together.
I must admit that, for this particular event, I didn't really have the energy to devote to a full-scale party. I went primarily to connect with friends and a community that I haven't been part of in a while, and in that regard, it was a blowout - I heard the words "welcome home" so many times that it convinced me that I really was "home." If I'd had a bit more spunk in my junk I could have certainly found any number of amusing divertisements to keep me occupied until the closing bell at 4AM, since there was a dancefloor (though, admittedly, I am not that great a fan of Bus Station John's retro disco sound), a "gentleman's boudoir," a tiki lounge, and any number of small niches where one could locate oneself for conversation or other social interactions. It was enough for me, though, to just feel like I had found myself back among a community that, like a family, has its fractious and dysfunctional aspects, but are the still people with whom feels that special, intimate connection. I'll take that over being groped at The Powerhouse any day.
This is, to the best of my hazy recollection, the fourth or fifth year that Comfort and Joy has been throwing the Touch parties, usually in conjunction with a major holiday or event, in this case, Dore Alley. While the parties serve on the practical level as fundraisers for Comfort and Joy's annual excursions onto the playa, they also provide a glimpse into a "new gay" underground scene. Inspired in large part originally by John Cameron Mitchell's film "Short Bus," Comfort and Joy events evoke the vibe of the 70s bath-house, where you can cruise, dance, see some inspired performances, and connect with a community that is truly creating something new, rather than trying to hold onto the past. Comfort and Joy parties have provided a platform for musicians, DJs, drag divas, and visual artists like Honey Sound System, the House of Herrera, the House of Salad, III, and many others, and serve as a nexus for queers of all shapes, sizes, and varieties to cum, er, come together.
I must admit that, for this particular event, I didn't really have the energy to devote to a full-scale party. I went primarily to connect with friends and a community that I haven't been part of in a while, and in that regard, it was a blowout - I heard the words "welcome home" so many times that it convinced me that I really was "home." If I'd had a bit more spunk in my junk I could have certainly found any number of amusing divertisements to keep me occupied until the closing bell at 4AM, since there was a dancefloor (though, admittedly, I am not that great a fan of Bus Station John's retro disco sound), a "gentleman's boudoir," a tiki lounge, and any number of small niches where one could locate oneself for conversation or other social interactions. It was enough for me, though, to just feel like I had found myself back among a community that, like a family, has its fractious and dysfunctional aspects, but are the still people with whom feels that special, intimate connection. I'll take that over being groped at The Powerhouse any day.
Event Review: Honey Soundsystem 4 Year Anniversary at Holy Cow
I signed a lease on a shared space in the Castro last Saturday, and ever since then it's been a whirlwind of moving, cleaning, setting up, and dreaming of the future. There have also been some moments of pure anxiety, as I contemplate the ratio of expenses to savings and how long the latter will last without a job to replenish it. It's a good thing, then, that the Honey Soundsystem 4 Year Anniversary party at Holy Cow came around at just the right moment to remind me of why I moved back to San Francisco.
Honey Soundsystem first came to my attention by way of Marke B. of the Bay Guardian's Super Ego column. We had been having an email exchange about techno in the SF music scene, and he told me I should check out this DJ PeePlay and his comrade-in-arms Jason Kendig. And then, just about the same time, Kitten Calfee of Comfort and Joy told me he'd been contacted by this group calling themselves Honey Soundsystem about playing at an Afterglow party. Did I know anything about them, and could I recommend them? And that, as they say, is how history is made.
Checking out the posters for past Honey events at the party reminded me of what I have always appreciated about them: they focus on the music and creating a big open vibe for everyone, rather than playing to the typical marketing ploys, usually based on identity stereotypes, of other club promoters. Honey Soundsystem has never put a guy on their flyers, never proclaimed that their parties are for this type, or that one, but for everyone. You could see the effect of this at the party - there were club kids and "mature elders" like me, bears and twinks, Asians and Latins, women and drag queens, all there because they wanted to go out and have a good time on the dancefloor with each other. Which brings me around to the music: while I have not always grooved on every musical orientation of Honey Soundsystem, these are guys who always care deeply about the music they play, and who go out of their way to use the music to create something that is a true expression of their ethos. You can go to any bar or club in the Castro and consume pre-digested pop dance pablum, but Honey Soundsystem will always feed your ears and your soul with something substantial and carefully cultivated.
On this particular night, the sound had a distinct acid/retro house feel, and as I danced for the first time in months, on a dance floor full of shiny happy people, I had a flashback to some of the great Sunday night parties of the past, like Pleasuredome at King Street Garage, or the tea dance at The End Up. Sunday night is always a special time in clubland, a time when those who have a different relation to the workweek come out and party, but it's also a night when you're not necessarily looking for the peak experience of a Friday or Saturday. In this case, Honey hit that sweet spot (oh man, I can't believe I wrote that), between uplifting and groovy that, for me, has always defined the essence of a good Sunday night out. I shook it loose for about two hours, had a nice conversation about the Hawaiian lifestyle with a couple of very friendly guys on the back porch, and re-connected with some old friends before I finally gave in to exhaustion and headed out the door around 12.30. At that point, the club was packed and there was a line that looked like something out of Satyricon stretching down the sidewalk, so I'm sure the festivities kept up well until last call.
Honey Sundays at Holy Cow is going onto my list of San Francisco Essentials, things you must do when you're in the city. And to PeePlay, Kendig, Robot Hustle, and Ken Vulsion, my thanks for reminding me of what makes this a great city, and why it's worth whatever it takes to be here. Long Live Honey!
Check out the weekly Honey Potcast for a taste of Honey and special guests.
Honey Soundsystem first came to my attention by way of Marke B. of the Bay Guardian's Super Ego column. We had been having an email exchange about techno in the SF music scene, and he told me I should check out this DJ PeePlay and his comrade-in-arms Jason Kendig. And then, just about the same time, Kitten Calfee of Comfort and Joy told me he'd been contacted by this group calling themselves Honey Soundsystem about playing at an Afterglow party. Did I know anything about them, and could I recommend them? And that, as they say, is how history is made.
Checking out the posters for past Honey events at the party reminded me of what I have always appreciated about them: they focus on the music and creating a big open vibe for everyone, rather than playing to the typical marketing ploys, usually based on identity stereotypes, of other club promoters. Honey Soundsystem has never put a guy on their flyers, never proclaimed that their parties are for this type, or that one, but for everyone. You could see the effect of this at the party - there were club kids and "mature elders" like me, bears and twinks, Asians and Latins, women and drag queens, all there because they wanted to go out and have a good time on the dancefloor with each other. Which brings me around to the music: while I have not always grooved on every musical orientation of Honey Soundsystem, these are guys who always care deeply about the music they play, and who go out of their way to use the music to create something that is a true expression of their ethos. You can go to any bar or club in the Castro and consume pre-digested pop dance pablum, but Honey Soundsystem will always feed your ears and your soul with something substantial and carefully cultivated.
On this particular night, the sound had a distinct acid/retro house feel, and as I danced for the first time in months, on a dance floor full of shiny happy people, I had a flashback to some of the great Sunday night parties of the past, like Pleasuredome at King Street Garage, or the tea dance at The End Up. Sunday night is always a special time in clubland, a time when those who have a different relation to the workweek come out and party, but it's also a night when you're not necessarily looking for the peak experience of a Friday or Saturday. In this case, Honey hit that sweet spot (oh man, I can't believe I wrote that), between uplifting and groovy that, for me, has always defined the essence of a good Sunday night out. I shook it loose for about two hours, had a nice conversation about the Hawaiian lifestyle with a couple of very friendly guys on the back porch, and re-connected with some old friends before I finally gave in to exhaustion and headed out the door around 12.30. At that point, the club was packed and there was a line that looked like something out of Satyricon stretching down the sidewalk, so I'm sure the festivities kept up well until last call.
Honey Sundays at Holy Cow is going onto my list of San Francisco Essentials, things you must do when you're in the city. And to PeePlay, Kendig, Robot Hustle, and Ken Vulsion, my thanks for reminding me of what makes this a great city, and why it's worth whatever it takes to be here. Long Live Honey!
Check out the weekly Honey Potcast for a taste of Honey and special guests.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Event Review: Rich Morel's Hot Sauce at Grand Central (Baltimore)
Rich Morel, of Blow Off fame, brought Hot Sauce to Grand Central in Baltimore last night, and I had one of my best nights on the dance floor in a very long while, with swollen knees to attest to that fact this morning. Morel played a high-energy set of electro-inflected dance music that included some great sing-along opportunities with remixes of tracks like Oasis' "Wonder Wall" and Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus," along with plenty of the typical four-on-the-floor tracks you'd hear at any good dance party. At one point I found myself thinking back to my first gay clubbing experiences in the mid-80s at places like the now-defunct Traxx in DC, where synth pop met Hi-NRG and there were always plenty of hands in the air. That was the case at Hot Sauce as well, by 11.30 the dancefloor was jumpin' and jivin,' and when I left a little after 1AM there was still enough of a crowd to ensure it would keep going until last call.
Given that the logo for the Hot Sauce party is a cowboy riding a bucking bear, you might have some idea of what to expect from the crowd, and sure enough, it was predominately older, large of size, and ample of body and facial hair. By midnight there was some greater diversity to the crowd, and I even ran into a lesbian of my acquaintance, Pam, who, like me, was looking more for an opportunity to dance on a Saturday night than anything else. Still, as a guy who would have been considered a twink until I started going gray and blind, and remains pretty small and possessed of about the same amount of body hair as I had when I was 16, I had a hard time figuring out how to relate to this scene. I certainly enjoyed Morel's set, but for all the other considerations of why I might go out to a gay dance night, I might as well have been invisible. I even had a slight moment of hesitation when I took off my shirt on the dancefloor; plenty of other guys had already done it, and there was a lot of tactile admiration of Buddha bellies and pelts going on as a result, but I actually had a moment of wondering "Is this okay?" I have, in the past, heard some rather unkind remarks about twinks issuing from the muzzles of bears, and I wondered whether taking my shirt off in this club, with this crowd, would be taken as provocation, or, even worse, would mark me out as a target for scorn because I don't fit into this particular scene's image of masculinity. I thought about this for a second and then decided well, if anybody has a problem with it, fuck them, I came to dance, and I would hope that my obvious enthusiasm for the music and the energy of the party would be of greater importance than the accidents of genetics that made me the way I am.
I admit that I continue to struggle with the whole idea of a "bear movement" and with bears as a separate subculture of the gay scene. I understand where that subculture comes from, and I'm generally sympathetic to attempts to create alternatives to hegemonic mainstream culture of any type, gay or straight. I also cannot fault anyone for their attractions, and if bears aren't attracted to me, that's okay, because I'm not particularly attracted to them (though I have noticed that it has become increasingly "incorrect" in larger gay culture to admit that you're attracted to twinks, or nelly guys, or anything that isn't in keeping with a fairly conservative notion of masculinity). But it does bug me that, like so much of mainsteam straight culture, gay culture forms itself around body types, and those body types are taken to be the signifiers of a shared set of values. This, in the end, can make the most revolutionary movement just another exercise in conformity, and enforces separatism at the level of phenotype when the real shared values exist at a much deeper level. I have always believed that the dance scene has the ability to bring people together through a shared physical and emotional experience, and that a good DJ, like Rich Morel, knows how to create that experience. I was happy last night to share the dancefloor with big guys bumpin' bellies, two geeky Asian boys dancing together, a very drunk Latino exotic dancer, at least one drag queen, and my lesbian friend Pam. I can only wish that that the intention had been to create that shared experience for the diversity of people I saw there, rather than one exclusive group.
Given that the logo for the Hot Sauce party is a cowboy riding a bucking bear, you might have some idea of what to expect from the crowd, and sure enough, it was predominately older, large of size, and ample of body and facial hair. By midnight there was some greater diversity to the crowd, and I even ran into a lesbian of my acquaintance, Pam, who, like me, was looking more for an opportunity to dance on a Saturday night than anything else. Still, as a guy who would have been considered a twink until I started going gray and blind, and remains pretty small and possessed of about the same amount of body hair as I had when I was 16, I had a hard time figuring out how to relate to this scene. I certainly enjoyed Morel's set, but for all the other considerations of why I might go out to a gay dance night, I might as well have been invisible. I even had a slight moment of hesitation when I took off my shirt on the dancefloor; plenty of other guys had already done it, and there was a lot of tactile admiration of Buddha bellies and pelts going on as a result, but I actually had a moment of wondering "Is this okay?" I have, in the past, heard some rather unkind remarks about twinks issuing from the muzzles of bears, and I wondered whether taking my shirt off in this club, with this crowd, would be taken as provocation, or, even worse, would mark me out as a target for scorn because I don't fit into this particular scene's image of masculinity. I thought about this for a second and then decided well, if anybody has a problem with it, fuck them, I came to dance, and I would hope that my obvious enthusiasm for the music and the energy of the party would be of greater importance than the accidents of genetics that made me the way I am.
I admit that I continue to struggle with the whole idea of a "bear movement" and with bears as a separate subculture of the gay scene. I understand where that subculture comes from, and I'm generally sympathetic to attempts to create alternatives to hegemonic mainstream culture of any type, gay or straight. I also cannot fault anyone for their attractions, and if bears aren't attracted to me, that's okay, because I'm not particularly attracted to them (though I have noticed that it has become increasingly "incorrect" in larger gay culture to admit that you're attracted to twinks, or nelly guys, or anything that isn't in keeping with a fairly conservative notion of masculinity). But it does bug me that, like so much of mainsteam straight culture, gay culture forms itself around body types, and those body types are taken to be the signifiers of a shared set of values. This, in the end, can make the most revolutionary movement just another exercise in conformity, and enforces separatism at the level of phenotype when the real shared values exist at a much deeper level. I have always believed that the dance scene has the ability to bring people together through a shared physical and emotional experience, and that a good DJ, like Rich Morel, knows how to create that experience. I was happy last night to share the dancefloor with big guys bumpin' bellies, two geeky Asian boys dancing together, a very drunk Latino exotic dancer, at least one drag queen, and my lesbian friend Pam. I can only wish that that the intention had been to create that shared experience for the diversity of people I saw there, rather than one exclusive group.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Event Review: Junior Boys at Bimbo's
There was a moment at the Junior Boys show at Bimbo's on Thursday when I thought I had stepped into the filming of a John Hughes movie prom scene: there was the name of the band in neon-like EL wire at the back of the stage, the diffused red spotlight playing over the stage, the smoke machines, the OMD-like tunes, the stone-faced technician working the electronic controls, the lead singer crooning a gentle paean to young love, the swaying bodies of the audience. And, just as in a movie, the performance of the band seemed completely scripted, leading me, Kitty, and the boyfriend wondering what exactly was the point of seeing this band live.
In our household the Junior Boys often get played after a long night, when we're wanting some easy electronics to lull our senses and ease the transition from our evening's activities into sleep. I've never thought of them as particularly rocking, but I hoped that, in a live performance, I'd hear some new aspect of the music. I did, in fact, realize how closely related their sound is to the New Wave ballad, but this isn't exactly what I had hoped for. Like Royksopp, who we also heard at Bimbo's, they played straight-up album versions of every song, though the inclusion of a live drummer was a nice touch (except for those moments when the afore-mentioned technician and the drummer got slightly out of synch with each other).
The workman-like approach to the music might have been made up for in actual performance, but the stage set-up was more reminiscent of a studio layout than an attempt to present the band as living, breathing, emotive human beings. Center stage was a table of electronics and gear, with Johnny Dark working the controls. During the entire show he did not look up, dance to the music, or show any expression beyond focused attention. Jeremy Greenspan, meanwhile, was relegated to a side of the stage, where he spent half the time in shadow as he sang and played guitar. Greenspan has a wonderful voice in the tradition of so many smooth, R&B-influenced crooners, but for the majority of the time his attention was focused on addressing the microphone rather than the audience. There was no chat or banter, just efficient movement from one song to the another, wrapping up in a tidy hour. If I had seen a video of them recording a track, I'm sure it would have looked much like this performance.
The Junior Boys make some of the best shoegazer electro-pop around, but their show at Bimbo's was another lesson in how fantastic studio bands are often challenged by taking their music into a live performance setting. If a band like this is going to take their sound on the road, then there should be something about the live experience that brings something new to hearing the music; otherwise, hearing them from my own stereo is just as satisfying, and far less expensive.
In our household the Junior Boys often get played after a long night, when we're wanting some easy electronics to lull our senses and ease the transition from our evening's activities into sleep. I've never thought of them as particularly rocking, but I hoped that, in a live performance, I'd hear some new aspect of the music. I did, in fact, realize how closely related their sound is to the New Wave ballad, but this isn't exactly what I had hoped for. Like Royksopp, who we also heard at Bimbo's, they played straight-up album versions of every song, though the inclusion of a live drummer was a nice touch (except for those moments when the afore-mentioned technician and the drummer got slightly out of synch with each other).
The workman-like approach to the music might have been made up for in actual performance, but the stage set-up was more reminiscent of a studio layout than an attempt to present the band as living, breathing, emotive human beings. Center stage was a table of electronics and gear, with Johnny Dark working the controls. During the entire show he did not look up, dance to the music, or show any expression beyond focused attention. Jeremy Greenspan, meanwhile, was relegated to a side of the stage, where he spent half the time in shadow as he sang and played guitar. Greenspan has a wonderful voice in the tradition of so many smooth, R&B-influenced crooners, but for the majority of the time his attention was focused on addressing the microphone rather than the audience. There was no chat or banter, just efficient movement from one song to the another, wrapping up in a tidy hour. If I had seen a video of them recording a track, I'm sure it would have looked much like this performance.
The Junior Boys make some of the best shoegazer electro-pop around, but their show at Bimbo's was another lesson in how fantastic studio bands are often challenged by taking their music into a live performance setting. If a band like this is going to take their sound on the road, then there should be something about the live experience that brings something new to hearing the music; otherwise, hearing them from my own stereo is just as satisfying, and far less expensive.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Event Review: Gui Boratto at Paradise Lounge
For me, Gui Boratto is the guy who brought joy back to techno music. As sophisticated, cool, and deep as techno can be, it never lifted me up the way that progressive trance once did, at least not until I heard Chromophobia. With tracks like "Annunciation" and "Beautiful Life," and Superpitcher's remix of "Like You," Boratto was able to re-inject a note of happy positivity in a scene that is often focused primarily on the heady when it's not on the sexual.
Boratto played to a packed, almost too full house at Paradise Lounge on Friday, bringing in a crowd not just of techno heads, but a number of folks who probably spend most of their clubbing time at Ruby Skye or in the Marina - more than any other techno show I've attended recently, this one showed the ability of an accessible artist like Boratto to attract folks who still think that "techo" is interchangeable with "house" or "trance." Watching from the mezzanine around the dance floor, the crowd was clearly moved when Boratto (who smoked like a fiend behind the decks) dropped his biggest and most expansive tracks, but what he played between his big hits often came off as monotonous and not nearly as inspirational. The boyfriend noted that his tracks mostly use the same drum kit, and many structures, such as a snare hit on the three count, were commonly shared. This made for some extremely smooth mixing and transitions (Boratto was working primarly from a set-up of his own gear, including a Lemur), but after hearing a soaring anthem like "Beautiful Life," what followed often seemed more like a DJ tool to get to the next track. As thrilling as some moments of Boratto's performance was, I left thinking that, as a live performer, he needs to put more into the pacing and structure of the experience.
Local Hatchback opened for Boratto, and the very end of his set was among the best stuff I've heard from a San Francisco producer in a long while, with elements of space disco, classic synth pop, and the balearic anthem combining into a "naturally epic" sound, as he describes it on his myspace page. I'll certainly be keeping an eye peeled to catch more performances from Hatchback.
I still believe that Paradise Lounge is one of the best venues in the city, but this show made me think they're starting to have growing pains. Blasthaus sent out an email on Friday saying there would be an open bar from 10 - 11 PM, but when we arrived at 10.20, the doors were open only for those paying cash; those of us in the will-call line weren't allowed until after 10.30. Then, as we ordered drinks at the upstairs bar, we were told that the free drinks were downstairs only. We also discovered that neither of the upstairs bars had limes for drinks, and for the rest of the night we were served vodka and soda every time we ordered vodka tonics. If I'm going to pay $7 for a drink, then I want the right drink with the right garnish, please. We also inadvertantly stumbled into the "private bottle service" area when we went looking for the smoking room; believe me when I say that a velvet rope on a catwalk in a dark club, without anyone there for security, is going to get walked over. We were nice, though, and didn't take any of the booze we found back there, just smoked and left. By the way, at $200 for a bottle of Skye, and $250 for a bottle of Grey Goose, I'll take the Grey Goose, but I wonder why anybody would pay ten times the wholesale price for a bottle of booze and get stuck back in a room where you can't even watch the dancefloor.
Boratto played to a packed, almost too full house at Paradise Lounge on Friday, bringing in a crowd not just of techno heads, but a number of folks who probably spend most of their clubbing time at Ruby Skye or in the Marina - more than any other techno show I've attended recently, this one showed the ability of an accessible artist like Boratto to attract folks who still think that "techo" is interchangeable with "house" or "trance." Watching from the mezzanine around the dance floor, the crowd was clearly moved when Boratto (who smoked like a fiend behind the decks) dropped his biggest and most expansive tracks, but what he played between his big hits often came off as monotonous and not nearly as inspirational. The boyfriend noted that his tracks mostly use the same drum kit, and many structures, such as a snare hit on the three count, were commonly shared. This made for some extremely smooth mixing and transitions (Boratto was working primarly from a set-up of his own gear, including a Lemur), but after hearing a soaring anthem like "Beautiful Life," what followed often seemed more like a DJ tool to get to the next track. As thrilling as some moments of Boratto's performance was, I left thinking that, as a live performer, he needs to put more into the pacing and structure of the experience.
Local Hatchback opened for Boratto, and the very end of his set was among the best stuff I've heard from a San Francisco producer in a long while, with elements of space disco, classic synth pop, and the balearic anthem combining into a "naturally epic" sound, as he describes it on his myspace page. I'll certainly be keeping an eye peeled to catch more performances from Hatchback.
I still believe that Paradise Lounge is one of the best venues in the city, but this show made me think they're starting to have growing pains. Blasthaus sent out an email on Friday saying there would be an open bar from 10 - 11 PM, but when we arrived at 10.20, the doors were open only for those paying cash; those of us in the will-call line weren't allowed until after 10.30. Then, as we ordered drinks at the upstairs bar, we were told that the free drinks were downstairs only. We also discovered that neither of the upstairs bars had limes for drinks, and for the rest of the night we were served vodka and soda every time we ordered vodka tonics. If I'm going to pay $7 for a drink, then I want the right drink with the right garnish, please. We also inadvertantly stumbled into the "private bottle service" area when we went looking for the smoking room; believe me when I say that a velvet rope on a catwalk in a dark club, without anyone there for security, is going to get walked over. We were nice, though, and didn't take any of the booze we found back there, just smoked and left. By the way, at $200 for a bottle of Skye, and $250 for a bottle of Grey Goose, I'll take the Grey Goose, but I wonder why anybody would pay ten times the wholesale price for a bottle of booze and get stuck back in a room where you can't even watch the dancefloor.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Event Review: Pulse at Paradise Lounge
"It's like we're at a rave," the boyfriend said to me as we sat with our friend Toka in the smoking area at Paradise Lounge last Friday during Pulse. It was easy to see what gave him that impression: a large, very diverse crowd of friendly people; two rooms of music, breakbeat up and techno down; visuals that were oh-so-early 2Ks; and an overall vibe of "yeah, let's party till dawn!"
There aren't many events that I can recommend without qualifications, but this one is definitely among them. I found myself thinking back to the Thump Radio parties that used to happen at 550 Barneveld, which were a big part of my intro to San Francisco rave culture, mainly because, like those parties, there was a diversity of music and people and physical space that always provided fresh stimulation. When Alland Byallo's set at Pulse got a little abstract and inaccessible for me (one track sounded like listening to a drunk horn section on K), we just went upstairs and danced away to some breakbeat. When we got tired of that, we could go into the bar lounge area and just chat, or into the smoking area and strike up a conversation with someone (in fact, one woman we met in the smoking area became very, um, attached to us on the dancefloor later).
The other thing that impressed me about this event was its spirit. First, the proceeds from the event all went to a non-profit, and each month it looks like a different organization will benefit from our good time. Second, no one "owns" this event, but, rather, the organizers' intent seems to be to present, every month, a new selection of local DJs within the major genres. This month it was Alland Byallo, Christian Martin, Solar, and Galen, among others, certainly a stellar line-up. Next month it will be Forest Green, Mozaic, and Eric Sharp, among others. There are resident Pulse DJs, but overall this feels more like the kind of thing Lord Kook and I tried to pull off with FSLD, where we wanted the event to be about the community of DJs we knew and thought should have more exposure.
Finally, I really liked all the music I heard, from the neo-psytrance sounds of Kirrill to the tech-infused house of Solar and Galen to the breakbeat I heard upstairs - in fact, we danced more at Pulse than I have since the Sunset party on New Year's Day. Perhaps it's just because I'm not that connected to these people, but this felt much less like a "scene" to me than a group of people coming together because they like to play music, dance, and party. After all, that's all raves were in the first place, and I for one would love to see that very basic spirit re-awaken through events like Pulse.
There aren't many events that I can recommend without qualifications, but this one is definitely among them. I found myself thinking back to the Thump Radio parties that used to happen at 550 Barneveld, which were a big part of my intro to San Francisco rave culture, mainly because, like those parties, there was a diversity of music and people and physical space that always provided fresh stimulation. When Alland Byallo's set at Pulse got a little abstract and inaccessible for me (one track sounded like listening to a drunk horn section on K), we just went upstairs and danced away to some breakbeat. When we got tired of that, we could go into the bar lounge area and just chat, or into the smoking area and strike up a conversation with someone (in fact, one woman we met in the smoking area became very, um, attached to us on the dancefloor later).
The other thing that impressed me about this event was its spirit. First, the proceeds from the event all went to a non-profit, and each month it looks like a different organization will benefit from our good time. Second, no one "owns" this event, but, rather, the organizers' intent seems to be to present, every month, a new selection of local DJs within the major genres. This month it was Alland Byallo, Christian Martin, Solar, and Galen, among others, certainly a stellar line-up. Next month it will be Forest Green, Mozaic, and Eric Sharp, among others. There are resident Pulse DJs, but overall this feels more like the kind of thing Lord Kook and I tried to pull off with FSLD, where we wanted the event to be about the community of DJs we knew and thought should have more exposure.
Finally, I really liked all the music I heard, from the neo-psytrance sounds of Kirrill to the tech-infused house of Solar and Galen to the breakbeat I heard upstairs - in fact, we danced more at Pulse than I have since the Sunset party on New Year's Day. Perhaps it's just because I'm not that connected to these people, but this felt much less like a "scene" to me than a group of people coming together because they like to play music, dance, and party. After all, that's all raves were in the first place, and I for one would love to see that very basic spirit re-awaken through events like Pulse.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Event Review: Space Cowboys at The EndUp
Saturday night the boyfriend and I assembled a small crew to check out The Space Cowboys putting on this month’s The Show at The Endup. We were fairly excited at the prospect of a night with a Burner vibe and some kick-ass breaks, but by the time the breaks actually got going, we’d had enough of the electrohouse mush that proceeded it, along with a vibe that was more like a frat party (albeit a very cool one), that we decided to cut out before we spent any more money on The Endup’s now astronomically expensive drinks.
In my experience, there are two sides to the Space Cowboys. On the one side you’ve got, next to Evil Breaks, one of the very best crews for putting out, and popularizing, kick-ass breaks to the general party populace. And then, on the other side, there’s this tendency to take it all down to the lowest common denominator of all-out booty. In this case, booty definitely won out. At first it was nice to arrive and hear some pretty easy-going dance music that was a bit out of the normal vibe of ubiquitous EndUp house, but after going back and forth from Latin club to a Daft Punk remix to something that made me think I was back at a mid-90s acid house party, it was becoming more and more difficult to find any consistent vibe to hang onto. There were plenty of folks shaking it on the dancefloor, and I’m sure many of the girls who showed up in their playawear got freaky with it later, but I’d come wanting to hear breaks, not the kitchen sink of electronic dance music. This was what put me in mind of a frat party; lots of people out to get fucked up and freaky, with the DJ going for the easiest party pleasers in his bag.
Since the DJ who took over at 1 finally started playing breaks, and the party itself had several more hours of life left in it, I might have been willing to stay a little longer, but the prospect of spending any more money on drinks was starting to make my wallet hurt. When I ordered my first vodka tonic, it came back as costing $7.50. Well or call seemed to make no difference, the bartender always charged me $7.50. Drop another dollar for tip, and figure on 4 or 5 drinks over the course of the night (not that crazy if you show up early, as we usually do, and then even switch over to water when the bar closes), and suddenly you’ve dropped a huge wad of money.
This has become something of a problem with almost every time I go to The EndUp. Everybody knows that the place really gets going after 2AM, and so the whole night becomes back-loaded. It seems like every time I go there, mostly for Kontrol, I spend the first couple hours waiting for them to get around to the music I came to hear, and wind up spending too much money on drinks, so that by the time things really get going, it’s getting to be later than I want to be out without the substantial chemical assistance that will keep my fellow clubbers going until 6AM and later. Of course you can come later, but then you get to pay $15 - $20 on top of what you’ll spend for booze. The EndUp is a classic spot, with much going for it from ambience to soundsystem, but if I’m going to go there and spend the kind of money that a night out there seems to require, then I want the first couple hours I’m there to be just as intense, and interesting, as the early morning ones.
In my experience, there are two sides to the Space Cowboys. On the one side you’ve got, next to Evil Breaks, one of the very best crews for putting out, and popularizing, kick-ass breaks to the general party populace. And then, on the other side, there’s this tendency to take it all down to the lowest common denominator of all-out booty. In this case, booty definitely won out. At first it was nice to arrive and hear some pretty easy-going dance music that was a bit out of the normal vibe of ubiquitous EndUp house, but after going back and forth from Latin club to a Daft Punk remix to something that made me think I was back at a mid-90s acid house party, it was becoming more and more difficult to find any consistent vibe to hang onto. There were plenty of folks shaking it on the dancefloor, and I’m sure many of the girls who showed up in their playawear got freaky with it later, but I’d come wanting to hear breaks, not the kitchen sink of electronic dance music. This was what put me in mind of a frat party; lots of people out to get fucked up and freaky, with the DJ going for the easiest party pleasers in his bag.
Since the DJ who took over at 1 finally started playing breaks, and the party itself had several more hours of life left in it, I might have been willing to stay a little longer, but the prospect of spending any more money on drinks was starting to make my wallet hurt. When I ordered my first vodka tonic, it came back as costing $7.50. Well or call seemed to make no difference, the bartender always charged me $7.50. Drop another dollar for tip, and figure on 4 or 5 drinks over the course of the night (not that crazy if you show up early, as we usually do, and then even switch over to water when the bar closes), and suddenly you’ve dropped a huge wad of money.
This has become something of a problem with almost every time I go to The EndUp. Everybody knows that the place really gets going after 2AM, and so the whole night becomes back-loaded. It seems like every time I go there, mostly for Kontrol, I spend the first couple hours waiting for them to get around to the music I came to hear, and wind up spending too much money on drinks, so that by the time things really get going, it’s getting to be later than I want to be out without the substantial chemical assistance that will keep my fellow clubbers going until 6AM and later. Of course you can come later, but then you get to pay $15 - $20 on top of what you’ll spend for booze. The EndUp is a classic spot, with much going for it from ambience to soundsystem, but if I’m going to go there and spend the kind of money that a night out there seems to require, then I want the first couple hours I’m there to be just as intense, and interesting, as the early morning ones.
Event Review: Aural Therapy at Paradise Lounge
Friday night the boyfriend and I took a walk down to Paradise Lounge to check out Auralism’s third-Friday party, Aural Therapy, which, for this installment, featured Berlin’s Franklin De Costa behind the decks.
This was the first time I’ve gotten to check out the entire Paradise Lounge space, and we were both impressed with the upstairs bar and second room with its near-perfect sound isolation. Right out of the gate Paradise is booking some very interesting nights, from the retro-bath house Honey Sound System Sundays to an upcoming show with Lindstrom, and at least two regular techno events, including the premiere of Pulse on January 30th. With a license to stay open until 4AM, I think Paradise is about to give Mighty a real run for their money with a better space, better sound, and much more innovative bookings.
When we first arrived the techno was a bit on the mushy side – a generally okay sound, but nothing solid enough to make us want to get on the dancefloor, so we wandered down to The Cat Club to check out a new party that PeePlay of Honey Sound System is involved with, Black Friday. We ran into DJs 6 and Donimo of Lucky Pierre and a couple other friends, and then left just after we heard the trifecta of music you never need to hear again, “YMCA” followed on by “I Will Survive” and then “The Hustle.” Much to his credit PeePlay jumped onto the decks after this, and without even letting “The Hustle” play out completely he had dropped us back into much snappier contemporary territory. I would have liked to have stayed and heard the rest of his set, but it was approaching midnight at that point and we knew Franklin De Costa would be starting soon.
We made it back to Paradise Lounge just before De Costa started playing and had a chance to scope out the crowd. Though the dancefloor was packed, it was a very cool crowd, lots of real obvious techno heads, and still plenty of room of dancing. De Costa played a very minimal, abstract set, but the energy was absolutely banging. The boyfriend and I danced for over an hour straight, something that rarely happens these days. I would describe De Costa’s style as being what I think of as “real German techno,” lots of abstract loops that, when you mix them together, have their own emergent structure and dynamic. There were times when I could recognize the structure of individual tracks, but overall the impression was of sections phasing in and out of one another, a steady drive with moments of auditory surprise that would then make your body shift in another direction. The nice bit, though, was his selection of tracks with warm, more organic, almost house sounds that made it easy to engage with the music at the same time that the rhythm drove you relentlessly forward.
This was only the third time Aural Therapy has been held at Paradise Lounge, but I’d say it was an experience that certainly bears repeating. A more intimate and varied space than The Endup, and without that club’s seeming need to cater to the more general expectations of SF clubbers (how many times will I go to Kontrol and hear generic house for the first two hours?), Paradise Lounge and Aural Therapy have the potential to become a major monthly destination for the SF techno scene.
This was the first time I’ve gotten to check out the entire Paradise Lounge space, and we were both impressed with the upstairs bar and second room with its near-perfect sound isolation. Right out of the gate Paradise is booking some very interesting nights, from the retro-bath house Honey Sound System Sundays to an upcoming show with Lindstrom, and at least two regular techno events, including the premiere of Pulse on January 30th. With a license to stay open until 4AM, I think Paradise is about to give Mighty a real run for their money with a better space, better sound, and much more innovative bookings.
When we first arrived the techno was a bit on the mushy side – a generally okay sound, but nothing solid enough to make us want to get on the dancefloor, so we wandered down to The Cat Club to check out a new party that PeePlay of Honey Sound System is involved with, Black Friday. We ran into DJs 6 and Donimo of Lucky Pierre and a couple other friends, and then left just after we heard the trifecta of music you never need to hear again, “YMCA” followed on by “I Will Survive” and then “The Hustle.” Much to his credit PeePlay jumped onto the decks after this, and without even letting “The Hustle” play out completely he had dropped us back into much snappier contemporary territory. I would have liked to have stayed and heard the rest of his set, but it was approaching midnight at that point and we knew Franklin De Costa would be starting soon.
We made it back to Paradise Lounge just before De Costa started playing and had a chance to scope out the crowd. Though the dancefloor was packed, it was a very cool crowd, lots of real obvious techno heads, and still plenty of room of dancing. De Costa played a very minimal, abstract set, but the energy was absolutely banging. The boyfriend and I danced for over an hour straight, something that rarely happens these days. I would describe De Costa’s style as being what I think of as “real German techno,” lots of abstract loops that, when you mix them together, have their own emergent structure and dynamic. There were times when I could recognize the structure of individual tracks, but overall the impression was of sections phasing in and out of one another, a steady drive with moments of auditory surprise that would then make your body shift in another direction. The nice bit, though, was his selection of tracks with warm, more organic, almost house sounds that made it easy to engage with the music at the same time that the rhythm drove you relentlessly forward.
This was only the third time Aural Therapy has been held at Paradise Lounge, but I’d say it was an experience that certainly bears repeating. A more intimate and varied space than The Endup, and without that club’s seeming need to cater to the more general expectations of SF clubbers (how many times will I go to Kontrol and hear generic house for the first two hours?), Paradise Lounge and Aural Therapy have the potential to become a major monthly destination for the SF techno scene.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Event Review: Mass at 1015
And now, a guest review from SFScene pal and special field correspondant Kitty:
Let's just get one thing out of the way. How long has 1015 had the monopoly on big club parties in SF? Quite a few years now. So why is it that 1015 acts like they just opened last week?
Why am I there (even though I do now and always have hated this particular club)? Because it's New Year's day and DJ Phil B is having Mass for the first time in years. Back at the cusp of the new millennium (when we still had some hope for the future), Mass was the Sunday evening t-dance that provided the perfect progressive house ending to a weekend of big gay parties. Big music. Big lights. Big fun.
This party at this place has special meaning for me. It's the scene of one of my few transcendent experiences in the gay party scene. Those moments of joy and connection when the people/place/music burn themselves into your brain. You know... that Zen singularity that we all spend our time, money and brain cells trying (and often failing) to achieve.
I've grown up enough to know that I can't get that experience back again. But I'll definitely pay $20 for the chance at getting groovy on New Year's Day. And I was willing to bet that there were plenty of other guys thinking the same thing.
Ticket in hand, I arrived at 1015 at 6:30 pm. That's when the complete ineptitude of the club's door personnel smacked me in the face. There were two lines to get in, but the majority of patrons were forced to wait in a line that snaked around three sides of the building. Why? The second line was only for those possessing a shiny, Wonka-like golden VIP ticket.
Needless to say, those of us who had purchased regular tickets before the party were pissed about standing in the wet cold for up to 20 minutes or more. My only source of amusement during that wait was watching other partygoers arrive and scramble dejectedly for a place in the ever-increasing line. Sometimes schadenfreude is my only joy.
Poor planning created the misery of a line, but douche-baggery was salt-in-the-wound. The lone security dude checking IDs insisted on asking each guest how their evening was going. He would not be satisfied by a tepid "fine" or "good" from cold, trembling patrons in tight t-shirts. In fact, if such bland vocabulary was used, he pulled the yearning patron out of line until they could come up with something more creative. I pitied those frozen souls with poor verbal education.
When my time came, I held back the scathing reply that had been boiling inside of me for the past 10 minutes. It had accumulated variously heated particles of speech over that time until becoming a mass of molten anger. And I really did want to say it to him. Oh how I yearned for it. But my voice of reason firmly insisted this would not be the way to gain quick entry to the club. So I piped out a half-hearted "fan-fucking-tastic" and was on my way.
Next step in the process is checking my coat. In other words, waiting in another pointlessly long line. But I did have the opportunity to observe a scene that made my night. A loud, braying queen standing behind me called out to his fag-hag that "there are children!" Sure enough, a shockingly respectable family was coming out of the downstairs bar.
After he made a spectacle of himself trashing the harmless straights, the family picked their way up the crowded staircase led by a darkly handsome guy, his arms protectively draped around two young girls. As they passed the shade-throwing sister, a voice called from the crowd, "Gus! I didn't know you had kids!?"
The man with the girls (now revealed to be Gus of Guspresents, the promoter of this party) shouted back, "Ha! These are my nieces. Today was my birthday!"
As a loud mouthed fag who regularly puts his foot in it, I felt really bad for that big-mouthed queen in line behind me. (But maybe not that badly.)
The party itself got off to a fun, energetic, and friendly start. The Gus's nieces danced and got onstage with the flaggers. Every gay man that they passed was smitten with them.
After a few drinks I was in a good mood and dancing on the edges of a packed floor. Even at that distance, the heat of the shirtless, sweating crowd made my skin flush and tingle. Phil B began his 6-hour set with some standard gay house shakers. Good stuff, but not particularly inspiring. Particularly the full-on diva house cover of Pink's "Better Get This Party Started."
But with each song, Phil B brought up the tempo. And as the beats picked up, the songs got harder. Somewhere about halfway through the evening, he's spinning progressive house so powerful it's bordering on Trance. Just what I like.
After another hour or so of moving on the floor, around the floor and through the floor I just couldn't move any more. The club was now completely filled with boys and girls, men and women having a great time. I love that feeling of euphoria that comes from almost everyone I pass. Bit I am also very tired of tripping over and stepping on people.
Billed as a "Reunion" dance, strangely I did not see anyone I had known from those days of going to Mass. But I did have a good time without having it torpedoed by the neurotic hang-ups that haunted my back then. Maybe not "fan-fucking-tastic," but still a good time.
Let's just get one thing out of the way. How long has 1015 had the monopoly on big club parties in SF? Quite a few years now. So why is it that 1015 acts like they just opened last week?
Why am I there (even though I do now and always have hated this particular club)? Because it's New Year's day and DJ Phil B is having Mass for the first time in years. Back at the cusp of the new millennium (when we still had some hope for the future), Mass was the Sunday evening t-dance that provided the perfect progressive house ending to a weekend of big gay parties. Big music. Big lights. Big fun.
This party at this place has special meaning for me. It's the scene of one of my few transcendent experiences in the gay party scene. Those moments of joy and connection when the people/place/music burn themselves into your brain. You know... that Zen singularity that we all spend our time, money and brain cells trying (and often failing) to achieve.
I've grown up enough to know that I can't get that experience back again. But I'll definitely pay $20 for the chance at getting groovy on New Year's Day. And I was willing to bet that there were plenty of other guys thinking the same thing.
Ticket in hand, I arrived at 1015 at 6:30 pm. That's when the complete ineptitude of the club's door personnel smacked me in the face. There were two lines to get in, but the majority of patrons were forced to wait in a line that snaked around three sides of the building. Why? The second line was only for those possessing a shiny, Wonka-like golden VIP ticket.
Needless to say, those of us who had purchased regular tickets before the party were pissed about standing in the wet cold for up to 20 minutes or more. My only source of amusement during that wait was watching other partygoers arrive and scramble dejectedly for a place in the ever-increasing line. Sometimes schadenfreude is my only joy.
Poor planning created the misery of a line, but douche-baggery was salt-in-the-wound. The lone security dude checking IDs insisted on asking each guest how their evening was going. He would not be satisfied by a tepid "fine" or "good" from cold, trembling patrons in tight t-shirts. In fact, if such bland vocabulary was used, he pulled the yearning patron out of line until they could come up with something more creative. I pitied those frozen souls with poor verbal education.
When my time came, I held back the scathing reply that had been boiling inside of me for the past 10 minutes. It had accumulated variously heated particles of speech over that time until becoming a mass of molten anger. And I really did want to say it to him. Oh how I yearned for it. But my voice of reason firmly insisted this would not be the way to gain quick entry to the club. So I piped out a half-hearted "fan-fucking-tastic" and was on my way.
Next step in the process is checking my coat. In other words, waiting in another pointlessly long line. But I did have the opportunity to observe a scene that made my night. A loud, braying queen standing behind me called out to his fag-hag that "there are children!" Sure enough, a shockingly respectable family was coming out of the downstairs bar.
After he made a spectacle of himself trashing the harmless straights, the family picked their way up the crowded staircase led by a darkly handsome guy, his arms protectively draped around two young girls. As they passed the shade-throwing sister, a voice called from the crowd, "Gus! I didn't know you had kids!?"
The man with the girls (now revealed to be Gus of Guspresents, the promoter of this party) shouted back, "Ha! These are my nieces. Today was my birthday!"
As a loud mouthed fag who regularly puts his foot in it, I felt really bad for that big-mouthed queen in line behind me. (But maybe not that badly.)
The party itself got off to a fun, energetic, and friendly start. The Gus's nieces danced and got onstage with the flaggers. Every gay man that they passed was smitten with them.
After a few drinks I was in a good mood and dancing on the edges of a packed floor. Even at that distance, the heat of the shirtless, sweating crowd made my skin flush and tingle. Phil B began his 6-hour set with some standard gay house shakers. Good stuff, but not particularly inspiring. Particularly the full-on diva house cover of Pink's "Better Get This Party Started."
But with each song, Phil B brought up the tempo. And as the beats picked up, the songs got harder. Somewhere about halfway through the evening, he's spinning progressive house so powerful it's bordering on Trance. Just what I like.
After another hour or so of moving on the floor, around the floor and through the floor I just couldn't move any more. The club was now completely filled with boys and girls, men and women having a great time. I love that feeling of euphoria that comes from almost everyone I pass. Bit I am also very tired of tripping over and stepping on people.
Billed as a "Reunion" dance, strangely I did not see anyone I had known from those days of going to Mass. But I did have a good time without having it torpedoed by the neurotic hang-ups that haunted my back then. Maybe not "fan-fucking-tastic," but still a good time.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Event Review: Dirtybird 4th Anniversary Party at Mezzanine
After going to see The Unborn on Friday night (surely one of the most ridiculous movies in recent memory - the boyfriend has agreed that I get to pick the next couple movies after he suggested The Unborn and Lifeforce in the same weekend), the boyfriend and I walked two blocks over to Mezzanine, where the Dirty Bird 4th Year Anniversary party was getting underway. It was 100% improvement over last year's anniversary bash, simply because it was in a larger space with a much better (meaning, not deafening) sound system and I didn't have to endure Khia's "My Neck, My Back."
My general take on the Dirty Bird sound is that it has become more assured and less dependent on some of the more gimmicky elements of their early releases. You can still hear the ghetto-tech influences, and there are occasional cartoonish moments when it sounds like the carnival coming into town, but I was impressed with the overall deeper vibe of the tracks. The boyfriend pointed out that they still seem to depend on a tribal 1-5 beat, and all the rhythm action happens in the bass, but in the two sets we heard (the Martin brothers, I believe), there were some really great grooves that kept me on the dancefloor for a long while.
The crowd was good - we ran into a couple gay boys of our acquaintance, and my gaydar registered some hits on the dancefloor, but this party was much more about the Dirty Bird loyalists and hipsters who have been following them since their first parties in Golden Gate Park. Unlike last year's party at Mighty there were far fewer cocktail dresses and guys wearing bad cologne, and no fights! It was a huge turnout by the time we left at 1.30 (I was feeling poorly and woke up on Saturday with a 103.5 degree fever), and I was really thrilled to see the Dirtybird kids enjoying their well-deserved success as one of San Francisco's most interesting and exciting new labels.
My general take on the Dirty Bird sound is that it has become more assured and less dependent on some of the more gimmicky elements of their early releases. You can still hear the ghetto-tech influences, and there are occasional cartoonish moments when it sounds like the carnival coming into town, but I was impressed with the overall deeper vibe of the tracks. The boyfriend pointed out that they still seem to depend on a tribal 1-5 beat, and all the rhythm action happens in the bass, but in the two sets we heard (the Martin brothers, I believe), there were some really great grooves that kept me on the dancefloor for a long while.
The crowd was good - we ran into a couple gay boys of our acquaintance, and my gaydar registered some hits on the dancefloor, but this party was much more about the Dirty Bird loyalists and hipsters who have been following them since their first parties in Golden Gate Park. Unlike last year's party at Mighty there were far fewer cocktail dresses and guys wearing bad cologne, and no fights! It was a huge turnout by the time we left at 1.30 (I was feeling poorly and woke up on Saturday with a 103.5 degree fever), and I was really thrilled to see the Dirtybird kids enjoying their well-deserved success as one of San Francisco's most interesting and exciting new labels.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Event Review: Stompy New Year's Day at Cafe Cocomo
Whatever I felt was lacking in terms of grown-up style and sophistication at Subeterra was well accounted for at the utterly superior Stompy New Year's Day party at Cafe Cocomo. After breakfast at 2 in the afternoon, the boyfriend and I headed over to Cafe Cocomo with our friend Toka, and there met up with some friends from Comfort and Joy. By that point, around 4PM, the party was already very lively, populated by many people who, like myself, had probably not gone to bed yet. Despite whatever was razzing our nervous systems along, the crowd was friendly and smiling - I even had a random guy buy me a drink and a shot when I pulled up next to him at the bar. "I've got the credit card out," he said "seems a shame to buy only one drink with it."
The dancefloor was full the entire time we were there, and I re-developed an appreciation for well-mixed, and well-selected, progressive house. The system was perfectly tuned for the space; we were standing right by the left corner stacks and could hear everything perfectly, but still have conversation while we were dancing. Stompy delivered everything I had wanted from Subterra the previous night, with good uplifting music that wasn't intended to overpower the senses, a happy crowd of party professionals, and a great space to chill and dance with my friends after a loooooong night into the New Year.
The dancefloor was full the entire time we were there, and I re-developed an appreciation for well-mixed, and well-selected, progressive house. The system was perfectly tuned for the space; we were standing right by the left corner stacks and could hear everything perfectly, but still have conversation while we were dancing. Stompy delivered everything I had wanted from Subterra the previous night, with good uplifting music that wasn't intended to overpower the senses, a happy crowd of party professionals, and a great space to chill and dance with my friends after a loooooong night into the New Year.
Event Review: Subterra NYE 2009 at SomArts
As I wrote a couple weeks ago in the New Year's Eve Guide, there wasn't a lot in the way of parties that felt really compelling to me this New Year's Eve. After some hemming and hawing, the boyfriend and I, at rather the last minute, decided to attend Subterra at SomArts with a couple of our friends. It wasn't the coolest party I'd heard of, nor the biggest, but was the one where we were most likely to run into other random friends, which is what we were looking for on this occasion.
We arrived around 11 and spent the time leading up to midnight mostly standing around outside in the smoking area. We checked out the three rooms of music, but nothing really grabbed us - psytrance is psytrance, the "techno" room was sounding pretty trancey itself, and the middle room, which was dubstep at the time, seemed to be the place where the kids were going to get their freak on. Eventually we did get some dancing on in the techno room, but that was well after midnight, at the point where I began to wonder what we had paid $40 for.
It was a well-attended party, with a vibe that was overall very ravey. This has its good and bad points; on the one side, ravey is fun, on the other, it's pretty adolescent in its energy. We saw a lot of kids who were obviously feeling their rolls, and at one point we watched as a half-naked couple was getting it on in the chill tent. As two Guido guys walked by the couple the boy, who was on the bottom, did a devil's horn salute to them, and they gave him a thumb's up back. Though I think it's great that there are opportunities for the 18+ set to go out and party, I find myself looking for a different kind of energy these days, one that is maybe a bit more sophisticated. This was the thing with much of the music we heard as well - very well suited for folks looking for a driving, freaky, go-for-broke beat, not so well suited for deep grooving. Though we were able to find a less aggro vibe in the techno room, the sound system there also seemed that it had been tuned for size over subtlety, with the bass swamping out everything in the mid-range and making normally crisp minimal techno sound soft and spongey.
We split around 3.30, though the party had gotten its second wind. After a lot of standing around, we were all ready for some sitting and tripping out on our own beats. It was a decent way to bring in the New Year, and we enjoyed running into random friends and acquaintances while we were there, but for next year I think we may need to check out a party that's a bit more suited for grown-ups.
We arrived around 11 and spent the time leading up to midnight mostly standing around outside in the smoking area. We checked out the three rooms of music, but nothing really grabbed us - psytrance is psytrance, the "techno" room was sounding pretty trancey itself, and the middle room, which was dubstep at the time, seemed to be the place where the kids were going to get their freak on. Eventually we did get some dancing on in the techno room, but that was well after midnight, at the point where I began to wonder what we had paid $40 for.
It was a well-attended party, with a vibe that was overall very ravey. This has its good and bad points; on the one side, ravey is fun, on the other, it's pretty adolescent in its energy. We saw a lot of kids who were obviously feeling their rolls, and at one point we watched as a half-naked couple was getting it on in the chill tent. As two Guido guys walked by the couple the boy, who was on the bottom, did a devil's horn salute to them, and they gave him a thumb's up back. Though I think it's great that there are opportunities for the 18+ set to go out and party, I find myself looking for a different kind of energy these days, one that is maybe a bit more sophisticated. This was the thing with much of the music we heard as well - very well suited for folks looking for a driving, freaky, go-for-broke beat, not so well suited for deep grooving. Though we were able to find a less aggro vibe in the techno room, the sound system there also seemed that it had been tuned for size over subtlety, with the bass swamping out everything in the mid-range and making normally crisp minimal techno sound soft and spongey.
We split around 3.30, though the party had gotten its second wind. After a lot of standing around, we were all ready for some sitting and tripping out on our own beats. It was a decent way to bring in the New Year, and we enjoyed running into random friends and acquaintances while we were there, but for next year I think we may need to check out a party that's a bit more suited for grown-ups.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Event Review: Comfort and Joy Solstice Celebration "Brighter Days Ahead"
I must admit that I approached the Comfort and Joy Solstice party at Workspace Limited with a small degree of trepidation; it was cold out, there had been drama in the preceding weeks around exactly what was going on when and who was doing it, and I was tired and not looking forward to a ten hour event. But with Kitty DJing the silent art auction in the afternoon, Lord Kook playing the dance portion of the evening, and having personally volunteered to work a door shift from 7-9, there was nothing to do but put on some warm clothes and soldier on. As it turned out, "Brighter Days Ahead" turned into one of the very best little dance parties I've attended in a long time.
The thing I was most uncertain about was how everything that was planned for this event - a silent art auction, the screening of a silent film, performances from drag and "other" artists (more on that in a second), a feast, and a dance party - were going to come together, and in the weeks leading up to the event I was privy to several folks' concerns about whether or not, for example, the dance party would wind up being all of two hours at the end of the evening when all the faeries had already left for the annual faerie Solstice sex party. However, thanks to the agency of Digger the stage manager, Ginga Snapp as hostess and MC (who is very cute in boy drag, btw), and Space the music/DJ coordinator, everything went off amazingly well. The dance music actually got started around 9PM with a set from Space, and the performances were broken up into fifteen or twenty minute interludes between other sets. The only time I was feeling a mite testy about the interplay between performances and the dance music was when a band took to the stage for three dirges. I think the idea was to channel something akin to Diamanda Galas, or, in a more generous mood, The Swans, but not only did they seem musically inappropriate for a party that was supposed to be about joy and celebration, their whole affect was much too reminiscent of art school kids trying way, way too hard to seem avant-garde for me to take them seriously. It's also generally rude to be tuning up and practicing, loudly, through your own PA, against the music that the DJ is playing. They did have a couple Mission hipster kid fans who gyrated around like Dervishes at the front of the stage during their mercifully short set, but I think the consensus was that everyone was much more inclined to dancing along with Lord Kook and KJ.
And dance they did, with a full and happy dancefloor of queer kids and their friends getting down all the way to closing time at 2AM. It was an event refreshingly free of scene baggage, and restored a bit of my faith that you can still bring all kinds of people together to have fun and enjoy one another's company without having to negotiate the endless, tedious politics of the gay club scene. More than just paying lip service to the idea of creating queer community, Comfort and Joy does manage, despite all the drama and complications that arise whenever you get a group of gay men together to do something, to actually pull it off.
The thing I was most uncertain about was how everything that was planned for this event - a silent art auction, the screening of a silent film, performances from drag and "other" artists (more on that in a second), a feast, and a dance party - were going to come together, and in the weeks leading up to the event I was privy to several folks' concerns about whether or not, for example, the dance party would wind up being all of two hours at the end of the evening when all the faeries had already left for the annual faerie Solstice sex party. However, thanks to the agency of Digger the stage manager, Ginga Snapp as hostess and MC (who is very cute in boy drag, btw), and Space the music/DJ coordinator, everything went off amazingly well. The dance music actually got started around 9PM with a set from Space, and the performances were broken up into fifteen or twenty minute interludes between other sets. The only time I was feeling a mite testy about the interplay between performances and the dance music was when a band took to the stage for three dirges. I think the idea was to channel something akin to Diamanda Galas, or, in a more generous mood, The Swans, but not only did they seem musically inappropriate for a party that was supposed to be about joy and celebration, their whole affect was much too reminiscent of art school kids trying way, way too hard to seem avant-garde for me to take them seriously. It's also generally rude to be tuning up and practicing, loudly, through your own PA, against the music that the DJ is playing. They did have a couple Mission hipster kid fans who gyrated around like Dervishes at the front of the stage during their mercifully short set, but I think the consensus was that everyone was much more inclined to dancing along with Lord Kook and KJ.
And dance they did, with a full and happy dancefloor of queer kids and their friends getting down all the way to closing time at 2AM. It was an event refreshingly free of scene baggage, and restored a bit of my faith that you can still bring all kinds of people together to have fun and enjoy one another's company without having to negotiate the endless, tedious politics of the gay club scene. More than just paying lip service to the idea of creating queer community, Comfort and Joy does manage, despite all the drama and complications that arise whenever you get a group of gay men together to do something, to actually pull it off.
Lord Kook playing to an admiring audience
Monday, November 24, 2008
Event Review: Daniel Bell Underground at The Compound
Friday night the boyfriend and I fired up the Element and went adventuring into the wastelands of Bayview in search of a dirt road with a gate at the end, and beyond that gate, the promise of a very groovy night with legend Daniel Bell providing an eight-hour soundtrack. What we eventually found was not only a great night of truly deep techno with a Detroit master, but one of those legendary underground spaces that are fast disappearing from the San Francisco scene.
The party, produced by Kontrol, was at The Compound, a space perhaps best known among techno scenesters for its 16-speaker surround system. When you read that you probably think, “oh, yeah, big deal, sounds like a gimmick,” but once you’ve heard what music sounds like on that system, it makes you realize just how shitty every other club in this city is. It’s a small space that felt crowded with a hundred black-clad techno kids bobbing around in it, but as it filled up, the sound never seemed to get louder, even though every element, from the lowest bass to the highest treble, sounded absolutely clear and distinct. After going to clubs like Mighty, where the sonic philosophy is founded on pure brute force that leaves you feeling dazed and deafened, it was a relief to hear techno on a system that was designed for sonic subtlety and nuance. Bell was set up in the middle of the geodesic dome-like space, and one thing that I noticed almost immediately was that he didn’t have any monitors. Looking up we saw two monitors that were flown from the ceiling, and that’s all he needed, even with a crowd around him. The sound was so perfectly tailored to the space, it didn’t matter where you stood, and I had a hallucinatory moment when I thought that the music and the space were simultaneously giving shape to each other.
The same care and subtlety that went into the sound design of The Compound could also be found in Bell’s set. It’s been a while since I’ve been to a party where the DJ had enough time in their set to develop a true progression of mood. When we first arrived around 11 there weren’t that many other people in the space, and Bell was playing some fairly easy-going deep techno that was flavored with a little house, just the thing to help you unwind a bit. By the time we left around 2.30 he was eliciting whoops, but it wasn’t like he’d switched over to bangers; instead he had lifted the energy of the room subtlely, still playing minimal and deep sounds, and still making smooth mixes with little in the way of knob-twisting theatrics. It was one of the most mature, confident sets of techno I’ve heard in a long time, where the most minimal DJ intervention could have maximal effect.
Of course, one of the best things about underground parties is the crowd; it takes real connection to the scene, and often some degree of effort, to find yourself at one of these events, so there’s a pretty strong process of selection at work before anybody even shows up. The only folks the boyfriend and I knew were Monica and Tom Kat, but that didn’t stop us from having conversations with the guy who helped us park (who thought the boyfriend looked like “a wise guy” in his black hat, black sport coat, and white hoodie), one of the sound guys, and even two guys who disagreed with us over whether or not playing a snippet of the Booka Shade remix of Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman” was trite (we didn’t think it was). It was kind of a strange moment, which, literally disagreeable as it was, still meant we were among people who took the music, the DJing, and the whole vibe seriously. Given that most of my party experience in the recent past has been more about the scene than the music, it was nice to be among fellow heads for a while. It was, in fact, enough to make me wish I’d had the stamina, or at least the stimulants, to get me through the entirety of the night.
The Compound’s days are numbered; it’s in Added Area B, Parcel 1 of the Bayview Re-development plan that was passed back in June, so its likely fate is at the hands of a bulldozer driver. Losing that space will be yet another significant set-back in the development of our nascent techno scene, so let’s enjoy it, and the ideas and connections it fosters, while we can.
The party, produced by Kontrol, was at The Compound, a space perhaps best known among techno scenesters for its 16-speaker surround system. When you read that you probably think, “oh, yeah, big deal, sounds like a gimmick,” but once you’ve heard what music sounds like on that system, it makes you realize just how shitty every other club in this city is. It’s a small space that felt crowded with a hundred black-clad techno kids bobbing around in it, but as it filled up, the sound never seemed to get louder, even though every element, from the lowest bass to the highest treble, sounded absolutely clear and distinct. After going to clubs like Mighty, where the sonic philosophy is founded on pure brute force that leaves you feeling dazed and deafened, it was a relief to hear techno on a system that was designed for sonic subtlety and nuance. Bell was set up in the middle of the geodesic dome-like space, and one thing that I noticed almost immediately was that he didn’t have any monitors. Looking up we saw two monitors that were flown from the ceiling, and that’s all he needed, even with a crowd around him. The sound was so perfectly tailored to the space, it didn’t matter where you stood, and I had a hallucinatory moment when I thought that the music and the space were simultaneously giving shape to each other.
The same care and subtlety that went into the sound design of The Compound could also be found in Bell’s set. It’s been a while since I’ve been to a party where the DJ had enough time in their set to develop a true progression of mood. When we first arrived around 11 there weren’t that many other people in the space, and Bell was playing some fairly easy-going deep techno that was flavored with a little house, just the thing to help you unwind a bit. By the time we left around 2.30 he was eliciting whoops, but it wasn’t like he’d switched over to bangers; instead he had lifted the energy of the room subtlely, still playing minimal and deep sounds, and still making smooth mixes with little in the way of knob-twisting theatrics. It was one of the most mature, confident sets of techno I’ve heard in a long time, where the most minimal DJ intervention could have maximal effect.
Of course, one of the best things about underground parties is the crowd; it takes real connection to the scene, and often some degree of effort, to find yourself at one of these events, so there’s a pretty strong process of selection at work before anybody even shows up. The only folks the boyfriend and I knew were Monica and Tom Kat, but that didn’t stop us from having conversations with the guy who helped us park (who thought the boyfriend looked like “a wise guy” in his black hat, black sport coat, and white hoodie), one of the sound guys, and even two guys who disagreed with us over whether or not playing a snippet of the Booka Shade remix of Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman” was trite (we didn’t think it was). It was kind of a strange moment, which, literally disagreeable as it was, still meant we were among people who took the music, the DJing, and the whole vibe seriously. Given that most of my party experience in the recent past has been more about the scene than the music, it was nice to be among fellow heads for a while. It was, in fact, enough to make me wish I’d had the stamina, or at least the stimulants, to get me through the entirety of the night.
The Compound’s days are numbered; it’s in Added Area B, Parcel 1 of the Bayview Re-development plan that was passed back in June, so its likely fate is at the hands of a bulldozer driver. Losing that space will be yet another significant set-back in the development of our nascent techno scene, so let’s enjoy it, and the ideas and connections it fosters, while we can.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Event Review: Honey Soundsystem Presents Hard Energy at Paradise Lounge
Honey Soundsystem has taken on the rather considerable challenge of presenting a new weekly, on a Sunday, in a new space, but from what I saw this past Sunday, they're as able to meet the challenge as anyone.
The boyfriend and I showed up with our friend Toka just as they opened the doors at 8PM and stayed for a three-drink conversation. Kendig was first up on the decks, and though his set was way too retro disco for my taste (especially after he teased us with some very cool contemporary tech at the beginning and middle of his set), he gave the space a comfortable Sunday evening t-dance vibe. I was more into the set PeePlay laid out after him, since he mixed in more contemporary sounds and made me feel like I was out for a night of grooving and dancing rather than an episode of the gay music history channel. He came on just as the crowd began to arrive around 10PM, and I saw several dancers enthusiastically take to the floor during his set, with the promise of more to come.
Paradise Lounge just recently re-opened, and PeePlay told me that they had originally planned on using the upstairs, rather than downstairs, space. I personally couldn't see anything at all wrong with what they had on the opening night since there was a good-sized dance floor, a cozy space off the dancefloor with banquette seating where you could chill and have a conversation, and lots of little tables and stools in the bar and dance areas where you could perch or have more intimate interactions. Nonetheless, PeePlay assured me that the upstairs space would be even cooler, and I know I'll go back again to check it out. There's not been much to do on Sunday evenings for a while, at least nothing that has the kind of cool alternative flair that Honey Soundsystem brings, so I hope the boys will be able to build Hard Energy into a Sunday evening destination.
The boyfriend and I showed up with our friend Toka just as they opened the doors at 8PM and stayed for a three-drink conversation. Kendig was first up on the decks, and though his set was way too retro disco for my taste (especially after he teased us with some very cool contemporary tech at the beginning and middle of his set), he gave the space a comfortable Sunday evening t-dance vibe. I was more into the set PeePlay laid out after him, since he mixed in more contemporary sounds and made me feel like I was out for a night of grooving and dancing rather than an episode of the gay music history channel. He came on just as the crowd began to arrive around 10PM, and I saw several dancers enthusiastically take to the floor during his set, with the promise of more to come.
Paradise Lounge just recently re-opened, and PeePlay told me that they had originally planned on using the upstairs, rather than downstairs, space. I personally couldn't see anything at all wrong with what they had on the opening night since there was a good-sized dance floor, a cozy space off the dancefloor with banquette seating where you could chill and have a conversation, and lots of little tables and stools in the bar and dance areas where you could perch or have more intimate interactions. Nonetheless, PeePlay assured me that the upstairs space would be even cooler, and I know I'll go back again to check it out. There's not been much to do on Sunday evenings for a while, at least nothing that has the kind of cool alternative flair that Honey Soundsystem brings, so I hope the boys will be able to build Hard Energy into a Sunday evening destination.
Event Review: Molekule at Julie's Supper Club
The boyfriend and I made a quick stop into Molekule at Julie's Supper Club this past Friday and found a very cool space with even cooler techno. A collaboration between various grassroots technophiles like Faktion, Thirst, and Def, among others, this has real potential to blossom into another regularly occurring, local-talent-nurturing, head-centric techno party of the sort that this city needs.
Julie's, as we saw it set up, is a three-room space with a very comfortable bar area, a main dancefloor with classic black-and-white linoleum tile, and a smaller chill room (which could be made much better use of than as a place to store tables and chairs moved from the main room). Visuals were provided by Heroic Robot, who made great use of the big bare walls to present lessons in molekular and vektor geometry. We hung out and caught a bit of Tom Kat's very viberrific chill set, and then headed into the main room to hear some tracks from Amber (Thirsty | SisterSF),who gave us lots of fun snap-and-shuffle techno from the likes of Alex Under.
The hope seems to be that Molekule will mature into a monthly event, so let's keep our fingers crossed for more Molekule in the future.
Julie's, as we saw it set up, is a three-room space with a very comfortable bar area, a main dancefloor with classic black-and-white linoleum tile, and a smaller chill room (which could be made much better use of than as a place to store tables and chairs moved from the main room). Visuals were provided by Heroic Robot, who made great use of the big bare walls to present lessons in molekular and vektor geometry. We hung out and caught a bit of Tom Kat's very viberrific chill set, and then headed into the main room to hear some tracks from Amber (Thirsty | SisterSF),who gave us lots of fun snap-and-shuffle techno from the likes of Alex Under.
The hope seems to be that Molekule will mature into a monthly event, so let's keep our fingers crossed for more Molekule in the future.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Adventures in DJing: Bloodpact at SoMarts
Of the many things you think might go wrong with a gig - bad CDs, forgetting your headphones, generally stinking up the place - probably the last thing on the list, if it appeared at all, would be having your knee pop out in the middle of your set, having to put it back in place yourself, and then finishing your gig. And yet, as improbable as it may sound, that's exactly what happened to Lord Kook during his set at Bloodpact, winning him the SuperTrooper award for his ability to solider on under circumstances of extreme physical distress.
The first indication I had that something was wrong came when I heard that horrible whipwhipwhip sound of a CD being put on pause. I turned around and someone, who was definitely not Lord Kook, was up at the mixer, and I couldn't see him anywhere. I ran up to the DJ stand and saw LK on the floor, holding his knee and sorta rolling in pain. "What happened?" I asked, and he said "My knee popped out!" There were several frantic seconds of trying to figure out what to do, a medic arrived but said he couldn't put the knee back in place, that we'd have to call an ambulance, meanwhile the kid who had leaped into the lurch when LK went down was trying to figure out what was going on with the CD players. "It's back in, it's back in!" LK shouted at me, and a second later he was back on the decks, completely drenched with shock sweat, to one of the biggest rounds of applause I've heard for a DJ in a while. A chair was found for him, he finished out his set, the medic came back with an ice pack and some analgesics, and then it was all sitting on the patio, having a cigarette and a drink and looking very much like a dashing wounded war hero (it probably helped that he was wearing a pirate costume).
The worst part of the whole incident, aside from the pain of course, was that Lord Kook was right in the middle of one of his most amazing sets ever. He'd been working on a plan all week and went off to Bloodpact with a sheet of notes, and in the execution his mixing was absolutely flawless. The duo of Digital Paradigm whipped up the kids with some serious bloggo bangin' before LK went on, but he brought the funky groove, with lots of bodies writhing up against each other on the dance risers. I knew the second that he got his knee to track back into place that he would want to finish, because he had too much invested in putting this set together, and was getting too much out of playing it, to let something as trivial as a dislocated knee get in the way.
We didn't really get to experience much of the rest of the party; after the requisite post-set drink, smoke, and basking in the glory of having just scored serious cred, we headed back to the apartment where LK could put up his leg. It was early, only about 1.45, and the party looked like it was gaining some substantial momentum to carry though until 5 AM, but, what the hell, we'd already had our major experience to remember this Halloween, the one where Lord Kook went up a level.
Decemberween Electrohouse 2008 (01:31:24)
<--------------- cliiiiiiiick01. Headman - Moisture (Headman Club Mix)
02. Funky Transport and Jonee Q - Mixed Up (Style of Eye Remix)
03. Young Rebels and Francisco Diaz - Human Animal (John Dahlback Remix)
04. DJ Fist - Lemme See You Work (Milton Channels Remix)
05. Simon S. - Music Machine (Rhythm Code Remix)
06. Wolfgang Carter - Sour Candy (Original Mix)
07. Chocolate Puma and Bingo Players - Touch Me (Bart B More Remix)
08. Wax Poetic - Swing Swing (Tyrell Remix)
09. NuBreed - NuFunk (Deadmau5 Remix)
10. Office Gossip - Time Against Me (Original Mix)
11. Camille Jones - Difficult Guys (Extended)
12. Chris Lake - Shake (Original Mix)
13. Hatiras & MC Flipside - Autograph (Original Dirty Mix)
14. Switch - A Bit Patchy (Eric Prydz Remix)
15. Matthew Dear - Neighborhoods (Original Mix)
16. Mason - The Ride (Oliver Klein and Peter Juergen Mix)
17. Copyright - In Da Club (Shake Shit Up) (Original Mix)
18. Roby C - Disco Robot (Riva Starr Remix)
19. Prax Paris - Running Up That Hill (Maria Ochoa Remix)
Monday, October 20, 2008
Event Review: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival
Okay, I know, it's a little late but, hey, this is what happens when you're busy.
For the second year in a row the boyfriend was one of the onstage recording engineers for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and on Sunday he had the good luck to be working the stage with Ben Kweller, Elvis Costello, and Gogol Bordello, among others. I hauled myself down there in time to catch the end of Kweller's set, all of Costello's, and the very beginning of Gogol Bordello, and I have to say that, after some of the wretched excess of the LoveFest, it was a veritable balm for the soul.
Now, let's be straight and say that there were just as many people getting their party on at HSB as at Lovefest, but since they were dispersed over a very large section of Golden Gate Park, you didn't have the same sensation of being in the middle of a Bosch painting. Though no alcohol is sold at the event (certainly a good thing), plenty of people had bottles and cans in hand, and the fragrant scent of the chronic hung over the crowd. I saw several small groups of what I think of as hippie geek kids hanging out together, and I have no doubt that I had looked closely, I would have seen some mighty big eyeballs. What was different from LoveFest, though, was how quaint, almost traditional, this particular party scene was; after all, songs about drinking are a huge part of the blugrass/country repetoire, and we all know what jam band concerts are like. Perhaps it was because, at LoveFest, there is such a connection between sex and partying, and partying till you can't party no more, while Hardly Strictly Bluegrass seems to be more about the great enthusiasm one has for both the state of intoxication and the hangover that follows.
That enthusiastic embrace of even the most downbeat, bluesy aspect of life was what came across for me in Ben Kweller's performance. Wearing a red and black shirt lumberjack shirt with a denim vest and rockstar-tight jeans, with long curly hair, Kweller seemed like one of the many alterancountry hippy boys in the audience, the one who learned guitar and started writing songs and was as surprised as any of them would be to find himself up on the stage. He pretty much charmed the socks off me.
Elvis Costello, on the other hand, was the consummate, veteran performer who knew all the moves but came across as slightly empty. On one of the hottest days in San Francisco this year Costello came onstage wearing a hat, a scarf, a vest over a shirt, and a long coat. Though one person commented to me that he looked like The Penguin, I eventually came to think of his outfit as both costume and armor, something he put on to project a persona but was, in the end, something that kept you from seeing what was underneath. He opened up with "Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes" to remind everybody who he was, went through the routine of getting people to clap and sing along with his songs, but then, as he was switching guitars halfway through, he popped off at one of the monitor engineers - it was really quick, only four words said off to the side of the stage, and had I not been standing where I was and able to see the expression on his face, I might not have even noticed it, but it was an instant when I could see past the showman who had named his kids Dexter and Frank so they could be a Vaudeville Act to a rather dyspeptic curmudgeon underneath all those layers.
I got tired of standing and walked behind the stage to sit in the meadow as the sun set. There was a completely naked and unselfconscious boy of about three running around and playing with another boy his age, dogs hunting gophers, groups of hippy kids sitting together and climbing trees, an older couple sharing a pipe sitting in front of me, all bathed in a faintly hazy, enchanting light. I sat there and just mediated on the things in front of me, one of the most relaxing, idyllic scenes I had seen in quite a while.
The boyfriend got his lunch break after Gogol Bordello came on, so we wandered off in search of food. On the way out I came across buskers playing "Dirty Old Town" by The Pogues, and a two-piece band on the Rooster Stage playing a particularly poignant version of The Replacements' "Can't Hardly Wait" on guitar and mandolin. Both were unexpected delights, which pretty accurately sums up my entire experience of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.
For the second year in a row the boyfriend was one of the onstage recording engineers for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and on Sunday he had the good luck to be working the stage with Ben Kweller, Elvis Costello, and Gogol Bordello, among others. I hauled myself down there in time to catch the end of Kweller's set, all of Costello's, and the very beginning of Gogol Bordello, and I have to say that, after some of the wretched excess of the LoveFest, it was a veritable balm for the soul.
Now, let's be straight and say that there were just as many people getting their party on at HSB as at Lovefest, but since they were dispersed over a very large section of Golden Gate Park, you didn't have the same sensation of being in the middle of a Bosch painting. Though no alcohol is sold at the event (certainly a good thing), plenty of people had bottles and cans in hand, and the fragrant scent of the chronic hung over the crowd. I saw several small groups of what I think of as hippie geek kids hanging out together, and I have no doubt that I had looked closely, I would have seen some mighty big eyeballs. What was different from LoveFest, though, was how quaint, almost traditional, this particular party scene was; after all, songs about drinking are a huge part of the blugrass/country repetoire, and we all know what jam band concerts are like. Perhaps it was because, at LoveFest, there is such a connection between sex and partying, and partying till you can't party no more, while Hardly Strictly Bluegrass seems to be more about the great enthusiasm one has for both the state of intoxication and the hangover that follows.
That enthusiastic embrace of even the most downbeat, bluesy aspect of life was what came across for me in Ben Kweller's performance. Wearing a red and black shirt lumberjack shirt with a denim vest and rockstar-tight jeans, with long curly hair, Kweller seemed like one of the many alterancountry hippy boys in the audience, the one who learned guitar and started writing songs and was as surprised as any of them would be to find himself up on the stage. He pretty much charmed the socks off me.
Elvis Costello, on the other hand, was the consummate, veteran performer who knew all the moves but came across as slightly empty. On one of the hottest days in San Francisco this year Costello came onstage wearing a hat, a scarf, a vest over a shirt, and a long coat. Though one person commented to me that he looked like The Penguin, I eventually came to think of his outfit as both costume and armor, something he put on to project a persona but was, in the end, something that kept you from seeing what was underneath. He opened up with "Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes" to remind everybody who he was, went through the routine of getting people to clap and sing along with his songs, but then, as he was switching guitars halfway through, he popped off at one of the monitor engineers - it was really quick, only four words said off to the side of the stage, and had I not been standing where I was and able to see the expression on his face, I might not have even noticed it, but it was an instant when I could see past the showman who had named his kids Dexter and Frank so they could be a Vaudeville Act to a rather dyspeptic curmudgeon underneath all those layers.
I got tired of standing and walked behind the stage to sit in the meadow as the sun set. There was a completely naked and unselfconscious boy of about three running around and playing with another boy his age, dogs hunting gophers, groups of hippy kids sitting together and climbing trees, an older couple sharing a pipe sitting in front of me, all bathed in a faintly hazy, enchanting light. I sat there and just mediated on the things in front of me, one of the most relaxing, idyllic scenes I had seen in quite a while.
The boyfriend got his lunch break after Gogol Bordello came on, so we wandered off in search of food. On the way out I came across buskers playing "Dirty Old Town" by The Pogues, and a two-piece band on the Rooster Stage playing a particularly poignant version of The Replacements' "Can't Hardly Wait" on guitar and mandolin. Both were unexpected delights, which pretty accurately sums up my entire experience of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Event Review: LoveFest 2008
“Messy;” that’s the one-word answer I’ve been giving to the question “How was LoveFest?” Sure, it was a beautiful day, I had fun and even danced to some good techno, but my overall impression of the event was that it almost exceeded FurCon in terms of kids going well beyond what they could, or should, handle.
The first sign of messiness came as I was standing behind the Tantra float with Kitty shortly after arriving. We were chatting with Saturnia when a man came over and asked us if he knew where to find a medical team, as he had just found a group of really "messed up" kids in need of some assistance; a few minutes later I noticed a kid stumble headlong into a trashcan and then just stand there, leaning forward against it, his eyes rolling up into his head. We moved on before I could see the outcome of this particular bad trip, but shortly afterwards, standing against a barricade and watching the crowd in front of the Kontrol/Auralism Records float, I had a more personal encounter with wretched excess. A very suburban-looking blonde girl, wearing the faerie wings and tiara that seemed to be the LoveFest fashion statement for girls this year, stumbled over and began rubbing herself up against me. More amused than shocked I said “Hey, having fun?” “Yeah,” she slurred, and proceeded to ask about my favorite color before her friend pulled her, loose-limbed and barely standing, back into the crowd. Shortly thereafter, on my way to get a drink, I saw an otherwise very attractive blond boy puking right in the middle of Larkin street, and then, coming back from getting that drink, a girl who was being led through the crowd by two friends went rag-doll limp and collapsed right in front of me.
Kitty later commented that, when he first got down there around 2PM, he was surprised by just how fucked-up everybody already seemed to be. Now, far be it for me to cast aspersions on people for losing their faces in whatever manner they chose in public, but c’mon kids, you need to learn how to maintain. When I was dancing to Alland Byallo’s set at the Kontrol float later, I took a moment to really look at the crowd around me. In front of me were five gay guys dancing shirtless and passing around a bottle of jungle juice; to my right was a group of younger kids, probably in their early twenties, including a very pretty thin, smooth, boy with shaggy blonde and red-streaked hair wearing aviators and with one cuff of a pair of fur-lined handcuffs locked around his right wrist; while to my left was a gentleman wearing a straw homburg, a button-up shirt with a vest, and aviators looking quite dandy and handsome, and all around a crowd of generally attractive, young people sucking on lollipops. It was obvious to me, being well-versed in such things, that everybody was pretty high, but there were no signs of the simply gross behavior I had seen earlier. This, I thought, is part of what makes the techno scene attractive to me, that it’s a scene where people like to party, but are a little more mature in the way they go about it. Walking around later it seemed to me that there was a direct correlation between the level of sophistication in the music and the overall vibe of the crowd, where the dumber the music got, the sloppier the crowd.
Kitty and I left LoveFest around 5.00; with the size of the crowd increasing, along with the lines for the portapotties and beverages, we didn’t really see much promise of the party getting any less sloppy, and, beyond Kontrol, there wasn’t much musically that caught my interest (I do have to give the HomoChic kids a shout-out for their “Death of Shade” float, which I thought best captured the renegade spirit that should be a major part of the LoveFest experience, but they suffered from poor placement between Tantra and Tweekin’ Records, whose sound systems simply overpowered HomoChic’s to such a degree that I couldn’t even hear them when I moved back a few feet from the speakers). I’m glad that San Francisco does LoveFest, and I’m even kind of glad that these kids, sloppy as they may be, have a chance to experience it, but, as another veteran partier of my acquaintance recently put it, I don’t really want to hang out around them while they go through their learning experiences.
The first sign of messiness came as I was standing behind the Tantra float with Kitty shortly after arriving. We were chatting with Saturnia when a man came over and asked us if he knew where to find a medical team, as he had just found a group of really "messed up" kids in need of some assistance; a few minutes later I noticed a kid stumble headlong into a trashcan and then just stand there, leaning forward against it, his eyes rolling up into his head. We moved on before I could see the outcome of this particular bad trip, but shortly afterwards, standing against a barricade and watching the crowd in front of the Kontrol/Auralism Records float, I had a more personal encounter with wretched excess. A very suburban-looking blonde girl, wearing the faerie wings and tiara that seemed to be the LoveFest fashion statement for girls this year, stumbled over and began rubbing herself up against me. More amused than shocked I said “Hey, having fun?” “Yeah,” she slurred, and proceeded to ask about my favorite color before her friend pulled her, loose-limbed and barely standing, back into the crowd. Shortly thereafter, on my way to get a drink, I saw an otherwise very attractive blond boy puking right in the middle of Larkin street, and then, coming back from getting that drink, a girl who was being led through the crowd by two friends went rag-doll limp and collapsed right in front of me.
Kitty later commented that, when he first got down there around 2PM, he was surprised by just how fucked-up everybody already seemed to be. Now, far be it for me to cast aspersions on people for losing their faces in whatever manner they chose in public, but c’mon kids, you need to learn how to maintain. When I was dancing to Alland Byallo’s set at the Kontrol float later, I took a moment to really look at the crowd around me. In front of me were five gay guys dancing shirtless and passing around a bottle of jungle juice; to my right was a group of younger kids, probably in their early twenties, including a very pretty thin, smooth, boy with shaggy blonde and red-streaked hair wearing aviators and with one cuff of a pair of fur-lined handcuffs locked around his right wrist; while to my left was a gentleman wearing a straw homburg, a button-up shirt with a vest, and aviators looking quite dandy and handsome, and all around a crowd of generally attractive, young people sucking on lollipops. It was obvious to me, being well-versed in such things, that everybody was pretty high, but there were no signs of the simply gross behavior I had seen earlier. This, I thought, is part of what makes the techno scene attractive to me, that it’s a scene where people like to party, but are a little more mature in the way they go about it. Walking around later it seemed to me that there was a direct correlation between the level of sophistication in the music and the overall vibe of the crowd, where the dumber the music got, the sloppier the crowd.
Kitty and I left LoveFest around 5.00; with the size of the crowd increasing, along with the lines for the portapotties and beverages, we didn’t really see much promise of the party getting any less sloppy, and, beyond Kontrol, there wasn’t much musically that caught my interest (I do have to give the HomoChic kids a shout-out for their “Death of Shade” float, which I thought best captured the renegade spirit that should be a major part of the LoveFest experience, but they suffered from poor placement between Tantra and Tweekin’ Records, whose sound systems simply overpowered HomoChic’s to such a degree that I couldn’t even hear them when I moved back a few feet from the speakers). I’m glad that San Francisco does LoveFest, and I’m even kind of glad that these kids, sloppy as they may be, have a chance to experience it, but, as another veteran partier of my acquaintance recently put it, I don’t really want to hang out around them while they go through their learning experiences.
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