Hey. A couple people had asked me about Saturday night at Motor so I figured I'd fill everyone in on what happened from my subjective viewpoint.
First off, they set up Motor with the stage pulled out in the middle of the club. This gave the place a total different feel since there wasn't the DJ-perched-in-a-booth mentality that you normally get with the club. Instead you had people circled around the center stage, which was cool because everyone could see, and it also allowed you to see the crowd. When I got there, Mike Clark was still spinning records in the main room. I don't know too much about this guy, but I do know that he has a 12" coming out on Planet E this spring under the name "Agent X." What I heard from him was pretty good, not all dark and UR-sounding but more House flavor. Recloose came on at 11 and did his live P.A. for about an hour. Not sure how many people out there have heard this U-M grad's music, but it's really really great. Not the sort of music to set a dancefloor on fire, but a more developed "song" style of music rather than "track" orientated. He reminds me a lot of DJ Shadow on his "Endtroducing" album with his sample-based approach. No drum machines, just samples. Lots of cool percussion with jazz and dub flavor. His set went over very well with the major of the huge crowd totally dialed in. Then Carl went on around 12:30 or so and just tore the place up. Again, his paperclip people live shows aren't exactly dancefloor scorching material -- though on vinyl it is. He was all dressed kind of crazy in a trenchcoat and boots with no pants and this black lines painted beneath his eyes. Kind of eerie, but he pulls it off since he looks so serious up there. He started off with a drastically re-worked version of "4 My Peepz" and didn't stop. One song bled into another for the rest of his set. The only time there was a break was when he played his final track, "At Les," that really amazing song off his "More Songs about..." album. He took the original and added this really kicking bass drums from "4 My Peepz" for a weird synergy that worked damn well. After that, Mike Clark jumped back on the decks for the last 20 minutes of the night and dropped Paperclip People's "The climax" (I believe) and then Rolando's "Jaguar" blended with what sounded to me like a Kenny Dixon Jr track to conclude the evening, but, again, I'm not certain if it was KDJ, just sounded like it to me. It was nice to see a live performance rather than just a DJ set. It is much more visually stimulating than just having someone play records in some distant booth. Plus, it drew a totally different Motor crowd full of trainspotters and people who were hype to see the Planet E crew in effect rather than the usual sexy glow-stick drunken yuppies that Motor has been been infested with -- not that there is anything wrong with that, just my bias. If any of you want, I can send you some JPEGs of the show. I have a few cool photos of Carl and Recloose and Mike. Later, Jason
