I have to agree, I went to Richie's party wanting to know whether it
lived up to all the hype. To be honest, I now wish I had gone elsewhere.
Quite frankly, I found it to be formulaic-- his material tended to be very
monotone, and the tricks as far as cutting the bass, playing with the groove
and then dropping the bass again, were predictable after a while to say the
least. On the other hand, his minimal tools, when combined with
disorienting lights and an overwhelming soundsystem, did certainly show why
his parties are popular; on a pragmatic level this setup was quite effective
at getting the crowd going and dancing together. I kept waiting with the
thought that, since he obviously had the crowd where he wanted them, maybe
he would now let us hear something deeper and more tweaked on that sound
system?
On the other hand, I am not sure what the exact lineup was before
Richie, but I did enjoy all the music from the start of the party up until
Richie, I know Villalobos played but I'm not sure if someone else opened (it
was too smoky when I first entered the main room to tell.) Although things
were minimal i thought they were much funkier, much more what I had hoped
for. i've heard MP3 mixsets from richie that I though were pretty good, so
I guess my thought is that in Detroit Richie preffered to push a stripped
down sound which is perhaps what some of his fans, (esp. the ravers) expect
and are into.
I wonder how much of the impact of his set was simply a by-product of the
soundsystem and room. For example, he played dBx's "BABY JUDY" at one
point, actually a track I'm fond of, but not a track that I would
immediately think of as being powerful; well on the Quadraphonic soundsystem
it had a huge impact and was really rocking the crowd!
Well those are my thoughts anyway just trying to sort things out.
/dave
----Original Message Follows----
From: Ian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: The Music Institute <313@hyperreal.org>
CC: Kent williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [313] All Access 2 / Control
Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 17:58:58 -0400
On 5/27/02 12:56 PM, "Kent williams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Radioboy/Herbert was totally mad, destroying products from corporate
Icons
> like McDonalds, Gap, and Starbuck. I think he was using the Roland VP
sampler,
> live to sample in his acts of mayhem. His hyperactive, lurching stage
> presence was riveting to watch.
Agreed. As Radioboy, Herbert may have the most mercurial stage prescence
I've seen. The delight you feel is the unbridled joy of destroying those
Icons. To be honest, I disliked the Radioboy material as downloads, but the
tracks really come to life when you see the performance, and realize how
subject to chance the sounds are.
> And Richie Hawtin has nothing on him for
> volume. I had foam plugs in and it was still loud. I thought something
was
> falling from the ceiling and hitting my forhead, but it was the sound
from the
> PA hitting my skin.
I'm not too sure about this. Linda and I managed to score double-sided
passes and crept off to watch Rich from his stage for an hour or so. I
should have taken you up on the plugs, Kent.
"Control" was the archetypal Richie Hawtin experience. The smoke and blue
strobes remove your visual sense, the volume effectively renders your ears
useless. All you're left with is the intensity of the bass, which regulates
your breathing, and Richie deciding when you inhale and exhale. This forced
surrender was fun for me once, but it left me a little cold last night.
There literally was no tonal content, and very little variation in the
beats. From my perspective, no real groove or funk.
> Shake was Shake, which is to say a just about perfect musicians' DJ. He
> was all over the place genre-wise but always with an ear for
heartbreakingly
> beautiful melody.
I knew I missed something while I was next door. Dammit! Fortunately, when
we left at about 6am, we decided to pop back in to see how Carl was wrapping
things up. Stevie Wonder's "Another Star" was the perfect antidote for my
mood, and a great melody to have ringing around in your head as the morning
sun illuminates the sewer steam on the drive home through Detroit.
--
im
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